Since June 1967, Israel maintained total domination over Occupied Palestine.

Lawlessly, it includes controlling essential resources, air space, Gaza’s coastal waters, borders, who’s allowed to cross them, political, economic, and financial activities, internal movement, public assembly and speech, Palestine’s population registry, private property by seizures or demolition, and, of course, land.

Priority one is stealing it. Palestinians are forcibly dispossessed and displaced to expand settlements and for other development. Israel wants all valued parts as well as Jerusalem as its exclusive capital.

Overall, settlements, closed military zones, Jewish commercial areas, and others earmarked for development account for over 40% of West Bank land.

Since 1967, Israel established 121 settlements. Another 100 unauthorized outposts exist. In addition, Israel calls 12 annexed Jerusalem neighborhoods settlements. Settler enclaves also exist in Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Yet international law is clear. Fourth Geneva’s Article 49 states:

“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Moreover, in July 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled:

“Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development.” In addition, they’ve “been established in breach of international law” on sovereign Palestinian territory.

On March 22, Haaretz headlined, “UN human rights body to probe Israel’s settlement activities in West Bank,” saying:

The 47-member Human Rights Council (HRC) overwhelmingly approved a resolution to investigate what long ago should have been condemned. Russia and China were among 36 states voting yes. Ten nations abstained. America alone voted no.

The measure also called for Israel to disarm settlers and enforce criminal sanctions to protect Palestinians and their property. A three-member team will be named at a later date.

HRC is “charged with evaluating the effects of Israeli settlement construction on Palestinian human rights in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

The text of its decision states:

It will “dispatch an independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

The decision also called on Israel “not to obstruct the process of investigation and to cooperate fully with the mission.”

Netanyahu called the HRC a “hypocritical council with an automatic majority against Israel.”

Israel’s Geneva ambassador, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, said “I am still stunned by the hypocrisy of the Human Rights Council. This council itself is adding fuel to the fire and fanning the flames which it should be trying to put out. Today will not be remembered as a great day for this council.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said:

“The Palestinians must understand that they can’t have it both ways: they can’t enjoy cooperation with Israel and at the same time initiate political clashes in international forums. Had the Palestinians wanted to solve the settlements issue, they would resume without delay a direct and unconditional negotiation on all core issues within the framework of a comprehensive agreement.”

Palestinian UN ambassador Ibrahim Khraishisaid said “when we see that Israel hasn’t stopped taking over our lands, we must act. If this situation continues, how will we be able to apply a two-state solution? The occupying power is violating international land….one day there will even be limits on the air that we breathe.”

Syria’s ambassador called settlement construction “piracy.”

Washington called the decision “one-sided and biased.”

For 45 years and counting, Israel occupied Palestine lawlessly. It dominates by state terror. Palestinians have no rights. Oppression is official policy. So is stealing all valued land and resources.

So far, it’s gotten away with it. Investigations won’t help, but if thoroughly pursued with follow-through it’s a good start perhaps.

As expected, Israel responded provocatively by severing ties with the HRC. According to Haaretz on March 27, ambassador Leshno-Yaar hadn’t yet gotten instructions on how to proceed.

Diplomats in Jerusalem and Geneva “were embarrassed by their inability to answer questions about the decision from reporters and foreign diplomats.”

Israel’s not an HRC member. It doesn’t matter either way. An unnamed “senior source” said “we will not allow visits from HRC members to Israel, and our ambassador has been instructed not to even answer phone calls from them.”

“The Human Rights Council secretariat and the commissioner, Navi Pillay, led the move to establish the investigative committee on settlements, which is why we will not work with them anymore or appear before the council.”

Austria and Belgium were the only EU nations voting yes. Israel responded by summoning their ambassadors to the Foreign Ministry for reprimands. Israel’s Deputy Director-General for Europe Rafi Shotz said:

“You assisted the politicization of the Human Rights Council and enabled a decision that will make only worsen relations between Israel and the Palestinians.”

Israeli lawlessness is egregious and longstanding. When criticized, it responds provocatively or like Captain Renault expressing shock about gambling at Rick’s from the film Casablanca – as Emile hands him his winnings and he thanks him.

It also retaliates against Palestinians unable to contest its abusive power. On March 25, Haaretz headlined, “Israel mulls ways to penalize PA in wake of UN human rights probe,” saying:

Sanctions are being considered, including freezing tax revenues to deprive the PA of vital funds needed to provide basic services. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz support the move.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials and others close to Netanyahu said HRC panel members are barred from entering Israel. Expect their investigation to proceed anyway.

Al Haq welcomed it, saying:

Israel’s refusal to cooperate “begs the question of what (it’s) afraid the fact-finding mission will reveal.”

No matter. International support is essential. It’s mostly needed to implement recommendations “without delay.” Otherwise expect another futile exercise like so many previous ones.

Words without teeth are worthless. Israel’s further emboldened to dominate ruthlessly, act violently, obstruct justice, prevent Palestinian self-determination, and assure peace process hypocrisy continues.

For decades, Israel remained unaccountable. It “benefit(s) from a climate of impunity, while the international community” yawns and does nothing. It’s high time that changed.

A Final Comment

On March 27, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, reported on human rights in Palestine during the HRC’s 19th session.

Her findings sharply criticized Israel for violating Fourth Geneva obligations. It states nations “responsible for violations of international humanitarian law (must) make full reparation for the loss or injury caused.”

Pillay acknowledged Israel’s lawlessness and unaccountability, especially with regard to Gaza.

No compensation amount can make up for decades of egregious crimes of war and against humanity, as well as millions of Palestinians harmed. Their nightmare continues daily.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at www.sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-…

Feature Image from Seaside Post Online

I had just returned from Florida where I was trying to help my grandparents navigate around Florida Republicans’ long waiting list for Medicaid home assistance when I got a call that one of my good friends, Gilbert Mercier, the Editor in Chief of News Junkie Post, was in a coma.

This was one of those unexpected moments that turn our world upside down. Gilbert and I had just missed each other in Los Angeles a few weeks before. In the beginning of February, we were trying to organize a dinner; and now at the end of February, he was in a coma.

He had suffered an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm. The doctors put Gilbert into a coma so that they could perform a bypass and allow the damage to repair itself under controlled conditions. He must have summoned up some mighty fighting power, because just a month and a half later, his doctors are calling his existence a miracle. He not only pulled through two surgeries, the first with 9% chance of survival, but even in his weakened state, when I finally got to speak to him, he was talking about the Occupy movement.

Gilbert and his News Junkie Post team have been covering the Occupy movement with a passion that exceeds all others on the web. If there’s one thing Gilbert believes in, it is the importance of a true movement of the people. In fact, he was on his way to DC when he suffered his catastrophic health crisis…

….without health insurance.

Gilbert is going to be rehabbing for the next six months, unable to work, but each day accruing more and more medical debt, on top of the financial obligations he already has.

Like me, Gilbert has worked in the film business for a long time, where you have to qualify for your insurance every year based on the days you worked or dollars earned. The insurance is exceptional if you qualify, but if you don’t, and you have the bad luck to have a massive heart attack, well, you’re going to be worried about a lot more than surviving your health crisis.

Against the backdrop of the Supreme Court debating the “constitutionality” of the individual mandate for health insurance, I’m watching the implications of our policies unfold in a very personal way. I already believed in a social safety net, but now I’m going to be an even more vocal supporter of universal coverage. What I used to see as corporate greed and lobbyists out of control I now see through a lens of personal horror. After you’ve changed your beloved grandparent’s diaper and watched a hard-working friend lose everything because he had a catastrophic health event, you aren’t really in the mood to hear about the evils of socialism.

I suspect certain members of the Supreme Court are debating the political ramifications of their decision far more than the actual constitutionality of an individual mandate, seeing as one of the original framers backed “socialized medicine” way back in 1798. Forbes reported:

In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed – “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.

Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many of its members were the drafters of the Constitution.

Oh, no, the modern day activist conservative judge knows more about the intentions of the founders and the context of an enlightenment era revolution than did the framers. Just trust them. The framers would want citizens to die at the hands of for profit healthcare corporations who are allowed to do whatever they please until the “free market” regulates them like it did the banks. Sure, a lot of us would be dead, but at least the American “free market” (aka: socialized corporate profit and too big to fail protection from debt) would be alive and well.

And of course, the individual mandate is really a conservative idea, calling for citizens to take responsibility for their own healthcare instead of not buying insurance (because it’s too expensive or they don’t qualify under previous laws) and then forcing those who do buy it to absorb their expenses. Naturally, in order to make a mandate like this work, insurance needs to be affordable and available to all, neither of which describe the state of health insurance prior to Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

What is the conservative alternative to the ACA, a law based on free market principles of competition and involving personal, individual responsibility? They have none, except to take refuge in the “liberty” of the “free market”, by claiming that in spite of the contradictory facts, restrictions on healthcare are being caused not by insurance companies that won’t honor their contract or by a system beleaguered by the absorbing the costs of the uninsured, but because government is restricting us via regulations. They want government out of our “lives”.

They say the free market will solve everything. I wonder why that isn’t working for my Grandparents in Florida, and why they have spent two years on a waiting list for care. Florida recently privatized aspects of Medicaid home assistance, which means more people are on waiting lists. It turns out that for-profit privatized care costs a lot more and provides a lot less (big surprise).

Florida’s privatized free market wait list is starting to look a lot like Sarah Palin’s real death panels, when hundreds of Alaskans died waiting for care until the federal government had to take control of Alaska’s state run Medicaid program. We note that the federal government had to step in to rescue the citizens from the incompetency of a state-run program.

These same conservative judges who are debating the “constitutionality” of the individual mandate are also arguing that the government should have the ability to track, detain and surveil citizens. The obvious failure in this argument for “small government” and failure for a viable health care alternative reveals the ugly reality that killing the ACA is a politically motivated gift to the wealthy. It is not the uber wealthy, after all, who lay in hospital beds wondering how their entire life savings was gutted in one moment or who give pause before calling 911, even when they are pretty sure they might be dying.

I can’t get a conservative to articulate their moral vision for America, wherein poor and middle class people are deprived of healthcare, essentially of life, due to their class. It seems they want “liberty” to the exclusion of life and the pursuit of happiness.

A liberal alternative to the individual mandate is universal healthcare. If Gilbert, as a French citizen, had suffered his massive heart attack in France, he would not be in rehab right now worried about how to pay off his massive medical debt. In France they have universal coverage. And contrary to the conservative fear mongering, they don’t wait for healthcare in France and they get to pick their doctors. In fact, France is repeatedly ranked number one in healthcare, while America has placed last among industrialized nations. American healthcare also costs much more; so die a few more talking points of the ill-informed.

NPR reported:

In France, everyone has health care. However, unlike in Britain and Canada, there are no waiting lists to get elective surgery or see a specialist, Dutton says.

“The French hold individual liberty and social equality very dear … ‘liberty, equality, and fraternity’ — of course the slogan of their revolution,” he says. “And in this country, of course, we have similar ideals: individual liberty, social equality — equal chances for everyone.”

But the French have done a better job of protecting those values in health care, Dutton says.

“There are no uninsured in France,” says Victor Rodwin, a professor of health policy at New York University, who is affiliated with the International Longevity Center. “That’s completely unheard of. There is no case of anybody going broke over their health costs. In fact, the system is so designed that for the 3 or 4 or 5 percent of the patients who are the very sickest, those patients are exempt from their co-payments to begin with. There are no deductibles.”

Death is inevitable, but living fully is not. Neither is having a government that truly puts the basic needs of the people first. That is something you have to fight for.

In Florida, my grandparents have been waiting on Governor Rick Scott’s waiting list for two years for Medicare assistance, and across the country, my good friend Gilbert is fighting to get well enough to worry about how to pay his medical bills. Both my grandparents and Gilbert are responsible with their money and have paid into this system for years. My Grandfather fought in World War II and worked all of his life, saving for this inevitable day, but it’s not enough.

These are real life examples of our policies in action. Gilbert’s case exemplifies why Obama’s ACA was just the beginning of the change we need in this country, and my grandparents’ experience demonstrates why privatization doesn’t work for anyone but the corporations that get the government contracts.

Gilbert is still recovering, and will be for a long time, but he is here with us. Lucky us. We need all of our voices to engage in the process of shaping the direction of our country. In Gilbert, we have the voice of someone who has lived under a secular, democratic and social Republic in Europe, so he speaks not from legends or fear based myths, but from real life experience. Corporate America has been misinforming us about the evils of social safety nets; but voices like Gilbert’s help us reframe the political debate in terms of equality rather than fear.

When Gilbert speaks of universal healthcare, he knows what he’s talking about because he has lived it. He told me today that he often regrets calling 911 in America; he feels at times that it might have been better if he had died rather than face financial destitution over something he had no control over. This is the conservative American idea of “liberty”.

Gilbert may have to move home to France in order to get the medical care he needs. If Gilbert moves back to France, our country loses an important political voice. So much for equality and fraternity.

In the “conservative republic” of America, only the super rich can afford to get sick or old. Every day in America, the GOP healthcare hunger games are killing Americans for corporate profit under the ruse of “free market” liberty. Conservative justices are debating the constitutionality of the individual mandate, while ignoring the constitutionality of allowing corporations to impose very real death panels on the people. These same people value the life of a fetus so much that they grant it rights over the human female carrier, but once the fetus has a sustainable life outside of the womb, all bets are off.

Only the lucky survive.

Donations may be made to Gilbert Mercier’s medical recovery here.

Follow Sarah Reese Jones on Twitter here.
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Gilbert Mercier Medical Recovery Fund Raiser

On February 21, 2012, Gilbert Mercier, News Junkie Post Editor in Chief, suffered an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm.. a myocardial infarction… a massive heart attack.  Gilbert was given only a 10% chance of surviving the surgery that required he be put in a comatose state in order to both repair the damage and perform a bypass.  Fortunately, due to his physical strength, as well as the indefatigable spirit and tenacious character that he brings to every challenge he faces, Gilbert has survived both that initial surgery and a subsequent surgery in early March.

Gilbert’s recovery and rehabilitation will be a long process.  He is surrounded by loving family and friends but his intense medical needs and the astronomical costs for them will continue for quite some time.  The all-too-familiar story of how the American health care system can eviscerate a person’s personal financial security, regardless of insurance, is playing itself out with a cherished member of our family.

We will be regularly featuring some of Gilbert’s thought provoking and challenging pieces over the next few months.  A donation account for Gilbert has been set up at WePay.  Donations can be made HERE. It is our hope that all of you who have been affected, educated, and challenged by Gilbert’s work will assist him in his time of need and help provide the necessary support so that he can return to his former level of activity and resume his mission of informing, agitating and engaging.

Sincere gratitude from the News Junie Post family for your donation.

Gilbert’s recovery and rehabilitation will be a long process.  He is surrounded by loving family and friends but his intense medical needs and the astronomical costs for them will continue for quite some time.  The all-too-familiar story of how the American health care system can eviscerate a person’s personal financial security, regardless of insurance, is playing itself out with a cherished member of our family.

We will be regularly featuring some of Gilbert’s thought provoking and challenging pieces over the next few months.  A donation account for Gilbert has been set up at WePay.  Donations can be made HERE. It is our hope that all of you who have been affected, educated, and challenged by Gilbert’s work will assist him in his time of need and help provide the necessary support so that he can return to his former level of activity and resume his mission of informing, agitating and engaging.

Sincere gratitude from the News Junie Post family for your donation.

Our Broken World: The Toxic Nexus of Power and Money

By Gilbert Mercier

A Crisis of Ontology

The deadly disease of our global capitalist system is rather easy to understand from a philosophical standpoint. The crisis is ontological, a profound existential turmoil. Human beings are currently defined and valued  by what they have, not by what they are. The quantitative aspect of  our lives is in the forefront of all human interactions-either between groups or individuals within a group-while the qualitative aspect has been pushed aside, not even on the back burner of our collective consciousness, but literally into the trash of our social interactions. Usually, people are gauged by their assets, incomes, and cars they drive not by evaluating what contributions they make to the common good. We live in a world where a person is defined by quantity not quality, and it is probably our biggest systemic problem.

This is reflected by countless examples in the popular culture with expressions such as “show me the money”, “money talks” or the famous line in Brian De Palma’s “Scarface”: “First you get the money, than you get the power”. Poor kids, dreaming of a better future, are constantly bombarded by the spectacle of the “bling, the cool cribs, the fancy rides and the sexy babes” which are the trademarks of most Hip Hop music videos. Money is always center stage in this out of reach universe of  “players” which regardless of any tangible cultural meaning serve as heroes  and role models for the disenfranchised. It is the deadly equation of money= success + happiness + self respect =power. The same toxic component motivates some of the brightest and best educated young people in the United States to opt for a career on Wall Street instead of becoming doctors, engineers or scientists.

In our global society, only money gives a few people access to power which in return allows the very same people the possibility to accumulate even more wealth. A typical example of this vicious cycle is the constant revolving door between investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs and the highest jobs at the US Treasury Department. Top finance executives  with a taste for power- such as Hank Paulson or Larry Summers- under the premises of an interest in “public service”, work for governmental branches for a few years, then go back to their extremely lucrative jobs in finance, and so on.

Anxiety Rising: Occupy Versus Fear and Paradigm Paralysis

Some people are still living under the pretense that “things” in our broken global system will eventually fix themselves up spontaneously by some kind of miracle. Of course it will not happen, and this model  is, by essence, the definition of magical thinking. Recently, a Haitian woman, interviewed for the occasion of the second anniversary of  the earthquake, said that she was “putting her trust in god not in people” to rebuild Haiti from the horrific disaster. With a rising uncertainty and global anxiety building up like a pressure cooker, most people are scared and either try to escape reality by putting their heads in the sand or are convinced that the global system can be salvaged by making changes from within.

But, what they refuse to see is that following this model of a “business as usual” mentality impair their judgments and lock them into the box of paradigm paralysis. Even so most people feel that we have already entered an extraordinary period of global paradigm shift, the fear of the unknown makes them want to hang on to a system in advance state of decay. More people worldwide are getting aware of the fact that it is not a question of if the system will collapse but rather when.

The global Occupy movement has two functions in this process: firstly, to be the main catalyst for systemic change, secondly, as one of the architects setting up the foundations for a new global system where quality not quantity shall finally  prevail in human relationships. Turning what seems to be Utopian into a reality is the challenge, and it  is what this brave new world is all about. It is only a question of reaching a certain critical mass, and of  developing  the psychological ability to welcome the unknown, without fear, and to enter into uncharted territories.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Magalie L’Abbe.

Photo by Coal Dubya

“Between the public sector and the private sector, we have wreaked untold havoc on the media environment.”

These aren’t the words of a progressive media advocate such as University of Illinois professor Robert McChesney or The Nation’s John Nichols, but of ex-FCC commissioner Michael Copps in January. In an interview on Democracy Now!, Copps attributes his claim to “the abdication of public interest responsibility by the FCC” over the last 30 years and their failure to enforce public interest guidelines and a stronger focus on news.

Here’s another example of how the FCC has failed in their responsibility to the public good: In 1995, the FCC forbade companies ownership of more than 40 stations. Clear Channel Communications now owns over 1,500. This rate of consolidation clearly shows no sign of slowing.

Photo from Occupy Confessions

The closing of news rooms and the number of reporters on the street instead of the beat goes on as the corporate state continues its relentless and undemocratic consolidation of America’s media landscape. Layoffs continue despite a number of companies like McClatchy posting a 21% profit margin, according to the book The Death and Life of American Journalism. McClatchy fired a third of their newsroom staff in 2008.

Rupert Murdoch. Photo: galleristny.com

“25 or 30 years ago, only 50 companies controlled more than half of what we see and hear every single day. Now, that 50 – which was alarming enough – has shrunk to six or even five,” says Johnathan Lawson, the co-founder of Reclaim the Media. Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp owns the top newspaper on three continents: The Wall Street Journal, The Sun, and The Australian. According to a 2008 GAO report, the company was operating over 150 subsidiaries in off-shore tax havens. How much of those subsidiary holdings could have gone to funding NPR, or towards community initiatives to help expand minority media in communities?

The assault on our airwaves first began in earnest in 1980, when “the FCC did away with public interest guidelines for broadcast television licenses, and the renewal period went from three to eight years,” according to Copps. Now all a broadcaster has to do is “mail in a postcard” and their license is renewed, because the FCC – against the very reason it was created – has watered down attempts to ensure that the public’s airwaves are by-and-large for the public good.

Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell

Michael Powell (son of former Secretary of State Colin Powell), who was the head of the FCC in 2003, attempted to eliminate 30 year-old rules that prohibited any television network from reaching more than 35% of the national population. These rules were, in part, created to prevent the homogenization of news and to ensure that there was an attempt at quality local coverage. Predictably, the broadcast industry spent $249 million attempting to convince the federal government to allow new rules which would expand that limit to 45% of the public. And they won.

Fast forward to 2006: the FCC passed rules “which allowed broadcast-newspaper cross-ownership in the top 20 markets,” as Katy Bachman wrote in AdWeek. “The last thing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski [who became the FCC head in 2009] wants to talk about are the media ownership rules.”

A media system dominated by such a narrow coterie of owners has a direct impact on the quality of news presented to the public – affecting a diversity of viewpoints as well as the depth of coverage on issues such as corporate greed, poverty, corruption, racism, climate change and a host of other topics that an electorate needs to know in order to make educated decisions which directly affect their lives.

image from Gilad Atzmon

One major casualty of corporate domination of news is investigative journalism. Be it in print or in broadcast news, this time-intensive and not always profitable aspect of news is crucial to a healthy democracy. One need only look, for instance, at the media debacle of the Iraq War to see how the corporate state perverts information consumed by Americans. The first Gulf War was a huge boon for corporations like GE, which turned nightly news into “a media hardware show,” as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! stated. GE had a significant stake in the production of parts for many of the weapons in the Persian Gulf war.

The shrinking of diverse views on war was evidenced by the firing of MSNBC host Phil Donahue in February of 2003. He approached the invasion from a critical perspective and maintained the highest rated show on that network. The killing off of diversity is also a perfect example of how corporate media perpetuates the concept of “just” wars to increase profits, as GE’s role in the Persian Gulf war and the reporting on that war and Operation Iraqi Freedom demonstrate.
image from TvNewsLies.org

Media consolidation also plays a profound role in how our society prioritizes values, from self-esteem to consumerism. “It gives them [corporate media] a great deal of influence over how our culture thinks about itself,” points out author and activist Anne Elizabeth Moore.

The deluge of advertising, for instance, which takes up a lot of broadcasting and radio, certainly has an impact on shopping habits as well as more serious issues like body-image.
Enter Occupy Wall Street. The movement has set its sights on corporations and the elite who continue without apology to commodify health care, public education, and other vital necessities, and has subsequently kicked issues like income inequality and corporate greed back into the national conversation. Some even argue that President Obama’s recent State of the Union speech carried a hint of the spirit of the movement, which isn’t surprising in an election year.

How would corporate media respond to civil disobedience in their lobbies? What would happen if a group of protesters went to a news station and demanded a revoking of that outlet’s license? This is what happened in the WLBT case, when civil rights activists challenged a racist broadcaster and ultimately forced a judge to pull the station’s license for not serving the public interest.

If the people are going to stand up to big banks and corporations for wrecking our economy and destroying our environment, the theft of our airwaves and newspapers must not be ignored.  As each occupation tackles issues local to their cities and towns – such as police brutality in minority communities – directly challenging broadcasters and newspapers through sit-ins or other creative tactics to cover issues that aren’t properly covered by major media could be a good start. But that would just be the beginning.

One Occupy Philadelphia protester sums it up best:

“It’s bullshit that our country’s main source of news is owned by a few large corporations that have a GLARING conflict of interest in providing us with accurate, honest information. They have an agenda both in downsizing news rooms as well as promoting certain political views.  It’s time for us to hold them to account and demand a true separation of corporation and government, both in the running of and in the reporting of.”

Dustin Slaughter is an activist, journalist, new media advocate, and photojournalist. He’s founder of The David and Goliath Project and a contributor to Demotix News.

Occupy movements across Canada achieved great public attention and worked as the trigger for a paradigm shift. It is the Canadian chapter of a much required global wake up call. Occupy Canada has, through all its chapters and camps, successfully shaken the foundations of our status quo.

Last night, a vast majority of participants referred to the first week of Occupy Toronto as the highlight of the whole movement. And, I agree, it was the introduction to a new way of understanding ourselves and our relations with other human beings.

The beginning of Occupy Canada marked a rediscovery of our sense of humanity, too long denied. Prior to October 15, we were used to understanding each through social roles. How many of us have held meaningful conversations with homeless people prior to Occupy? How many of us have deeply debated political and social issues with people we barely knew? Where else would we have been able to join a physical circle of discussions with people we have never met, discussions on issues of poverty, homelessness, drug addition, living standards?

Reflecting now, honestly, it was not Occupy as a reified community that have allowed us to create a new sense of community. It was, mainly, before Occupy, that individuals did not bother engaging at the same level with other human beings.  Thus, the lack of sense of community and outreach, the lack of sense of comradery between us, was not only systemic consequences brought about the 1%, it was you and I who just lack the courage to build these relationships on our own.

Occupy created the space, but, you and I created Occupy by being, and participating. There is no Occupy. Occupy is a brand. I do not mean this in a negative way. Not at all. I mean that the people are the force behind Occupy. You do not have to maintain a camp ground and tents to prove its existence.

The Occupy camps throughout the country, and even throughout the world, have already achieved a lot of public discussion. The word Occupy is still necessary to make the editorial agenda of the mainstream media. However, have we lost the understanding that it is not the idea of Occupy that drives people? Rather, it is the people, you and I, who drive the idea of Occupy forward.

There is much that needs to be openly and freely discussed about Occupy.

Here is what I consider shortcomings. Please do not ‘hate’ on these comments. I see them as true shortcomings that can be addressed and improved upon. These comments reflect my perspective within the context of a larger strategic social justice movement. I am not intent on ‘bashing’ Occupy, rather, I’m presenting a sober analysis based only from my own personal experiences.

1. Die hard Occupy organizers want to own Occupy, its Facebook page, twitter accounts, and sites. There is so much paranoia trying to own these accounts and limit access to the public, that actual participants are sometimes accused to be infiltrators or outright censored.

We could surely find a balance between public involvement and security. Media teams in Occupy have become the information authorities of everything that takes place throughout each movement. Women were physically attacked at the Occupy Toronto camp. Did their media team report on that as a method of ensuring issues of safety around camp?

Occupy Vancouver had some very nasty confrontations between members, some of whom have publicized alleged physical and death threats. Have you been to the original Occupy Vancouver Facebook page?  People who advocated against violent tactics were verbally crucified!  Has Occupy Vancouver media team ever reported on these  in order to create and facilitate a safe discussion on these internal divisions? No. Media teams act as the very  mainstream media outlets that we criticize by failing to be honest to the movement and themselves. There was a great deal of power reserved only for those who control the flow of information about Occupy camps. This needs to be addressed if Occupy is to be a truly transparent and honest movement.

But this is a movement of the people, not of organizers or media teams! People say “I am in the media team” as though the statement is supposed to attribute them with a particular sense of respect.  But, Occupy is an idea. And, as I mentioned, it is not the idea which drives people towards social justice, it is the people who believe in social justice that move the Occupy Movement forward.

2. There is lack of solidarity resulting from the above mentioned ownership of Occupy. It seems that not everyone can act on behalf of Occupy for social change. In a leaderless movement, with dysfunctional general assemblies, who is to decide who can carry on actions under the banner of Occupy? Who does the reputation of Occupy really belong to? Who are the organizers, and, who are the people in charge of protecting the reputation and credibility of Occupy? Is there a sense of hierarchy here? Is there no sense of hypocrisy?

3. General assemblies and the consensus model have proven not only ineffective but also hindrances to actual steps towards change. General assemblies could have materialized down the road.  They were not an essential component to our organization at first. There are a couple of factors relating to this:

• Meaningful democracy does not survive on voting alone. Look at our country now. A sustainable democracy requires an informed citizenry, not just voters. Democracy requires a politically and conceptually sophisticated citizenry engaged in the articulation of their own experiences within the context of social and political structures and relations.
• Votes in general assemblies, based on quick discussions on issues that people are not particularly familiar with, are  void of meaning… especially so when not all perspectives have equal weight, or the chance to be elaborated upon.
• The consensus model, at this point, is void of all potential solutions. Imagine having a general assembly of people who are aware of the issues that are immediately affecting our lives through  local, provincial, and federal policies. Identifying problem issues would not require constant voting and blocking.
• Not all participants, at any given general assembly, have the same social or political interests. I have proposed previously that, instead of holding general assemblies, it would have been more practical to organize based on issues that matter to people. For instance, holding general meetings on particular issues at particularly affected geographical areas: i.e. Neighbourhoods victimized by Rob Ford’s spending cuts.
• Also, as to the procedural aspects of the general assemblies, those I have participated in were too bureaucratic to be emancipating, let alone truly engaging.

4. Occupy groups desperately require a news/current events team rather than just a livestream media team. The focus so far seems to have been on promoting one’s movement through livestream as a reality show. Through this focus on the movement itself, Occupy Vancouver, and Occupy Toronto, have turned inwards on theeir own affairs alienating themselves from the important issues developing in thee world around them. News has been covered about what is happening at Occupy camps but seldom about the daily issues that arise… the daily issues that the public needs to be aware of.

The above has been our main focus. Occupy groups should be advocating for public engagement on current issues. This is why a group of us decided to start 404 System Error with a new focus and a new narrative. We are tired of ongoing verbal attacks and endless rants. We want to identity specific problems, and work on building strategic solutions, while advocating for new ways of making sense of important issues. We are not advocating for utopian solutions at the moment. We are working on building tools for participation leading to actions. Some of our proposals are narrow in scope, for we believe in the importance of thinking globally while acting locally.

We hope to work in collaboration with anyone who cares to identify social, economic, and political problems. We also wish to advocate more conceptualizations while applying all the human potential, creativity, and productive skills, to challenging the status quo and moving the Occupy movement forward.

By Steven Forester

Since Haiti’s devastating quake two years ago today, many Republicans and Democrats have been urging President Obama to take a simple step to save lives and speed recovery, one which would cost virtually nothing, reunite families, and help thousands in Haiti.

Ten editorial boards have urged the Obama administration to take the step, as have nine U.S. Senators, the chairpersons of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Philadelphia’s City Council, 87 members of the U.S. Congress in a December 15 letter, eight Florida Congresspersons including Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson in a December 22 letter, the Center for Global Development and many others.

But for two full years administration officials have stalled them and Haitian American leaders, saying the step is “under consideration,” in effect a way of saying “no.”

What’s the proposal? Consider this: 112,000 people in Haiti are beneficiaries of family-based visa petitions which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has already approved but who nevertheless remain on a 3 to 10 year wait list in Haiti, where many may not survive given the dangerous conditions there.

As it has for others, DHS easily could and should create a Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program to expedite reunifying them with their petitioning families here. DHS has approved them for U.S. residency and all have a U.S. family support network in place. And for any who, after paying a large fee to the U.S. Treasury, would get a work permit and a job, their remittances — the life-saving money from Haiti’s diaspora which is its most important single source of revenue — would help ten times their number in Haiti.

A July 17, 2010 Boston Globe editorial called this the “most effective way” to show U.S. leadership on Haiti. And a March 22, 2010 Miami Herald editorial — the first of three by that paper urging this, the most recent of which appeared yesterday — asserted, “There is no valid argument for failing to move quickly on this front.” That was 22 months ago.

The United States has welcomed hundreds of thousands of Indochinese, Kosovar and Cuban refugees in recent decades, and there is even more direct precedent for creating this program for the Haitians.

In 2007, DHS created the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program, under which since 2009 over 30,000 approved Cuban beneficiaries have been paroled. Many of the editorials now urging a similar Haitian program have decried the “double standard” in not also expediting Haitian family reunification, Los Angeles Times editors for example asking, “Why the disparate treatment?”

On November 2, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano was urged by Massachusetts leaders, for the third time in six weeks, to create a Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program to “mirror” the Cuban one. That state’s 9-member black and Latino Legislative Caucus wrote:

We are deeply concerned about the precarious status of many Haitian children, elders and families as they wait in Haiti to be reunited with their families in the United States. As you know, for many, the conditions in Haiti since the devastating earthquake of 2010 remain unstable and even dangerous. Establishing a Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program (HFRPP), modeled after the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program, would alleviate this crisis by simply allowing Haitians already approved for visas to wait for them in the United States with their families rather than in Haiti.

Their letter cited the proposed program’s “economic benefits,” including “sending more remittances home to Haiti to foster economic development with greater speed.”

Massachusetts Governor Patrick wrote urging Napolitano to do this on September 22, as did that state’s U.S. Senators John Kerry and Scott Brown and U.S. Representatives Michael Capuano, Barney Frank, Stephen Lynch, James McGovern, Edward Markey and John Oliver on October 25.

U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairperson Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican, with three other Republicans and four Democrats including John Conyers and Howard Berman, urged her to do this back on March 8, 2010. And Ros-Lehtinen and still other Republicans were among the 87 U.S. Congresspersons including Senators Durbin, Cardin, Kerry and Gillibrand, fifteen representatives from New York and many others who on December 15, 2011 wrote President Obama urging him to instruct Secretary Napolitano to take this action.

But the White House has ignored these calls, as it has the 14 editorials by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Antonio Express News, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, Newsday, Star-Ledger, and Palm Beach Post editorial boards and resolutions by the City of North Miami, Philadelphia’s City Council, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Virtually every Congressional Black Caucus member signed the December 15 letter. But their appeal, like that of Haitian-American leaders who’ve implored the White House for two years to authorize this, has so far been unavailing.

In urging this low-cost step, the authors of “Migration as a Tool for Disaster Recovery: A Case Study on U.S. Policy Options for Post-Earthquake Haiti” (Center for Global Development, June 2011) noted:

Rather than waiting 3 to 10 years for a visa in Haiti, beneficiaries could be paroled into the United States where they can be reunited with family and have employment authorization.

The proposal has merit not only for the humanitarian purpose it would serve but also to enable Haitians to send more remittances home and foster economic development with greater speed.

Instituting a family reunification parole program for Haitians is simpler than it may appear, since it requires no congressional action.

The Cuban program’s rationale of saving lives at sea and proviing for orderly migration applies with equal force to Haiti.

No one would get a “green card” any sooner — like the Cubans, they’d just be able to wait for them here w/their families rather than in Haiti.

And yet another resolution urging the Administration to do this is before New York’s City Council today.

When will the White House instruct DHS Secretary Napolitano to create this program or at least start expeditiously paroling the most vulnerable of these DHS-approved, “legal” Haitians into the United States?

Two days after the earthquake, President Obama promised U.S. leadership to help Haiti. It will be promised again today. But platitudes ring hollow to tens of thousands of Haitian Americans still waiting to be reunited with their loved ones, who remain in danger despite having been approved for U.S. residency. It’s not too late for the administration to give Haitians equal treatment by expediting Haitian family reunification to save lives and help Haiti recover.

Since Haiti’s January 2010 earthquake, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) has led efforts to persuade the White House to create a Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program.

Editor’s Note: Min Reyes is a journalist and student of historical  materialism and dialectics. Presently, Min is fully committed to the global movement of human dignity against neo-liberalism. In addition to being a News Junkie Post contributor, Min can be found at her own blog, MinReyes.ca, and you can connect with her on Twitter @Min_Reyes.

From the beginning, I argued that a democratic movement necessitated a sense of honesty and transparency to itself and its members.

Well, I must have been naive to believe that we were all there to achieve global social justice. I understand that there are economic and socio-political issues that are unique to particular social groups, but as a member of a larger global movement, Occupy Vancouver was in desperate need to conceptualize on goals before breaking into special interest groups.

This is my story as a participant, organizer, and observer of Occupy Vancouver.

As the original organizers met face to face (open meetings for all interested), during our early meetings, we have arrived at the decision to open channels of communication with the Vancouver Police Department. I personally had no weight on this decision; however, the moment it was reported by the mainstream media, I personally came under a lot of verbal attacks and abuse by people who called themselves “experienced activists” in Vancouver. I reserve the rights to publish their identities although all attacks and intimidating messages were posted publicly on Twitter. But one thing was clear, there was much hatred from local experienced activists for those who wished this movement to be peaceful and not willing to antagonize the Vancouver Police.

When challenged, these anti-police activists only had some distant references to police brutality, mainly from the 2010 G20 summit (which did not take place in Vancouver). They call police officers murderers and corrupt without acknowledging that the police force is also composed of individuals with some sense of agency and consciousness. I might challenge the institution as ideological, but I would reserve the rights to categorize each and every Vancouver police officer as a murderer.

In the earlier stages of organization, one topic dominated our social media communication. Turns out, one of our organizers was an advocate for ‘diversity of tactics’ often referring to Blac Bloc tactics of both offense and defense. What was disturbing was that once those who wished to maintain the spirit of peaceful movement started questioning the role of violence and BB tactics in the context of Occupy Vancouver, a group of advocates (supporters of Harsha Walia) immediately stepped up accusing and labeling those peaceful organizers sexist and racist. Discussion with these BB tactics supporters was just impossible, for they seem to lack the sense of open mindedness any reasonable discussion requires.

How does a discussion on violence in a movement, peaceful in its core, become an issue of race and gender? And not to mention, Harsha’s supporters were very intimidating and verbally abusive towards all those in the group of thousands that were really just trying to clarify whether Occupy Vancouver was to be a peaceful movement.

If you need proof of this, all you have to do is to try opening up a dialogue with any of these self-proclaimed ‘oppressed’ activists. Try to hold a rational argument on any topic and try to propose opposing views. You will soon realize that these people aggressively gang up on you, completely dismissing the merit of your argument and your perspectives. Yes, suddenly, you too are a racist and misogynist pig.

After having addressed the question of BB tactics on the Occupy Vancouver Facebook page, I began receiving messages and posts of hate by those who seem to blindly support whatever Harsha ‘would stand for’. Suddenly even mentioning Harsha (an organizer among many) became a taboo for those who did not wish to be intimidated by empty rhetoric of oppressing women and people of visible minority.

I was sidelined and met a lot of hostility this night. I was told to get the fuck out of Occupy Vancouver and that I am no leader (a fact that I have stated over and over again).

I honestly thought the issue was a personal one. So I withdrew from organizing. I was still closely following the movement as the overall Occupy Canada chapters. But slowly I began to feel that those who speak reason and advocate for open dialogue during GAs and workshops were quickly silenced while only the same loud voices seemed to determine the future of the movements.

Aimless, unplanned and unapproved direct actions embodying a obviously hidden agenda reflected a faction within the movement that consciously and actively alienated the public, the real 99 percent whose support is essential for this movement.

Now I am hearing from my friends in Occupy Vancouver who are fearful and frustrated by the same toxic forces that have driven me away. This group of so-called “activists” needs to be addressed and their hidden agenda elaborated in public. There are more people who are concerned about this radical group that has taken over the goal of the movement than those who support it. However, those concerned are often ridiculed and intimidated by these radicals. The same people who attacked me for opening channels of communication with the Vancouver police are now the same people who are preventing people from reaching out for help and guidance and allow Occupy Vancouver to move forward to addressing real issues.

I do not have ANY respect for self-proclaimed activists whose main intention is the transfer of oppressive power. No one should be excluding white males from an Anti-Oppression workshop. No one should be attacked for being straight, non-aboriginal… This is unacceptable. This is not Occupy Vancouver, a movement within the global movement towards social justice. Occupy Vancouver became a vindictive tool for advocates of violence, hate, and further oppression.

But then, of course as I have been accused on Twitter while on an anonymous account, I am a sexist white man, and stink of a rhetoric particular to the privileged white male.

With this post I wish to address the urgent need for true solidarity between all social groups, equally. I do not believe in the necessity of the oppressed to oppress others due to assumed privilege. We must work together in addressing these power dynamics… and perhaps building a new narrative that revolves around humanity and dignity rather than power struggles.

For us to win this fight, we must unite. We cannot change the system if we allow those who benefit from our internal division win.

Editor’s Note: All photographs of Occupy Vancouver by Lorraine Murphy.

 

By Min Reyes

Editor’s Note: Min Reyes is a journalist and student of historical  materialism and dialectics. Presently, Min is fully committed to the global movement of human dignity against neoliberalism. In addition to being a News Junkie Post contributor, Min can be found at her own blog, MinReyes.ca, and you can connect with her on Twitter @Min_Reyes

This article was originally written as three installments and can be seen in its original format at MinReyes.CA

Part I

As thousands open their eyes everyday to the real struggles in their lives, the #OccupyWallStreet movement has spread…

Starting early this year from Tunisia to Egypt and neighboring countries to Spain and EU countries, the spirit of revolution has arrived to North America.

I see people trying to define this movement. I hear people trying to make sense of it all.

From my perspective, as each life and each one of our struggles is unique to our own circumstances, trying to define this movement necessitates a true reflection on humanity and what constitutes it.

My views on Occupy Vancouver

Personally, this movement will be a movement of soul searching. When I stand in the Vancouver Art Gallery in solidarity with those around me, it will not be unseating Harper nor Clement that would preoccupy me… it would rather be a commitment to find myself in those around me, to find in their daily struggles, my own, my own self, my own life.

This won’t be a protest like any other. I do not wish it to be a protest, personally. I wish it would be a chance for us, as Canadians, to engage with each other at a personal level.

How many times have you smiled and greeted a stranger on an elevator or on the bus just to find out that such actions create suspicion in those around you? How many times do you find yourself judging others based on race, appearance, age, or even the way people walk?

We have grown into a society where the standard has become to doubt and suspect one another, to forget others are just like us: people with family, with problems, with hopes, with friends. We are a society of lonely individuals where all our relationships are based on trust that we have only built from childhood or through long terms relationships at work or school. We find ourselves in a position to judge others and expect others to constantly have to prove themselves… but why?

So I will #OccupyVancouver, for we are in desperate need to connect with each other, to learn to trust and love each other… we have to create a space where you and i can foremost interact as human beings. Within this space, my hope is that the narrative that drives our movement will not be political rhetoric, it will be our stories, each and every one of us, as human beings, as members of our society. Within this space, the discussion will not be centered around partisan ideologies, it would be centered on what we wish to share with others in our attempt to find our true connections.

This will be a human revolution, the main goal of which would be to reclaim humanity and to share our life experiences and hopes for our future. It will be a revolution in the sense that reclaiming humanity, dignity, and freedom have become the major threat to those who wish to divide us… those who wish we never found within each other the same sense of alienation as well as the same hopes and dreams…

Perhaps, I will add more posts on #occupycanada as I prepare for it in the coming days…

Part II

So after almost a week of trying to find a unified and clear goal, the mainstream media has now shifted focus on how much of taxpayers’ money is being spent on policing this movement.

I want to share a couple of thoughts on this…

First and foremost, how does $1000 per day in policing turn into $500,000 considering we have occupied only for 7 days so far?

Has not the movement from its inception claim to be in its core a peaceful movement? No occupier has ever requested the presence of hundreds of police officers all around the Art Gallery. Was it NOT the Vancouver Business Association who created a sense of fear before occupation warning business based on an unrelated hockey riot, although not always resonating the perspectives of businesses? And, if I am not mistaken, those small business have actually boosted sales since the occupation began.

Second, the constant complaint of what this movement is costing Canadians seems to largely ignore the fact that a lot of us, occupiers, are taxpayers too. There are only 15% unemployment rate within Occupy Vancouver which clearly reflects the larger unemployment rates across our country.

Honestly, outside of university, I have never seen such a large and diverse gathering of intellectuals. People are articulate and politically sophisticated. Those who easily judge us all as lazy hippies forget that in Egypt and everywhere in Europe it was the new generation of students who have organized resistance to austerity measures and corporatist governments.

We have a wide array of professionals, students, elders all willing to share. There is much wisdom in the dialogues that take place throughout the day. There is much intellectual engagement on topics from financial crisis, capitalism and neoliberalism, to government policies, environment, not to mention international affairs.

Yesterday, I was at the anti-Bush demonstration in Surrey. If we are applying the same critical logic, one cannot but to ask, how much of Surrey taxpayers’ money has been allocated to have Surrey RCMP police hundreds of demonstrators while protecting war criminals like George W. Bush? We obviously seem to question what is so obvious yet we lose perspective in our haste to criticize what we are not familiar with…

What is it about our culture that limits all forms of discourse to a discussion of money and budgeting? This movement is not only about jobs. Occupiers are not sitting there waiting for someone to come by to offer a position. And although we are often labeled as jobless hippies, a lot of us work, support families, and invest whatever time we have to make this movement work. Those of us who can, will spend most days there helping out setting up, assisting people, and participating in committees. Others, come and do whatever they can during the few hours they can spare.

The very essence of the movement, “Humanity before Profit”, now seems ironic considering that the mainstream media and the public try to make sense of this social movement within the framework of fiscal responsibility. We are fighting against the imposition of price tags on ourselves, not only for occupiers but for all… and yet it is the public that without having engaged with us now also place a price tag on freedom of assembly, rightful political participation, and sadly, democracy… 

What people seem to forget is that it is rather more difficult occupying and sleeping in the cold and rain than being at home. It would be easier to go home and sleep in comfort. So I ask, instead of judging us without having engaged with us, please ask yourself what are the values and principles you uphold so dearly, so strongly, you would give up the comfort and luxury and occupy the streets? I ask, instead of judging and complaining, why don’t you ask us in person why we endure this?

Part III

I am humbled by the commitment of all occupiers around the world… taking a stance for what is believed to be our last chance to reclaim social justice, freedom,democracy, environment… in other words, what seems to be referred as the collective survival of our species….

What those who criticize the Occupy movement seem to fail to understand is that this movement had no specific origin date… The spirit of this new global revolution did not ‘start’ in Tunisia nor Egypt, not in Spain nor Greece,not in Wall Street nor Toronto… This global manifestation of indignant face sand voices has been materializing slowly not within one particular geographical location, but within people… the inherent contradictory of our global economic system whose existence is contingent on the perpetuate oppression of labor, peripheral nations, wealth concentration, corruption, violation of human rights at home and abroad…  these essential characteristics of global capitalism… have slowly been expressing themselves, articulating through the infinite struggles of individuals, families, social groups, nations…

We experienced the uprising of power of a people who revolted against their corrupt dictatorial governments, we witnessed the frustration of a new youth born into a corrupt system of austerity aimed at protecting trillion dollar worth banks and corporations…

What we have realized… we are not all equal… there exist no human rights in a world that prioritizes the needs and interests of faceless corporations, the political whim of corrupt politicians, and, politically and financially powerful few… humans are NOT equal… Humans… some are commodities, others are collateral damage. People in the similarity of their expressions…
some protected by the law… others criminalized by them… why do the laws not apply equally… why do killers walk freely among those they aim to oppress, kill, murder with their greed…

We have realized that while our brave men and women risk their lives in the name of a far and foreign democracy, their lives were taken by not honorable causes, but rather material interests of our governments and corporations… to some, human lives are worthless when compared to oil, gold, and soon, water…what honor is in killing and being killed for oil… while blood soaks the sands of a far away land of so called terrorists and extremists…

We have come to understand that democracy and civil liberties are dangerous to those who attempt to silence our frustration, our indignation! We are human beings! The intolerable taste of blunt injustice while authorities chase, abuse,and inflict torture on the very people that build the nations every single day…

What we have realized… we are not all equal… there exist no human rights in a world that prioritizes the needs and interests of faceless corporations, the political whim of corrupt politicians, and, politically and financially powerful few… humans are NOT equal… Humans… some are commodities, others are collateral damage. People in the similarity of their expressions… some protected by the law… others criminalized by them… why do the laws not apply equally… why do killers walk freely among those they aim to oppress, kill, murder with their greed…

We have realized that while our brave men and women risk their lives in the name of a far and foreign democracy, their lives were taken by not honorable causes, but rather material interests of our governments and corporations… to some, human lives are worthless when compared to oil, gold, and soon, water…what honor is in killing and being killed for oil… while blood soaks the sands of a far away land of so called terrorists and extremists…

We have come to understand that democracy and civil liberties are dangerous to those who attempt to silence our frustration, our indignation! We are human beings! The intolerable taste of blunt injustice while authorities chase, abuse,and inflict torture on the very people that build the nations every single day…

In a world of layers and layers of corruption, secrecy, manipulation, and oppression, in a world characterized by the interdependence of major institutions aimed at perpetuating a global status quo… who is the enemy? the government that we have so called democratically elected? the police force that serves and protects its civilians? the media who functions as a watchdog for democracy?the laws that too painfully revealed to be carefully crafted to protect the people from government and corporate abuse of power?

…so yes, occupiers might not have one unified demand yet… but do you see? How complex this game of power and greed has been? do you understand the necessarily complex global system that is intertwined in its core by a few?

…all i ask is that you do not judge the Occupy movement as either good or bad, successful or unsuccessful? You must not agree with Occupy blindly, yet you must not oppose it blindly either… while the governments and the mainstream media are artful rhetoricians, you must not fall into dichotomy. There are many issues, many problems, many contradictions… there will be many voices, many faces, many names… and as such… there will be many potential solutions… try not to simply take a side… attempt to understand, to visualize the map of global power and oppression.

…engage. inform yourself. engage. inform others.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Bruce Reyes-Chow.

1. …because the Government’s mandate has been to represent corporate greed, not the people’s needs.

2. …because democracy does not happen only at the ballot box; it should materialize every day.

3. …because there are no super heroes, and there never will be:  it must be you.

4. …because our collective responsibility to each other trumps any loyalty to a partisan government.

5. …because a true revolution does not start with force; it can only start with freedom of the mind.

6. …because we ought to judge politicians not by what they say but rather by the number of individuals they fail to serve.

7. …because the government is supposed to protect its citizenry from corporate power, not be controlled by it.

8. …because government is held in contempt by the people for putting their self-interest over the citizens.

9. …because Aboriginal communities deserve the same basic necessities such as healthcare, education, and drinkable water.

10. …because no social group is above nor below any other.

11. …because promises are not just political rhetoric; a government needs to keep its word and honor its people

12. …because trust must be earned, and constantly maintained, not simply demanded or assumed.

13. …because a government that silences journalists silences the truth.

14. …because silence never helps bring out the truth.

15. …because complacency to abuse, crime, and corruption makes one an accomplice.

16. …because when we face tyranny, our duty to fight is not for oneself alone, but for all those who share in our struggles.

17. …because authority does not translate to abuse of power and trust.

18. …because a ‘strong stable economy’ requires a strong and empowered working class and cannot be built upon an impoverished citizenry.

19. …because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights allows for freedom of information, a right above and beyond partisan political interests.

20. …because we are humans, and our value as such surpasses material wealth.

21. …because there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor popular, but it must be done because it is the right thing to do.

22. …because no revolution ever asked for permission to challenge the status quo.

23. …because the nature surrounding us has given us life; it is not right to put a price on it.

24. …because we must be an example to our children of what is right, what is just, and what is truth.

25. …because partisan ideologies fragment reality, and we don’t live in fragments.

26. …because freedom of information is the only weapon against ignorance.

27. …because a government invading our privacy while remaining secretive itself is a grave assault on democracy.

28. …because whistleblowers would not be needed in a government that truly serves the people.

29. …because poverty is not an individual choice but rather the violent process through which those in power oppress us for profit.

30. …because while poverty is not an individual choice, not attempting to abolish it is a conscious choice.

31. …because reason & truth are enemies of tyranny and ideological oppression.

32. …because a life driven by the need to make ends meet is not living, it is merely surviving.

33. …because there is a fundamental difference between a “market society” and a “society with a market.”

34. …because dignity is not for your government to reward upon you, nor to take from you. Dignity is your birthright.

35. …because the tyranny of a government is directly correlated to one’s fear to take action.

36. …because while ignorance is the weapon that divides, truth and solidarity are the strongholds of humanity.

37. …because laws are written by fallible humans, and embody within them the historical context of dominant power relations.

38. …because even though bad laws can be re-written, the lives they impact are lived only once.

39. …because the rights and freedom we do have, have only been achieved through revolution.

40. …because at the end of it all, we would not want to look back and wish we’d have done it when we had the chance.

Editor’s Note: Min Reyes is a journalist and student of historical materialism and dialectics. Presently, Min is fully committed to the global movement of human dignity against neoliberalism. In addition to being a News Junkie Post contributor, Min can be found at her own blog, MinReyes.ca, and you can connect with her on Twitter @Min_Reyes

By Gina Villard

Having decided to take a week off to recharge my battery, I bought a ticket to London, where I often go and thought of discovering the town on foot. Strolling through Nothing Hill on a cloudy afternoon, I went into a trendy pub for a latte and struck up a conversation with the bar tender.  Robert, 37 years of age, is a pleasant and friendly looking guy. But somehow he appeared as though he was carrying a great burden. Although a young man, he was greying at the temples. Wondered if that was premature greying or if it ran in the family. He said, no. That made me curious. Asked him how he was getting on in life and he replied, it’s hard and that he’s having difficulties making ends meet. He went on to remarked how the cost of living is getting a great deal more expensive — rent, electricity, heating, food etc. — a rather common story these days. Everyone is feeling the pinch. As the conversation continued, Robert added there are so many things he simply can’t do any more. All the people he knows and those that come into the pub are saying the same thing. There’s either not enough time nor money.

Robert has two jobs, his girlfriend works as well yet they are hardly getting by financially. He is happy if he can pay his bills or, as he puts it, the ones that have to be paid. Throughout our talk Robert voiced how hard it is to keep up with the rat race. Four months ago he got a day job and at work there’s so much to do and not enough time in a day nor manpower to do what needs doing. Everyone is over worked and many are stretched to the limit, others are sick. Not too long ago, people like Robert were optimistic about there lives, they felt that in the near future things will straighten themselves out. What we catch on the news these days is that “we all” need to tighten our belts… But some are living off the hog. A small minority believe they have earned their way up the food chain and have no difficulties keeping up their life of luxury. At the other side of reality too many people are having their life’s blood sucked out of them.

As an American, having lived over 25 years aboard, experienced three different countries, and now living in Germany, I’ve started noticing things that I never noticed before. Being in this most unique position, it’s like watching things unfold before my eyes. In the mid 1980s when I arrived in Europe, there wasn’t such thing as unemployment in Germany, at least none to speak of. The economy was growing, booming as a matter of fact, and if you didn’t have a job, it was because you didn’t want one. Fast forward 23 years and unemployment is hovering at the 4- million mark. After virtually zero unemployment in the 1970s, which continued well in the 1980s, Germany has taken a turn in a different direction. Social benefits have been brutally cut back. Health insurance has seen it’s share of rollbacks. A single mother now gets 300 Euro less per child and is struggling and barely keeping it together.

At the same time we see on TV the self-satisfied faces of bankers, politicians and pundits who are telling us how well the economy is doing. They seem to have nothing to worry about. Their benefits, bonuses and salaries are soaring. The banks get their “bailouts” and the rest is left holding the bag. Some wonder if they will still have a job tomorrow, others don’t know if they are ever going to get another one. Parents hope they can leave a better world for their children, but some are beginning to doubt that. People increasingly asking themselves, what has the world come to?

What I see is an ailing society. Wherever you turn a company is closing down and people are losing their jobs. Those who still have a job are finding it ever so difficult to keep above water. The cost of living is going through the roof, too many are working our fingers to the bone, but not making any head way. Walking down the street in a typical working class quarter I can’t help but look in the faces of the people walking by. There is a sense of anguish, pain, and even fear in their eyes. Underneath the surface there is a feeling of uncertainty and bewilderment. Nobody knows what the future holds and there isn’t much room for optimism. The family unit doesn’t provide the assurance it once had. Communities are falling apart. The government has relinquished all responsibility and corporations have — or will soon — take complete control. Countless families are scarcely able to keep themselves afloat, others are hanging in there by a hair’s breadth.

What is happening? Most importantly, why is it happening? A growing number of people is getting cut out of the democratic process. That raises the question if there’s still a democratic system in place. How many people have to suffer this kind of silent deprivation before there is no democracy any more at all? If democracy is about developing the virtue of its citizens and making it possible for them to live a life of virtue, as Aristotle already established 2400 years ago, people who lack the leisure time necessary for political participation and the study of philosophy simply can’t be part of a democratic system, for “it is impossible to pursue the things of virtue when one lives the life of a laborer”. How many have two or three jobs, only to get by? And how many of those with one job are working over time, or are in some way connected to the company on weekends, in the evenings, or on holidays? For the most part, the time people spend working away from the office is not compensated. And people accept this situation, for today a job can be taken away at the blink of an eye. Who dares ask for a raise, and of those who do, who gets one nowadays?

This is pressing. It’s like a disease. Democracy is ebbing away and we are watching it happening right before our eyes. Far too many citizens are being just cut out of the equation. What kind of system is this, where the very fabric of society is being torn apart, where masses of people are being left to sink or swim, where corporations dictate and governments follow suit, cheered on by the mainstream media? Is this still a democracy when those who are supposed to be part of it, are left out just because they either can’t or simply don’t want to be involved any more? Somehow it is as though the comatose patient is on the way to the emergency room and the medics haven’t got a clue what’s wrong, what to do, or where to start. A classic case for a second opinion. But something needs to be done — now! The disease broke out in the U.S. and it is spreading. It is contagious. It is global. And it could be lethal.

For me, my trip to London, the talk with Robert, all the sadness I see is like a wake- up call. I for one, no longer want to remain a passive witness, disgusted by all the brainwashing in the mainstream media, pouring my heart out on Twitter. It is time to stop the rhetoric and take action. We must meet this situation, which effects us all with determination, purpose and exertion before it’s too late. The least we can do is open our eyes, refuse to be lied to, make our own minds up, and shake off the lethargy. Everyone might not be a revolutionary, but everybody can do something. Just try to figure out what that is for you and get involved. Don’t wait for a second opinion.

Editor’s Note: Gina Villard is an American who has been living and working for more than 24 years in Germany. She finished her studies in psychology and philosophy in the U.S., is fluent in English, German and French and has many years of successful experience in the challenging field of business communication, management and personnel training. Being born in Haiti and raised in a multicultural environment has given her the foundation and the right credentials to work with internationally operating companies.