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I know we've been occupying LA for a long time now but it's so important that we show ourselves now.
“JPMorgan Chase recently donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation. The gift was the largest in the history of the foundation and will enable the New York City Police Department to strengthen security in the Big Apple."
The next day, 700 protesters were instructed to go on to Brooklyn bridge where 700 people were then arrested.
Don't be mistaken. We are at war now and we are all soldiers. This could become the greatest civil war in American history The People vs. Corporations; The 99% vs. the 1% WE CAN WIN but we must show that we are present. Organize rides there, show up, camp, bring food for others. DO WHATEVER YOU CAN.
If you are feed up; If you don't want to take the bullshit anymore; If you want to live a life free of fear LET YOURSELF BE HEARD. DAMN THE COMFORTS OF CORPORATE SLAVERY! LET FREEDOM RING
Long live the opposition! Down with the corporatocracy! It's about time.
Really curious what the protesters in NY were charged with. Also hope they will all sue the city for the atrocious 3rd world conditions they were forced to endure while under arrest for exercising their Constitutional rights to public assembly and free speech.
How long till we see straight up martial law in the streets? Curfews? This country is looking more and more a joke, to us from within and to the world from without. Hell's bells, look what our parents left us... hopefully there is still a way out before the hammer of authority slams every door shut.
when you are fighting a war, one way to defeat the enemy is to knock off its supply line.
In this war the 1% is supplied with the 99% money. Take away the 99% money and the 1% ceases to exist.
#1. Remove your liquid financial capital from the enemy institutions. Do you have a bank account with JPMorgan Chase, BOA, Citigroup, Wells Fargo? Remove your money and close the account. Find a local bank or credit union to do your banking. Atm fees might be higher, but nowhere near the amount these banks are debasing your money.
#2 Do you have large amounts of money in a large retirement account, or a 401K ? If these investment our supporting the actions of the enemy, remove the money or if it is an IRA, find a business that is creating the world you want to live in that supports a better life for the 99% and invest with those business. If you can't invest in way a that is supportive of the 99%, through the IRA, then withdrawal the money, pay the tax and invest in a way that you see fit.
Many of the financial instruments that big retirement funds have available to grow that money are only provided by the Big Wall Street Firms (such as Goldman Sach). There is a set percentage amount of those retirement funds that by law must invested in the market.
Instead of holding a sign on the corner, go your retirement funds membership meetings and convince the board who invest your funds to find other ways to make the money grow, ways that are healthier and support a better life 99%.
Take the time to learn finance and learn how to invest your money yourself.
#3 Stop spending your money on things that support the 1%'s businesses. Usually they are selling you things that are unhealthy for you.
Do these three things and get the rest of the 99% to follow you will choke off the 1%
I've gotten most of my family to pull their money out of their banks (chase and b of a) and found a credit union to put it in. This is the best way to begin the fight back.
July responding to a comment by TheBrownShirt
10.3.11 - 7:41 pm
Really curious what the protesters in NY were charged with.
The standard charge for mass arrestees during RNC '04 was one count Disorderly Conduct, two counts Parading Without a Permit. For everybody.
Also hope they will all sue the city for the atrocious 3rd world conditions they were forced to endure while under arrest for exercising their Constitutional rights to public assembly and free speech.
They will. And, again using '04 as a yardstick, there will be a chance of an actual trial in approximately seven years.
PC responding to a comment by outerspace
10.4.11 - 2:22 am
nice! General assembly meeting is at 7pm. If any of you have extra "crappy" bikes that you don't want, please consider donating them to the Bike Share program.
Roadblock responding to a comment by liquidpremium
10.4.11 - 9:34 am
If you live in Hollywood zip codes, check out the Musicians' Interguild Credit Union where you can do your banking next to grizzled session players making jokes about tiny royalty checks. Maybe if they get more cyclists banking there, they'll stop being dicks about where I lock up my bike when I visit them. Other than the bike thing I've been really happy with them.
Stop consuming "enriched", corn, or processed soy products. Our bodies can't process them and slow us down.
Definitely take your money out of the banks and into the credit unions
buy locally
learn and teach how to become independent of industry.
Come to the FMLY general meeting on Sunday and discuss how we can support eachother in the fight. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=103876639723142
I have used both Water and Power Credit Union and Premiere.
WPCU is not listed in the moveyourmoneyproject.com link.
My experience with WPCU has been great for me. I have heard of other members having misunderstanding with this credit union to where they discontinued the account. I know my significant other has low funds and sometimes have insufficient fund issues with WPCU. WPCU has bent over backward and cancelled fees and charges my S.O. many times over. . I have been a member for over 20 years and I'am grandfather into so policy that new members may not be privileged to. I would take fees and limits into consideration if you where to consider this CU. I have never had any problems and would suggest this credit union. They have never given me a hard time about withdrawing any amount of money. I have heard horror stories about banks not wanting to let people withdrawal the cash in their accounts.
Which leads me to Premiere CU. I have family members and clients that have accounts with Premiere and they have this BS rule about not allowing me to get more then $2500 per day. If I have a check for over $2500, they give me the $2500 cash and cashier check for the rest. They make me come back the next day. Very uncool and inconvenient. I see this as a really bad sign of an institution that has leveraged much of it's members funds to where they make it hard for a person to get there own liquid cash. My parents opened an account for me when I was a baby when this was Littion CU. Some time back they changed there policy that any account under $100 would be charged a fee of whatever the amount was for amounts less then $100. This happened during a time when I was in difficult financial times. I didn't have much money in my account at the time they changed the policy, so I was ignoring my statements. One day I get a special letter from them saying I owed $xXx amount of dollars for not having enough money in my account. Not only did they steal all of the little bit of money I had, they sent me a bill on top of it. Needless to say I closed that account.
Now when I go into Premier CU they always ask if I have an account and when I tell them no, they ask me if I want to open an account. Needless to say, every employee has gotten a verbal strangulation from me for that proposition. Now they all know not to bother asking.
If a institution has a limit to how much of your own money you can withdrawal or they are always asking if you want to open an account, (or offer money to open an account as JP Morgan Chase does) that should be a warning sign to keep your money out of that institution.
I have looked at Pacomia CU and I'm very impressed with that institution.
if you went to a local university you may be eligible for their credit union.
UCLA has a CU but if you're not already a member, you just need to join the Alumni Assoc. I believe USC has one too, but I think they're also part of the 1%.
HELP!!! After you all moved your money out of banks the credit unions became super powerful and stole everything from us! They're eating all our babies.
Time to Make Wall St Bank Pay Mobilization - Thurs, 10/6, 11:30 AM
Posted by Nathan Henderson-James 5pc on September 22, 2011 · Flag
Over 1000 homeowners will be marching through the street into the offices of a major bank and demanding that “Wall Street Banks Pay”.
WHEN
October 06, 2011 at 11:30 AM
WHERE
California Plaza, 350 S. Grand
Los Angeles, CA 90071
keep in mind, getting beat with a baton is not a goal. the police will be more than happy to have a reason (or not) to use their weapons. keep it peaceful.
Self defeating, no? Marching into a business place to make demands doesn't make much sense to me in a legal sense. It's basically asking the cops to take you in. You should know this.
I think the occupy concept is working and it should continue to grow.
First, I think Egyptians are tired of and offended by the comparisons. The threat they faced was for more intimidating. I think we need to give credit where credit is due. Egypt did their thing; US should do their thing. On Sat of last week, we tried bring up the problems of gender issues, hierarchy, classism, the Occupy LA name (LA is already occupied), and more to the GA, along with the problem of people co-opting the revolts overseas.
I bring this up to say -- the potential beauty in OLA resides in that the process can be organic and horizontal. It's extremely difficult to maintain a pure, horizontal, and consensus based structure with mass groups. In the event we realize decisions, etc, from such a structure it is both a real-time statement to the public that there are alternative ways to conduct ourselves and an empowering process for the participants to engage in.
People who have not dabbled in such processes, tend to get the most frustrated because they want shit to be expedited and usually majority rule (in it's best moral form). Majority rule though will always marginalize the few and disempower them. Consensus seeks to equalize that power and prevent domination or oppression.
If you have time -- get engaged with the process, and remind the participants to hold true to a horizontal format. Once hierarchies form it tends to diminish a leaderless movement (think LACM). Some think hierarchies are inevitable and needed, but then (as my rant is intended to address), you tend to lose alternative voices, like Mr. Borfo, who would say -- you're leading us to arrest and beatdowns.
I think Borfos point is valid.
So then,
About the banks. I'm not organizing this march. I do agree with your skepticism about direct action of this sort. There will always be young idealistic (usually empowered and white) kids ready to lead people to their arrest or beat down in Los Angeles. My understanding so far is that MBPC has been peaceful though direct with their actions.
Truly, look at NY and SF, you can't really predict what police will do. I'm going and that's just how it's gonna roll for me today.
OLA needs to march; they need to demonstrate. City Hall is not a place for the camp-in (imo). It's a good spot, but there's little foot traffic. They need to march, take it to the banks, etc.
As you know any march will have it's hot-headed, ready for the violent take over revolutionaries. It's important to know where you stand on this stuff, because you DON'T have to march INTO a bank, you DON'T have to throw stones, molotov cocktails, or your face on the cement while being arrested to prove your revolutionary status or earn your stripes.
Overall, I'm not going bullshit an answer. I'm not interested in getting arrest or beatdown. I think people need to choose for themselves if they want to march today and hopefully I've given a bit of context about why I'm still going.
Look, Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
I have heard news pundits bristle at the comparison between the "Arab sprig" and OWS and pretend take offense on behalf of people in egypt & libya. But when whenever i hear somebody from the region asked a direct questions about the comparison.
They are generally very enthusiastic about what OWS is doing and generally feel honored and flattered to having helped be apart of the inspiration of this movement.
there were and are Egyptians at city hall who, as I noted, wanted to make clear that they didn't like the comparisons. Are they upset that people find inspiration? No. What seems to bother some is that we're trying to copy what happened over there. It's not worth arguing over, but you'll hear this shit on the ground a lot.
the demonstration today was pretty big. some seemed bent on getting arrested, and some did.
The campsite is filling up too.
markd responding to a comment by trickmilla
10.6.11 - 3:38 pm
I can see why Arabs would take offence to the comparisons, mostly because their freedoms were repressed way more than ours - but to be honest, having been at the wrong end of the law on both sides of this country - the conduct of the NYPD/LAPD and many other police departments in this nation is comparable to organized crime.
I know the systematic harassment and violence against law abiding citizens that I have witnessed can't compare to secret police dragging family members away for a twitter post - but when you see 'crooked cops' behaving this way for 26 years, on both sides of the country, it makes you wonder who they are really trying to protect. (and if there is such thing as a 'good cop' anymore) Amadou Diallo to Abner Louima to Rodney King to Kelly Thomas - it never ends.
"The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control- to make money - by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice." -Derrick Jensen
Watch as time passes the protest will get squashed by the Military / and Police.
The reality is the rich run this country and when the protest start costing them money
action will be taken, They laugh at the protesters with their signs. The real change will come when Americans grow some and use their second amendment rights.
only if it gets big and starts to occupy commercial areas. they dont care about a bunch of "hippies" sitting outside city hall. winter is coming too...
Roadblock responding to a comment by Dedicated818
10.6.11 - 11:40 pm
HEY GUYS, I JUST POSTED A RIDE TO HELP OUT OUR FELLOW BROTHERS AND SISTER AT OCCUPY LA. PLEASE JOIN US !!! BRING WHATEVER YOU CAN THAT U THINK CAN BE USE ABLE THERE.
some of those hippie "organizers" there were surprisingly very elitist.. I went yesterday to just check things out at the camp and the person at the MEDIA tent(looked like she had oral herpes) wouldn't tell me anything and brushed me off saying she was "busy". Doing nothing.
then i went back to her and showed her one of the LA TIMES front page clippings of when ridazz(including RB) were standing on the very same steps they now occupy and i said, "youve been here a couple days, but some of us have been fighting in this same place for years now". she stared at me absolutely dumbfounded with her rotting mouth gaping, and I just rode away back up the hill.
Just as I tried to elaborate on in reply to Borfo (he has risen??), we should try to view OLA as being more organic than not. What I'm hoping to get at is that we need to see ourselves as able to contribute and as having a valid voice. Just because one or many people strike you as being elitist, leaders, arrogant, etc, does not mean you should walk away (well there's some grey area there that I would agree with).
Anyhow, bring this shit up at the GA, talk to the media committee, or join it.
The grey area is this and I sympathize with it entirely. Once the ball gets rolling, if the momentum is so strong it would take a massive amount of time and energy to curb some significant structural flaw, then I don't see any problem with people walking away.
Right now, I think we can keep the group sharp, humble, flexible, and horizontal. We need more than criticisms, so if you attend, at least try to talk to committee members and ask them to listen to your concern. Try to be nice and try to thank them for taking up the cause. Many are stressed, overwhelmed, and are getting hammered for not being perfect.
Now, reply with your movie quote a la Borfo. Or should I say TV quote?
markd responding to a comment by profoscurity
10.7.11 - 12:50 pm
Watching this whole thing unfolds make obvious the biggest problem in this country...
"we really don't know how to talk and listen to one another"
examples:
People who are trying to organize, with people who are trying to understand what is happening.
The suppose OWS demands (don't know if those demands have really came from the GS of OWS or not) and the knee jerk responses people (blog/media personalities) have to them.
Just trying to talk to a friend about Raw Milk in the content of overall Population safety vs. individual freedom
This is a great opportunity to dialogue what is happening, how we got here and what to do about it (in regards to the financial mess this country is in). Attacking each other is not going to help at all.
We need to relaxes and really find out what has happened. Discovery of this situation will take much effort on everybody part, (not just listening to sound clip on DemocracyNow or FOXNews and thinking you know whats going on). I have spent the last three years using all my free time to study this issue. It is not easy to understand, there is so much misinformation to sift through.
I hope that the organizers of these events will take days off to go home be with other love ones to relax, reflex and recuperate from taking these actions. Then coming back to the occupation fresh and ready to go. Trying to camp out in front of city hall or on a plaza is a tough existence. Then trying to be politically active at the same time looks to me to be a recipe for disaster. People need breaks, that why are ancestors fought for the eight hour day. Please don't burn yourself out on this. This is a long struggle we as a people, a nation need to work through. It not going to happen in a few short months.
You might have to help me understand what your fighting for.Today when I was at Occupy LA all I seen was corporate america all over the lawn tents bought at corporate store sign made up that were bought at corporate store.Even the tents had corporation names on them for all to see.You wear there clothes you sleep in there tents you make signs up from stuff bought at there stores hell I even seen food that was bought from corporate america stores and after all of this you say fuck corporate america thats FUNNY ..........
Today when I was at Occupy LA all I seen was corporate america all over the lawn tents bought at corporate store sign made up that were bought at corporate store.Even the tents had corporation names on them for all to see.You wear there clothes you sleep in there tents you make signs up from stuff bought at there stores hell I even seen food that was bought from corporate america stores and after all of this you say fuck corporate america thats FUNNY .........
No, it's just a fact. Whether you find it a meaningful fact depends on whether you harbor the childish belief that people engaged in struggle are required to hamper themselves by refusing to employ in that struggle any physical object that is, for lack of a better word, tainted by its "enemy" origin.
PC responding to a comment by crossbones
10.11.11 - 9:55 pm
We are not trying to reinvent the wheel here. We're trying to hold corporate elites accountable for their actions and keep government away from keeping them afloat. All that "bail-out" capital should go to benefit the needs of society rather than keeping the rich in charge. Strategy and Reality need to be embraced in order to make progress towards a successful turn in our favor. I wonder how you are able to use the internet without having paid a corporation to provide you access. Glad you think it's so funny though. Haha ha ha ha ha dot com
Joe Borfo responding to a comment by crossbones
10.11.11 - 11:22 pm
so far SFVFNB has made three occasional donation drops to the "Food Tent" consisting of fruits, veggies, bagels, water, poster paints, paper, and cardboard. on top of their regular self-appointed committments.
Even the people who dress up in costumes get a little speechless by other people who wear different costumes. In this situation the person who wears the costume of the "International Controllers and Killers" trumped the costume wearer of "The Domestic Controllers and Killers".
It just goes to show that everybody has to have some level of consciousness
to justify playing the role of slave patrol.
I appreciate what everyone is doing downtown and across the country, but the hater in me has to say that these protests are too little too late.
People need to stop pussy footing around the reality of the situation - capitalism has failed us. It's a broken system that is dependent on violence to survive. Aside form a complete break down of industrial civilization, the only answer I can see is democratic socialism. putting the means of production in the hands of the workers instead of a few psychopaths might keep this social experiment we call America running for a few more years.
the only answer I can see is democratic socialism.
newwarkhouse
Keep searching my friend. Socialism just keeps you a slave. Capitalism isn't the problem in this system. Criminality from unethical sick people is the problem. Stop doing business with the criminal, and create your own avenues of exchange. This is what will eventually have to happen. Might as well start now.
This. I have people at work asking me about 401ks all the fucking time (why me??? Cause I'm the IT guy and they have to sign up online). I give them this exact spiel and they are always like, "Whatever, you are young, you don't understand." I'm not the one asking the IT guy for financial advice.
My mom turned against Occupy recently cause she can't seem to stop watching CNN for 2 seconds. Fuck.
jeshii responding to a comment by TheBrownShirt
11.1.11 - 1:48 pm
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Ridazz Roulette!
