Posts tagged ‘social movements’

In Lafayette Square

by , posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2018 at 9:54 pm

I work about four blocks from the White House, so I decided to make my way over to Lafayette Square before heading home to see if people were gathering there. Walking into the park around 6:30pm from Pennsylvania Avenue, I didn’t hear much at first, but then I realized there was a crowd of people over on the west side listening to a speaker. It was dark, so I couldn’t tell how many people were there, but I’m guessing it had to be several hundred. Maybe more.

The last time I was in the park like that was as the Gulf War was about to break out. I remember going over for a few nights and just standing there, staring across the street at Bush 41’s White House, standing vigil, I guess, with other protesters while somebody pounded on a drum.

I can’t help but think there are more nights in Lafayette Square to come.

Crossposted from Facebook

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“We are Running Out of Time”: Obama Urged to Match Rhetoric to Action on Climate Deal

by , posted on Friday, December 7th, 2012 at 5:05 pm

from Democracy Now!

Most major issues remain unresolved at the U.N. climate summit in Doha as negotiators enter the final stretch of the two-week summit. While the Doha talks involve nations working toward a pact to limit greenhouse gases starting in 2020, many say the world cannot wait that long. The United States has come under intense criticism at the summit from environmentalists and smaller nations who say President Obama has failed to meet his stated commitments to tackle global warming. We’re joined by Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International; and Samantha Smith, head of the World Wildlife Fund’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative.

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Bill McKibben: Connecting the Dots on Climate Change

by , posted on Friday, December 7th, 2012 at 3:03 pm

from The Nation

“We should not have called it Hurricane Sandy. We should have called it Hurricane Exxon,” says climate activist Bill McKibben. In the aftermath of a superstorm, Americans are finally making the connection between the changing weather and our fossil fuel addiction. McKibben took a break from his “Do the Math” tour, which calls on universities and other organizations to divest from the fossil fuel industry, to discuss the pressing structural changes we need to slow our warming planet.

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Richard Wolff: Spain & Greece – Is This What Collapse Looks Like?

by , posted on Friday, September 28th, 2012 at 7:52 pm

from The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann (RT)

Richard Wolff, economist & visiting professor in the Graduate Program for International Affairs, New School University, joins Thom Hartmann. Workers in Greece went on strike Wednesday to protest another round of spending cuts under consideration by the Greek government. Public employees, teachers, medics, lawyers, and even banksters walked off their jobs and took to the streets to protest salary and pension cuts. It’s the first such strike since the new Conservative government took power in June. Yet the Greek government today unveiled it’s new austerity budget pledging to cut $11.5 billion over the next several years. So what will this latest round of cuts due to a nation that is already collapsing under the banksters demands?

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Taking Stock of the Occupy Movement

by , posted on Sunday, September 23rd, 2012 at 12:21 pm

from The Real News Network

Vijay Prashad (Trinity College, and author of Arab Spring, Libyan Winter) discusses what the Occupy movement has accomplished, and what’s next.

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Pam Brown: Occupy Debt

by , posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2012 at 8:19 pm

from GRITtv with Laura Flanders

We as a society view our monetary debts as a moral issue: We took out the money, we should have to pay it back. The problem with this logic is that the money we are giving the banks, financial institutions and our government never existed before the interest we incurred piled up.

Pam Brown of the Occupy Student Debt Campaign and Strike Debt says there’s another way out of our predicament: If our numbers are large enough, we can collectively refuse to pay back the trillions that are being extorted from us.

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What does labor need to do to make a comeback?

by , posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2012 at 3:27 pm

from The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann (RT)

Bill Fletcher, Jr., AFGE/activist, joins Thom Hartmann. Ronald Reagan may be a Republican hero – but he’s played the role of the villain to American workers for over three decades. How has the American worker suffered over the last 30 plus years – and how can we stop the war on unions that’s been plaguing America?

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One Year of Occupy Wall Street

by , posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2012 at 6:59 pm

from The Nation

One year ago on September 17, a few activists began a peaceful protest just outside Wall Street in New York’s financial district. That action sparked a sweeping movement of public space “Occupations,” in which citizens could air their grievances against corporate greed, protected interests and much more. Encampments sprang up across the world, from Oakland City Hall to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Police cleared out the tents months ago, but the networks of activists, young and old, remain intact, as evidenced by this weekend’s packed schedule of Occupy actions. Watch this video to see what activists, union workers and students in debt are planning for the second year of Occupy.

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Roundtable: After 1 Year, OWS Gives Voice to Resistance of Mass Debt and Widening Inequality

by , posted on Monday, September 17th, 2012 at 8:53 pm

from Democracy Now!

The Occupy Wall Street movement is largely credited for reframing the national dialogue on economic inequality and popularizing the phrase: “We are the 99 percent.” We host a roundtable with Frances Fox Piven, an author and professor at City University of New York who has studied social movements for decades; Nathan Schneider, editor of the blog Waging Nonviolence, which has extensively covered the Occupy movement; and Suzanne Collado, an organizer with Occupy Wall Street since its inception and member of the group “Strike Debt,” an effort to organize a mass upsurge of debt resistance.

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American Autumn: An Occudoc

by , posted on Monday, September 17th, 2012 at 8:06 am

from The Real News Network

Filmmaker Dennis Trainer Jr. on his new film and the challenges facing the Occupy Movement.

http://www.Occudoc.org
written, produced & directed by Dennis Trainor, Jr
contact dennistrainorjr (at) gmail (dot) com
http://www.twitter.com/dennistrainorjr
http://www.facebook.com/dennistrainorjr

Associate producer/ co-editor/ graphics/ color & titles: AJ Russo
https://vimeo.com/ajrsuper8

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