by Adam Rothstein Some human being decided that tonight, he was somehow empowered to tell the rest of us how it is, and how it is going to be. Well, fine. I respect a person’s right to talk about crazy made up things, like nation-states, politics, and the general good of our economic situation. Some…
Category: Essays & Letters
Message in a Bottle
by Buddy Bee Anthony Occupy is, at its root, a gallant, worldwide fight for survival as sentient beings; a battle for human liberties for the working/middle class and poor. It is a street fight against the judiciary, the legislative branch, and the media (who has also, for the most part, been sadly complicit in this…
Scan This
by Lester Macgurdy I hate committee meetings. I always have the same recurring fantasy when stuck in another of these seemingly endless rant fests: a kindly infiltrator sneaks up behind me and pumps a round of double-aught buck into the back of my melon. I picture my head exploding like a piñata filled with raspberry…
Is there Really Such a Thing as a Middle Class?
by Ahjamu Umi We constantly hear the term “middle class” thrown around by politicians and the corporate media as a term designed to define everyday people, but never do these folks make even a half-hearted attempt to define what that term means. I would argue that a major reason why the term is never defined…
Tahrir Square Uprising Anniversary on January 25th
by Mario Haro Thank you to the revolutionaries from Egypt’s Tahrir square, you have inspired the world! A year has passed from the January 25th, 2011 Tahrir Square uprising in Egypt, where a despotic dictator has been replaced by a military junta, both funded by the The United States Dollar. What has changed? The whole…
Does Occupy Portland Lead the Occupations in Autonomous Organizing Experience?
by Adam Rothstein Living in Portland, one comes to appreciate a certain utopian quality of life. Bike lanes wrap around you like the handknitted scarf your roommate knitted you for your birthday. You can’t walk five blocks without stumbling into a nest of food carts, a wifi-equipped coffee shop, or a piece of land that…
Horton Hears an Occupation
by Zach Bosart When I was a child, my favorite Dr. Seuss book was Horton Hears a Who! For those unfamiliar with the plot, the story revolves around the elephant protagonist Horton, who hears a speck of dust speaking to him. The dust, actually a tiny planet, is home to a group of people called Whos.…
Occupy Congress: The Journey Begins
by Adam Rothstein There’s a familiar feeling of doom as one leaves the Northwest behind when departing on a road trip. As you strap yourself in to an eighty mile-per-hour meteor of alloyed aluminum and high-impact plastic, securing tanks of liquid fuel both hydrocarbon derived and caffeinated, there is a feeling not unlike that of…
Occupy As the Name – What’s the Big Deal?
By Ahjamu Umi I’m an Occupy Portland organizer and I’m an African (Black) man. Some people would call that a paradox. It is a fact that the numbers of African people, and other people of color, are very small in the Portland Occupy movement. It is also truth that the numbers of people of color…
Theory and Practice in Occupy
by Shamus Cooke For a movement that started with one strategy and a couple of slogans, Occupy has preformed brilliantly. Having based itself on the examples of Egypt and Wisconsin, the Occupy Movement has raised the political consciousness of millions and created a large layer of new activists. But the uninterrupted string of successes of…
