Month: June 2012

Show Me What Solidarity Looks Like

By Arlo Watching several hundred protesters bang pots & pans together in solidarity with Quebec on a Monday evening,  marching around the square and clamoring loudly in front of both mainstream media and livestream cameras alike, one might be tempted to conclude that Occupy in Portland continues to be a powerful and persuasive force challenging…

How Not To Be a Union

This article originally appeared at Counterpunch.org. By Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer Unions were originally built on the principle of solidarity. Workers soon realized that as individuals they were powerless when trying to defend their interests in relation to their profit-maximizing employers. But when they were organized and stood together, their combination gave them the…

Celebrating Our Interdependence on Summer Solstice

By Liam Doherty-Nicholson The Occupy movement has been and continues to be a diverse array of beneficial experiences for me and for so many others.  At first the movement was something of an angry, fearless yet vulnerable cry out against oppressive forces.  The hope was that those who were suffering from similar oppression would flock…

If Helpers Fell From the Sky

Originally published on Occupy Newfoundland and Labrador. by OccupyNL St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador—We are living in strange times. This is an empirical fact. For confirmation go to Google images and turn safe search off. Type in anything. Note the results. One of the things that makes it all strange is the underlying value system of…

Why Occupy the Pride?

By Sarah Morrigan Since last September, the genius of the Occupy movement was to literally and physically occupy places and institutions and symbolically reclaim the people’s ownership and power over them.  In our encampments, we went one step further by demonstrating a new way of community, free from domination by the One Percent.  There is…

The U.S. Labor Movement at the Crossroads, in the Crosshairs

by Shamus Cooke The labor movement had better do some deep soul searching, and fast. Although the defeat in Wisconsin is the horrible end to a local drama, the corporate winners hope to turn their victory into the beginning chapter of a national novel. The opening sentence was perhaps written recently in San Diego and…

Bus Riders Unite! Rally for Fair Trimet Fares

by Pete Shaw Marching to chants including “Riders have no more to give/Read our budget alternative”, over 70 people with the activist group Bus Riders Unite rallied outside the TriMet office in Southeast Portland. Later that day they attended the TriMet Board Meeting where many testified about the pain and hardship the current TriMet budget…

Learning from Wisconsin

by Mark Vorpahl Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker not only defeated the recall, he did so easily, taking 54 percent of the vote. This is a big defeat for the union leadership who threw as many resources as they could afford behind this effort. How is it possible that this could have happened after all that…

Anarchists Care About Brand-Identity

This article was originally published on The State. by Adam Rothstein A panda costume, green lasers, social media manifestos. The places where one finds Anarchism in this day and age are startling. One might expect such over-determined capitalist colonizing in the form of a body spray. Even a chain steakhouse can claim “no rules” as…

The Real is on the Rise

This article was originally published on UMFNYC. When we took over the Vietnam Memorial on May 1, we were surrounded. We were surrounded on all sides by the infrastructure of this world, all that sustains it beyond its expiration like a giant life support system: the buildings that house corporations, the surveillance cameras, the police,…