#OccupyWallStreet-- “But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

[Admiral Loinpresser]

Churchill uttered these immortal words when fascist forces had until only recently seemed invincible in Europe, North Africa and the central Pacific. The Allies had been taking it and taking it. Fascism is very focused and effective at acquiring power, but abysmal at sustaining it, as ideology takes precedence over pragmatism. In less than four years Germany and Japan were vanquished and fascist genocide in Europe and China was stopped.

An analogous struggle is taking place today between 99% of the world's population and the 1% who currently rule. We have been taking it and taking it for decades. Stolen elections and the erosion of the rule of law. Reaganism has paved the way for genocide, austerity measures around the globe, ever more draconian oppression and the transfer of wealth to the ruling elites, while the global economy continues in rapid downward spiral. The struggle is taking place in Egypt, Spain, Yemen, Wisconsin and now in a growing number of American cities, most notably New York.

Stephen Lerner, a union organizer, recently spoke to activists in Minnesota about the coming struggle in NY and other cities (slightly paraphrased):

People have said 'We keep hearing we need to do something, what is it we need to do?' We need to go on offense. You folks know what I mean, we need to go on the offense? It means we have to quit being curled up in the fetal position, seeing how many body blows we can take and then we boast, 'Well, they beat us, but we can still stand up.' That's called defense...

This is about creating and building power. We're not going to convince the other side that we're right with intellectual arguments. We need to create power and in a way, we need to talk about how we create a crisis for the super rich.

Ghandi and MLK were great class warriors of the last century. They understood that to be effective the warfare of liberation had to be nonviolent in character and based on a total commitment to victory.

If you can, I urge you to go to Wall Street and help the occupation with your body and your spirit. If you can't, I urge you to work in your own community to support the occupation.

It is time to go on the offensive in this historic class war. Perhaps in New York we will witness the end of the beginning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2w9UlSfgR4&feature=youtu.be

https://occupywallst.org /

[Luminous Animal]

1. Please, click on the link. "Occupy Wall Street" is spreading to many other U.S. cities.

San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston...

[99th_Monkey]

8. Yes yes. spread the word however. lovely . nt

[dkf]

2. Well wall street is tanking so I guess these people should be happy.

[99th_Monkey]

6. Fuck Wall St. and the horse they rode in on. nt

[truedelphi]

10. I guess you just don't get it.

"These people" are aware of all of the facts that point to Wall Street being a Beast for whom America's Middle class continues to have to sacrifice itself.

It is a known fact that the Huge Ponzi Scheme called Wall Street has done nothing but rely on unrealistic approaches to the economy -such as low interest rates that penalize those who save but reward those who participate in bubbles, such as the dot com bubble and the housing bubble.

We also know that in addition to the 700+ billion dollars that was the TARP Bailout, some Nine Trillions of dollars was 'slipped" out of the Federal Reserve over to the Largest financial firms on Wall Street, and in other financial capitals around the world - just since Fall of 2008. How has that money going to Wall Street helped most Americans? Americans in the 19 to age 25 category have only 55.5% of their number in full time employment currently.

Older people who have been "let go" find that they cannot get jobs at all - as their health insurance premiums are a stiff penalty to any employer who would think of hiring them.

Jobs have not been created, but the bonus structure and the hoarding of much of the money offered by Bernanke to these firms continues unabated.

So rather than any politicians rising up and rallying the nation behind themselves as they demand that Wall Street return the Nine Trillions, instead, the Middle Class is told that we must now adopt "austerity measures." Why? Have the thieving scoundrels return what was lent to them - in real dollars and not phoney baloney investment papers.
And end the phoney baloney wars as well. Then and only then will the economy recover.

And then those protesting on Wall Street can come home.

[orpupilofnature57]

12. Right on!! President Clinton said this week a trillion dollars in banks

with nothing to do ,It's a game of I'll forfeit my 2 to get your one and only ,so my other 5 are worth twice as much.

[Cirque du So-What]

11. Don't your arms get tired

from carrying the capitalistas' water?

[Maven]

18. Thrilled actually.

Fuck the technocrats. Fuck them all.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Kick and recommended

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. Kick and Recommend.

[99th_Monkey]

5. I wish I could give you 500 recs. LIVE FEED LINK TO WALL St. HERE >>>

http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

[Firebrand Gary]

7. K&R

[Luminous Animal]

9. This is finally starting to catch on. Koko, me, you....

[Admiral Loinpresser]

13. Oh yeah. This morning the group in Liberty Park looks bigger!

Tomorrow (Saturday) should be very interesting. San Francisco seems to have a healthy start. I haven't looked at a feed from any other city yet, but I have heard about some organizing. And in cyberspace things are much different than they were two days ago. Now on FB many of my friends are posting stories about the movement. People are starting to hear about it, despite the corporate blackout.

[Luminous Animal]

14. !!! FTY. the encampments in Spain started with about 30 people.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

15. Have you got a good link for what happened in Spain?

I heard they ended up with about 300,000 people. I would like to know more about it.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

19. Here's what I found on Spain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Spanish_protests#Political_response

[tritsofme]

16. Yes, the actions of these tens of dozens of people will clearly change the world.

The Churchill analogy is the quite apt.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

17. Good point.

Next time I'll remember not to advocate for something until *after* it has become overwhelmingly popular. My mistake was to forget skepticism must be applied before the bandwagon arrives.

I believe one of my ancestors dismissed the effort at Lexington and Concord applying those sound principles. If they'd just had more respectable numbers at Lexington, that first shot could have been heard a long way.