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From Adbusters Blog
Hey all you believers in a new world out there,
May Day wasn’t so great was it… the numbers were low, the maxims weren’t sublime, the excitement didn’t catch on. May 12 was hefty in Europe, reigniting the snuffed Indignados, but the energy did not seem to flow over to here.
Now we’re looking at May 18 ~ 21 when protesters, possibly in Arab Spring numbers, swarm Chicago… Security experts say it will be a challenge the likes of which no American city has had to face – a leaderless, all-consuming non-violent swarm. If we can pull it off in the fierce tradition of Gandhi and MLK, the next few days could become the spark, the eruption, the new spiritual home of our Spring offensive.
On a softer, more aesthetic note, the likelihood of a global #LAUGHRIOT starting May 18 feels especially fresh and new … imagine … the globalization of laughter … millions of people around the world decide to take a few minutes off from their usual routines, get together with friends and pull off a global cascade of riotously laughing flash mobs, transforming the flow of power from the heads of the elite to the bellies of the people.
At a time when our human experiment is buckling under austerity, financial madness and eco-angst, there is something so ludicrous, bizarre, even insane about the eight most powerful people in the world trying to conduct the people’s business – to set things right – from behind closed doors and razor wire fences.
A global #LAUGHRIOT could break through the G8’s veneer of legitimacy and expose the Camp David Summit and our current capitalist model for the farce that it really is.
A global laugh-in could be the relief we’ve all been waiting for: the moment when — in a communal burst of laughter — we the people suddenly wake up to the fact that the only power our leaders have is the power we give them.
Here goes … let’s laugh like we’ve never laughed before,
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
OccupyWallStreet.org / Tactical Briefing #30, #31 and #32 / Be present on May 18. Spark the #LAUGHRIOT then swarm Chicago.
Watch live streaming video from occupy_wall_street at livestream.comIraq Veterans Against the War organizer Aaron Hughes will be leading a column of veterans this Sunday at the NATO summit in Chicago where he’ll be returning the service medals he earned in Iraq. The one-time soldier is one of a growing number of American veterans standing up to their former NATO commanders.
“Occupations don’t build democracy’s,” he says. Instead, people powered movements like the Arab Spring should be our guide.
URL: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/16/what_have_we_been_doing_decorated
From Adbusters Blog
One year after the Spanish M15 movement inspired the world with their peaceful city-square occupations, millions have flooded the Spanish streets again. Their message: we’re still there, and more powerful than ever.
URL: http://roarmag.org/2012/05/roar-presents-12m-the-sun-rises-once-more-video/
[View the story "#M15 Updates" on Storify]#M15 Updates#M15 #Ochi #OccupyChicago #NoNATO #OWS #OccupyStorified by Adbusters Magazine · Tue, May 15 2012 22:34:39
Remember that tomorrow blockupy Frankfurt begins http://bit.ly/Hp7HJ1 #16M19MTake the squareToday we have lived the greatest day of #12M15M we've learned a lot,we've taken to the streets, nobody arrested and lots of things comingTake the squarePolicía acordona manifestantes en Tirso de MolimaeloyenteVideo of the police circling protesters via @juanlusanchez #16M #globalmay #ows #12M15MTake the squareManifestaciòn de lecheras en mi calle. De verdad es necesario este despliegue? #16M http://yfrog.com/kiwd9acjLidia ML#Police have separated #alabolsa march into 2 groups are asking for ID #16m #12m #ows #occupy http://bambuser.com/v/2648905?player=htmlTake the squareLa policía acordona a un grupo. FOTO http://pic.twitter.com/uW5s3T2sJuan Luis SánchezA video of the assembly #16M #ows #globalmayTake the squareFOTO Cientos de personas pasean su protesta por debajo del Puente de Segovia #16M http://pic.twitter.com/sEX0DyrIJuan Luis SánchezPhoto of the hundreds of people that still go on walking after almost 2h http://twitter.com/juanlusanchez/status/202554419986956288/photo/1 #16M #ows #globalmayTake the squareManifestación improvisada en la madrugada del 15-M hacia la BolsalocodelpelorojoWe are taking the street. Halsted: http://lockerz.com/s/209274928Occupy ChicagoTwitVidTwitVidTonight is not time to sleep, we are awake, we won't stop till we change the world. We haven't come back, we never left #16M #globalmayTake the squareAsí estaba la Castellana, a la altura de Neptuno, hace una media hora... #15M #16M #alabolsa http://pic.twitter.com/4yzHoM7ISanti PalaciosBarcelona: Poster of tomorrow's action against the bank La Caixa http://twitter.com/NoMesXoris/status/202537862317608960/photo/1 #16M #globalmayTake the squareUna vecina en pijama y manta sale al balcón al paso de la manifestación y... levanta el puño. FOTO http://pic.twitter.com/7ov8M8OlJuan Luis SánchezMore than thousand people are still in the streets on the #15M birthday, near the Congress and after passing by the Stock market #16MTake the squarePanorama en Neptuno cordón policialeloyentePolicía encierra la manifestación, deja una pequeña salida por calle Cervantes en las inmediaciones del Congreso #16M http://pic.twitter.com/fgdJpZBUacampadasolMadrid: Going to the Stock Market, making noise, taking the streets, there is no way they are going to stop us!! #12M15M #16MTake the square#OWS People's assembly in #TimesSq http://pic.twitter.com/WBROl0GfWaging NonviolenceMass sit-in happening now at Times Square! #AnotherNYC #M15 http://pic.twitter.com/Rmhv5vN2Occupy Wall StreetRussian Court Orders Removal of #Occupy Protest in Downtown Moscow http://on.wsj.com/KrKBBwOccupy OregonLlegan a Cibeles. Se paran. Sigue bajando gente por Alcalá #alabolsa Foto: http://pic.twitter.com/l4M8v50yJuan Luis Sánchez3 simple steps #ows #15M http://lockerz.com/s/209264388johnknefelImmigration, NATO protest ends with four arrested http://reut.rs/JmJB1rReuters Top NewsThis cop's head supports us making our banner saying #OccupyAllStreet :D #15M #anothernyc #ows http://pic.twitter.com/h1uoheesArckii MunJong KimThousand-plus #OWS activists jam Times Square for #M15 #AnotherNYC action http://instagr.am/p/KqhsaFlxet/Michael KinkWho's headed to @OccupyChicago? Have you heard about the @CLOWNBloq? https://www.wepay.com/donations/the-clown-bloq #NoNATOOccupy Wall StreetLook who's here. #anothernyc #15m http://twitpic.com/9lh9ikSarah JaffeThere are barricades and security around the Bank of America Tower, as march chants "Bank of America, bad for America!" #ows #15MCarrie MAniversario #15M #12MCor #12M15M #12M15Mcoruna #12MGlobal #12M /cc @acampadacoruna http://pic.twitter.com/VbjxYj4oXabier Rdgz CalvarThe #NATO barricades look about 8 feet high #nonato http://pic.twitter.com/kyTkp20xTim PoolWhat seems like stacks of solid barricades scattered all around McCormick place for #NATO #noNATO http://pic.twitter.com/XL2QnelZTim PoolCan't wait to join the NATOrious @CLOWNBloq in Chicago. It's about time for a #LaughRIOT!Gio AndolloAdbustersMAY 18 GLOBAL #LAUGHRIOT | Adbusters Culturejammer HeadquartersThis article is available in: Alright you wild cats, nimble dreamers and jammer tacticians, In a sudden about-face, the United States has...They're coming RT @wttw #NATO protesters @ClownBloq to call out the "absurdity of the police state" with cream pies: http://bit.ly/L3QXTFMichell EloyComença l'Assambla General a Catalunya amb una mica de retràs #es15m #feliz15m http://pic.twitter.com/93umHqVcAcampadabcnLooks like the rain will hold up just long enough for our convergence on #TimesSquare. Meet us there! https://www.facebook.com/events/344978452228283/ #AnotherNYCOccupy Wall StreetEn la charla de la PAH en la Plaza de #Guadalajara @acampadaguada #15mgu #15m http://twitpic.com/9lfx1eJavier BallesterosLos indignados de Sol celebran con una gran cacerolada el aniversario del 15M - RTVE.esMás de dos mil personas, convocadas por el 15M, están protagonizando este martes por la tarde en la Puerta del Sol una gran...Two arrests made at #NONATO #ImmigrantRights rally 525 Van Buren #occupychi #chicagospring Taking then to 18th & State #jailsolidaritynatalie solidarityUn traslado rápido..... A la pza de la encarnación #15m #sevillahoy #feliz15m http://pic.twitter.com/JIqn8vvBbenito jimenezChicago police detains anti-Nato protester into custody, as demonstrators took off into downtown streets http://twitpic.com/9lijr8Khalid Khan#M15 Deportations under Obama are up about 30% higher than Bush’s second term & almost double from Bush’s first term. #noNATO #immigrationOccupy Chicago[Photo] Americans who came to speak to #Congress arrested on the steps of the U.S. Capitol today: http://pic.twitter.com/XqTSwEHKOccupy CongressPolice grabbing people at random. Anyone who is trying to send a message being arrested at #occupydc now! #ochi #opdxMattyKSí se puede! #15m http://pic.twitter.com/wKLxeVM5acampadazgzanti-Nato Protesters gather in front of a federal Immigration Court building, Chicago #OWS http://twitpic.com/9lik6eKhalid Khan[G8/NATO Protest]News and resources for protesters attending G8 / N.A.T.O summit. Let your voice be heard! Chicago, May 15-22, 2012. See you in the street...anti-Nato protesters chanting slogans in front of the entrance to the federal Immigration Court building Chicago #OWS http://yfrog.com/gzutcztjKhalid Khan#occupychi #m15 immigration rally Move ICE, get out the way #NATO wastes immigrant taxe$ 4 war #chicagospring #NONATO http://yfrog.com/oejqnscjnatalie solidarityhttp://twitpic.com/9leztc - El #15m en estado puro!!! Aquí están!!! Estos son!!! #SOLAbsolutexeNato summit in Chicago and G8 at Camp David - live build-upNato and G8 summits are being held on consecutive days from Friday, and the Guardian will be running live coverage of the build-up to the..."It must be consistently reiterated that Clown Bloq is both a joke and NOT a joke". #Nato protest prep continues... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/may/15/nato-chicago-summit-g8-... GabbattTwitVidTwitVidAntes de la cacerolada, llegaban a Sol nuestras "fuerzas especiales" #15M http://twitvid.com/HY7ZMStéphane M. GruesoundefinedEpimgProtesting NATO: What to Know About the Secret Service and H.R. 347The forthcoming summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, set for May 20 and 21 in Chicago, could be the first public test of H.R...EL DESPERTAR DE LES PLACES. Un any de 15M (versió 36 minuts)TransformaFilms#12M global day in Berlin | Take The SquareOn May 12th Berlin joined the global day of action. There were 5 marches taking place in the city, Gesundbrunnen, Hauptbahnhof, Frankfurt...JPMorgan to be investigatedaljazeeraenglishJP Morgan's proprietary trading gamble will be felt Globally. Show your Dissent, Hit the Streets 50th & 6th ave at NOON #M15 #AnotherNYCOccupy Wall StreetFrom Adbusters Blog
Hey you nimble dreamers, occupiers, believers,
Last May 15, a hundred thousand indignados in Spain seized the squares across their nation, held people’s assemblies and catalyzed a global tactical shift that birthed Occupy Wall Street four months later. Our movement outflanked governments everywhere with a thousand encampments in large part because no one was prepared for Occupy’s magic combination of Spain’s transparent consensus-based acampadas with the Tahrir-model of indefinite occupation of symbolic space. Now exactly a year later, a big question mark hangs over our movement because it is clear that the same tactics may never work again.
Spring re-occupations have largely failed here in North America. The May Day General Strike was stifled by aggressive, preemptive policing that neutralized Occupy’s signature moves. In light of these challenges, Saturday’s May 12 rebirth of the indignados could be a tactical turning point.
Across the world, authorities are using “lawfare” to piecemeal outlaw any tactic that we used last year. In Spain, there is an attempt to criminalize the use of the internet to catalyze nonviolent protests and occupations. The International Business Times reports that this is part of a larger European move to “punish those who use social media and instant messaging to organize and co-ordinate street protests.” Canada wants to ban wearing masks at “unlawful assemblies,” a legal designation often used to disperse nonviolent protesters. Meanwhile Germany is taking a more direct route: they have simply issued a decree “banning” the Blockupy anti-bank protest in Frankfurt. As in the U.S., when outlawing free speech and the right to assembly doesn’t work, authorities are increasingly using brutal, paramilitary force.
The power of Occupy lies in its ability to harness the collective intelligence of our leaderless movement to tactically innovate. We move at viral speed – always one step ahead. “Fight, fail, fight again, fail again, fight again… till victory.” When one tactical constellation fails, we innovate spontaneously – we play jazz.
Across the world, indignados are preparing for a big blast on Saturday, May 12. Some, like Occupy London, are planning to retake the squares and set up encampments. Others have totally new tactics in mind. Whatever happens, let’s learn from the indignados with an eye towards our Camp David inspired May 18 #LAUGHRIOT and the global convergence on Chicago to confront NATO …
Let’s be humble … let’s “fall in love with hard and patient work” – and keep in mind that this is all just the beginning.
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
OccupyWallStreet.org / Tactical Briefing #29, #30, #31 / Be present on May 12 and on May 18 spark the #LAUGHRIOT then swarm Chicago.
From Adbusters Blog
Last year I came across a small booklet in my local book store. At just 37 pages long, I purchased the English translation of Indignez-vous (Time for outrage) by Stephane Hessel. It didn’t take me long to read it but the impact lasted a lot longer than the 37 pages.
A year after buying a copy Indignez-vous, France voted Sarkozy out of office and opted for a socialist direction in the form of François Hollande. On election night I went back to that little but fierce booklet and read it again as the results came in on TV.
Stephane Hessel is a 94 year old resistance veteran. He wrote his essay in order to resurrect the resistance sprit of modern youth not only in France but across Europe. In the French presidential election the majority of French youth backed a socialist candidate and perhaps this is a sign that the resistance sprit has indeed emerged once again in France. While Occupy movements sprung up across the world in 2011 and the Arab spring brought democracy to some parts of the Middle East, the sobering fact is that a resistance society did not become a reality in 2011 but on a warm night in May 2012 when France gave the left something to hope for.
The result in the French presidential election was watched carefully from Ireland. The harsh austerity measures imposed on the Irish have been part of the bail out conditions when Ireland applied for financial aid. Sarkozy had been viewed in Ireland not as a friend but as an agitator of the stern economic conditions imposed on the nation. Reading Indez-vous once again on the night of the French election results while sitting in front of my TV at home in Ireland, several sentences in the booklet sprung out at me:
“Social rights are under attack,” Hessel wrote and how right he was. Across Europe social rights are ebbing away to make way for austerity changes. “The power of money which the resistance fought so hard against has never been as great and selfish and shameless as it is now.” Hessel paints a picture how capitalism has become an ultra-modern dangerous machine, one which drove Ireland into the arms of the IMF. The resistance veteran tells the youth to “take over, keep going, get angry!” The youth did get angry and they showed it with their votes they cast on May 6th. Hessel informs us that “with outrage comes political involvement” and he also goes on to say: “to the young, I say, look around you and you will find things that vindicate your outrage.” Hessel speaks as a voice from a generation which stood up against what was wrong and fought for what was right. Concluding his brief yet impactful booklet, he writes: “to you who will create the 21st century we say with affection, to create is to resist, to resist is to create.”
On May 31st the Irish will go to the polls to vote in a referendum on the EU fiscal treaty, whether to accept or reject it. It is the same fiscal treaty François Hollande does not agree with. One of his election promises was to change the fiscal treaty and if he stays true to that then it begs the question, is it even worth while for the Irish to vote on this treaty?
The Irish government is calling for a yes vote while left wing opponents are on the no side. The Irish government have opted to use bully tactics as a means to achieving a yes vote. The Irish finance minister was asked recently by the media why the Irish public should accept the fiscal treaty and he responded with threats that the budget he will deliver in the Winter will be a hard one if the people don’t vote yes.
Voters in Ireland are angry with the economic mess which the last government created and the current government have no intention of cleaning up. Each day in Ireland brings with it a new tax and jails are becoming over crowded with those unable to pay. The health sector is in utter disarray, schools are losing teachers, police stations are closing down, no action has been taken against the bankers and corrupt politicians who squandered what little wealth the country had and several charges and levies are being heaped upon the public in order to pay off the debts of toxic banks such as the now defunct Anglo Irish bank. The EU fiscal treaty essentially gives much more power for the EU to get involved in the budgets of debtor states such as Ireland and without doubt that means more austerity for a country already paralyzed with cruel austerity measures.
France has rejected ‘Merkozy’ along with austerity and have chosen a man who has vowed to renegotiate a treaty which is deeply unpopular in France and one which the Irish are now voting to accept or reject. Hollande doesn’t want to scrap the treaty instead he wants to change it in order to curb austerity and encourage growth. It all sounds so very pleasing, especially to the Irish but actually achieving it is another thing. The treaty sits on unstable foundations and with Hollande’s election it is on seriously shaky ground. If the Irish vote no to the fiscal treaty then it could ultimately crumble and will have to be redesigned.
There is a momentum building across Europe with the election of a socialist candidate to the highest office in France, one which is extremely influential in the Euro zone. That momentum is one which was outlined in Hessel’s handbook of revolution Indignez-vous. “To create is to resist, to resist is to create.”
Lily Murphy is 25 and comes from Cork city, Ireland. She is a B.A graduate from University College Cork. Lily is an occasional writer and full time thinker, lilymurphycork@gmail.com
From Adbusters Blog
Occupy’s May Day General Strike was a surprising and bold success for the visceral side of the movement. While most of Occupy put its energy into building coalitions with “legacy progressive groups”, labor unions and immigrant rights organizations, these efforts did not yield the anticipated results. In New York, for example, despite amassing a coalition of over a hundred organizations and rallying a crowd of more than 30,000, occupiers were thwarted in their attempts to shut down banks or re-occupy Wall Street. And some Zuccottis have complained that union representatives actively blocked an attempt to lead the crowd toward direct action at the end of the night. Meanwhile in Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco, New Orleans and elsewhere, anarchists using Black Bloc tactics stole the show.
On websites and forums, anarchists are rejoicing the spectacular showing of Black Bloc. “American anarchists haven’t experienced this much positive public attention since the euphoria and aftermath of N30 in Seattle,” writes one commentator. For many, the Black Bloc represents a tactical innovation that suggests the future of Occupy. “Occupy is dead, long live the Black Bloc,” writes another. An anarchist in New Orleans described how the status quo was unprepared for their tactics: “the Anti-Capitalism march caught the police off-guard and has the media dumb-founded. A full 24-hours later the Times Picayune has said nothing about the Anti-Capitalist March, only making mention of the permitted march that happened earlier in the day.”
In Oakland, the Black Bloc, which made up a large portion of the May Day General Strike, displayed a coordinated tactical philosophy – including the de-arresting of comrades, throwing eggs filled with paint, using homemade smoke-creating incendiaries to confuse police, and the rejection of media – that suggests prior planning, ongoing innovation and increasing sophistication. And Black Bloc tactics are just one aspect of the overall rejuvenation of anarchism that is happening right now including the increase of infoshops (there are two near Occupy Oakland: The Holdout and The Longhaul); the creation of bottom-up solidarity networks to replace top-down unions; providing free food on the model of Food Not Bombs; offering a compelling DIY aesthetic.
Anarchist occupiers are energized and their visceral tactics are attracting members. Now, the power of the Black Bloc is growing within Occupy and pushing the movement in unexpected directions.
Round 7 goes to the Black Bloc – now let’s see what we can do for the rest of May!
From Adbusters Blog
Hey you nimble dreamers, believers and jammer tacticians out there,
Our movement has reemerged from winter hibernation to find that this spring we are different but so too is the political and tactical situation. Occupy now faces a series of existential challenges that will define the month of May and set the tone for our long-term future.
#1 challenge: Jump over the corporate media
It took the New York Times two weeks last year to wake up to the insurrection percolating in their own backyard. This May Day, we saw an insidious attempt to ignore and discredit us right across the mainstream media. Time to jam the corpo-commercial lie machine and shift the way information flows and meaning is produced. Here is occupier Charles Young’s take on the blackout:
“I know. It’s just a coincidence. Or conspiracy theory. The .01% who rule the United States would never stoop to such stunts to knock Occupy Wall Street off the front page and surround it with mentions of terrorism… But Occupy wasn’t on the Times’ front page, online or in print, either.”
Read more at Counterpunch.
#2 challenge: Block the co-optation of our movement
Last September, the old left didn’t want to touch us. Then Occupy captured the world’s imagination and now they are jumping in to channel our energy into electoral politics and symbolic actions. Founding Zuccotti Marisa Holmes warns that the co-opters are a deep threat to our movement:
“This is an election year. Everything is at stake. There will be many more attempts like The 99% Spring to come. The 1% have no intention of funding a movement that actually poses a threat to their power. They seek to manage social movements via foundations thru resource allocation, top-down structures, and co-opting language. In the past this strategy has proven effective at dividing, conquering, and integrating movements into respectable forms of activism, and it’s starting to take hold… We have realized our collective power, and we must not be pacified!”
Read more in the Occupy! Gazette #4.
#3 challenge: Occupy the future
Our most difficult task of all is to describe, build and sustain the post-capitalist future we want to live in. Here is Slavoj Žižek’s stab to get your juices flowing:
“It is not enough to reject the depoliticized expert rule as the most ruthless form of ideology; one should also begin to think seriously about what to propose instead of the predominant economic organization, to imagine and experiment with alternate forms of organization, to search for the germs of the New. Communism is not just or predominantly the carnival of the mass protest when the system is brought to a halt; Communism is also, above all, a new form of organization, discipline, hard work.”
Read more at the Guardian.
Hey occupiers: the old world has no future; their leaders have no solutions. Now everything from how we live to how we love and how the world is governed is up for grabs. Can we rise to the challenge? Let the tactical brainstorm begin.
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
OccupyWallStreet.org / Tactical Briefing #29 and #30 / On May 12, retake the squares and on May 18, spark the #LAUGHRIOT then join the movement in Chicago
From Adbusters Blog
Across the world, Occupy celebrated our reemergence with a bold May Day General Strike. It was a day of tactical innovation and experimentation that sets the tone for the month ahead. Three tactics, in particular, gained prominence: agitating rank-and-file workers and radicalizing unions; deploying temporary, pop-up encampments instead of permanent occupations; and the growing black bloc presence. Over 30,000 occupiers marched in New York with strong union presence while in San Francisco workers disrupted ferry service. In London, occupiers set up tents outside the stock exchange. Meanwhile, in Seattle and Oakland, some militant occupiers embraced black bloc tactics of civil disobedience and property destruction. Overall, the day felt to many like a dress rehearsal for the future. As we move towards May 12, May 18 and May 20, we must, in the words of founding Zuccotti Marisa Holmes, “not just replicate and mimic what we’ve done before — but grow and learn and become even better.” That is the challenge our movement is now beginning to rise toward.
Here is a sample of the best coverage about Occupy’s General Strike.
“The atmosphere was one of festive, righteous anger… As the vanguard of the march, led by taxicabs festooned in banners, crossed Houston Street a huge cry went up and echoed back, turning Broadway into a canyon of noise for block after block. “This is some serious shit,” an onlooker said, shaking his head with a smile, at the throngs weaving back all the way to Union Square.”
Read more at Alternet
“May Day in New York City was beautiful. From the “99 pickets” protest in the morning targeting corporate headquarters in midtown, to the Bryant Park pop-up occupation, to the Free University in Madison Square Park where students and educators went on strike by holding their classes outside, to the joyous, fair-like atmosphere of Union Square and, finally, with the energetic march with tens of thousands of people, chanting, singing, dancing all the way to Wall Street, the city felt re-imagined and re-invigorated. The entire day was inspiring and powerful.”
Read more at the Guardian
Check out a collection of the most powerful photos from the day at The Atlantic and share your experiences and tactical insights below.
From Adbusters Blog
Why are we striking? Or to put it another way – what’s wrong with the world?
Of course, most of us know what’s wrong with the world. We know about the poverty, war, violence and disease. We’re conscious of the injustice, but not fully conscious of it, because frankly, we have enough to worry about in our own lives. As such, we’ve come to accept these injustices as simple facts of life – prepackaged side effects of the human condition, as natural and intertwined with our existence as water to a stream, beyond our capacity to effect in any significant way. This collective sense of powerlessness and default apathy is why we’re striking.
Our growing sense of isolation and disconnection, whether from ourselves, from those next door to us, or from those producing our food and products halfway across the globe, is why we’re striking. Our forced support of perpetual war waged for and by the 1% - whether explicitly with speech, or implicitly with inaction and tax dollars - without ever paying mind to the true causes and motives behind it, is why we’re striking. Our failure uptil now to connect the dots and realize that the benefits of a cheap iPod, lovely as it may be, would be far outweighed by the benefits of a truly just world free of exploitation, is why we’re striking.
The fact that most of us are too busy being exploited to realize we’re being exploited – too busy greasing the cogs of our economic system to notice how the fruits of our labor never fail to float up and out of our reach - is why we’re striking, as is the fact that most aren’t able to do anything about this exploitation even when we do notice it. While some of us are lucky enough to have jobs and careers that give real meaning to our lives, allowing us to take full advantage of our talents and fulfill our destiny, most of us have jobs devoid of meaning and dignity, yet full of the feeling that we are fulfilling someone else’s destiny. Our recognition that the ruling class’s seat at the top of the pyramid is prepared and propped up by the working class is why we’re striking. Our knowledge that it’s actually the CEO who is the most dependent among us, and that the ones truly indispensable to our society are not bankers, lobbyists and politicians, but workers, teachers and engineers, is why we’re striking.
Indeed, the fact that we have an economic system which functions in the same manner as a virus is why we’re striking. Just as a virus’s only reason for existence is to expand, without regard or awareness of the effect of its expansion on its host body, our economic system pursues its infinite expansion without regard or awareness of its effect on human welfare or the environment. Though the earth is finite, it is sustainable, so we reject, in the words of Michael Nagler, “the inherent contradiction of an economy based on indefinitely increasing wants – instead of on human needs that the planet has ample resources to fulfill.”
We’re striking because we also reject the notion that selfishness must be the driving force in our world. We believe, contrary to propaganda, that most people in our world are not selfish, and would rather work together than constantly compete against each other. We believe that the only people who really care about things like power, corporate monopolies and global dominance only make up, say, 1% of the population, making it seem only logical that we should have an economic system which reflects the values of the 99% of us who don’t care about such things. The fact that most of the decisions which have a profound impact on how we go about our daily lives are made by folks in Washington or Wall Street, rather than in our communities by the people actually affected by those decisions, is why we’re striking. The fact that power rests only with those who lust after it is why we’re striking.
We’re striking because another notion we don’t buy into is the presumption that the profit motive can have no outcome other than the best possible one. We understand that the success of McDonald’s has nothing to do with having the best burger, and everything to do with having the most cutthroat business plan. We understand that building prisons, waging wars, polluting the environment, and paying employees inadequate wages are actually quite profitable. Sustainability, economic justice and true equality? Not so much. We understand that being ruthless and unscrupulous is an economic advantage, and being truthful and virtuous is an economic disadvantage. We understand that money is treated as more natural and inviolable as nature itself, and that too often our place and perceived value in society is determined solely by how much of it we make, or how much of it we make for someone else. We understand that, whether or not you believe in climate change, our ability to adequately address it or any other pressing issue is greatly compromised when our shortsighted need for profit skews our vision of the whole. We’re striking to suggest new motives and new values going forward.
The fact that you might not have known why we’re striking, and you didn’t get and maybe still don’t get what Occupy Wall Street is about, is why we’re striking. And who can blame you? Just like you don’t have the time or energy to really do anything about the world’s problems, you probably don’t have the time or energy to do the deep digging required to get your news from any source other than the corporate outlets conveniently floating on the surface. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t see the inherent conflict of interest of a handful of for-profit corporations with their own interests telling the world’s story to the majority of people in this country. The fact that it’s so hard to be truly informed, and that it’s in the 1%’s interest for the majority of us to be uninformed, is why we’re striking. The fact that it’s entirely possible you could go about your day today and not hear a thing about the general strike, is why we’re striking.
To counter the charge that it’s unrealistic, and overly idealistic, to want to bring about real change in our world, as well as the trusty “life isn’t fair” rationale always used to justify injustice, is why we’re striking. We didn’t accept that line of reasoning during the civil rights movement, and we don’t accept it now. We think it’s far more unrealistic to think that a small cadre of elites will be able to keep up their never-ending pursuit of power consolidation and mass manipulation without waking us up in the process. We think it’s far more unlikely that in 1000 years, humanity will still be playing this game of perpetual one-upmanship, instead of picking up the far more efficient and beneficial manner of interacting with each other in honesty, cooperation and genuine respect.
Perhaps the biggest reason we’re striking is to simply exercise that ever-cherished American value of freedom. Just as our business leaders are free to use every means at their disposal to maximize profit, we are free to use every means at our disposal to maximize the realization of whatever objective we feel is worth pursuing. And by the way, even if you don’t support the Occupy movement, whatever you think the Occupy movement is about, we respect your view, because another reason we’re striking has to do with our political system – the way it thrives and prospers by pitting us against ourselves, encouraging us to demonize each other while discouraging us from disagreeing civilly.
The fact that this post is completely and utterly inadequate in expressing why we’re striking, is why we’re striking. But that’s OK, because like May 1st, this post is just the beginning.
Happy striking!
Mike David is an occupier in San Francisco. He blogs at www.primitivetimes.com.
From Adbusters Blog
This article is available in:
Hey you dreamers, strikers and new left redeemers out there,
For thirty-one magical days beginning this Tuesday, May 1, we take the plunge and Strike! We block the Golden Gate Bridge; occupy a Manhattan-bound tunnel; seize the ports. In 115 cities, we march into banks, erect tents and refuse to leave. We disrupt financial institutions forcing thousands to preemptively close. Five thousand of us pray, dance, sleep on Wall Street and in front of the Fed and if the Bloombergs of the world bring out paramilitary police to intimidate us, we use our social media fire to call out 50,000 more occupiers and intimidate them right back.
In the week before the G8 and NATO summits, we light the spark globally. We occupy hundreds of squares in cities on every continent – from Paris to Berlin, Toronto to Athens, São Paulo to Bucharest and beyond – we up the ante with direct actions that paralyze capitalism. For a few days, maybe for a full month, we act as if we already live in a world run by people, not corporations.
Our movement goes geopolitical later in May. We swarm Chicago and confront NATO. We tell the military elites there to stop their saber rattling against Iran, halt the global arms race and get behind what the majority of the people on Earth want: a nuclear-free world starting with a nuclear-free Middle East that includes both Iran and Israel.
And then when the G8 leaders meet in Camp David, we create a global spectacle the likes of which the world has never seen before … millions of us … individually, in flash groups and en masse, we burst out laughing at the lunacy of the eight most powerful political leaders on the planet thinking they can dictate the people’s business from behind closed doors and barbed wire fences. For one day, we take over the global mindspace with a whirlwind of #LAUGHRIOT jokes. (Like: Why did the G8 chickens cross to Camp David? / Cuz they’re on the other side. haha!) We laugh our heads off on every news broadcast in the world.
May 1968 was the first wildcat general strike in history … it lasted two weeks and was a grand gesture of refusal still remembered, but then it fizzled … maybe this May we won’t?
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
OccupyWallStreet.org / Tactical Briefing #26, #27, #28 and #29 / Find out what your local Occupy has planned for May 1, May 12, and the #LAUGHRIOT then join the movement in Chicago
Massive unrest is sweeping Quebec in Canada where 15,000 students have taken the streets. On Earth Day, they were joined by more than 300,000 protesters. A short film by Alex Pritz produced for the McGill Daily
From Adbusters Blog
Occupy will come out swinging May 1 with a General Strike in 115 cities … A month of visceral nonviolent actions will follow. We will flex our tactical muscles, dream of a new world order and #playjazz like never before.
From Slavoj Žižek in today’s Guardian:
“The protesters should beware not only of enemies, but also of false friends who pretend to support them, but are already working hard to dilute the protest. In the same way we get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice-cream without fat, they will try to make the protests into a harmless moralistic gesture.”
The clicktivists at MoveOn are channeling Occupy’s intensity into legal, symbolic rallies that bolster Democratic Party campaign promises. Check out the 80 organizations backing MoveOn’s 99% Spring: most of them are the same old lefty cabal that’s ruled over and stifled the political left for the last 20 years. But there are also some flowers among the vegetables … and we should try to get them back. Folks like the Ruckus Society or the Rainforest Action Network … groups whose bold civil disobedience inspired us all in the past. We still remember how the tactical brilliance of John Sellers, a former Ruckus Society leader, was so feared that he was preemptively arrested, charged with 14 misdemeanors, including “possession of an instrument of crime” – his cell phone – ha ha! – and held on $1 million bail during the Republican National Convention protests in 2000.
Hey jammers, let’s get some of these wild flowers back … Head over to the 99% Spring and look through the list of affiliated organizations. Decide for yourself which groups you respect then call them for a chat or send them an email or a tweet. Ruckus Society is at 510-931-6339, ruckus@ruckus.org, @Ruckusociety; Rainforest Action Network at 415-398-4404, answers@ran.org, @RAN… Let’s nudge our friends back into the Occupy camp in time for the May Day General Strike.
From Adbusters Blog
As we prepare for the May uprising, two power centers of our movement have announced plans for a spectacular bi-coastal May 1st bridge blockade. On the West Coast, Occupy Oakland and Occupy San Francisco are planning rush hour disruptions on the Golden Gate Bridge while in New York City, occupiers say they will block one or more Manhattan-bound bridges. These acts of nonviolent direct action will set the tactical tone for the next phase of Occupy: they signal the turn towards Strike actions aimed at disrupting the flow of money. And, on a deeper level, these blockades come at a pivotal moment for Occupy as the movement grapples with a battle for its soul.
The question many occupiers are debating is whether the spirit and voice of Occupy will stay with the new left horizontals who launched the uprising or whether it will move towards MoveOn’s 99% Spring, and their old left buddies at The Nation magazine, Ben & Jerry’s, et al.
For the first most spectacular days of Occupy – such as on September 24 when eighty Zuccottis were arrested and shocking footage of women getting maced was replayed on national television – MoveOn ignored our movement. They decided to jump on board much later when 700 nonviolent occupiers were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. They saw this mass arrest as an opportunity to fold Occupy into their electoral Rebuild the Dream campaign to bolster Obama. At a time when Occupy was inspiring hundreds of thousands of people across the nation to take the squares, set up leaderless encampments and reinvent democracy in people’s assemblies, MoveOn held an October 5 online “Virtual March on Wall Street” with their friends at Rebuild the Dream.
At the peak of Occupy, when the people’s movement had catalyzed a global day of action on October 15 that saw millions of us in 82 countries rally in financial districts and capital cities for real democracy, MoveOn tried to cash in on Occupy’s momentum with a donation pitch. “We have to capitalize on this momentum now,” wrote MoveOn in an email to its members. “Can you chip in $5?”
And now, MoveOn wants to hijack our movement with their 99% Spring.
MoveOn is an existential threat to our movement because they don’t have a revolutionary bone in their body … if we give these clicktivists any more room then they will pull off a managed cooling of our revolutionary fervor … they will neuter the kind of bold, militant nonviolent direct actions that are the key to the next phase of our movement. Don’t let them do it!
Jump, jump, jump over the dead body of the old left!
From Adbusters Blog
“Boots. Check. Gas mask. Yup. Black pants. Got it. Water bottle and Bandana. Tent. okay. People’s Library. Sounds good. Solidarity.”
“Will that be all?”
“Oh yes, and one revolution please.”
“And how will you be paying for that? Cash or credit?”
“Credit.”
As occupiers across the world prepare for a May uprising, The Nation magazine has some advice for what the movement should do next. “Show your support today for Occupy Wall Street’s Move Your Money Relay by applying for The Nation Magazine Platinum Visa® Rewards Card!” writes Associate Publisher Peggy Randall. We hear some 99% Spring occupiers are even rushing out now to get their Nation credit card in time for the May Day General Strike.
With this kind of boost, we’re sure to succeed.
From Adbusters Blog
In this Al Jazeera video a profound discussion emerges over the question of how Occupy should deal with the 99% Spring movement. Can we co-opt the co-opters? Should we simply ignore the 99% Spring? Or do we need a more visceral response?
Watch the video and let’s discuss how Occupy can win the battle for the soul of our movement.
A Greek police band and passes by walls filled with writings about insurrection. Faithful people walk next to immigrants, homeless and forgotten ones while praying for the salvation of their soul. Mourning the present state of society, anonymous jammers dream of its revolutionary resurrection. Video by Antidocs
From Adbusters Blog
Last weekend, tens of thousands of activists participated in training workshops put together by the 99% Spring, a project of MoveOn.org and several other organizations that purports to move away from clicktivism toward fomenting “non-violent direct action”–aiming to transform America in the process.
“Change happens,” say actors Olivia Wilde and Penn Badgley, in a video created for the organization, “because people put their beliefs and bodies on the line.” They go on to reference civil rights activism, and the video cuts to crowds of peaceful protestors. Some journalists and news outlets have praised this supposed shift, claiming its goal is to recruit a broad base of regular Joes and Janes, and ally them with the Occupy movement.
Others warned, as early as March, that the 99% Spring’s links to MoveOn.org meant that it would be a veiled Obama re-election campaign (making the movement’s nod to the Arab Spring bitterly ironic, as the US is a major supplier of arms used to quash democratic uprisings).
Is the 99% Spring movement a veiled attempt to co-opt and sanitize Occupy? Is it a marketing ploy for Obama 2012? According to occupier Charles Young, it would appear so:
“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.”
Read the rest of Young’s report on his experience at the 99% Spring training at counterpunch.org and weigh in below how on we can ensure that the soul of Occupy is never co-opted.
by Simon Critchley
From Adbusters #101: Regime Change
The celebrated Anglo-Polish social theorist Zygmunt Bauman captures the mood of today with the following story:
Imagine you are on an airplane, up there in the sky. You could be reading, drinking, sleeping, playing video games, anticipating a romantic meeting or an arduous work schedule of meetings and talks, or maybe a pleasant vacation... you know how it is on a plane.
Then a nice voice, a soft reassuring voice, a well-educated and welcoming voice makes an announcement, but it’s a recorded message, recorded some time ago, telling you that there is no one flying the plane, the cockpit is completely empty. Flight attendants still mill around with drinks, but you have to pay for them. You only have a credit card and they only take cash. You begin to get thirsty and slightly anxious. You start licking your lips in fear.
The announcement reassures you that there’s an automatic pilot, but then you find out that its a rather old model and the batteries that charge it risk running down before you land. But you might still land safely.
Then there’s a second announcement. This time about the airport where you’re meant to be landing. It’s bad news: the airport has not been built yet; it is still in the planning stages, held up by various forms of red tape, corrupt local planning departments, a series of general strikes if it were a Greek airport. Indeed, it then emerges that the application for the airport still hasn’t even been submitted to the right department and meanwhile the lead construction company is being prosecuted for unpaid taxes.
For Bauman, and I think he is right, this story is an image of our age. It expresses our sense of fear, which is the fear of not being in control.
The truth is we are not in control. But that’s not the worst of it. We suspect, indeed we know, that no one is in control: no God, no glorious leader, no benevolent dictator, nothing and no one. It’s even worse than the fantasy behind the Wizard of Oz and the Emperor’s New Clothes. There’s no wizard and no emperor. This is the source, I think, of the massive fear and anxiety that we experience on a daily basis.
Our fear is scattered and diffused. It doesn’t have a specific object. One moment, the object of fear could be a hurricane. The next, it could be a tsunami or it could be the downsizing of your company, or your wife could leave you or your boyfriend suddenly gets sick or your pensions have disappeared. It could be that your house is robbed, car stolen. You could be diagnosed with a fatal disease. We live with a generalized sense of fear, a feeling that I am not in control and that nothing and no one is in control either.
It is as if we are living in quicksand. We try to dig ourselves out and we dig ourselves deeper. The more we try, the deeper we sink into the sand, or, as they say here, into the shit &hellp; quickshit?
Why do we have this feeling of not being in control? Why can’t we pinpoint the source of our fear? Why do we have a general feeling of powerlessness?
One reason, not the only reason but one important reason, is the profound separation of politics and power.
Power is the ability to get things done. Politics is the means to get those things done. The location of the union of power and politics was once understood to be the nation state. This was never the complete truth, particularly for colonized or subjugated peoples, and it was certainly never the full truth of our always interconnected economic life (in a sense there’s always been globalization). But for a period of time in many of the countries of the world, the countries that most of us are from, it was a reasonable expectation that the nation state was the location of the unity of power and politics and this was how we could get things done.
Democracy is the name for a political regime or politeia that believes that power lies with the people. Representative liberal democracy on the Western model (and there are other models, as the last year of Occupy has reminded us) is premised on the idea that we exercise political power through the vote and that these votes would be aggregated by parties, representatives would be elected, governments would be formed, and these governments would have power to get things done. (Personally, as an old Rousseauist, I never really had much faith in representative government, but let’s leave that aside.)
Our belief was that if we worked politically for a certain group, on the right or the left, then we could win an election, form a government, and have the power to change things.
The fact is that today politics and power have fallen apart in liberal democracy. They are separated, maybe even divorced. We know this. We feel this viscerally, I would wager. And every day brings new evidence that confirms this view.
Papandreou – remember him?Former Prime Minister of Greece George Papandreou’s idea of a referendum to the Greek people to ratify the new EU bailout proposals in October of 2011 is a case in point. Although he handled the referendum idea incompetently, it was a democratic gesture of an old-fashioned kind. Merkel and her sidekick Sarko (who are the punitive super-egoic Batman and Robin of modern Europe – Sarko is Robin and Merkel is the Dark Knight) were, of course, appalled because they know that this referendum idea is a deep misunderstanding of contemporary political reality, where power has shifted elsewhere. The referent of power is not the people and is not located in national governments. It is elsewhere: with financial institutions or the European Central Bank. And these are the institutions that European governments serve, not the people. How could Papandreou be so naïve?
Well, Papandreou is now gone and we have an unelected government of technocrats in Greece and the same thing in Italy. I agree with Habermas on this point. Democracy at this time in history, even representative liberal democracy, risks being no more than a word, a kind of ideological birdsong. Power has evaporated into supranational spaces. These are the spaces of finance, obviously, of trade, obviously, and also information and information platforms, obviously. But these supranational spaces are also those of drug trafficking, human trafficking, illegal immigration, the many boats that cross the Mediterranean, and so on.
We know this. And yet power still feels local. We feel English or Greek or Tunisian, but power has migrated beyond local boundaries. Sovereignty lies elsewhere. It is certainly not populist or people-centered. Politics does not have power. Politics serves power. Whereas power is global or supranational, politics is still local and there is a gap between the two.
The casualty of this separation of politics and power is the State. The state has become eviscerated, discredited, and its credit rating has been slashed. This is obviously the case with the Greek state, but I think it is only a slightly more extreme example of the situation in the USA and elsewhere, in Britain say. The state is in a state.
So, what do we do?To be honest, I don’t know. Philosophy is the “owl of Minerva” and it always spreads its wings at dusk, when it is too late. But this separation of power and politics, I think, throws light on a number of phenomena. Let me mention three:
One, I had a conversation with my 19-year-old-son in a favorite London pub last Saturday – the Lamb on Lamb’s Conduit Street. He cares about the state we’re in and is really worried and really fears and to some extent hopes that something big might happen. He sees what is happening across the world and doesn’t know what to do. He is part of a huge culture of disillusionment and disappointment among youth. (And if there is one central issue that the last year of global uprisings has raised, then it is that of youth. The question of youth is the question of the future, and that future has disappeared. We who are no longer young have to try and understand this and not simply adopt a patronizing attitude toward youth). My son is disillusioned and doesn’t see what good it would serve if he got involved. He feels powerless. I think this is a general feeling of his generation.
Two, another option is to accept the description of things as they appear to my son but then to do something, to take arms against a sea of trouble to take politics back from the political class through confrontation with the power of finance capital and the international status quo. What is so inspiring about the various social movements that we all too glibly call the Arab Spring, is their courageous determination to reclaim autonomy and political self-determination. The demands of the protesters in Tahrir Square and elsewhere are actually very classical: they refuse to live in authoritarian dictatorships propped up to serve interests of Western capital, megacorporations and corrupt local elites. The people want to reclaim ownership of the means of production, for example through the nationalization of major state industries. The various movements in North Africa and the Middle East aim at one thing, one ancient Greek concept: autonomy. They demand collective ownership of the places where one lives, works, thinks, and plays. This is the most classical and basic goal of politics. Contemporary conflicts are conflicts about ownership, about occupation, about the nature of property.
Three, the Occupy movement is fascinating from the standpoint of the separation of politics and power and is particularly fascinating to the student of Athenian democracy, with its focus on the ekklesia, the general assembly, and the boule or council. To be with these protesters when the chant goes up: “This is what democracy looks like!” is powerful, really powerful. What was equally powerful was the way in which OWS conducted general assemblies peacefully, horizontally and noncoercively. So, given the separation of politics and power, the Occupy movement is trying to remake democracy, direct democracy, with a mixture of the old – assembly, consensus, autonomia and freedom – and the new, like Twitter feeds and flashmob demonstrations organized through cell phones. The Occupy movement has thrown up some amazing things, such as the Bank of Ideas in Bishopsgate, London that occupies a disused UBS bank building and is a kind of free university, and the St Paul’s cathedral protest, which raises the deep historical questions of the relation of Christianity to property and inequality – and Paul had some pretty radical views on this question.
But in many ways the Occupy movement simply underlines the separation between politics and power that I began with. We are maybe living through 1848 redux, that year of international revolutions. But that ended pretty badly. What we don’t know at this point is how these different movements will develop.
What is hard to imagine, really hard to imagine is some sort of possible articulation between Occupy and the Democratic Party in the USA. I am reminded of a poster I saw at an Occupy: “Obama, please say something.” Sure, he is going to co-opt the movement for the purposes of liberal oligarchy, but that’s all.
The disaffection with normal politics particularly among the young is vast and something else has taken shape, something at once exciting and frightening. We could be in the early stages of a perfect storm.
From Adbusters Blog
Alright you jammers, occupiers and Springtime dreamers,
First they silenced our uprising with a media blackout… then they smashed our encampments with midnight paramilitary raids… and now they’re threatening to neutralize our insurgency with an insidious campaign of donor money and co-optation. This counter-strategy worked to kill off the Tea Party’s outrage and turn it into a puppet of the Republican Party. Will the same happen with Occupy Wall Street? Will our insurgency turn into the Democrats’ Tea Party pet?
It’s up to you to decide if our movement goes the way of Paris ’68, the dust bin of could-have-been-insurrections, or something more daring, more inspiring, something not yet dreamed.
Will you allow Occupy to become a project of the old left, the same cabal of old world thinkers who have blunted the possibility of revolution for decades? Will you allow MoveOn, The Nation and Ben & Jerry to put the brakes on our Spring Offensive and turn our struggle into a “99% Spring” reelection campaign for President Obama?
We are now in a battle for the soul of Occupy… a fight to the finish between the impotent old left and the new vibrant, horizontal left who launched Occupy Wall Street from the bottom-up and who dreams of real democracy and another world.
Whatever you do, don’t allow our revolutionary struggle to fizzle out into another lefty whine and clicktivist campaign like has happened so many times in the past. Let’s Occupy the clicktivists and crash the MoveOn party. Let’s #DEFENDOCCUPY and stop the derailment of our movement that looms ahead.
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
OccupyWallStreet.org / Tactical Briefing #25, #26, #27 and #28 / Check out Oakland occupier Mike King’s take on MoveOn’s 99% Spring
From Adbusters Blog
This article is available in:
Last week, occupiers in New York City chained open subway entrances and posted official looking notices inviting the public to ride for free. Their innovative action caused an immediate sensation in the Occupy movement suggesting that similar jams will be carried out worldwide in May.
Jammers explained that the fare strike was done to show the connection between the de-funding of public transportation and the financial takeover of democracy: "Instead of using our tax money to properly fund transit, Albany and City Hall have intentionally starved transit of public funds for over twenty years; the MTA must resort to bonds (loans from Wall Street) to pay for projects and costs ... more than $2 billion a year goes to debt service ... by 2018 more than one out of every five dollars of MTA revenue will head to a banker’s pockets." Union leadership agreed.
Authorities in New York City were swift to condemn, even going so far as to release surveillance footage of the occupiers calmly pulling off this audacious jam. It is no surprise that they are worried. This is perhaps the first time that the fare strike tactic has been successfully deployed in America and it is a sign that the I Don’t Pay movement which has been flourishing in Europe is finally leaping to North America. In Greece, jammers routinely occupy toll booths and public transportation entrances allowing everyone to pass for free.
As Occupy matures, it is beginning to learn a few new tricks. If Occupy adopts the I Don’t Pay movement’s fare strike tactic, we just might see May’s uprising snowball into a wildcat consumer revolt–a mass refusal to pay–the likes of which the world has never seen.
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