“Labor Creates All Wealth” “Our labor movement has no system to crush. It has nothing to overturn. It purposes to build up, to develop, to rejuvenate humanity. “It stands for the right. It is the greatest protestant against wrong. It is the defender of the weak. “Its...
Occupy Wall Street
Pete Seeger, 1919–2014: A Life of “Defiant Optimism”
“Realize that little things lead to bigger things. . . . there’s a wonderful parable in the New Testament: The sower scatters seeds. Some seeds fall in the pathway and get stamped on, and they don’t grow. Some fall on the rocks, and they don’t grow. But some seeds...
When Seawater Occupies Wall Street
* A security guard walks through a flooded street in the financial district of Manhattan early on Tuesday, Oct. 29. Photo by Adrees Latif/Reuters. * Knee-deep thought of the day: When seawater occupies Wall Street, perhaps Nature itself is telling Big Business and...
Framing the Case for Infrastructure Investment, Taxing the Rich
Attn.: Pro-Infrastructure Activists and Democratic Strategists: In a Feb. 4 letter to the editor of the New York Times, Rick Stone of Madison, Wisc., makes a point that more of us should heed: If the wealthy knew with certainty that their increased taxes would make...
“There Is a Creative Force in This Universe”
The Poor People’s Campaign, 40 Years before Occupy Wall Street “Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. . . . God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others...
As We Enter 2012, Best Wishes to All
May the new year bring you all the good things you wish for. We’ll be brief with our greetings and good wishes, as last night’s champagne slowly wears off, and as there’s some house-cleaning to do before guests arrive for the New Year’s Day dinner . . . For all our...
“We Want Something Different”
Yearning for a New Kind of Society The ever-sharp Matt Taibbi has written incisively, in sometimes R-rated language, about Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, and other Wall Street investment banks—who can forget his description of Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped...
NYPD Occupies Zuccotti Park; OWS Evicted in Night Raid
[ see livestreaming via GlobalRevolution ] photographs © Levees Not War 2011 * “What are their [NYPD’s] demands?” asked social historian Patrick Bruner. “They have not articulated any platform. How do they expect to be taken seriously?” “I suppose they have a...
As “End” of Iraq War Is Announced, U.S. Digs In, Warns Iran
* [ cross-posted @ Daily Kos ] * “In August [2002] a British official close to the Bush team told Newsweek: ‘Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.’ ” —Paul Krugman, “Things to Come,” March 18, 2003 * Where’s That “Mission Accomplished”...
How Occupy Wall Street Is *Not* Like the Tea Party
In a Letter to the Editor of the New York Times, replying to an Oct. 22 front-page article titled “Wall St. Protest Isn’t Like Ours, Tea Party Says,” Oberlin College professor of politics Stephen Crowley points out an essential distinction: There is another crucial...
Iraq War Veteran Injured by Police, in Critical Condition, after Crackdown of Occupy Oakland
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZLyUK0t0vQ * Police Use Tear Gas, Flash Bang Grenades on Occupy Oakland Protesters Scott Olsen, a Marine Corps veteran of two tours of duty in Iraq who is now involved in Veterans for Peace, was critically wounded by Oakland police...
Occupying the Street Is Not Enough
“Occupy” Dialogue Continues “[S]imply being in a public place and voicing your opinion in and of itself doesn’t do anything politically. It is the prerequisite, I hope, for people getting together and voting and engaging things. . . . I welcome the [Occupy] Wall...
Ten Years of U.S. War in Afghanistan
“While post-9/11 veterans are more supportive than the general public, just one-third (34%) say that, given the costs and benefits to the U.S., the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have both been worth fighting.” —Pew Research Center, “War and Sacrifice in the Post-9/11...
Occupying Wall Street with Nurses, Teachers, Transit Workers, and the Rest of America’s Middle Class
“We are the 99% . . . You are the 99%.” “Banks got bailed out / We got sold out!” “Whose street? Our street!” * This Is Not the Fringe. This Is the Middle Class. Yesterday into last night we gathered near New York’s City Hall and marched with what looked and felt...