Is fighting economic injustice such a righteous pursuit that it entitles Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters and their disciples to indefinitely control whatever space they invade? Even though the whole movement is centered around the word “occupy,” deciding which property to take over, or how long to monopolize it, doesn’t seem to be based on any guiding principle. Occupiers need to clarify what, in their eyes, makes terrain seizable.
The owners of Zuccotti Park in New York are apparently authorized to prohibit camping and similar activities, and yesterday they gave entrenched demonstrators a day’s notice to vacate the park while workers clean and inspect it. Thereafter, they warned, only those who obey park rules will be allowed to use the premises.
The decision announced early this morning to postpone the scheduled cleaning, made no mention of those rules.
The protesters say the City of New York should neither enforce the rules nor “evict” occupiers from the park. But what they haven’t explained is how the police could legally or morally justify ignoring a property owner who reports trespassing.
Although occupiers pride themselves on adhering to a strict and democratic decision-making method, it’s not clear how – or if – that procedure honors the wishes of park owners, besieged neighbors and various non-OWS users of the park.
The movement’s overall mission has great legitimacy, but its land grabbing policy requires some elucidation.
Last week members of a Mexican drug cartel slayed yet another journalist for attempting to serve her community. Maria Elizabeth Macias’ mutilated remains were found beside a note apparently written by the Zetas cartel in which they claimed revenge for her online exposes and criticism. Her “crime” was posting articles that would help her fellow Mexican citizens understand the dark underworld of organized crime in Mexico.
Mexico is one of several danger zones where the powerful attempt to silence journalists like Macias who are doing their jobs. In the period of 2009-2010, some 120 journalists were killed on the job worldwide, usually while attempting to expose corruption, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Another 145 journalists are imprisoned, and more than 450 live in exile for fear of being persecuted or killed.
The Occupiers of Wall Street have good reason to be angry. So do the rest of Americans who are not participating in the demonstrations. As noted by countless political scientists, the U.S. has changed. Its democratic system has become less accountable, less accessible, and less responsive to the plight of the average American.
As in every system, the rules of the game–which tend to determine the winners and losers—have been changing in a way that makes it increasingly more difficult for regular citizens to participate within their democracy. And while the system is in dire need of repair, unfortunately, conventional wisdom and solutions are harder to come by with this particular Congress and Supreme Court. Making matters worse, most of our news media are not set up to help people understand these deeper matters in ways that help citizens engage constructively with their governments.
So what are the options for a citizenry that feel set up by expectations of a fair system only to find they have very little voice? Many have turned their anger toward the very wealthy beneficiaries of the system in their “occupation” of Wall Street as a means to demand change in their own occupations and economies. But perhaps there are additional options toward building a better collective occupation that can be even more effective. One would be to use that assembly, energy and time to brainstorm new ways of building a better occupational—or economic system, one that is more just and democratic. For that, we have a number of models to explore. One of them is the cooperative model, a ground-up way of doing business that functions democratically on principles of equality and justice within the workplace. Workers own the company together and vote on the business decisions—one person, one vote.
The US has something to learn from the other 9/11. Chile was the longest standing democracy in South America, a most genteel culture where everything could be settled with a handshake and a discussion, an environment where respect marked their political interactions, and “sir” and “madam” preceded greetings. But in a short period of time, Chilean society disintegrated into rabid arguments in the streets and democracy fell along with it.
Although several factors contributed to the disintegration, among them was a sensational, inflammatory and polarized media that blamed “the others.” While the rightist newspapers blamed “BLOODY MARXISTS SHOOTING” and the Allende government for the growing environment of chaos, claiming that they had “gravely broken the constitution,” the leftist media called for rescuing Chile from the “Fascist coup” and asserted that the militant right wing was promoting “a climate of fear and chaos.”
The resignation of four of Turkey’s top military commanders in late July sent shockwaves through the Turkish military establishment, shining a spotlight on the poor state of relations which exists between the civil and military leadership in Turkey today. On the surface, the resignations represented a minor bureaucratic hitch, since three of the four officers resigning were scheduled to retire within a matter of days regardless. The fourth officer, General Isik Kosonar, the Chief of the Turkish General Staff, had a year remaining in his tenure, after which he, too, was faced with compulsory retirement. But the symbolism of the resignations, coming as they did on the eve of an annual meeting between Turkey’s military and civilian leadership where the issue of military promotions and assignments for the coming year would be decided, escaped no serious observer of modern Turkish politics. The one senior military commander who did not resign, the Commander of the paramilitary Gendarme, General Necdet Ozel, was named acting Land Forces Commander and, following the conclusion of the annual promotions summit, became Turkey’s new Chief of the General Staff.
The apparent imminent collapse of the regime of Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi has led to areevaluation of the Obama administration’s policy of back-seat multilateralism with regard to America’s involvement in the implementation of an international response to the violent suppression of Libyan anti-regime demonstrations. The resilience of the Qaddafi regime in the face of incessant NATO aerial bombardment, combined with a seemingly disorganized, fractured and poorly trained rebel force, had many observers predicting that the situation in Libya was in danger of sinking into a stalemate which would divide it politically, and effectively remove Libyan oil from the global market for some time to come. As such, the recent dramatic advances of the Libyan rebels who, under the cover of NATO airpower launched a rapid series of ground attacks, sweeping aside forces loyal to Qaddafi, found the rebellion in control of much of the Libyan capital of Tripoli almost overnight. For an administration battered by the two military conflicts it inherited from the Bush presidency, Iraq and Afghanistan, the apparent victory in Libya provides a much needed political and psychological boost which paves the way toward potential future engagement in other “Arab Spring” nations, such as Syria.
On 24 May, 2011, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released an information circular on the “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in Syrian Arab Republic.” This report focused almost exclusively on “the Agency’s assessment of the nature of the destroyed building at the Dair Alzour site.” This building was destroyed as a result of Israeli military action in September 2007. Since that time, both Israel and IAEA member states have contended that the Dair Alzour facility was in fact an undeclared nuclear reactor being built by Syria, in violation of its NPT Safeguards agreement, with the assistance of North Korea. Syria has declared that the site dealt with non-nuclear activities related to missiles, and has refused to grant the IAEA full access to a range of facilities the Agency wants to inspect in this regard. The IAEA report concludes that the Dair Alzour facility “was very likely a nuclear reactor.” This paper assesses the IAEA’s claims based upon the data provided by the IAEA in the body of its report.
Ray McGovern, an Army infantry/intelligence officer and CIA analyst for 30 years, was among the first to condemn the corruption of intelligence to “justify” attacking Iraq. During the 80s, McGovern briefed top White House officials and the Secretary of State one-on-one with the President’s Daily Brief. On February 15, he stood in silent protest as Sec. Hillary Clinton touted free expression—but apparently not for McGovern, who was pounced upon by security, beaten, bloodied and jailed.
Susan Rosenberg was a political activist who was sentenced to 58 years in prison. She served 16 years until Bill Clinton granted her clemency on his final day in office. Her new memoir, An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country, reveals how she was subjected to brutal treatment in various U. S. prisons, including techniques later used on a wider scale at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and now — for Pvt. Bradley Manning — at the Marine brig in Quantico.
Michael Needham is the father of John Needham, who received an Army Commendation Medal for actions to save his comrades, and a Purple Heart for combat injuries suffered in Iraq. John later attempted to commit suicide as a result of severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Instead of receiving treatment, John was held in solitary confinement, deprived of food and threatened by his commanders. He died in February of 2010 from complications related to his medical care.
McGovern, Rosenberg and Needham will speak at several public forums about the effects of torture, and why the American government has targeted WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. Click here for event info.
“[Scott Ritter] has certainly more experience, more credibility and more information than most anybody else we talk to…that guy was fantastic.” - Dylan Ratigan, host of MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show
protesters and their disciples to indefinitely control whatever space they invade? Even though the whole movement is centered around the word “occupy,” deciding which property to take over, or how long to monopolize it, doesn’t seem to be based on any guiding principle. Occupiers need to clarify what, in their eyes, makes terrain seizable.
The apparent imminent collapse of the regime of Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi has led to areevaluation of the Obama administration’s policy of back-seat multilateralism with regard to America’s involvement in the implementation of an international response to the violent suppression of Libyan anti-regime demonstrations. The resilience of the Qaddafi regime in the face of incessant NATO aerial bombardment, combined with a seemingly disorganized, fractured and poorly trained rebel force, had many observers predicting that the situation in Libya was in danger of sinking into a stalemate which would divide it politically, and effectively remove Libyan oil from the global market for some time to come. As such, the recent dramatic advances of the Libyan rebels who, under the cover of NATO airpower launched a rapid series of ground attacks, sweeping aside forces loyal to Qaddafi, found the rebellion in control of much of the Libyan capital of Tripoli almost overnight. For an administration battered by the two military conflicts it inherited from the Bush presidency, Iraq and Afghanistan, the apparent victory in Libya provides a much needed political and psychological boost which paves the way toward potential future engagement in other “Arab Spring” nations, such as Syria.
prison. She served 16 years until Bill Clinton granted her clemency on his final day in office. Her new memoir, 
Michael Needham is the father of 
