Tag Archives: Occupy

The Protest and Popular Assembly (Plenum) Movement in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Get up to speed with this interview with Politics, Re-Spun contributor Jasmin Mujanovic on the protest and popular assembly (plenum) movement in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Bosnia’s protest movement is already receiving less media coverage, with some declaring the end of the ‘Bosnian spring’.  But the causes behind the ongoing protests are complex, and neither the causes nor the protests have disappeared.  Heather McRobie interviews Jasmin Mujanović.

Occupy Vancouver Reboots Tomorrow: A Primer

GlobalSolidarity Some thoughts as we countdown to the reboot of Occupy Vancouver at 615pm tomorrow night at Grandview Park. Come join us with your ideas:

  1. Mine are all about seeking equality and justice: economically, socially, politically and environmentally.
  2. Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is an inspiring classic. Some agree with it, some disagree. Some paint it as the template of Obama tactics [hardly, but still, you should also read this bit below written just after Obama’s first inauguration] and some paint it as wholly insufficient. You can read some key excerpts from it here. Then you’ll need to ponder what you think about ideals and pragmatism.
  3. Metro Vancouver Alliance is an organization that is inspired by Alinsky. You should explore them here. And pay attention to them in the Twitter.
  4. And you should also read about Fried Squirrels to see what you think works and doesn’t work about rebooting Occupy Vancouver from that little narrative.

Beyond that, see #1 above. That’s what I’ve got from distilling 2.5 years of thinking about Occupy. Can you express what you think about, and want for, Occupy Vancouver in one sentence? That’s a good exercise for tomorrow night!

 

Alinsky’s Rules: Must Reading In Obama Era
By PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY | Posted Monday, February 02, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Immediately after the Democratic National Convention in Colorado, the Boston Globe published a letter from David Alinsky. He boasted about how Barack Obama had made effective use of his training in the methods of David’s late father, the famous Chicago radical, Saul Alinsky.

David Alinsky gloated: “I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.”

What was Saul Alinsky’s model that Barack Obama used so successfully to defeat the Clinton machine plus the Republican Party in a dramatic one-two punch never before seen in politics?

What is known today as “the Alinsky ideology and Alinsky concepts of mass organization for power” are fully set forth in Alinsky’s 1971 book, “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.”

Alinsky’s worldview was that mankind is divided into three parts: “the haves, the have-nots and the have-a-little, want mores.” His purpose was to teach the have-nots how to take power and money away from the haves by creating mass organizations to seize power, and he admitted “this means revolution.”

He wanted a radical change of America’s social and economic structure, and he planned to achieve that through creating public discontent and moral confusion. Alinsky developed strategies to achieve power through mass organization, and organizing was his word for revolution.

He wanted to move the U.S. from capitalism to socialism, where the means of production would be owned by all the people (i.e., the government). A believer in economic determinism, he viewed unemployment, disease, crime and bigotry as byproducts of capitalism. “Change” was Alinsky’s favorite word, used on page after page. “I will argue,” he wrote, “that man’s hopes lie in the acceptance of the great law of change.”

Alinsky used what he called “general concepts of change” to move us toward “a science of revolution.”

What he called change meant an alteration of our socioeconomic structure; what he called organizing meant pursuing confrontational political tactics.

Alinsky taught the have-nots to “hate the establishment of the haves” because they have “power, money, food, security and luxury.” He claimed that “justice, morality, law and order are mere words used by the haves to justify and secure their status quo.”

Alinsky didn’t ignore traditional moral standards or dismiss them as unnecessary. He was more devious; he taught his followers that “moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.”

To achieve his goals, he sought local community organizers who projected confidence and vision as well as change. Barack Obama fit the profile.

Alinsky didn’t want just talkers. He wanted radicals who were prepared to take bold action to organize the discontented, precipitate crises, grab power and transform society. He taught his organizers how to infiltrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties, gain influence in them and introduce change.

The qualities Alinsky looked for in a good organizer were ego (“reaching for the highest level for which man can reach — to create, to be a ‘great creator,’ to play God”), curiosity (raising “questions that agitate, that break through the accepted pattern”), irreverence (“nothing is sacred”; “detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality”), a sense of humor (“the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule”) and a personality with confidence in presenting the right reason for his actions only “as a moral rationalization after the right end has been achieved.”

The organizer must “rub raw the resentments of the people of the community, fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. . . . stir up dissatisfaction and discontent.”

Alinsky trained his community organizers to adopt a “middle-class identity” and familiarity with their “values and problems.” After achieving “the priceless value of his middle-class experience,” he will “begin to dissect and examine that way of life as he never has before.”

Alinsky’s trainees are instructed to return to the suburban scene of the middle class with its variety of organizations, from PTAs to League of Women Voters, consumer groups, churches and clubs. Alinsky boasted: “With rare exceptions, our activists and radicals are products of and rebels against our middle-class society. . . . Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and way of life of the middle class.”

Put “Rules for Radicals” on your must-read list if you want to understand much of contemporary politics.

Come On, Let’s Really Increase Taxes on the Rich

comic-2011-02-28.jpg

Well, here’s something you don’t see [ever] in corporate media: a review of tax measures in the USA since the crash in 2008 that have succeeded in increasing taxes on the rich. And it turns out, tax increases that are regressive [sales taxes, etc.] or include the non-rich, seemed to fail quite a bit.

How did these taxes on the 1% succeed? Continue reading Come On, Let’s Really Increase Taxes on the Rich

Merry Christmas!

Photo: A helpful reminderI’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and/or the joy and warmth of the holiday season. Make 2014 a year of more love, more compassion, more sharing and more service.

Three things to mark this day:

  1. Some pictures. Here are 75 amazing pictures from 2013.
  2. Some more pictures. Here are 100 of the best street are photos from 2013.
  3. A political picture. Some thing about Israel.

    Another brick.

The 1%, Their Cottages, and the Occupy Movement

You aren't middle class if you own a cottage. Remember that.
You aren’t middle class if you own a cottage. Remember that.

If I need to single-handedly reboot the Occupy Movement for this one, I’ll do it, I tell ya [emphasis is mine]:

A month ago, I had a conversation with Deb Hutton, wife of PC leader Tim Hudak, who said the chances of the Conservatives picking up any of the five seats up for grabs on byelection night were pretty remote.

“They’re all Liberal seats,” she said. “It’s summer time when our most loyal supporters are away at the cottage. We’re obviously going to give it our best, but….” Her voice trailed off and expectations were set appropriately low.

via Byelections: A Deliciously Mixed Message to the Parties | The Agenda.

It’s really quite simple!

The most loyal Ontario Conservative Party members generally are at their cottages. They have cottages. So do lots of the middle class? But really, not so much. If you own a cottage, you own a vacation property. That’s not so middle class.

Let’s not forget that the 1% and perhaps some in the top 5% or so who can afford cottages make up the loyal Conservative Party supporters. I expect that tracks well for other provinces and federally.

When people who can’t afford cottages are speaking well of Conservatives, remind them that they, as the 1% [or nearby’s or wannabe’s] do not speak for you or the vast majority who rent, rent precariously, rent inadequate housing, or own something precariously.

The Red Wings Fiddle While Detroit Burns

The new iconic photo of post-crash Detroit. Listen, can you hear the footsteps of Robocop?
The new iconic photo of post-crash Detroit. Listen, can you hear the footsteps of Robocop?

We can’t really blame just the Red Wings. We have to blame the Tigers and the Lions too, but really the 1% who own them.

Detroit is bankrupt. Services will be privatized to privateer leeches. Human beings will lose pension supports, jobs, wages and benefits. The 2008 crash could have been a catalyst for a manufacturing transition to a post-carbon energy infrastructure, but that was squandered.

But amidst all this, we have: stadia! Glorious stadia!

And who put up hundreds of millions for these glorious stadia? Governments, including one called Detroit, that is now bankrupt. And the citizens will be paying for these circuses instead of libraries, schools, water infrastructure and a host of other necessities in 21st century cities.

All I know is that if I’m in a fiscal crisis at home and I am having trouble paying for food, clothing and shelter, the last thing I should be doing is going out and buying a mid-life crisis Corvette convertible.

But that’s just me. What do I know about stadia.

What I do know is that the 1% who control governments around the world, big and small, will continue socializing the losses and privatizing the parasitic gains. And if this suddenly frustrates you, it’s called neoliberal capitalism. Find your nearest Occupy cell and begin building a post-capitalist/post-parasitical future…hopefully one that does not include Robocop.

NOOR: And, Frank, we just got some breaking news that the Michigan Strategic Fund has decided to issue $450 million in bonds for a new stadium for the Detroit Red Wings, 44 percent of which will be financed publicly. Do you think this decision is emblematic of the development model that led Detroit on this path for years, if you can give us a brief comment?

HAMMER: Well, you know, I mean, I think that Detroit built a new baseball stadium, it built a new football stadium, and lo and behold, here we are a few years later and Detroit is still going into bankruptcy. So apparently building stadiums doesn’t quite do the trick. And I think that a manufacturing model, a resurrection of manufacturing with green technology would be a much more permanent and sustainable solution.

Detroit Red Wings Get New $400 Million Taxpayer-Financed Stadium While the City Goes Bankrupt.

Vic Toews’ Prison Shock Doctrine Recipe

Closing prisons from the 19th century is surely a good idea, but I have no faith that the Conservative Party cares to replace them with anything progressive based on research from any time since the 19th century.

So here’s a Canadian prison Shock Doctrine perfect storm:

  1. The Conservatives [Reform Party] want to spend billions on new prisons because they believe prisons are good. I expect them to be privately run, for profit.
  2. Prisons are over-crowded already so we need more, but ideally more that are effectively designed and operated. Don’t hold your breath. Dickens-era prison philosophy is in vogue among the radical right these days.
  3. Then with a new crime bill designed to round up pot miscreants [and maybe debtor prisons next?], there will be an expected increased demand for prison space.
  4. Then, for dessert, close a couple prisons to further aggravate the over-crowding and reduce the system’s capacity to lock up all the 420 pot enthusiasts who will be arrested in 364 days, and the Occupy movement.
  5. Then, retire to the drawing room for port and cigars as…wait for it…we absolutely MUST build new prisons now.

So what can you do?

Follow the new official opposition Justice Critic, NDP’s Françoise Boivin in Twitter and on the web.

And, of course, #TellVicEverything. You can also email/phone him here to tell him what you think of their 19th century plan for prisons in Canada.