occupytotnes

Give Peace a Chance

occupytotnes — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 11:17:37 +0000

What we need is a firm and fundamental committment to peace, awareness of which starts within each individual, and non-violent direct action and civil disobedience. The end does not justify the means as what is born out of violence and conflict will not usher in the new society and new global consciousness of community, power sharing and shared resources and Gaian local democracies.

Abandonment of Gandhis famous and successful adherence to non-violence will lose our cause massive public support (including my own), and give the state the excuse they need to justify more draconian “anti-terrorist” laws to annihilate personal and collective freedom of expression and action. Small militant activist cabals may cause a stir in the media and a storm of police and eventually military violence in return as the state fights to suppress and control the “terrorists” as they will be branded, but it will not win our war for the minds and hearts of the 99% without whom our cause is lost anyway.

Lets not kid ourselves, without huge widespread support from the masses of the population we have no real power to change anything. The awakening of the masses from their unconsciousness and naivety in the face of what the elite new world order power structure is attempting to do is our only realistic strategy for a truly transformed and fairer society. This is not about changing society through violent revolution (that was tried by the Marxists et al and didnt deliver on its promises of a better world ) its about changing the minds of the people through information and education so that when enough people are awakened to the true nature of our political and economic structures their demands for change cannot be ignored.

Violence is a failure of communication , both in the personal relationship sphere as well as in the political and social arenas. As John Lennon famously said, Give Peace a Chance, we have tried every other approach and where has it got us collectively as a species, to the brink of nuclear and biological warfare and the extinction of the human race as well as the degradation of our ecosphere, Gaia. Enough already of these warmongers , Peace is a powerful presence and force, the very nature of who we are, time to give it a chance like we never have before.

Mission statement of the Occupy Britain website

occupytotnes — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:55:26 +0000

Welcome to all our users, Occupy Britain is a website growing at an exceptional rate, not only in solidarity with the worldwide movement, but because there is a genuine desire for change. The message is simple

The 99% (We the people) will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1% the so called elite
We will no longer allow illegal genocide (war) to carry on in our name
We will no longer allow brutality at the hands of our protectors.
We want the freedom to live within our means and produce enough to sustain without being a slave to the £££ $$$
Most of all… we want to see the 99% have access to the same levels of life as the 1% who we currently stand under, understand?

Occupy Wall Street Manifesto September 29th 2010

occupytotnes — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:46:21 +0000

This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released in the upcoming days: 1) A declaration of demands. 2) Principles of Solidarity 3) Documentation on how to form your own Direct Democracy Occupation Group. This is a living document. you can receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing c2anycga@gmail.com.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

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 our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of oneâ€™s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

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 workersâ€™ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

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 supposed to be 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 peopleâ€™s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive 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 accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

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.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

GA 30/01/12

occupytotnes — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:32:47 +0000

Agenda

1 Mission statement/ Purpose of Occupy Totnes group

After some discussion of the issues a concensus was passed concerning the Global mission statement .

Concensus passed: That Occupy Totnes adopts the Global mission statement of the international Occupy movement as far as concerns the global issues.

As for the local issues to be included in the Occupy Totnes mission statement we will continue the discussion at the next GA .

2 How do we grow the Occupy Totnes group

We are too small in numbers to achieve a successful Occupy camp at this point as attendance at GAs is about 8 to 12 people .

We need to communicate our message to the wider local community and invite people to join us and attend our GAs.

We discussed the need and relevance of communicating and contacting members of other local groups with allied interests and aims such as The Truth Juice movement, Transition Town Totnes etc

Concensus passed: That we attend and support as a group the regular monthly Truth Juice events in the Barrel House on the first Wednesday of every month starting with the Truth Juice event this Wednesday 1st February at the Barrel House.

We also discussed how to inform and educate the wider local community about our group and movement for change.

Concensus passed: That we do a “Pop up” one off information point (tent, gazebo, stall ) near to the market area of Totnes on Friday 10th February in order to affirm a “presence” in our community and inform people about the issues.

3 Facebook and Media

We discussed the issues around our communications media including press and radio perceptions and social media ie Facebook. We ran out of time with this one but the importance of personal respect and the non-tolerance of sexist, racist , religiously intolerant, violent or abusive behaviour including verbal abuse at GAs and in our Facebook comments and posts was reiterated. These criteria are adopted at all Occupy camps and GAs and they were ratified by concensus at our first GA last year in the Civic Hall.

The next GA is on Monday 6th February at 6pm at a NEW VENUE 107, High Street, Totnes in the Rotherfold next to chip shop. All welcome . Please invite interested people.

15M Global Strike – What is the plan?

occupytotnes — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:55:30 +0000

15M GLOBAL STRIKE

Coordination of the first global strike on May 15
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15M Global Strike – What is the plan?

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15M Global Strike – What is the plan?

1.1 Arab Spring: One goal, One strategy

The Arab Spring was sparked by the first protests that occurred in Tunisia on 18 December 2010 following Mohamed Bouazizi‘s self-immolation in protest of police corruption and ill treatment. With the success of the protests in Tunisia, a wave of unrest sparked by the Tunisian “Burning Man” struck Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Yemen, then spread to other Arab countries.
Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on 14 January following the Tunisian revolution protests. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak resigned on 11 February 2011 after 18 days of massive protests, ending his 30-year presidency.

A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world has been “ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam” (“the people want to bring down the regime”) and they did it in Tunisia and Egypt with a sustained campaigns or “non-stop protest” involving strikes, demonstrations, marches, occupations…

Note:
The Icelandic rejection of the debt and the Greek mobilizations against austerity plans, as well as the surge of new technologies with the uprising of movements such as Anonymous, Zeitgeist, Wikileaks, Democracy Now, Reopen911 or Yes men, amongst others, have also been of great influence to this (r)evolution.

1.2 Real Democracy Now, birth of a new movement

All through the winter of 2010 the collective “Democracia Real Ya!” (DRY), in association with approximately 200 smaller organizations, had been preparing a huge demonstration for real democracy in Spain. The protest movement gained momentum on May 15 with a camping occupation in Madrid’s main square, the Puerta del Sol, spreading to squares in 57 other major and smaller cities in Spain, and then to Spanish embassies all around the world.
Via its Spanish server tomalaplaza and its international version Takethesquare, the re-baptized 15M movement (also called “indignados” by the media) became a transnational movement. It exploded in Greece ten days later (on May 25) and while taking place, with lesser intensity, in France, Italy, Portugal and Ireland with a culmination point on June 19 when “the outraged” took the street in hundreds of cities around the world in support of this first global day (3.000.000 just in Spain).

In opposition to the Arab spring, 15M doesn’t fight towards ending a regime but has a holistic objective, it demands a Real Democracy, not just a revolution but an Evolution. The organization denounces the way big businesses and banks dominate the political and economical sphere and aims to propose a series of solutions to these problems through grassroots participatory democracy, which is based on people’s assemblies and consensus decision making. It maintains no affiliation with any political party or labor union and has not appointed any single leader and is unwilling to join any of the existing political bodies. It also promotes non-violent protesting.

1.3 15O Road to dignity, Occupy the world

On mid June 2011, Takethesquare network and the international DRY platform started to work together on a global day for October 15 with a first objective of exporting the movement (assemblies and possibly camps) to a maximum of cities around the world.
The first international meeting took place in Lisbon on the 10 and 11 of July with participants from Iceland, Greece, Spain, Italy, etc.
Israel social justice protest rose up on July 14 with hundreds of thousands of people mobilized in the different protest camps all around the country.
Around this time 8 marches began walking, from different areas of Spain, towards Madrid, starting people’s assemblies in every village they crossed, while organizing the second international meeting (a week-long social forum) which would be held on July 23 in their destination.
After this, a new march left Madrid to walk to Brussels, and was quickly joined by six other European itinerant protests (coming from Barcelona, Saragossa, Toulouse, Sicily, Berlin and Amsterdam). They stopped in Paris on September 17 for the Global Anti-Bankster Day, (thought of as a means to test the international coordination before the 15O), when actions like the occupation of stock markets and central banks were taken against the financial dictatorship in a number of cities such as Barcelona, Athens, Tel Aviv, New York and Mexico; and the third international meeting (AgoraParis) was held.
In September the first Hub meeting in Barcelona, took place. Hubs meetings are working areas focused on a concrete project but open to a maximum of collectives, this one in particular being focused on the coordination of the 15O Global Day.
The fourth international meeting (AgoraBrussels) was held from the 8 of October until the 15O Global Day, when millions of people took to the street s in almost 1000 cities around the world, setting up General Assemblies and Occupations. Although incomparable in their intensity to Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, Greece and Israel, the actions of 15O still were present in all the continents and in 82 countries.

Note: Under the strong cultural and mass-media influence of New York, movements in a lot of cities changed their name to “Occupy” and focused their action in denouncing the “1%” with anti-capitalist actions like the 5th. of November Bank Transfer Day, the RobinHood Tax March or the G20 counter summit and the occupation of other stock markets and banks in London, Zurich, Frankfurt…

2/ PRINCIPLES AND DEMANDS, AIMS OF THE MOVEMENT

2.1 Who are we at a local and global level?
Regarding our background we can conclude that we are:

a) Non-stop protests maintaining occupations, strikes, direct actions, information campaigns, day after day to apply real pressure on institutions (political, financial, military, environmental…) we want to reform or rebuild.

b) Communities including camps, squats, itinerant walkers, neighborhoods, eco-villages, co-operatives and alternative projects… self-managed by what we all recognize as the only real democratic process (horizontal, open to everybody, non-partisan, transparent, non-violent, inclusive…) through the General Assembly.

c) Working groups of people co-operating on specific projects (communication, direct action, outreach, international, economy…), revolving around:
- a nucleus of full time “focused” people who feel responsible of the reaching of the specific objectives of
- a “working group” which works and meets regularly and is sometimes joined by
- “occasional” people who cannot assist to the whole process but can contribute and execute specific tasks of projects made for the
- “interested” people who will be present on the day of the action/activity or will profit from the service given by the group but who don’t have the time to participate to the work (and might be “focused” on another group).

2.2 What do we want at a local and global level?

- The first and maybe only thing we all want is for power to be given back to the people, by joint-decision making. Because since the beginning of this movement we have always practiced and improved on this process, we now know what real democracy looks like and will only recognize a way of organization through self-management.

As a movement, we want to expand this process to a maximum of places around the world (15O plan or geographic expansion), creating and connecting a maximum of communities that work with it.
- We all agree that our methodology of assembly/consensus is the way to organize our communities and all the institutions that rule our lives (political, economical, educational, environmental…). Although there is a group who want to reform these institutions and make them adopt our process and another group who wish to create their own institutions from scratch, all the members of our movement want and recognize the same process (15M plan or systematic expansion).

2.3 What are our next concrete objectives at a local and global level?

a) Generalization of the non-stop protests:
A first phase of local convergence of struggles or “outreach” missions, (will) give way to the coordination of fights towards a sustained and general action which can be global.
Therefore, our direct action groups must firstly generalize the actions and, in collaboration with outreach groups, give a maximum of different sectors of the population (farmers, students, immigrants, workers, retired…) the tools to coordinate direct actions.

b) Generalization of the communities:
A first phase of linking/supporting/creating local co-operatives (will) give way to the coordination of those alternative projects in holistic co-operatives which can, in turn, be global or regional.
Therefore, our different public services and alternative projects have to collaborate in holistic platforms to answer to the needs of our communities (education, health, food, transport, culture…)

3/ 15M GLOBAL STRIKE AND SYSTEMATIC EXPANSION

Because it will be the working groups that do the concrete tasks of this project and not the assemblies or the communities, we have to divide the work in 4 steps which represent each of the elements of a working group.
And because we need responsible people to ensure the objectives are met, we always start with the focused people.

3.1 Focused people, from the global to the local agenda.

LOCAL
The first phase of the plan takes place from the present moment until AgoraRoma 14-18 of January.
The people who are currently reading, agreeing and feeling responsible of this plan (or at least of the first phase) have to focus on the first objective: The adaptation of the global plan to their local situation, by creating platforms that will allow for an exponential expansion of this project. Any one person (or a few people) could set up a group -hopefully before January 18-, consisting of at least one focused person on each of these areas:
Direct Action
Outreach
Labor
Communication
International (can be part of communication)
Economic alternatives
These people should meet with at least once a week until the end of the second phase.

Once this objective is reached, the focused people can either disappear, organize the spokes council, focus on another project, join a working group or go to work…

GLOBAL
This global plan will be presented during AgoraRoma for the participants will work on. Hopefully, focused people will add their input based on their local situations, both during and before the event, via Mailing List / N-1 / Facebook
The sophisticated project must be available in twenty days in as many languages as possible.
The international work is mostly virtual, and for this project consists on improving:

Global Communication, diffusion of our local information on global platforms and the global information on our local networks (Internet, papers, TV, radio…)
Global Organization, participating in the international coordination by at least joining the international meetings (either virtual ones or AgoraRoma, Hub Meeting, Akropolis2012) or reading the minutes, and giving out that information.
- Translation of information to one’s language.

Clearly, it would be enough for the focused people to find a minimum of one person responsible of each task.

3.2 Working groups, from the local agenda to concrete missions
The second phase of this project will last from AgoraRoma until the Hub Meeting of Bologna in March during the European action week.
During this phase we will debate this proposal locally in the different GA’s, make decisions and apply this global agenda through concrete local missions and working groups. Before the Hub meeting, the platforms or working groups should be created, with a minimum amount of people responsible of the coordination of the two objectives (generalization of the non-stop protests and of the communities). Here some ideas but the details have to be decided locally:
Direct Action: rural and student fights, industrial strikes, involve pensioners and public sector, etc.
Economic Alternatives: producer networks, exchange systems, banks of time, link co-operatives, etc.
Outreach: to neighborhoods, foreigner communities, artist collectives, etc.

At least one person focused on each area should meet once a week until the end of this third phase Once the working groups dedicated to concrete missions are created, the focused people can either disappear, organize the spokes council, focus on another project, join a working group or go to work…

The second Hub Meeting will take place in Bologna and will focus on the coordination of the 15M Global Strike. While AgoraRoma will open the theoretical debate, the main goal of the Hub meeting will be the practical coordination of transnational actions and co-operatives around May 15.

3.3 Occasional, from the working groups to concrete alternative projects

This third phase will start from the Hub Meeting until May 1st, with the help of #Akropolis2012 (April 1 to 15), where a lot of alternative projects and topics will be presented and debated to learn from each other and draw inspiration from other movements.
In this phase, the working groups work on linking concrete alternative projects into holistic co-operatives and concrete actions into general non-stop protests, involving the “occasional” people.
It’s an interesting phase because we can’t foresee the local or global situations but if we do our best, we will have, for the first time, concrete weapons against the 1% and concrete solutions for the 99%.
May of 2012 will bring with it big changes, the global movement will start to be increasingly coherent, and represent a real alternative. It will became dangerous to the old system and attractive for a big part of the population.
RevolutionS will be able to start…

3.4 Interested, involving the 99%

This last phase will start the May 1^st on the international May Day, and and will last indefinitely. To integrate the interested people and catch the attention of the non-interested, it will be divided in four steps.

Note: all the information presented on this document has been taken from the current global agenda and of course everyone is free to create more meetings and actions locally and to rise them to a global level.

May 1: General Assembly / Unite!
The major unions and political parties will meet during the morning and we cannot disturb this traditional ritual (partisan, vertical, opaque…), but we cannot miss this opportunity to give back this symbolic day to the 99%, making everybody converge in a big consensus meeting about the next days of action.
Therefore, part of our strategy will be to call to the General Assembly of the 99% (horizontal, transparent, open…) at the end of the day to decide on how we will continue the fight together. We will surely have a lot of support (especially from the anarchists and radical left unions), since the main announcement about the local/global plan for the 15M Global Strike is what everyone will be waiting for, and this will send a strong message to the traditional organizations: “support either the politician’s gathering or the people’s assembly“.
This assembly will start by going through the process and it‘s important to explain the need of self-management to everyone (to organize the fight, to coordinate alternatives, to take part of the decisions…) and how we exercise real democracy. This will be succeeded by feedback from the working groups, which will be the occasion to present the movement, its cooperative projects and action plans, and invite people to join a group. (for the actions of May 5, 12, 15…)
It will be useful to start a project from this symbolic assembly, for example the drafting of a common statement, the decentralization to neighborhood assemblies, a self-managed fund for the strike, creation of a central info point, marches to occupy working areas, etc

May 5: General Bank Transfer / Move Your Money!
To continue and dynamize this non-stop protest, the proposal is to start an international campaign for everybody to take their money out of the commercial banks and transfer it to ethic banks (bank account), credit unions (savings), or invest it in ethic or alternative economies, or build their own financial institution, we can also promote the strike fund.
This action will be coordinated not only by the “economic alternatives” working group, but also “communication” and “direct action”. There will be two fronts: firstly, taking the money out of the bankers’ elites, and secondly, making more money available to sustainable projects which will contribute to everyone’s interest and help to heal the world.
It will consist on a big information campaign, through texts, videos, conferences, actions, to denounce what traditional banks are doing with our money but also promote the financial alternatives and the projects they finance. We invite all the communities to open the debate locally, to share this materials and create new ones adapted to their local situations.

May 12: General Occupation / Act!
Because not everybody is able to strike, people have added the 12 of May to the next global day of action, meant for both strikers and supporters. The global movement will re-take the central squares, which is the best way to mobilize massively for the big Transition, and open platforms of coordination of fights and cooperatives.
Because we need maximum participation during the demonstration and the General Assembly to ensure a good occupation of the squares, it’s best to support it fully and perform all other occupations during the night, or previous or following days.

It’s important to organize the infrastructure and the action/resistance plan before the gathering. Remember not to be discouraged if an occupation doesn’t succeed on the first day, because, this being a global non-stop protest, we can always gather more strength and try again later. >May 15: General Strike

May 15: General Strike / Strike!
There are several options to give political content to this first global strike:
The most strategic, democratic and practical choice is to decentralize the actions, by inviting a maximum amount of sectors of the population to strike and create their own direct actions and with their own demands (both of which can be included as part of bigger, [more] general actions or statements). Every group of strikers will evaluate the duration of their actions and it’s important that they all have their voice during the GA’s from this day onwards, thus opening a big platform of struggles, both local and global, and inviting people to support other actions and demands.
Another option is to write a statement of shared local and/or global demand(s) or point(s) in common (such referendums, reforms of the democracy, the right to protest, etc) over the next five months. The GA of May 1st can be a good occasion to build a consensus on the final draft.
We cannot impose any action or political content for the Global Strike but we can propose a global demand from an international working group to all the assemblies.
Regarding the aim(s) of our movement (a movement of methodology before ideologies), if we were to make one single demand, it could be the sovereignty of the assemblies, our vision of the real democracy. This is very interesting, because we will invite, for example, the citizens in their squares and the workers in their factories to reclaim the sovereignty of their own assemblies as part of their occupation.
Both options are compatible, but, while it’s necessary to intensify the non-stop coordinated actions on one hand, we’ve learned that we also have to promote the co-operative projects on the other. Alternative projects include anti-authoritarian schools, people’s kitchens, kitchen gardens, credit unions, assemblies, self-managed factories, free shops and services, alternative media, etc., obviously working with our horizontal and transparent methodology.
Even such a traditional concept of Strike is being reinvented by our global movement, transformed into Transition Strike, Wikistrike or Strike 2.0, in which the workers/consumers who helped maintain the system stop to do so and apply their energies to alternative projects in a permanent flow or exodus towards the future.
On the agenda: expropriate public spaces (universities, hospitals, parliaments, squares…), means of production, natural resources, free energy, mass-media, etc., while we continue to create new projects and improve on the existing ones, in order to start and prolong this process of global change. The 15M isn’t the end, but the beginning of the transition.

strike, 15m, transition, unions, huelga, global, international, action, 12m

Last updated 20 days ago by niel

where was this text decided and when and by whom?

marita, from madrid

marita 25 days ago

Itś a proposal who can be modified here https://n-1.cc/pg/pages/view/1011418 and we have an end date for the difinitive version in this text (January 18), the only thing which be decided was the mission to write this call in different squares meeting.

niel 25 days ago

Hi Niel,

thanks for the text!

You have added a note to Part 1.1. to include Iceland and Greece in
the background text: this is a good idea!

But: you also suggest adding different movements like “Anonymous,
Zeitgeist, Wikileaks, Democracy Now, Reopen911 or Yes men”: I would
not add these, because there are so many more, so it does not make
sense to have an incomplete arbitrary list. And some people say that
Zeitgeist is linked to Scientology, I don’t know whether that is true
but it is surely not a good idea to add them…

cheers,
changenow

niel 25 days ago

Hi Niel,

I have a proposal for a distributed people’s global meeting, which I hope can be of interest to all this. I’m working with other people to take the idea around and refine it more. It will hopefully be presented at the upcoming dutch national occupy meeting, and I hope to find other people who can help with fleshing out the idea more and planning how to put it in action. May 1st would be a great first trial of this. here are some blogs where I’ve written a bit about it:

https://n-1.cc/pg/blog/read/1039040/a-peoples-global-meeting

https://n-1.cc/pg/blog/read/1075319/3-january-2012

“The people’s global meeting would be a distributed set of meetings happening simultaneously in a thousand or more cities across many thousands of interest groups, activist movements, groups of environmentalists, neighbourhood groups and just about any group you could imagine that takes some responsibility for its environment. I would like this initiative to begin in 2012. It will be my own individual proposal to put the pieces in place for this enormous occurrence by putting it forward to as many groups as I can to do a large scale “test” of it, and so lay the basis for the real thing.”

Please let me know any thoughts and if you know anyone who might be interested in helping,

and all the best with that brilliant initiative for May!

Ale

Skoria Radioattiva 23 days ago

tl;dr but in overview this text looks great

mikifus 19 days ago

Zeitgeist … un hoax del tamaño de un transatlantico http://chiabai.zarcrom.net/zeitgeist-hoax

http://antimperialista.blogia.com/2011/062501-informe-transforma-espana-organizar-el-caos-hacia-la-revolucion-neoliberal-y-el-.php

http://www.saboteamos.info/2011/06/16/acampada-sol-%C2%BFque-ha-sido-realmente-%C2%BFspanish-revolution-o-spanish-experiment/

kaosesahora 4 days ago

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Common Appeal for the Rescue of the Peoples of Europe

occupytotnes — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:40:44 +0000

Common Appeal for the Rescue of the Peoples of Europe

Mikis Theodorakis amd Manolis Glezos have issued this Appeal to the peoples of Europe

65 years after the defeat of nazism and fascism, European people are today confronting a dramatic threat, this time not military, but a financial, social and political one. A new “Empire of Money” has been systematically attacking one European country after another in the last 18 months, without facing any substantial resistance.

European governments not only fail to organize a collective defence of European people against the markets, but, instead, try to “calm” the markets by imposing policies that remind us of the way governments tried to confront nazism in the ’30s.

They organize “debt wars” between the peoples of Europe, just like when they were driven from the belle époque to World War 1. The offensive of the markets initiated a war against Greece, an EU member-state, whose people have played a decisive role in the resistance against barbarity and the liberation of European World War 2. In the beginning, this war was a communicative war, which reminded us of the campaigns against hostile, outcast countries, likeIraqorYugoslavia. This campaign presented Greece as a country of lazy and corrupted citizens, while attempting to blame the “PIIGS” of Europe and not the international banks for the debt crisis.

Shortly, this offensive evolved into a financial one, which caused the submission of Greece under a status of limited sovereignty and the intervention of the IMF to the internal affairs of the Eurozone.

When they got what they wanted fromGreece, the markets targeted the other, smaller or larger countries of the European periphery. The aim is one and common in all cases: The full guarantee of the interests of the banks against the states, the demolition of the European welfare state, which has been a cornerstone of European democracy and culture, the demolition of European states and the submission of the remaining state structures to the new “International of Money”.

The EU, which was presented to its peoples as a means for collective progress and democracy, tends to become the means for terminating prosperity and democracy. It was introduced as a means of resistance to globalization, but the markets wish it to be an instrument of this globalization.

It was introduced to German and other European peoples as a means of peaceful increase of their power and prosperity, but the way that all peoples are abandoned to be the pray of financial markets, destroys the image of Europe and turns the markets into actors of a new financial totalitarianism, into the new bosses of Europe.

We are facing the danger of repeating the financial equivalent of World War 1 and World War 2 in our continent and be dissolved into chaos and decomposition, in favor of an international Empire of Money and Weapons, in the economic epicentre of which lies the power of the markets.

The peoples of Europe and the world are facing a historically unprecedented concentration of financial but also political and media power by the international financial capital, ie by a handful of financial institutes, rating agencies and a political and media class redeemed by them, with more centers outside, than inside Europe. These are the markets that attack today in one European country after another, using the leverage of debt to demolish the European welfare state and democracy.

The “Empire of Money” now requires a fast, violent, brutal transformation of a Eurozone country, Greece, into a country of the third world, with a so-called program of “rescue”, in fact the “rescue” of banks who lent the country. In Greece, the alliance of banks and the political leaderships imposed -through the EU, the ECB and the IMF – a program that equals to “economic and social murder” of the country and its democracy, and organizes the looting of the country before the bankruptcy to which it leads, wishing to make it the scapegoat of the global financial crisis and use it as a “paradigm” to terrorize all European peoples.

The policy that is currently conducted in Greece and attempts to spread, is the same applied in Pinochet’s Chile, Yeltsin’s Russia or Argentina and will have the same results, if not discontinued immediately. As a result of a program that supposedly intended to help the country,Greeceis now on the verge of economic and social disaster; it is used as a guinea pig to study people’s reactions to social Darwinism and terrify the entire European Union, with what can happen to one of its members.

The markets may also be pushing and using the leadership of Germany in actions of destruction of the European Union. But it constitutes an act of extreme political and historical blindness for the dominant forces of the EU and first of all, forGermany, to think that there can be any project of European integration or even simple cooperation, on the ruins of one or moremembers of the Eurozone.

The planned demolition of major, globally significant political and social achievements of the European peoples, can not establish any kind of European Union. It will lead to chaos and disintegration and it will promote the emergence of fascist solutions in our continent.

In 2008 private banking giants of Wall Street forced the states and state banks to bail them out of the crisis they themselves created, by paying with the taxpayers’ money the cost of their enormous fraud, such as mortgages, but also the operational cost of an unregulated casino-capitalism, imposed in the last twenty years. They turned their own crisis into a public debt crisis.

Now they are using the crisis and debt, which they themselves created, to deprive the states and the citizens of the few powers they still hold.

This is one part of the debt crisis. The other is that financial capital, together with the political forces supporting it globally, imposed an agenda of neoliberal globalization, which inevitably leads to the relocation of production outside Europe and the downward convergence of social and ecological standards of Europe with those of the Third World. For many years they hid this process behind loans, but now they use the loans to complete it.

The “International of Money”, that wishes to eliminate any notion of state in Europe, threatens Greece today, Italy or Portugal tomorrow; it encourages the confrontation among European peoples and puts the European Union before the dilemma whether to transform into a dictatorship of the markets or to dissolve. It aims at makingEuropeand the world to regress in a state like the one before 1945, or even before the French Revolution and the Enlightenment

In ancient times, the abolition, by Solon, of the debts which forced the poor to be slaves of the rich, the so-called Seisachtheia reform, laid the foundations for the birth, in ancientGreece, of the ideas of democracy, citizenship, politics andEurope, the foundations of European and world culture.

Struggling against the class of wealth, the citizens of Athens led the way in the constitution of Pericles and the political philosophy of Protagoras, who declared that “Man is the measure above all money”.

Today, the wealthy classes are attempting to avenge this spirit of man: “The markets are the measure above all men” is the motto that our political leaderships willingly embrace, in alliance with the devil of money, as Faust did.

A handful of international banks, rating agencies, investment funds, a global

concentration of financial capital without historical precedent, claims power in

Europe and the world and prepares to abolish the states and our democracy, using the weapon of debt to enslave the peoples of Europe, putting in place of the incomplete democracy we have, the dictatorship of Money and Banks; the power of a totalitarian empire of globalization, the political center of which is outside continental Europe, despite the presence of powerful European banks at the heart of the empire.

They started fromGreece, using it as a guinea pig, to move then to the other countries of the European periphery, and gradually to the center. The hope of some European countries to eventually escape, just proves that today’s European leaders face the threat of a new “financial fascism”, not better than the way they faced the threat of Hitler during the inter-war period.

It is not by accident that a big part of the media controlled by bankers chose to attack against the European periphery, by naming these countries as “pigs”, and also turned to a contemptuous, sadistic, racist campaign of the media they own, not only against the Greeks, but against the ancient Greek heritage and the ancient Greek civilization.

This choice shows the deeper, underlying goals of the ideology and the values of financial capital, which promotes capitalism of destruction.

The attempt of a part of the German media to humiliate symbols such as the

Acropolis or the Venus de Milo, monuments which were respected even by Hitler’s officers, is nothing but an expression of the deep disdain of bankers, who control these media, not so much against the Greeks, but mainly against the ideas of freedom and democracy, which were born in this country.

The financial monster produced four decades of tax exemption for the capital, all kinds of “market liberalization”, widespread deregulation, abolition of all barriers to the flows of capital and commodities, constant attacks against the state, massive acquisition of political parties and media, ownership of the global surplus from a handful of vampire-banks of Wall Street. Now, this monster, a true “state behind the States”, is revealed claiming the completion of the financial and political “permanent coup d’ etat”, carried out for over than four decades.

Facing this attack, the political forces of the European right-wing and social democracy seem compromised after decades of “entryism” by financial capital, the most important centers of which are non-European. On the other hand, trade-unions and social movements are still not strong enough to block this attack decisively, like they repeatedly did in the past. The new financial totalitarianism seeks to take advantage of this situation, in order to impose finite, irreversible conditions across Europe.

There is an urgent need for an immediate, cross-border coordination of action by intellectuals, people of the arts and literature, spontaneous movements, social forces and personalities who comprehend the importance of the stakes; we need to create a powerful front of resistance against the advancing “totalitarian empire of globalization”, before it is too late.

Europecan survive only if we promote a united response against the markets, a challenge bigger than theirs, a new European «New Deal».

We must immediately stop the attack againstGreeceand other countries of the EU periphery; we must stop the irresponsible and criminal policy of austerity and privatization, which leads directly to a crisis deeper than the one of 1929.
Public debts must be radically restructured across the Eurozone, particularly on the expense of the private banking giants. Banks must be re-controlled and the financing of European economy must be under national and European social control. It is not possible to let the financial keys ofEuropein the hands of banks like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, UBS, the Deutsche Bank etc. We must ban the uncontrolled financial derivatives, which are the spearhead of the destructive financial capitalism, and create real economic development, instead of speculative profits.
The present architecture, based on the Maastricht Treaty and the WTO rules, has established a debt production machine inEurope. We need a radical change of all Treaties, the submission of the ECB under political control by the European peoples, a “golden rule” for minimum social, fiscal, environmental standards inEurope. We urgently need a change of paradigm; a return to the stimulation of growth through the stimulation of demand, via new European investment programs, a new regulation, taxation and control of international capital and commodities flows; a new form of smart and reasonable protectionism in an independent Europe, which will be the protagonist in the fight for a multipolar, democratic, ecological, social planet.

We appeal to the forces and individuals who share these ideas, to converge into a broad, European front of action as soon as possible; to produce a European transitional program, to coordinate our international action, so as to mobilize the forces of the popular movement, to reverse the current balance of power and overthrow the current historically irresponsible leaderships of our countries, in order to save our people and our societies before it is too late for Europe.

Athens, October 2011

MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

occupytotnes — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:17:21 +0000

Indeed. Here is a proposed call-out from the National Sheffield Conference; note it is still a work in progress but these are the dates we are working on to build for May15th, using the other call-out (including Chicago) to get the UK ball of mobilization rolling. I propose we discuss this a little bit on Saturday!

Ragnhild x

——

MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

1^st May is International Worker’s Day, a day when millions of people all over the world assemble to bring attention to their conditions and right to meaningful work. This year, marches will be held in hundreds of countries and thousands of cities as the workers and families refuse to pay for the economic crises caused by greedy bankers and corrupt politicians.

Times are hard. Jobs are cut, the social divide is growing, our essential services are being wiped out or else scraping for pennies. Schools, hospitals, and libraries are being closed.

We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. Cuts will not tackle the fundamental problems in our economy – but they will make the challenges our communities face much, much worse.

It is up to us to solve the problem.

This year, more than ever, Occupy calls on all workers – be they in the public or private sector, freelance or contract, employed or underemployed, full time or part time, paid or unpaid, in the home or out of if – to come together, discuss the issues that affect them and formulate plans for effective action. There are alternatives to living in the current financial system, that also provide necessary jobs and sustainable services.

We are proposing Occupy Mayday as start to a fortnight in which we will Occupy Work, focusing on social and economic justice as a viable alternative – locally, nationwide, and worldwide.

On 1^stMay, in solidarity with workers worldwide, we call for actions, small or large, to mark that people across the world stand together.

This year, the British May Day Bank Holiday falls on the 7^th. We will join unions across the country, as working people from all backgrounds, occupations, ethnic groups and current conditions.

12^th May will be a day of mass outreach, a weekend of building awareness and momentum. We will encourage local groups and communities to come together. Occupy Everywhere.

On 15^th May, as the Spanish movement turns one year old, a mass strike is called worldwide. A march from Spain to Athens has already started, growing in numbers and engaging communities along their route.

As the marchers arrive in Athens, the cradle of democracy, we will join them in our own ways, in our countries. We must focus on the issues that underlie the current economic conditions; and how we can change them.

We must set aside time for this discussion. We call on everyone to join us on 15^th May: stride out of your offices, classrooms, homes and pubs. Together we can discuss what we have lost – how the crisis affects us all, from town to city, country to country. This is a discussion the G8 will not be having when they meet in Chicago on the 19^th May. We must decide what actions are needed in order to build the world we want.

Its time to frame the future. Join us.

Global Day of Action

occupytotnes — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:06:02 +0000

Throughout this period of insurrection, from Iceland to the latest upheavals in Russia and Hungary, if anything has become clear is the advanced state of decay of political systems and their mechanisms of representation ( they do not represent us!), as well as / And their subservience to capitalist command (rescue the people not the banks!)

In 2011 we took to the streets, we recovered our voice in public spaces to meet and share our dreams. We came together to make it clear that we are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers, who precarize austerity policies further our lives and claim our fellow Greeks: we are not in debt, we do not pay, we do not sell ourselves!

But what is even more important, we also share the desire to re-appropriation of our lives and commons goods through direct participation and joint management, and ultimately the desire for a true democracy in the service of the common.

Following discussions in international forums, on-line and/as well as face to face, it was decided that 12th May should be the next global action day, and May 15, the day of a new transnational form of mobilization.

Saturday 12M is proposed as a global day of action in which we again take to the streets, either to take the squares, or for carrying out specific actions that empower mass demonstrations

In contrast, the 15M is intended as a global day of action, intervening on capital flows and mobility, while coordinating actions are launched carrying the world to start walking in a new direction. It’s about building a new imagery to define new human relationships, economic, social, to provide us with the transformation of power relations between governments, capitalist rule and societies.

For stimulating this process is proposed to convene a meeting (English / Castilian) in Mumble on Saturday January 28th.

Agenda: https://n-1.cc/pg/pages/view/1113990

How to use Mumble: http://takethesquare.net/2011/10/04/mumble-setup-walkthrough/

Server: tomalaplaza.net

Room: #12M12 #15M12

Saturday January 28th:

11:00 (UTC-8) West Coast of USA

12:00 (UTC-7 MST, Arizona…)

13:00 (UTC-6 Chicago,Texas)

14:00 (UTC-5 New York/DC)

16:00 (UTC-6 East Coast of Brazil)

19:00 (UTC+0 Canarias and UK)

20:00 (UTC+1 Europe)

23:00 (UTC+3 Western Africa)

This post is also available in: Spanish

GA 23/01/2012

occupytotnes — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:48:04 +0000

Agenda

1 Long term plans for an Occupy Totnes camp

Committment to the GA proposal to do an Occupy camp over the 4 days of Easter weekend and then continue on all through the summer.

Need to have a team of committed activists who will maintain the camp and the tranquility shifts, probably about 20 core residents and 100 supporting members of the community.

Different locations for the camp were discussed and one main site identified with a need for secrecy for obvious reasons.

The importance of growing support for the Occupy Totnes movement and getting young people involved with music and creative arts events at weekends as well as GAs, kitchen tent, library, cinema etc

Council, police and community reactions were discussed, it was agreed that our action should not annoy our local community or interfere with their business livelihood as we are all 99% but we are a non-violent civil disobedience movement and we will not concede to property eviction notices served by our council for occupying public space.

2 Mission statement

The need for a simple Mission statement was discussed. Some people felt we should refer to the National Occupy mission statement. It was agreed that we check out the internet for the Mission statement plus add our own expression as well and bring our ideas and research to the next GA.

3 Facebook page

A Facebook page for Occupy Totnes will be set up as the outreach broadcast elemnt of our FB presence. The Occupy Totnes group will be used more for group communication while the Occupy Totnes community Page will be used for general educational and informational postings and videos and links etc

4 Lectures Ongoing

The small attendance at the workshop on Friday 20th was discussed and how to move forward with our educational events. There is an Event team meeting every Thursday at 6pm at the Bay Horse pub for all people who are interested in participating in creating and holding events , video showings, workshops etc

5 Occupy London personal experience

Ian recounted a personal experience of his visit to Occupy London

6 How to grow support for Occupy Totnes

Different ideas were discussed including an event in March with music plus other direct actions such as street procession. It was agreed that the main support building event will be the Occupy camp itself when that happens but we must attract more committed members in order for it to be practical

7 Party in March

There will be a party in March for Occupy Totnes members

The next GA will be next Monday 30th January at 6pm at the bay Horse pub, all are welcome, please tell people and invite them.

GA 9/1/2012

occupytotnes — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:51:39 +0000

The GA discussed the following agenda

1 Venue for meetings

We agreed to check out the possibility of using the room above Barclays bank, the room above Dartmouth Inn, Church halls, Red Wizard cafe. Venues to be researched by different people and report back next week.

2 Support for Occupy Exeter

peter to coordinate a possible weekly visit to Occupy Exeter with 2 to 4 people to cover night time tranquility shift for them from 12 midnight to 6am once a week or fortnight depending on volunteers coming forward. Team volunteers for this visit to be pre-arranged vis Facebook group.

3 Vision and ideas for permanent occupy Totnes camp (carried over to nextb week due to time restrictions)

4 Interrogate festival

Christopher to talk to Celia and report back next week as to possibility of Occupy Totnes participating in this event

5 Wednesday market square pop up information and video events

It was agreed the wednesday events should continue but more support needed and this week it will not happen

6 One day education and publicity event in February

This event will be discussed at the weekly event meeting at 6pm on Thursday at the Bay Horse

7 Facebook presence and communications media

Peter will set up a Facebook Page to separate Group communications and arrangements from educational and informat videos and posts of a general nature which will go on the Page in future

Next GA at 6pm to 7-30pm on Monday 16th Jan at the Bay Horse pub