And just because it grinds some peoples’ gears, here are links to the Women Occupying Wall Street pages:
With hindsight gained by googling “MoveOn” and “co-opt” after the fact, I can’t claim that nobody tried to warn me. Many websites with left and even liberal politics had said in so many words, “Be wary of this organization called The 99% Spring. It is a Trojan horse for the Democrats.” I just didn’t read that anywhere in a timely fashion. I’ve had a lot of stuff on my plate lately. That’s my excuse. And in my ignorance, I responded to some spam about “nonviolent direct action training” organized by MoveOn and got invited to this 99% Spring thing on April 10 at the Goddard Riverside Community Center in Manhattan. Somebody even called me all the way from San Francisco to make sure I was a sincere seeker on the left and would be attending, along with 120,000 others in training sessions around the country.
Which I did. The meeting was a few blocks from where I live. The spam said it was “inspired by Occupy Wall Street.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I was vaguely hoping that whatever The 99% Spring was, it would start a chapter of Occupy Wall Street on the Upper West Side, conveniently near my abode, and agitate for the Democrats and MoveOn to move left.
The first clue that my evening might go otherwise was the sign-up table, where there were a bunch of Obama buttons for sale and one sign-up sheet for the oddly named Community Free Democrats (are they free of community?), which is the local Democratic clubhouse. That killed the “inspired by Occupy Wall Street” vibe right there. No piles of literature from a zillion different groups, as there had been in Zuccotti Park. No animated arguments among Marxists, anarchists, progressives, punks, engaged Buddhists, anti-war libertarians and what have you. Just Obama buttons, which didn’t appear to be selling. [++]
To learn more about why we have moved money out of Bank of America:
http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/152887/10_reasons_bank_of_america_is_the_most_hated_bank_in_america/?page=2
Occupy Wall Street Weekly Marches on Wall Street presents Run on Bank of America:
Every Friday until May 1st, OWS is practicing various street mobilization tactics and formations in preparation for actions on May Day.
This week we are teaming up with the campaign to Break up Bank of America! Come out to the “Run on Bank of America” as we run, march, and call on everyone to move their money out of this monstrous bank. Bank of America is a giant, raging hurricane of theft and fraud, spinning through America and leaving a massive trail of destitute retirees and foreclosed-upon families in its wake. So we are moving our money out of this criminal institution.
These weekly marches are intended to be a low-risk activity carried out in a creative and assertive way to make it to the NYSE, where we counter the closing bell with the “People’s Gong.”
Join us this week as we practice race and relay tactics! A Singing Plus Brigade will perform after the People’s Gong - everyone is welcome to join in!
See you there!
#SPRINGTRAINING, #BreakupBofA, #Fthebanks Breakupbofa.com
SF Chronicle: Occupy protesters take over vacant Turk Street building
(04-01) 17:57 PDT San Francisco — A group of marchers led by Occupy movement protesters has entered a vacant building at Turk and Gough streets in San Francisco, claiming the property as a “permanent occupation” and refuge for homeless people in the city.
The group entered the building at about 5:45 Sunday evening, after marching there following a really at Union Square. Police were on the scene, but there were no immediate arrests or confrontation.The march, which numbered a few hundred, was peaceful along the route. Marchers were playing music, chanting slogans and carrying signs saying “House Keys Not Handcuffs” as police officers looked on and blocked traffic.
When marchers reached the building, a two-story commercial structure at 888 Turk Street, they were met by activists dressed in black who had already entered the building and allowed them inside.
The march followed an afternoon rally in Union Square. The event, described in a press release as “poor people play April Fool’s prank on Union Square,” was promoted as part of a supposed 12-city April Fool’s Day action designed to “demonstrate poor peoples’ right to exist in public space.”
Speakers protested laws that keep homeless people from sitting, lying down, hanging out “and-perhaps worst of all-sleeping,” organizers said. They claimed that citations for offenses like these comprised “roughly one third of all prosecuted offenses in San Francisco at the end of 2011.” Paul Boden, one of the organizers, told the crowd at Union Square that area businesses “are targeting poor people as being bad for business. If you ain’t shopping, they don’t want you around here.”Before leaving Union Square, those assembled were joined by a contingent from Occupy Oakland, who arrived on an old AC Transit bus. The bus, decorated with graffiti and fitted with a screen door at its entrance, followed the marchers along the route.
Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. bevangelista@sfchronicle.com
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/01/BAP11NTE3K.DTL#ixzz1qqDvQAal
OWS Activists work for the “Free Network Foundation,” planning a decentralized and open-source mesh Internet
You’re on the Internet. What does that mean?
Most likely, it means one of a handful of telecommunications providers is middlemanning your information from Point A to Point B. Fire off an email or a tweet, broadcast a livestream or upload video to YouTube, and you’re relying on vast networks of fiber optic cables deep underground and undersea, working with satellites high above, to move your data around the world, and to bring the world to your fingertips.
It’s an infrastructure largely out of sight and mind. AT&T, Level 3, Hurricane Electric, Tata Indicom – to most these are simply invisible magicians performing the act of getting one online and kicking. To many open-source advocates, however, these are a few of the big, dirty names responsible for what they see as the Web’s rapid consolidation. The prospect of an irreparably centralized Internet, a physical Internet in the hands of a shrinking core of so-called Tier 1 transit networks, keeps Isaac Wilder up at night.
