(Source: fuckyeahanarchopunk)

crosscrowdedrooms:

It’s proved impossible for me to get this shot of former Philadelphia Police Cpt. Ray Lewis being arrested, published anywhere.  I was adamantly rebuffed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, NYT, local NY papers, and Newsweek, before even looking at the photograph.  One of the only published photos of this paradoxical and intense event is located here at the NYC Observer:

http://www.observer.com/2011/11/former-philadelphia-police-captain-ray-lewis-arrested-ows/

(via caratobe)

Retired Philadelphia police captain Ray Lewis, who was arrested last week alongside others in the Occupy movement, calls the ordeal “the proudest moment of my life.”

“I saw all of you sleeping out here,” Lewis recalled to a videographer in New York City’s Zuccotti Park. “The cause, you were for justice. It’s not like you guys were putting up with this so you could get jobs on Wall Street. You were doing this for justice. All over the world, in fact. And that inspired me. I had to come down here an join you.”

“That day, I had no intention of being arrested. None whatsoever. But when I saw a lot of you sitting down and being dragged off, I’m saying, they’re losing their freedom for justice, for other people. And that inspired me again to be arrested.”

Lewis added: “I’m going to tell you a very important thing here. I’ve had a lot of proud moments in my life, a lot of proud moments in my career. But when I had those handcuffs on and was being marched over there with the other protesters in solidarity, that was the proudest moment of my life.”

Full article here, including some videos.

Captain Ray Lewis (Ret.) of the Philadelphia police has joined Occupy Wall Street. 

(via hippiescientist)

(via azelie)

Headlines only: full list here with a long and growing list of comments and ideas.

1. Understand the Movement

2. Don’t Be Afraid to Say You Support Occupy Wall Street

3. Follow the Movement on Social Media

4. Move Your Money

5. Send Some Grub

6. Make a Collection & Donate

7. Donate Money

8. Visit a Local Occupy Encampment & Say Thanks

9. Show Up When You’re Needed

10. Taking a Roadtrip?  Transport Supplies or Demonstrators.

11. Allow People to Shower and/or Do Laundry in Your Home

12. Mail Credit Card Offers Back!

13. Occupy Your Community.  Occupy Everywhere.

14. Opt Out of Black Friday & Cyber Sunday, For Starters

While some proclaim, “rich aussies have nothing to complain about”, a recent Essential Report shows 69% of Australians support the concerns of the Occupy Protests. The actual protests are supported by almost a third. 

As one journo puts it: 

You’d have to have your head in The Australian not to realise that our fairer income distribution and superior social safety net didn’t come about by accident. We’ve got a more equal society because people have been willing to fight for it, strike for it, and to demonstrate in public.

From here.

We are calling for a nation wide peaceful occupation across Australia on November 5. This movement to Occupy Together is in solidarity with people in over 2500 locations worldwide who will also be occupying together for human need not corporate greed on November 5.

We believe the basic needs of 99% of the global population are continually being ignored by governments who instead cater for the richest 1% of corporations who control most of the world’s wealth.

We also believe that in this time of global economic uncertainty people will have to come together to share ideas, food, water and power rather than allow these things to divide us. We are calling on people from all walks of life to walk together and Occupy Together on November 5. All are welcome regardless of their occupations, race, religion, sexuality, gender or political persuasions.

We are not just one political idea or one organisation. We are many ideas and many organisations coming together to call for a better world based on human need not corporate greed. We are the 99%. You are the 99%. Let us Occupy Together on November 5.

Peace. Love. Unity.

Occupy Together.

Abridged, from here.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

• They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
• They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
• They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
• They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education,
  which is itself a human right.
• They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut
  workers’ healthcare and pay.
• They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the
  culpability or responsibility.
• They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
• They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
• They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
• They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating
  them.
• They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
• They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or
  provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
• They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive
  ingredients in pursuit of profit.
• They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the
  media.
• They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
• They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

Pull your money from the big banks. Its happening already… and November 5th is Bank Transfer Day. 

Here is 10 reasons to pull your money from Bank of America.

Egyptians march from Tahrir Square to support Occupy Oakland protestors

Ocean Beach, San Francisco

I AM NOT MOVING - Short Film - Occupy Wall Street

(Source: youtube.com, via sum1)

Apple recently banned Phone Story from Itunes. As reported by the Guardian, the app features:

…four mini-games about the “troubling supply chain” behind smartphones – all smartphones, not specifically iPhones – including coltan extraction in Congo, outsourced labour in China, environmental waste in Pakistan, as well as the mania for gadgets in the West. One of the mini-games sees workers leaping from their factory building: a clear reference to suicides and attempted suicides by workers at Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn.

A game where you have to catch plummeting factory employees, oversee underage miners and distribute smartphones outside a store with a white pear logo on the front? Apple’s disapproval comes as no surprise.

The act of banning it drew more criticism for Apple on the topical issues surrounding resources from the Congo, and a timely hoax refutation by Apple only added to the fire. As the media release states:

Apple wishes to inform the public that the so-called “conflict-free” iPhone, promoted today outside the Apple Store at Fifth Avenue in New York City, featured on the non-Apple website www.apple-CF.com, and noted in a spoofed media advisory to numerous New York City reporters, is fraudulent and fictitious, and entirely the imagination of the group of pranksters who created it.

To be perfectly clear, this product does not exist, and Apple has no connection to the group that promoted it. Furthermore, although Apple does have plans to certify its materials as conflict-free, this will by no means be any sort of solution to the situation of conflict in the Congo, nor in any way help bring an end to that conflict. 

There are various possible solutions to this problem, but it is up to you, not Apple, to accomplish them… We at Apple have acknowledged in the past that the conflict in the Congo, which has claimed many millions of lives, is fuelled in part by the provision of minerals that go into consumer electronic products, and not only Apple’s. However, so-called “conflict-free” certification is not a real solution, merely a very tiny part of a real solution. Regardless of whether Apple or other companies produce “conflict-free” products, the Congo conflict will not end until the U.S. government chooses to enforce its own laws.

The app was quickly adapted for Android here and is still available. The apps producers, Italian developer Molleindustria, have a stated mission to “reappropriate video games as a popular form of mass communication” and “investigate the persuasive potentials of the medium by subverting mainstream video gaming cliche”. Full points for subtlety and slipping this one through the cracks.

(Source: leftish, via azelie)