The People’s Record Memorial Day Dedication
Sergeant Shamar Thomas (photo source)
Sergeant Shamar Thomas is a veteran marine sergeant who stood up to a hoard of NYPD officers in militarized gear that were preparing to assault protesters at Occupy Wall Street. His heroic stand caused the officers to back-down and retreat and immediately became one of the most memorable moments of the Occupy Wall Street protest. This Memorial Day, we salute him! Here’s the video of his face-off with NYPD.
Click here for a complete list of The People’s Record’s Memorial Day dedications.
(Source: thepeoplesrecord)
Jeff Danziger (05/21/2012)
True. That.
>:)
(Source: thecommunes)
Haiti Refuses Monsanto Seed Donation
WASHINGTON – Advocates for Haitian peasants said a U.S.-based company’s donation of up to 475 tons of hybrid vegetable seeds to aid Haitian farmers will harm the island-nation’s agriculture.
The advocates contend the donation is being made in an effort to shift farmer dependence from local seed to more expensive hybrid varieties shipped from overseas.
Haitian farmers and small growers traditionally save seed from season to season or buy the seed they desire from traditional seed markets.
However, an official from the St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. told Catholic News Service that the seed is simply a donation to the Haitian government. The first two shipments – 135 tons – of hybrid varieties of corn, cabbage, carrot, eggplant, melon, onion, spinach, tomato and watermelon arrived in Haiti during the first two weeks of May.
Bazelais Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay, the primary group opposed to the donation, told CNS June 1 from his office in Brooklyn, N.Y., that farmers usually are skeptical of unknown seed varieties.
“From my experience, the peasant (farmer) is very careful in using the seeds, particularly corn,” Jean-Baptiste said. “They would not plant a seed they did not know because they invested time to prepare the land and the seed.”
In a widely distributed e-mail in mid-May, Jean-Baptiste’s brother, Chavannes, executive director of the peasant group, excoriated the seed donation as “a new earthquake.”
He said the entry of Monsanto seed into Haiti was “a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds … and on what is left of our environment in Haiti.”
The Haitian Ministry of Agriculture welcomed the gift in April, but only after Monsanto assured officials that the seeds were not genetically modified varieties. Ministry officials refused an earlier gift of herbicide-treated seed.
Ehhh, fack you Monsanto.
(Source: thepeoplesrecord)
Occupy Western New York
“We are entering a historic period of massive upheaval. We are plunging headlong into the unknown. We are working to improve the world while forces of opposition rally against our every move. We are strong, yet weakened by our inability to fully connect with one another. We must push beyond our abilities to do more, expose more, see more, feel more, connect more. We do not have all the time in the world.”
Private Danny Chen, and why I will never again reach out to OWS about something that matters to me
Anyone who is involved with the #OCCUPYWALLSTREET movement is strongly encouraged to read the linked article. Fighting for justice and defending the marginalized is about amplifying their own voice, not interjecting your own. It is frankly quite shocking to me that anyone could be so clueless and hurtful.
White people, recognize your privilege and accept that you aren’t always the fucking
centre of attentionringleaders.As marginalized people in this country rise, new forms of oppression are at work – those who have not experienced systemic oppression are claiming it anyway, turning social justice on its head and diluting the messages and movements that have been our hearts and souls. I think this quote from the New Jim Crow sheds a lot of light on why OWS emerged the way that it did: “Following the collapse of each system of control, there has been a period of confusion—transition—in which those who are most committed to racial hierarchy search for new means to achieve their goals within the rules of the game as currently defined. It is during this period of uncertainty that the backlash intensifies and a new form of racialized social control begins to take hold.”
(h/t dagseoul)
Sooo many people don’t know what they’re talking about, and are overpowering those that do. People should be there to be educated on what they don’t know, instead they’re using it as a soapbox to project hate and talk about other things. I agree with the ideas behind the movement, but not the people who don’t know what they’re talking about. This reminds me of Derrick Jensen’s latest article in the Jan/Feb addition of Orion. These activists are in it for the party and bullshit, no work.
Just turned in my paper on Accumulation by Dispossession as governmental power being dispossessed from the 99% to the 1%, and how Occupy Wall Street has opposed this
“Accumulation by dispossession in our own times has … provoked political and social struggles and vast swaths of resistance (Harvey).” Occupy Wall Street is a very recent social movement that began on September 17th, 2011 as a public outcry against the dispossession of governmental power for the “99%”. In class, we have defined accumulation by dispossession as a “division of the commons”, or, taking something that is outside the market (not private property), and turning it into private property, making it a commodity that can be used to make a profit. As a representative democracy, our nation elects officials under the assumption that they are in power to create and defend policies that represent the ideas of the people who choose to elect them. In the United States anyone who is a citizen over the age of eighteen is legally allowed to vote and cannot be discriminated against based on race, color, sex, wealth, or failure to pay fees (wiki). By this description, it is safe to say that our government officials elected to represent our ideas can be considered a “common good”. Therefore, everybody should have the right to appeal to their representatives, and representatives should be listening to the people to make their decisions, creating a representative government of the people. But, because of limited regulation on campaign financing, this is not the case. An elite group has been able to use elected government officials as a tool to ensure personal gain, essentially dispossessing the people’s power to be represented in their government. Because this does not deny the people’s power in who they choose to elect, they can still be tricked into thinking they have power. The beauty of the Occupy movement is that it covers a broad range of social injustices allowing it to attract support from all those except the minority whom it opposes. There is also a viable solution that Occupy proposes to begin to fix these problems: the reformation of campaign finance laws.
They want to be free of a system that seeks to encumber them in debt. They want to be treated with dignity and respect and not be treated as tools to be exploited by a wealthy elite.
In other words, they want what the founding fathers wanted. They want to be Americans.
If that’s too much to ask, the movement is only getting started and will be with us for a long time to come.
Occupy Wall Street may have been expelled from Zuccotti Park, but increasingly it is coming to occupy a place in our hearts.”
