The People's Record

Hundreds of climate activists join hundreds of anti-capitalists (& certainly many/most are likely both) in Canary Wharf’s biggest protest
June 14, 2013

One of London’s key financial districts saw its biggest ever protest on Friday as an estimated 200 people occupied Canary Wharf to protest against public spending cuts and lack of action against climate change. Among the protesters were pensioners, children, people with disabilities, a brass band, musicians and a range of groups including Fuel Poverty Action, Disabled People Against Cuts, the Greater London Pensioners Association, No Dash for Gas and UK Uncut.

A spokeswoman for the event said: “We picked Canary Wharf because it’s a symbol of out-of-control neoliberal capitalism. It’s completely private property where protests have been outlawed. We’ve come here because we want to pull together anti-capitalist, climate and anti-austerity struggles.”

The owner of Canary Wharf has previously taken legal action and put in place security measures to prevent protests in home of some of Britain’s biggest banks. The action was part of a range of anti-G8 protests currently taking place, but unlike other events this one passed peacefully.

Protesters erected and scaled bamboo tripods – structures designed to prevent attempts to clear the area by force. An assembly, speeches and workshops were held, as well as creative activities, music and poetry performances and guerilla gardening. James Granger, of Fuel Poverty Action, who helped organize the event, said the banks and financial institutions in Canary Wharf are “bankrolling fossil fuel projects across the world which are causing climate change and fuel poverty”.

“The price of fossil fuels is increasing, which is leading to one-quarter of the UK population facing the choice between heating and eating,” he said. “I’m here to say that there is an alternative – renewable energy which is cheaper and cleaner, and an economy that works for the needs of people not the needs of profit.”

Betty Cottingham of the Greater London Pensioners Association said: “I’m here to protest along with the young and middle-aged people about what this lot are doing to our world. There’s going to be 3,000 extra deaths this winter because pensioners and other people daren’t turn the heating on.”

A Canary Wharf banker, who did not wish to be named, said he did not make the link between banking and the recession. “If it hadn’t been caused by banking it would have been caused but something else,” he said. “I think these people are here because they care about what’s going on out there and the recession has given them a justification to get out here and do this.”

Source

TW: brutal police repression at Gezi Gardens in San Francisco 
June 13, 2013

This morning around 2AM we were were woken up from our encampment at Gezi Gardens by about 200 police officers & SWAT personnel. Immediately, they detained several members of the community, arrested several and corralled the rest of us out.

Three brave tree sitters were able to stay in their tree platforms while the police raided camp. Graciela was able to video the following recording of police cutting the rope that sitter was holding, causing him to fall roughly 40 feet to the ground.

He is in the hospital & his condition is unkown. We shared the video with media across the Bay Area, but we don’t know if they will air it. Please view & share this video so that the world can know what about San Francisco police brutality but be aware that this likely caused serious, potentially permanent injury.

Here’s the video that Graciela recorded of the incident!

#OcupaLosPinos: Mexican protesters clash with riot police on the way to protest at President Enrique Peña Nieto’s residence

Yesterday (June 1) at the Tacubaya subway station in Mexico City, a group of police confronted about 100 protesters who were heading to occupy Los Pinos President Enrique Peña Nieto resides.

This occupation, according to local reports, was part of a civil disobedience movement formed by #MéxicoSOS in response to the last year’s presidential election. 

Mexico has seen an increase in youth uprisings with the Yo Soy 132 movement, a growing student/teacher mobilization calling for accessible education & recent protests against media giant Televisa’s corrupt political ties & negative social influence.

Photo 1, 2, 3, 4

Eurozone unemployment hits new high with a quarter of under-25s jobless; overall unemployment now at staggering 12.2%
June 2, 2013

Protesters who picketed the European Central Bank on Friday are planning a second day of action across European cities as anger grows over austerity measures that many blame for taking Eurozone unemployment to an all-time high.

In rain and strong winds, members of the Blockupy movement cut off access to the ECB’s Frankfurt headquarters and vowed to keep up the disruption on Saturday in a financial hub they describe as a seat of “dictated austerity”. Their action came as official figures showed eurozone unemployment hit a new high last month with young people again the hardest hit – almost one in four are now out of work.

Unemployment in the crisis-stricken currency bloc rose to 12.2% for April, according to Eurostat, the statistics office of the EU. At 24.4%, youth unemployment was double the wider jobless rate and up from 24.3% in March. The problem was most extreme in Greece where almost two-thirds of those under-25 are unemployed. The rate was 62.5% in February, the most recently available data.

The numbers come days after eurozone leaders unveiled plans to get more young people into work as they faced warnings about the risks of civil unrest, long-term economic costs and fears that a generation could lose faith in the European project.

In Frankfurt Blockupy protesters blamed the troika of institutions it says is pushing austerity measures on southern Europe: the ECB, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and perhaps most importantly, capitalism. Blockupy’s Roland Süss said: “With the blockade of the ECB we are making the European resistance against the devastating poverty policy visible. It’s an expression of our solidarity with the people in southern Europe whose existence is threatened by the austerity programs.”

Blockupy, a European version of the Occupy Wall Street movement, put the number of activists blocking the ECB at 3,000. There was a more conservative estimate of between 1,000 and 1,500 from police, who used pepper spray to prevent the protesters breaking into the central bank’s high-rise building. Protesters also targeted Deutsche Bank’s headquarters and Frankfurt’s airport. The movement and other anti-austerity groups are threatening rallies throughout European cities on Saturday, including London.

While France and Germany responded to growing anger at youth unemployment this week with a new jobs plan, labor market experts warn that any measures will take time to turn the tide after 24 consecutive monthly rises in the jobless level. Economists say things will get worse before they get better for the 19.4 million people in the eurozone out of work.

In the wider EU area unemployment stood at 11%, as the rate rose in all but nine countries compared with a year earlier. The biggest rises in overall joblessness on a year ago were in Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Portugal. Youth unemployment in Spain is 56.4%, in Portugal 42.5%. Italy recorded its highest overall unemployment rate since records began in 1977, at 12%, with youth joblessness at 40.5%. Economists said that the rise in unemployment was fairly broad-based with rises in so-called core countries as well, including Belgium and the Netherlands. The rate in France was 11%.

Ireland recorded one of the biggest falls in unemployment, down to 13.5% from 14.9% a year ago. That compares with a rate of 7.7% for the UK, where youth unemployment is 20.2%.

Source

Update: Today, the clashes sparked by this outrageous reality continued in Frankfurt, Germany with thousands on the streets. See video here.

#Occupy Capitalism

Wal-Mart workers plan a fresh protest, this time in Bentonville
May 29, 2013

The last time most people heard about OUR Walmart, it was the busiest shopping day of the year and some Wal-Mart employees had walked off the job. They were members of the union-backed group and they had defied the biggest private employer in America by holding protests at stores around the country on the Friday after Thanksgiving. The group’s full name is Organization United for Respect at Walmart, and its members were asking for a greater number of full-time jobs, with predictable schedules and wages that could provide their families a decent life. (I wrote about the movement in December.)

Now OUR Walmart members are planning another protest on another important day: the company’s annual shareholder meeting. It takes place at Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., on June 7. OUR Walmart says about 100 members from the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Washington, Miami, and a dozen other cities will head to Bentonville this week in a bus caravan they’re calling the “Ride for Respect.” They expect to arrive by Sunday, June 2.

“This is the first time in my life I’m standing up for something I know is right,” says Barbara Getz, who is 45 years old and makes $10 an hour as an overnight stocker in Store No. 5334 in Aurora, Colo. “Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world, and we want them to set a high standard.” Among the group’s requests: full-time work for those who want it, with a minimum yearly salary of $25,000. Dominic Ware will be on a bus, too. He’s a 26-year-old part-time employee at Store No. 5434 in San Leandro, Calif. He makes $8.65 an hour. “My plan is to make a lot of noise and be direct and be respectful,” he says.

Walmart has been opposed to unions since Sam Walton opened his first store in Rogers, Ark., in 1962. And, though OUR Walmart says it isn’t seeking legal recognition, executives have criticized its efforts. “Our annual shareholders’ meeting is a celebration of our 2.2 million associates who work hard every day so people around the world can live better,” says Walmart spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan in an e-mail. “The Union and its subsidiary, ‘Our Walmart,’ is comprised of a few number of people, most of whom aren’t even Walmart associates and don’t represent the views of our associates. This latest publicity stunt by the unions to generate attention for their fleeting cause won’t impact the festivities.”

Source

The People’s Record Memorial Day Dedication 

Veteran Scott Olsen: “We’re going forward.” 

Former Marine and Iraq War Veteran Scott Olsen has dealt with innumerable aftershocks once he came home from overseas. His became an outspoken opponent of the war when he joined Veterans for Peace and became a part of Occupy Oakland in 2011. 

Still dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, Olsen was hit by a beanbag projectile during a confrontation with the Oakland Police at an Occupy Oakland action in October 2011. He suffered from a serious skull fracture and could not speak for two weeks.

Last weekend at the NATO Summit demonstrations, Olsen and dozens of other veterans threw their medals of honor in opposition to all wars. He wore a helmet as he marched with other protesters in the streets of Chicago and still struggles with his speech daily.

“I’m going to make every effort I can to show them that we’re doing the right thing, we’re in the right, and no matter what they do to any of us, we’ve got each other’s backs, and we’re going forward.” 

Click here for a complete list of The People’s Record’s Memorial Day dedications.

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From our 2012 Memorial Day posts.

(Source: thepeoplesrecord, via robert-cunningham)

The People’s Record Memorial Day Dedication 

Sergeant Shamar Thomas (photo source)

Sergeant Shamar Thomas is a veteran marine sergeant who stood up to a hoard of NYPD officers in militarized gear that were preparing to assault protesters at Occupy Wall Street. His heroic stand caused the officers to back-down and retreat and immediately became one of the most memorable moments of the Occupy Wall Street protest. This Memorial Day, we salute him! Here’s the video of his face-off with NYPD.

Click here for a complete list of The People’s Record’s Memorial Day dedications.

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From our 2012 Memorial Day posts.

(Source: thepeoplesrecord, via robert-cunningham)

Upcoming United States actions:

May 18th: ‘Operation Green Jobs’ March from Philadelphia to Washington, DC organized by the Poor People’s Economic and Human Rights Campaign.

May 18th to 23rd: the  Home Defenders League Week of Action against the banks and foreclosures in Washington, DC.

May 18th to 20th: there is a  weekend of protests against the closure of schools in Chicago.

May 22nd:  Stop the Frack Attack People’s Forum in Washington, DC.

May 25th: Protests against Monsanto everywhere

May 25th to June 3rd: March from Philadelphia to Harrisburg against prison spending.

June 1st:  Get on the Bus For Bradley Court Martial Trial  with buses leaving from Baltimore, MD, Washington DC, New York City and Willimantic, CT.

June 14th to 16th:  Trade Justice Action Camp in Bellingham, WA by the Backbone Campaign

June 24th to 29th: is the beginning of “ Fearless Summer” that starts “ an epic summer of actions.”

Source

Reblog with your own additions to the list.

The American Dream of upward mobility is dead, thanks to the neoliberal ministrations of capital and government. But a new dream could rise from the mess left by globalization, off-shoring and austerity.
May 10, 2013

The continuation of the economic crisis of 2008 up to the present has driven home a social trend that has been evident since the late 1970s, the decline of what is usually called “the middle class” and the accompanying American Dream.

As Richard Wolff has pointed out in Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to do About it, this upward mobility was a reality for most citizens of the United States for several generations, from 1820 to 1970. For 150 years, real wages rose. In the quarter century from 1947 to 1973, average real wages rose an astounding 75 percent. But that shared prosperity came to a halt in the mid ’70s. In the next 25 years, from 1979 to 2005, wages and benefits rose less than 4 percent. The sustained rise in standards of living had been made possible by a conjunction of historical circumstances, circumstances that began to reach exhaustion by the mid 1970s.

In recent decades, the economy has grown, and there was a gain in total wealth. But where did it go? From 1983 to 2008, total GDP grew from $6.1 trillion to $13.2 trillion in constant 2005 dollars. The unequal distribution of the total wealth gain during this period is revealing. The wealthiest 5 percent of American households captured 81.7 percent of the gain. The bottom 60 percent of households not only failed to share in the overall increase, they suffered a 7.5 percent loss. Some of what the top 1 percent gained came directly from that bottom 60 percent.

Downward mobility
Between 2001 and 2008, entry level wages declined 7 percent for college graduates and 4 percent for high school graduates. Entry into middle-level incomes is becoming more difficult.

With the offshoring of manufacturing, the industrial regions of the northeast and the Great Lakes were transformed into a Rust Belt. United States manufacturing employment peaked in 1979 at almost 20 million and fell under neoliberalism to about 11.5 million in 2010. Today, 80 percent of the world’s industrial workforce is now in the global South. Most of it used to be in the United States. This is in no small measure the result of corporate policies over the last 30 years - policies encouraged by our political leaders - to offshore those low-skilled industrial jobs that used to be the entry point to the middle “class” for many. As less-skilled industrial jobs were offshored, at first, in the ’90s, we were told by Robert Reich, labor secretary in the first Clinton administration, that to remain competitive in the global economy, US workers needed to upgrade their skills. We were told the new economy would be the new road to the American Dream. We are still being told that. But offshoring of jobs has not been limited to low-skilled assembly line work. Corporate capital has discovered that any job that can be done by computers can be done anywhere in the world and consequently will be done wherever the cheapest workers with the requisite knowledge can be found. So the knowledge-economy jobs are now also being offshored to countries like India. The knowledge workers there will work for far less than in the United States. And many of our college graduates today are saddled with heavy debt and unable to find work.

As a result of corporate policies and public policies purchased by corporations, there has been wage stagnation for the past 30 years, even as worker productivity rose sharply. This is shown clearly in the above graph. Capital took the bulk of productivity gains (shown by the upper pink line) over the 1993-2006 period by holding wages down (shown by the lower blue line). But then with the 2008 financial crisis, median family income declined further, by nearly 10 percent. Overall, as incomes have declined, corporate profits have soared.

For a while, wealth appeared to increase for average citizens because of inflating real estate values. But the financial crisis of 2008 wiped out that fictitious wealth. Median family wealth in 2010 was the same as it had been 20 years earlier.  

It is corporate capital’s unquenchable thirst for profit and political leaders’ easy purchasability under capitalism that is destroying what was once called ‘the American dream’ (of upward mobility). Political leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, embrace Charles Wilson’s adage that “what’s good for General Motors is good for America.”

Corporate-led neoliberal globalization has transformed nation-states into what I call globalized states, that is, states that serve the interests of transnational capital above the interests of national populations. This has resulted in a limitation of sovereignty and of the possibility for democratically-shaped national policies. Increasingly, the countries’ fates depend more on powerful transnational corporations rather than on their own people.

Support for neoliberalism bipartisan
In the United States, there has long been bipartisan consensus behind globalization and the neoliberal policies that promote it. Both parties have long embraced basic public policies that undermine the economic security of millions of working people. Both parties favor no-strings Wall Street bailouts, expanded unregulated trade, weakened unions and fiscal austerity as an economic priority, with its concomitant shredding of social programs. There may be some difference in degree on these issues, but both parties are in basic agreement.

One-third of all working families are now poor; their annual income, for a family of four, is below the $45,622 poverty threshold - an income insufficient to meet basic needs.

This bipartisan consensus is illustrated by Senate approval this last year of free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. While all politicians were calling for more jobs, they approved a free-trade agreement that they knew would destroy jobs. This was evident in the fact that approval of the free-trade agreement was accompanied by extended unemployment benefits for displaced workers. They just can’t help themselves when an opportunity arises to favor transnational corporations. And now the Obama administration is set to expand this folly even further with the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Legitimacy of systems questioned
With the growing downward mobility now being experienced, the social contract is unraveling. The legitimacy of the dominant institutions is being questioned. Public confidence in Congress as well as government is at an all-time low; large banks are viewed (correctly) as criminal; blind faith in market magic has been dispelled - and corporations are even seen as having betrayed the nation. The legitimacy of the system of capitalism is in crisis as sizable percentages now have a positive view of socialism as an alternative, particularly among the young (who have not known the rabid anticommunism of the Cold War era). As the national elections in 2008 and 2012 have shown, the people of the United States are asking for far-reaching changes, more change than the political elite is willing or even able to deliver.

Without new major innovations to offer opportunities for profitable investment, where is all the accumulated capital to go? Here again we have a classic over-accumulation crisis. One fix that has been deployed by the corporate wealthy is to reduce their tax burden, shifting it to the popular classes below. This has been the agenda of their sector of the political elite for decades. That has been combined with the neoliberal offensive against social programs, again at the expense of the popular classes. In effect, the plutocracy has come to understand that growth of their wealth will no longer come mainly from productive investment, but must come out of the hides of those below them. That requires imposing austerity on others so they can continue to prosper.

Thomas B. Edsall, author of The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics, sums up the situation as follows:

Affluent Republicans - the donor and policy base of the conservative movement - are on red alert. They want to protect and enhance their position in a future of diminished resources. What really provokes the ferocity with which the right currently fights for regressive tax and spending policies is a deeply pessimistic vision premised on a future of hard times. This vision has prompted the Republican Party to adopt a preemptive strategy that anticipates the end of growth and the onset of sustained austerity - a strategy to make sure that the size of their slice of the pie doesn’t get smaller as the pie shrinks. 

It is in this light that we can understand the death march the Republican Party has set out on. Its survival and that of its patrons is at stake. It leads them to adopt scorched-earth policies that ought to spell certain electoral defeat were it not for their gerrymandering, voter suppression, election rigging and other antidemocratic measures needed to maintain political power within the existing political duopoly. What they are so desperate to protect is not only their own political careers, but the insatiable hunger of capital.

For its part, the Democratic Party is also beholden to the interests of transnational capital, as I pointed out earlier. As Jeff Faux has documented, as early as the Carter administration, the Democratic Party embraced the neoliberal ideology. New Democrat Bill Clinton extended the Reagan-Bush I program of globalization with free trade and deregulation of finance capital. The Obama administration has continued on the same course. The political elite is united on its basic priorities. As Faux remarks, the United States is no longer rich enough to continue to finance America’s three principal national dreams:

1. The dream of the business elite for subsidized, unregulated capitalism.

2. The dream of the political elite for global hegemony.

3. The dream of the people for a steadily rising standard of living.

We can certainly continue to have one out of three, and perhaps even two out of three. But three out of three? No. 

It is the dream of the US people that will have to go. That is the reality that no US politician dares to utter. If he did, it might spark popular demands that dreams 1. and 2. be sacrificed instead. The hard truth is that none of the three can be sustained indefinitely. Capitalism is in crisis. The military costs of global hegemony have become more than a debt-burdened state can sustain, as well as more than much of the world will continue to tolerate.

As for rising living standards, even if the dreams of Wall Street and Washington did not trump those of the people, are they really sustainable? With only a small portion of the world’s population, the United States consumes an immensely disproportionate share of the world’s resources. The current rate of use of world resources globally would be sustainable if we had one and one-half planet Earths. But guess what? We have only one. And the rest of the world’s peoples also have dreams of rising standards of living. If all the people in the entire world enjoyed US standards with the same per capita ecological footprint, five Earths would be needed. 

My favorite slogan from the Occupy movement was “Wake up from the American Dream. Create a livable American reality.” That is the challenge We the People face in the 21st century. And we have to face it with little help from our political elite and none from capital. We have to do it ourselves. It will take social movements and prolonged struggle. It will take courage and bold experimentation. And for starters, it will take speaking the truth: The American Dream is over. For good or ill, history will move on without it.

Postscript: Besides this dominant American Dream, there is an alternative one in the background. It has its roots in the 18th century Enlightenment and was expressed in the French Revolution with the slogan “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” That was the dream of a society in which all could live in community, a society of mutual support among equals, where each individual was free to develop his/her human capacities supported by the community. The basic values of that vision are deeply rooted in the American culture. It can be the basis of an alternative - sustainable - American Dream.

Source (I heavily reduced weaker/less-engaging paragraphs so read the full thing if you’re interested)

Upper photo for sharing

MAY 1 LOS ANGELES SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

12:00pm: Long Beach Revolutionaries : Back in Actions @ Pershing Square

2:00pm: Occupy LA Meet @ Pershing Square

2:30pm: March to Olympic and Figueroa

3:00pm: Join with Occupy Fights Foreclosures to SHUT DOWN Wells Fargo

4:00pm: Join the SCIC march @ Broadway & Olympic to march for FULL legalization for all!

7:30pm OLA General Assembly @ Pershing Square

Neighboring Occupations are also holding their own events this year! For more information, please visit their Facebook pages:

• Occupy San Fernando Valley
• Occupy Venice Beach

Additional Information:

• http://occupylosangeles.org/
• http://www.immigrationcoalition.org/
• http://www.occupyfightsforeclosures.org/

This was all from that first link that was posted after the question. The other two links were for these Facebook pages:

• One for LA in general
• & one for UCLA

Thank you to everyone who submitted links to answer this person’s questions!

I saw the original venn diagrams on Tumblr yesterday, attached the top image & the appropriate quotes at the bottom. Check them out & share them on Facebook here (at The People’s Record Facebook page).

Posted on The People’s Record Facebook page. Like our page for daily news. “Favorite” the page to get more than 10% of our posts in your feed (10% is the facebook default for likes, if you don’t favorite).

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I originally came across the article that posted these graphs from something we reblogged from anarcho-queer (you should follow anarcho-queer for daily news & information along the same lines as what we post. They post just-as, if-not more regularly than we do).