Voices from Occupy Chicago
Blocks from Obama’s election headquarters, Occupiers discuss their goals and their opinion of the President:
1 comment October 31st, 2011
Archive for October, 2011
Veterans pledge to defend Occupy movements
I have no idea how widespread this is?
Marine, Navy, Army and Airforce Veterans and Police Vow to Protect Innocent Protesters
In response to the police brutality against peaceful American protesters – here, here, here, here, hereand here – military and police groups are forming to protect American citizens.In fact, many in the military support the protests (and see this).
As of today, OccupyMarines, Occupy Police, Occupy Navy, Occupy Airforce, and Occupy Army have formed to protect the people against police brutality.
After Veterans for Peace member Scott Olsen – a Marine Corps veteran twice deployed to Iraq – was critically wounded in the Occupy Oakland protest, Occupy Marines tweeted:
WHEN YOU SHOOT ONE MARINE, YOU SHOOT AT ALL OF US. OORAH. Do It Peacefully Occupy We Stand In Solidarity
1 comment October 31st, 2011
Rank your household
The Wall Street Journal has a page where you can enter your income and find out what ranking you are. It indicates that the 1% are those earning more than $506,000 a year. In any decent society, that would be more than enough for anyone as long as many are starving.
October 29th, 2011
Occupy Wall Street with music by U2/Woody Guthrie -Jesus Christ
October 29th, 2011
Campaign to free Syrian psychoanalyst
Among the horrors of the suppression of protest in Syria comes news that a psychoanalyst has been arrested:
SYRIA: Judge rejects call for release of pyschoanalyst
By Jan Petter Myklebust
21 October 2011A Syrian judge has rejected international appeals for the release of Dr Rafah Nached (pictured), the founder of the first psychoanalysis school in Damascus, who was arrested last month at Damascus airport and is being held in solitary confinement, according to campaigners.
Twenty-one French intellectuals are supporting an international campaign to free Nached, 66, who was approached by security guards as she was about to board a plane to Paris on 10 September to visit her daughter, who was due to give birth.
Those who signed the petition include philosopher Julie Kristeva, philosopher, writer and director of La Règle du Jeu Bernard-Henri Levy, and former minister of foreign affairs Roland Dumas.
As she was being arrested, Nached managed to telephone her husband, Dr Faisal Abdullah, who is a professor of ancient history at Damascus University. He alerted her colleagues via Facebook, saying he did not know which prison his wife had been taken to.
It has since been revealed that she is being held in solitary confinement in a woman’s prison on the outskirts of Damascus.
Abdullah fears for his wife’s health, since she suffers from hypertension and has recently undergone an operation for cancer.
On 18 October, psychoanalyst Jacques-Alain Miller of the Association Mondiale de Psychanalyse in Paris, which set up the Free Rafah Nached campaign, sent out an email stating that the judge in Damascus had rejected the appeal for her release.
No formal charge has been made by the Syrian authorities, and it appears the only reason for her being held in custody is her profession as a psychoanalyst. She was the first practising psychoanalyst in Syria, having graduated from the University of Paris Diderot, and recently founded the school in Damascus in collaboration with French colleagues.
A statement on the Free Rafah Nashed blog, with an international petition calling for her release, said: “A review of Dr Nashed’s trajectory reveals a woman with a deep commitment to uncovering the secrets of the unconscious, not an insurgent, gangster or Islamist.
“When the revolution broke out in March, she, along with some Jesuit priests, organised support groups open to citizens of all affiliations, with the goal of helping them process the violence around them.”
The appeal asks those who support the release to send an email to this address.
Several hundred people gathered at a protest meeting in Paris organised by ‘Forum des Femmes – Carla, Judith, Isabelle, Julia and Aurelie’ outside the Palais des Congrès on 9 October to call for Nached’s release and hear an appeal by Kristeva, with several videos published on the event on You Tube.
On 2 October Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the French president’s wife, published an open letter to Abdullah, expressing international understanding of the stress he and his family is exposed to, stating that Nached’s work is of no threat to the state and that she therefore expects that she be released without further delay.
Charles Hanley, president of the International Psychoanalytical Association, sent an e-mail to its members on 6 October requesting them to sign the petition for Rafah’s release, as did the European Psychoanalytical Federation and the Société Psychanalytique de Paris.
Catherine Ashton, high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and vice-president of the European Commission, last month issued a statement calling for the immediate release of Nached “and all of those arbritrarily detained and arrested”.
The British Psychoanalytic Council has urged supporters to show solidarity by circulating information about Nached’s situation widely, and signing an international petition asking for her immediate release, and for the French Embassy to intervene to obtain information about her condition and the reasons for her detention.
October 29th, 2011
NPR station employee for attending Occupy Wall Street
A second NPR employee got fired for associating with the Occupy movement. NPR is evidently only for the 1%, who make the big donations and are the major “sponsor,” i.e., advertisers. This shows the perniciousness of “objectivity.” Being one of the ultra-wealthy 1% makes you a pundit. Protesting the 15 gets you fired.
October 29th, 2011
AFL-CIO video: We are the 99%
October 29th, 2011
Democratic National Committee wants to crush inconvenient Occupy protest
In a further sign that large factions of the “Democratic” Party are enemies of democracy, the Charlotte Observer reports that the Democratic National Committee is asking the site of the 2012 Democratic Convention to ban camping in order to avoid Occupy-inspired protests:
o prepare for the Democratic National Convention, the city of Charlotte is considering an ordinance that would prohibit camping on all city property, which could stifle the ongoing Occupy Charlotte protest.
In addition, the ordinance would prohibit the possession of “noxious” substances, along with items such as pipes, chains or padlocks if their intended use would be to block a street, sidewalk or building entrance.
The proposal comes as some cities are trying to evict “Occupy” protesters, including Oakland, Calif., where a protester was injured this week when police dispersed a crowd. In addition, Charlotte and Tampa, the host city for the Republican National Convention, are studying how to manage expected crowds and protests for next year’s conventions.
The DNC and many Democratic mayors and Governors around the country are working hard to convince the progressive base, especially activist young people, to stay home come election day 2012. They may just succeed.
October 28th, 2011
