Occupy Detroit gets a home base:
With its comfy sofas, kitchen and sunlit windows, the brick building at 5900 Michigan Ave. in Detroit that opened this year could pass for a spacious café.
But a banner high on the wall that reads "We are the 99%" signifies this is a different type of place, one that's become the center for activists in metro Detroit. After leaving their encampment in Grand Circus Park in November, Occupy Detroit has found a new home in the heart of southwest Detroit.
Across the street from a grocery store, the two-floor 12,000-square-foot building with a tall ceiling was refurbished by activists and is a striking symbol of the movement's attempts to establish a solid base in the region for its activities. "OCCUPY," it reads on the windowpanes outside.
Awesome news!
Social Security is not going broke. I repeat, Social Security is not going broke.
Which federal program took in more than it spent last year, added $95 billion to its surplus and lifted 20 million Americans of all ages out of poverty? Why, Social Security, of course...
Tom Morello, Worldwide Rebel Tour, performing "Night Watchman."
Tom Morello has done it again. Always looking to support the Occupy Movement in one way or another, he has now released a free 30-minute documentary , (did I mention it's free?) in celebration of May Day. Directed by Bobby Roth and filmed at Henson Studios in Los Angeles last August, the film features interviews with Morello juxtaposed with live performances of “Black Spartacus Heart Attack Machine,” “Save The Hammer For The Man,” “It Begins Tonight,” and “World Wide Rebel Songs.” The film is sure to inspire fans both in and out of the Occupy Movement.
Says Morello, "Remember that old Coca-Cola commercial? ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing/in perfect harmony'? It’s like that. But with class warfare."
Tom Morello was also honored for his activism:
The Rage Against The Machine star has been one of the most fervent supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in New York last year (11), and has traveled across the U.S. and Canada, and even to London to perform for demonstrators calling for an end to corporate greed.
He also led hundreds of protesters in a musical march through the streets of the Big Apple on May Day (01May12) for the so-called Occupy Guitarmy event, and his campaign work earned him special recognition for public service at the 2012 Hillman Prizes ceremony.
Morello was presented with the award by singer and fellow civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, Jr. at the prizegiving in New York on Tuesday night (01May12), but the rocker admitted he didn't think he'd make it to the event when Occupy demonstrators clashed with police earlier that day.
From ThinkProgress: Wall Street CEOs Personally Lobby Federal Reserve To Weaken New Financial Regulations.
Gawker: Despite the fact that Arizona has already banned public funding for abortion, Governor Jan Brewer signed an even more restrictive bill that bars funding to any organization that provides abortions...
CNET learns the FBI is quietly pushing its plan to force surveillance backdoors on social networks, VoIP, and Web e-mail providers, and that the bureau is asking Internet companies not to oppose a law making those backdoors mandatory.
On Friday, I did something I had never done before: I attended a shareholder meeting of a publicly traded corporation. Technically speaking, I was a proxy for an account that held exactly one share of Occidental Petroleum. My official proxy form entitled me to attend the shareholder breakfast at a posh beachfront hotel in Santa Monica, as well as the shareholder meeting that followed it.
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Rather, I was there as part of a "mic check" organized by Good Jobs LA to protest the company's practices regarding taxation and executive compensation. At a designated point in the shareholder meeting, the organizers of the event—who also had shareholder proxies entitling them to speak—interrupted the proceedings with the well-known "people's microphone" technique that has become the hallmark of the occupy movement. The chant highlighted the roughly $50 million of compensation paid to Executive Chairman Ray Irani, who was chairing the meeting at the time, while California's education system continues to suffer budget cuts and our streets fall increasingly into disrepair. At the end, the dozens of protesters took up the traditional refrain of "we are the 99 percent" before being escorted out of the room.
Green Jobs employed 3.1 million Americans in 2010.
Occupy Your Workplace: Workers' self-management, workplace democracy and cooperatives; with Richard D. Wolff, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Gar Alperovitz, Naomi Klein, Avi Lewis and ILO.
