Story by Pete Shaw After several months of deliberation and community input, the Socially Responsible Investments Committee (SRIC) voted unanimously to recommend that the City of Portland divest its holdings in Wells Fargo & Company due to the company’s financing of for-profit prisons and “morally bankrupt” lending practices. The City currently holds $40 million in…
Story by Pete Shaw Nearly two years after taking back her house, Alicia Jackson El is having her day in court. On April 11, Jackson El appeared before Judge Steven Evans to defend herself against Fox Capital Corporation, the “foreclosure flipping” company that claims it owns her house. On May Day 2012, Jackson El, with…
Story and photos by Pete Shaw “Some of us take risks. We’re asking you to take risks,” said John Schweibert to Multnomah County Sheriff Daniel Staton, during a sit in at the Sheriff’s office staged by Schweibert and four other community home defenders on January 24. Though Staton expressed his support for homeowners, he said…
Story and photos by Pete Shaw On the morning of January 16, soon after Ron Austin had gone to work, Debbie Austin and her two children awoke to the sound of the Multnomah County Sheriffs and Portland Police banging on their door. At the demand of Fannie Mae, the police forces entered the Austins’ home…
Story and photos by Pete Shaw November 20 — “As you can see, I’m packed up and ready to go.” Debbie Austin doesn’t quite have the sarcasm thing down, at least by my Northeast pedigree, but nonetheless her sardonic tone is underscored by a quick look around the house which bears the hallmark of a…
“Our dreams don’t fit in their ballot boxes” On November 3rd Occupy Portland and the Portland Action Lab invites all people to mobilize, march, and take direct action against austerity. Corporations control our governments, hoard wealth, privatize our community resources, and burden us with enormous debt — this is AUSTERITY and we say Enough is…
By Shamus Cooke With the November elections right around the corner, the millions of unemployed and underemployed have little reason to care. Aside from some sparse rhetoric, neither Democrats nor Republicans have offered a solution to job creation. Most politicians seem purposefully myopic about the jobs crisis, as if a healthy dose of denial might…
Story and photos by Pete Shaw The notice on the door of Room 3000 at 1900 SW 4th Avenue — home of Portland’s Bureau of Development Services (BDS) — listed the various administrative hearings that would be taking place on September 6, 2012. I was present because I expected a 9 a.m. hearing between the…
This week in Occupy, Pussy Riot was sentenced to two years in Russian prison, we expressed solidarity with General Motors hunger strikers in Colombia, activists far and nigh set their sights on Tampa and the Republican National Convention, and the one-year Occuversary is approaching. #After a short trial, three members of Pussy Riot, an all-girl…
This story is from the Occupied News Wire. It was originally published in the Occupied Wall Street Journal. by Shepherd Bliss I’ve operated the small artisan Kokopelli Farm, which grows mainly berries, for the last 20 years. It is located a couple of miles from small-town Sebastopol’s downtown commons in Northern California. Our town has…
