Rob's Blob » Revolution http://robertcoss.com/blog The Best of My Brain Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:54:11 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 The Inevitable Revolution http://robertcoss.com/blog/2011/12/31/the-inevitable-revolution/ http://robertcoss.com/blog/2011/12/31/the-inevitable-revolution/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:57 +0000 Robert Coss http://robertcoss.com/blog/?p=4099 Continue reading →]]> “The responsibility of our time is nothing less than a revolution. A revolution that would be peaceful if we are wise enough; humane if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough. But a revolution will come whether we will it or not. We can affect it’s character, we cannot alter it’s inevitability.”~ Robert F. Kennedy

Share on Facebook ]]> http://robertcoss.com/blog/2011/12/31/the-inevitable-revolution/feed/ 0 Student Activism-Nonviolence, Resisting Arrest, and the Student Movements of the Sixties and Today http://robertcoss.com/blog/2011/11/26/student-activism-nonviolence-resisting-arrest-and-the-student-movements-of-the-sixties-and-today/ http://robertcoss.com/blog/2011/11/26/student-activism-nonviolence-resisting-arrest-and-the-student-movements-of-the-sixties-and-today/#comments Sun, 27 Nov 2011 00:00:38 +0000 Robert Coss http://robertcoss.com/blog/?p=3864 Continue reading →]]>

November 22, 2011

A recurring theme in criticism of the students pepper-sprayed at UC Davis last week is that in forming a ring around police and their fellow activists they were violating the principles of nonviolent resistance. “A fundamental tenet of civil disobedience is to accept arrest when protesting injustice,” Berkeley Daily Cal columnist Casey Given wrote yesterday, and so the UC activists of today have no right to “compare … their struggle to … the Free Speech and Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s.”

Casey Given is right that civil rights activists mostly submitted to arrest willingly (though one of the movement’s greatest unsung heroes did not). But to invoke the Berkeley Free Speech Movement as an example of this supposed rule of nonviolence is a deeply strange choice.

The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley was christened on September 30, 1964, at a sit-in following the citation of eight students for violating the university’s leafleting policies. The very next day, on the morning of October 1, the university administration escalated the conflict by arresting former student Jack Weinberg for tabling in support of the civil rights movement in SproulPlaza.

When police told Weinberg he was under arrest, he refused to move, and the officers were forced to call for backup. As they waited, the crowd grew. Eventually a squad car arrived. As police carried Weinberg into the car, the students standing nearby spontaneously sat down, blocking it from leaving Sproul. Police ordered them to move. They refused. Soon Mario Savio climbed onto the roof of the car and declared a noon rally at that location.

Savio was granted a meeting with university administrators not long after, at which he declared that the students surrounding the police car would disperse if and only if the administration released Weinberg, dropped charges against him and the eight students cited the previous day, and opened serious negotiations on campus regulations. Several hundred students spent that night surrounding the car, many of them in sleeping bags. (The demonstrators continued to use the car’s roof as a podium, denting it severely. They also deflated its tires.)

It was not until the following evening, after the administrators had accepted most of their demands, that the students allowed the police car to exit the plaza.

This is the history of nonviolent student protest at Berkeley. It is the history of peaceful student organizing, yes, but it’s also a history of students disrupting police business, refusing to submit to arrest, damaging police property, even holding police hostage.

That is the history of the students of the University of California. That is the inheritance of the student activists of today.

http://studentactivism.net/2011/11/22/nonviolence-resisting-arrest-and-the-student-movements-of-the-sixties-and-today/

Share on Facebook ]]> http://robertcoss.com/blog/2011/11/26/student-activism-nonviolence-resisting-arrest-and-the-student-movements-of-the-sixties-and-today/feed/ 0 A Field Guide to Closing Your Bank Account http://robertcoss.com/blog/2011/11/04/a-field-guide-to-closing-your-bank-account/ http://robertcoss.com/blog/2011/11/04/a-field-guide-to-closing-your-bank-account/#comments Sat, 05 Nov 2011 04:34:06 +0000 Robert Coss http://robertcoss.com/blog/?p=3781 Continue reading →]]>
 clipped from fearlessrevolution.com

Bank Transfer Day is gaining some serious steam. Although it’s not technically affiliated with Occupy, it’s being embraced by the movement and is the first specific call to action since the Occupy protests began four weeks ago.
The description and goal of Bank Transfer Day is straightforward: If you currently have checking and savings accounts (deposit accounts) with a big bank, the organizers encourage you to remove all of your funds, close your accounts, and place your money in a new deposit account with a not-for-profit credit union. The organizers ask that you do this by November 5. And since November 5 is a Saturday, you should definitely do it before November 5 since many big banks aren’t open on weekends.
Bank Transfer Day can significantly impact the way banks are able to make a profit. In simplest terms, banks rely on our deposit account balances to make loans that net substantial profits. Without our deposits, banks can’t make loans. And if banks can’t make loans, they’re going to take notice. And they’re surely going to freak out.
So if you currently have a deposit account with a big bank and you want to participate in Bank Transfer Day, read the following steps. It’s a field guide that will help you accomplish this meaningful task of shifting your money from corporations that serve the 1% and put it with an organization that cares about the remaining 99%.
What You Need To Do Before Walking Into Your Big Bank Branch
1. Go through previous big bank statements to see exactly which accounts you have. Be sure to check the names on each account. If you are closing a joint account with two holders, it makes a difference whether the word joining your names is “and” or “or.” If the account in your name is in your name and someone else’s, you will both need to go in and close the account. If the account is in your name or someone else’s, either of you can close the account. Some big banks may vary on this policy, so it’s best to call your big bank to find out exactly what you need to do prior to walking into your local branch.

 

2. If you have any loans with a big bank, look closely at your statements and paperwork you signed at the time of closing. There very well might be penalties that will trigger a higher interest rate if you close your checking account. Big banks excel at offering customers lower interest rates on mortgage and auto loans if you open a checking account and maintain a minimum balance. A primary checking account is a bank’s ultimate goal to securing your, ahem, loyalty. A primary checking account also leads to, on average, the opening of three additional accounts with that financial institution. Decide whether or not you can or have the willingness to pay off the outstanding loan balance. If you do not pay off the loan balance, call your bank to ask about escalating fees or rate increases by closing your checking account before walking into your local branch to close the checking account.
3. Stop using your deposit accounts ASAP. You need to allow everything to clear the accounts completely before you close them. This clearing process takes about two weeks to complete. Keep close tabs online to see which transactions are still outstanding.
4. Research non-profit credit unions. You will need a place to deposit your money, so perform this research before closing your big bank accounts. A good resource for finding credit unions is Find A Credit Union. Make your decision on which non-profit credit union you will join before walking in to the big bank branch to close your deposit accounts.
What To Do When You Walk Into Your Big Bank Branch
1. Approach a branch teller and tell him/her that you would like to close your accounts. The teller might hand you off to a customer service representative due to the bank’s account opening and closing protocol. Or the teller might hand you off because they don’t want to tie up customers’ wait time in the teller line.
2. If the bank employee asks why you are closing your account, decide in advance the reason you’re going to provide. You can tell them you’re unhappy with big banks. You can tell them you’re a part of the 99%. Or you can decline to give them a reason. The most important thing is to remain focused and not do anything imprudent that will keep you from accomplishing your goal of closing your deposit accounts and walking out of the big bank branch with your money.
3. Once the account closing process begins, ask the bank employee if you have any cash reserve accounts tied to your deposit accounts. It doesn’t make sense to keep a line of credit open that was tied to your soon-to-be closed account.
4. The bank employee will ask if you would like to receive your money in the form of a check or cash. If you want to make it rain outside of the big bank branch, request to receive cash. If you don’t want to make it rain, we advise you to request a check.
5. The bank employee will either give you a confirmation letter of your accounts being closed or they will mail it to you. Once you receive the letter, keep it on file for up to five years.
6. Walk out of the big bank branch.
What To Do After You Have Closed Your Big Bank Deposit Accounts
1. Shred all remaining checks and debit cards. This is an essential step. If you mistakenly use the checks or debit cards, you will be going back to the big bank branch. Except this time it will be to clean up your mess.
2. Go to the non-for-profit credit union you selected prior to closing your deposit accounts at the big bank. Open the accounts, get a new checkbook and debit card, shake the employee’s hand, maybe give him/her a hug.
3. Sync up your new deposit account information (ABA routing number and account number for checks, card number, expiration date, 3-digit security code for debit card) to any relevant accounts that require automatic payments. For example, if you automatically pay your car insurance on a monthly basis with your checking account, be sure to sync up your checking account with your car insurance company. You may also want provide your new account information for online products such as iTunes, eBay, and PayPal.
4. Stand in front of a full-length mirror. Admire yourself. You’ve earned it.
That’s all there is to it. Sounds like a lot and perhaps it is. After all, big banks played a role in making this process difficult because it acts as a deterrent for people to withdraw their money and close their accounts. But if you stick to this guide and remain focused on your goal, you can impact meaningful and measurable change by participating in Bank Transfer Day.

More resources for Bank Transfer Day:
Facebook: http://facebook.com/nov.fifth
Twitter: http://twitter.com/banktransferday
Twitter Hashtag: #louderthanwords

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“And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you’ve piled up is judgment. All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You’ve looted the earth and lived it up. But all you’ll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you’ve done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it. James 5:1-6 from THE MESSAGE translation
clipped from www.politicsdaily.com

Poland in 1980 and Wisconsin in 2011: History Rhymes

Gerald J. Beyer

Mentioning the campaign against unions by a Republican governor in 2011 in the same breath as the anti-labor repression by Communist authorities in Poland in 1980 is sure to raise eyebrows. Yet as Mark Twain supposedly said, if history doesn’t repeat itself, it sometimes rhymes.
And there are some striking similarities between that Communist-era episode and the ongoing standoff between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the state’s public employees. They were not lost on the current president of the Solidarity trade union in Poland, who sent a letter of support for public workers on behalf of the union’s 700,000 members.
“We are witnessing yet another attempt of transferring the costs of the economic crisis and of the failed financial policies to working people and their families,” wrote Piotr Duda, president of Solidarnosc, the Polish word for Solidarity. “Your victory is our victory as well.”
Indeed, both in Communist Poland and in Wisconsin today, the target was unions and their collective bargaining rights. And in both cases, we see the Roman Catholic Church supporting organized labor.
Led by the gutsy electrician Lech Walesa, workers of the Solidarity trade union movement went on strike in August 1980 to regain their freedom and their rights. Over 18 days, they negotiated with Communist party officials, who were actually more willing to make concessions than Walker has been to this point.
The governor is obviously not a Communist. His pro-business credentials are undeniable, as evidenced by his cozy relationship with the billionaire Koch brothers and his corporate tax cuts (which are arguably a cause of Wisconsin’s fiscal crisis). Yet, he sure is acting like the Polish Communists in one real way: they, too, staunchly opposed free trade unions and collective bargaining.
Walesa and other Solidarity leaders did not relent. They insisted that free trade unions and the right to collective bargaining were absolutely essential to guaranteeing freedom in Poland. Yes, they wanted wages that would feed their families. Yes, they wanted to work in safe conditions. But above all they wanted a voice in assuring the dignity of work. “Everything else would follow,” argued Walesa.

According to Timothy Garton Ash’s eyewitness account in “The Polish Revolution,” when it was all over Walesa told the throngs of workers “we now have the most important thing: Our Independent Self-Governing Trades Unions. That is our guarantee for the future.” The workers in Wisconsin are on the same page: they are willing to concede economic benefits, but they will not budge on their right to collective bargaining.
In its steadfast demands, Solidarity had a strong and venerable ally: the Catholic Church. Labor rights had been a pillar of Catholic social teaching since the 19th century, and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Krakow and the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, had for decades proclaimed the church’s support for a broad human rights agenda, including the rights of workers.
Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II in 1978, two years before Walesa led the Gdansk strike, and the pontiff’s 1981 encyclical on human labor, “Laborem Exercens” — published while Poland’s internal struggle was growing — buoyed Solidarity’s case for independent unions. In the pontiff’s words, workers have the “right … to form associations for the purpose of defending the vital interests of those employed in various professions.”
Moreover, the pontiff declared unions are a “mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the just rights of working people.” The Polish government wanted to keep this mouthpiece silent. Likewise, Walker is attempting to squelch the voice of workers by eviscerating unions’ primary purpose: negotiation of wages and benefits. He also wants to break their backs by forcing unions to hold annual recertification votes and to collect membership dues outside of payroll deductions.
Just as the church leaders stood up for Solidarity, Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee has raised his voice. In a recent statement, he quoted Pope Benedict XVI, who has argued that unions are more necessary than ever in the global economy, especially given the tendency of governments to limit the “negotiating capacity” of workers in the name of “economic utility.”
Listecki also cited John Paul II’s positive appraisal of the role that unions play in promoting social justice and the common good. The archbishop exhorted his fellow citizens to realize that “hard times do not nullify the moral obligation each of us has to respect the legitimate rights of workers” and that it is wrong to “marginalize or dismiss unions as impediments to economic growth.”
He echoed what the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote long ago, namely that economic decisions must not take place over the heads of workers whose livelihoods depend on them. On Thursday, the point man on social justice issues for the American hierarchy, Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, also reiterated that point in a letter to Listecki expressing “support for and solidarity” with the statement of the Wisconsin bishops.
“Catholic teaching and your statement remind us these are not just political conflicts or economic choices; they are moral choices with enormous human dimensions,” Bishop Blaire wrote. “The debates over worker representation and collective bargaining are not simply matters of ideology or power, but involve principles of justice, participation and how workers can have a voice in the workplace and economy.”
Such words could have easily come from the Polish bishops, who unequivocally supported Solidarity’s bid for workers’ rights.
Moreover, diverse faith traditions share this insistence on the rights and dignity of workers. That was evidenced by the support for workers coming from Jewish leaders and the decision by religious leaders in Wisconsin and Illinois to offer their houses of worship as sanctuaries for Democratic state senators who walked out of the legislature last week to block a vote on Walker’s proposal to roll back collective bargaining rights for public employees.
The Wisconsin governor is acting against the best impulses of democracy. The right to participate in discussions about wages and benefits is vital for a truly democratic and free-market system. As Pope John Paul II stated, a democracy that fosters the common good, “requires the effective exercise, even in the economic sphere, of the right of all people to share in the decisions which affect them.” A “free economy” needs legal structures and institutions such as unions to ensure “equality between the parties” so that “one party would not be so powerful as practically to reduce the other to subservience.”
The right to unions and collective bargaining is also necessary for human freedom. As both the Solidarity movement and Catholic social teaching have attested, freedom is fulfilled by participating in the construction of a just society. Unions safeguard workers’ ability to function in this capacity.
Perhaps progressives and the tea party could find agreement in opposition to the fact that Gov. Walker would give government more coercive power and encroach on workers’ ability to freely sell services in the marketplace. Union demands are not always justifiable, and sometimes workers must sacrifice a portion of their own livelihoods for the sake of the common good. But taking away their freedom is never acceptable. It is unethical, undemocratic, and un-American.
I’m certain the Polish freedom fighters who threw off the yoke of Communism would agree. Their motto was “no freedom without solidarity.”
In spite of the dangerous precedent set by Gov. Walker’s obstinacy — other states are weighing similar anti-union legislation — we can take heart in the solidarity between Wisconsin workers, student protesters and religious leaders – another parallel between Poland in 1980 and now. Perhaps like the Communist party officials in Poland, Walker may be unwittingly galvanizing an unstoppable alliance. A recent poll revealed that a clear majority of Americans oppose his attack on unions. When the dust clears, we may be indebted to him for our own era of solidarity.
Gerald J. Beyer is author of “Recovering Solidarity: Lessons From Poland’s Unfinished Revolution” (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010). He is associate professor of Christian social ethics at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
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We can do nothing against the truth. May the will of the people prevail.
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” – Ynet reported today that  US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said during a House Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday that Egypt’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement was “a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.”
Clapper, who heads the organization commanding 16 American intelligence and investigation agencies, told the committee that the Muslim Brotherhood “have pursued social ends, a betterment of the political order in Egypt, et cetera….. There is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence, at least internationally.”
Clapper  said that the group fills a vacuum caused by the absence of government services, but added, “It is not necessarily with a view to promoting violence or overthrow of the state.”
Israel and its lobbies better be prepared for the worst.
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The Egyptian Revolt is Coming Home
By John Pilger

February 10, 2011

” –- The uprising in Egypt is our theatre of the possible. It is what people across the world have struggled for and their thought controllers have feared.
Today, the problem for the people in Liberation Square lies not in Egypt.
The Obama administration formally threw its weight behind
the country’s vice president, General Omar Sulieman
supervisor of American “rendition flights” to Egypt where people are tortured on demand of the CIA
The uprising in Egypt has discredited every Western media stereotype about the Arabs. The courage, determination, eloquence and grace of those in Liberation Square contrast with “our” specious fear-mongering with its al-Qaeda and Iran bogeys and iron-clad assumptions, bereft of irony, of the “moral leadership of the West”.
the resistance in Cairo’s Liberation Square must seem an inspiration. “We won’t stop,” said the young Egyptian woman on TV, “we won’t go home.”
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“It was the moral force of nonviolence — not terrorism and mindless killing — that bent the arc of history toward justice once more.” ~ President Obama, Commander in Chief of his military that is doing the exact opposite. Was this an observation or commendation of what happened in Egypt?

Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In US War And Occupation Of Iraq “1,421,933″

Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan
$1,150,798,896,076

clipped from www.nytimes.com
Egypt Erupts in Jubilation as Mubarak Steps Down

Demonstrators in Cairo rejoiced Friday upon hearing that President Hosni Mubarak had been toppled after 18 days of protests against his government.

Published: February 11, 2011

CAIRO — An 18-day-old revolt led by the young people of Egypt ousted President Hosni Mubarak on Friday, shattering three decades of political stasis here and overturning the established order of the Arab world.

Shouts of “God is great” erupted from Tahrir Square at twilight as Mr. Mubarak’s vice president and longtime intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, announced that Mr. Mubarak had passed all authority to a council of military leaders.

Tens of thousands who had bowed down for evening prayers leapt to their feet, bouncing and dancing in joy. “Lift your head high, you’re an Egyptian,” they cried. Revising the tense of the revolution’s rallying cry, they chanted, “The people, at last, have brought down the regime.”

“We can breathe fresh air, we can feel our freedom,” said Gamal Heshamt, a former independent member of Parliament. “After 30 years of absence from the world, Egypt is back.”

Mr. Mubarak, an 82-year-old former air force commander, left without comment for his home by the Red Sea in Sharm el Sheik. His departure overturns, after six decades, the Arab world’s original secular dictatorship. He was toppled by a radically new force in regional politics — a largely secular, nonviolent, youth-led democracy movement that brought Egypt’s liberal and Islamist opposition groups together for the first time under its banner.

One by one the protesters withstood each weapon in the arsenal of the Egyptian autocracy — first the heavily armed riot police, then a ruling party militia and finally the state’s powerful propaganda machine.

Mr. Mubarak’s fall removed a bulwark of American foreign policy in the region. The United States, its Arab allies and Israel are now pondering whether the Egyptian military, which has vowed to hold free elections, will give way to a new era of democratic dynamism or to a perilous lurch into instability or Islamist rule.

The upheaval comes less than a month after a sudden youth revolt in nearby Tunisia toppled another enduring Arab strongman, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. And on Friday night some of the revelers celebrating in the streets of Cairo marched under a Tunisian flag and pointed to the surviving autocracies in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Yemen. “We are setting a role model for the dictatorships around us,” said Khalid Shaheen, 39. “Democracy is coming.”

President Obama, in a televised address, praised the Egyptian revolution. “Egyptians have made it clear that nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day,” he said. “It was the moral force of nonviolence — not terrorism and mindless killing — that bent the arc of history toward justice once more.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, the outlawed Islamist movement that until 18 days ago was considered Egypt’s only viable opposition, said it was merely a supporting player in the revolt.

“We participated with everyone else and did not lead this or raise Islamic slogans so that it can be the revolution of everyone,” said Mohamed Saad el-Katatni, a spokesman for the Brotherhood. “This is a revolution for all Egyptians; there is no room for a single group’s slogans, not the Brotherhood’s or anybody else.”

The Brotherhood, which was slow to follow the lead of its own youth wing into the streets, has said it will not field a candidate for president or seek a parliamentary majority in the expected elections.

The Mubarak era ended without any of the stability and predictability that were the hallmarks of his tenure. Western and Egyptian officials had expected Mr. Mubarak to leave office on Thursday and irrevocably delegate his authority to Vice President Suleiman, finishing the last six months of his term with at least his presidential title intact.

But whether because of pride or stubbornness, Mr. Mubarak instead spoke once again as the unbowed father of the nation, barely alluding to a vague “delegation” of authority.

The resulting disappointment enraged the Egyptian public, sent a million people into the streets of Cairo on Friday morning and put in motion an unceremonious retreat at the behest of the military he had commanded for so long.

“Taking into consideration the difficult circumstances the country is going through, President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave the post of president of the republic and has tasked the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to manage the state’s affairs,” Mr. Suleiman, grave and ashen, said in a brief televised statement.

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    clipped from faithinpubliclife.org

    Mubarak resigns, hands power to military, bowing to 18-day wave of democracy protests

    By Paul Schemm and Maggie Michael – Associated Press
    February 11, 2011

    Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and handed control to the military on Friday, bowing down after a historic 18-day wave of pro-democracy demonstrations by hundreds of thousands. “The people ousted the president,” chanted a crowd of tens of thousands outside his presidential palace in Cairo.

    Several hundred thousand protesters massed in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square exploded into joy, waving Egyptian flags, and car horns and celebratory shots in the air were heard around the city of 18 million in joy after Vice President Omar Suleiman made the announcement on national TV just after nightfall.

    Mubarak had sought to cling to power, handing some of his authorities to Suleiman while keeping his title. But an explosion of protests Friday rejecting the move appeared to have pushed the military into forcing him out completely. Hundreds of thousands marched throughout the day in cities across the country as soliders stood by, besieging his palace in Cairo and Alexandria and the state TV building.

    “In these grave circumstances that the country is passing through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave his position as president of the republic,” a grim-looking Suleiman said. “He has mandated the Armed Forces Supreme Council to run the state. God is our protector and succor.”

    Nobel Peace laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, whose young suporters were among the organizers of the protest movement, told The Associated Press, “This is the greatest day of my life.”

    “The country has been liberated after decades of repression,” he said adding that he expects a “beautiful” transition of power.

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