You don’t have to suffer economic equality alone.
You don’t have to dread the reboot of the Occupy Movement tomorrow.
Seriously, the 1% has your back:
Continue reading Is Your Union Job Fucking Up Your Life?
Category Archives: Occupy Vancouver
Occupy IKEA’s #HouseRules
Oh, IKEA, you’d think you’d learn from all the past corporate attempts to create a Twitter hashtag to promote your brand, attempts that have been subverted by culture jammers.
Maybe IKEA will get away with this one, #HouseRules, but in the spirit of the Occupy Movement rebooting on Friday with the #WaveOfAction, we should try to Occupy IKEA and their hashtag because they’re trying to break their union in Richmond, BC.
Let’s see how:
Continue reading Occupy IKEA’s #HouseRules
Corporate Media on Occupy’s Wave of Action? Crickets.
If you want to know what the Occupy Movement wants, it’s equality: economic, political and social. That shows up in many necessary changes to society, politics and the economy.
As the movement reboots for the 3-month Wave of Action starting on Friday, Occupiers around the world are planning to re-assemble at the former Occupy sites to roll up their sleeves.
And in the lead up to the Wave, corporate media and mothercorp aren’t reporting on it. The Wave doesn’t appear to be sending out press releases, but at the same time, journalists aren’t up to speed. Or, with corporate media being corporate media, they aren’t going to report on it to avoid giving the movement any publicity. Occupy has serious problems with corporate media.
CTV isn’t reporting on it, nor is Global, nor is CBC Mothercorp. Nor is the PostMedia chain, or the FoxNewsNorth Sun folks, or the Star.
Progressive media is also missing out: The Tyee and Press Progress.
But this is just fine. It gives us time away from the crazy to get things done.
And if you’d like to join us for this Tuesday’s weekly global conference call, register here.
We Won’t Let Police Brutality Quell Occupy’s Wave of Action
[UPDATED: With a treat at the bottom!]
In the good old days, we used to be able to bring babies in strollers to protests/rallies/occupations opposing wars based on lies [Iraq] or psychotic arms races.
In the good old days, you didn’t have to worry about being assaulted or beaten to death by the police, or having your children apprehended while you are put under arrest for assembling in public, following our constitutional rights.
Continue reading We Won’t Let Police Brutality Quell Occupy’s Wave of Action
Laughing at the 1%, Occupy-Style
They say that laughter is good for the soul. But that’s hard when the 1% are crippling people’s hopes and dreams for economic security and stability in their lives.
That said, laughter is good for the soul. And just like no revolution succeeds without dancing, no Occupy exists without laughter.
And it’s just convenient that much of the 1%’s structure of the world is laughable if we want to talk about what a worthwhile civilization looks like.
So let’s look at what laughter, Occupy-style, looks like. And remember, Occupy reboots in 9 days!
Continue reading Laughing at the 1%, Occupy-Style
Occupy Wall Street Returns. Friday, April 4!
Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of the world, the 99%: Occupy Wall St. returns on Friday, April 4, 2014.
And not for one day. But we’re starting with 3 months. Let’s call it a trial marriage.
After all, if it fails, the despotic corporate totalitarians who run the world will continue to steal our money and make everyone all too intimately familiar with the word “precariat.”
Here are 8 reasons why you should be thrilled with this, as I am: Continue reading Occupy Wall Street Returns. Friday, April 4!
Stop. Obeying. The. Rich. NOW!
Once upon a time, we were taught to envy and respect our “betters,” like the rich.
No more.
They’re taking our money and throwing us under the bus every day. And it’s not even just the super-rich or those in America, it’s the aspirational rich; they’re just as toxic.
This stops now, it’s time to ramp up the Occupy Movement again, and for good this time:
The super-rich of the 21st century no longer think that you and I are needed for their continued success.
And in some ways, they have given up on America, period.
As Paul Buchheit brilliantly points out over at AlterNet, “As they accumulate more and more wealth, the very rich have less need for society. At the same time, they’ve convinced themselves that they made it on their own, and that contributing to societal needs is unfair to them. There is ample evidence that this small group of takers is giving up on the country that made it possible for them to build huge fortune.”
Buchheit goes on to say that, “The rich have always needed the middle class to work in their factories and buy their products. With globalization this is no longer true… They don’t need our infrastructure for their yachts and helicopters and submarines. They pay for private schools for their kids, private security for their homes. They have private emergency rooms to avoid the health care hassle. All they need is an assortment of servants, who might be guest workers coming to America on H2B visas, willing to work for less than a middle-class American can afford”
Unfortunately, these millionaires and billionaires who have given up on America and on the working class are in control of the political process in this country.
Don’t Tolerate Ignorance About the Minimum Wage
Hello.
It’s Friday.
For many people it’s TGIF. But for many people who aren’t even teenagers, the work week isn’t ending today.
We often THINK minimum wage is for the new entries to the job market. Maybe it was one day. Maybe just for one day.
But today? If it isn’t a living wage, it’s exploitative.
And if it is just minimum wage, we are likely not too accurate on who is suffering with these low wages.
Let’s take a peek:
Continue reading Don’t Tolerate Ignorance About the Minimum Wage
Build Worker Solidarity Now or Suffer the Wrath of the 1%
Working people need to seek out solidarity opportunities.
Unions and unionized workers need to reach out to non-unionized workers and seek legislative improvements for all, like improvements to the EI and doubling the CPP and renegotiating the Canada Health Accord and expanding Medicare and getting a national pharmacare program and starting a national childcare program and building a poverty reduction plan and a national housing strategy and no longer funding First Peoples at third world conditions. And the list, actually, does go on.
And public sector workers need to build solidarity with private sector workers, whose union density is declining.
If we don’t fight the 1%’s decades-long plan to divide us, we are toast. Here are two key thought experiments to try on this hump day:
Continue reading Build Worker Solidarity Now or Suffer the Wrath of the 1%
Capitalism: Swing Your Sledgehammer
It’s all about vision and hope, in an effort to envision how economics and markets can exist after the toxicity of capitalism is gone, gone gone. Are you up for it?
Last night, John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism, was the SFU Institute for the Humanities‘ guest lecturer, skyped in from Mexico. He was full of inspiration and clarity. Enjoy my twitter reflections below.
Continue reading Capitalism: Swing Your Sledgehammer