The Free

Eat the Rich: One week of Occupy London

On Saturday 22 October at 1pm in London, the general assembly is geared up to receive a swell of visitors, as many who work are inspired by the camp and plan to come and visit and see what it’s all about. It will be an important test for the assembly facilitators, to hold the camp together as more voices enter the equation…Posted by Jamie Kelsey-Fry |

Saturday will mark a week since OccupyLondon claimed its space at the feet of St Paul’s Cathedral. It has been a difficult but utterly uplifting experience for all.

People are gravitating to the camp constantly, drawn by what is really still an idea taking shape, but an idea that is already inspiring.

The camp is determined and committed to channelling peoples voices through general assembly and consensus. The aims of the London assembly and others around the world are cut from the same cloth. We all want to challenge the fundamental assumptions that underlie the world’s political and financial systems, which are failing us at all levels.

It’s an easy criticism to make that the assembly ‘offers no solutions’. Of course not, not yet. But the process of building a movement that asks the right questions, and considers that another world is possible, has begun. The systems of general assembly and consensus can be painstaking but they do mean that all those people involved have their voices heard.

The camp came up with their first statement in 48 hours. It’s now only six days in. I would suggest that if this process of forming a concrete vision of a fairer, safer more just world is anything as erudite as the way the London camp has organised itself, then we are in for something of great value. Perhaps an idea whose time has come.

If you plan to visit, I have no doubt that you will find the camp to be, at the very least, a source of hope. At best, you may find yourself deciding that you belong here, and the next thing you know, you’ll be collecting a sleeping bag and joining a working group. See you soon.

Dale Farm being evicted NOW by state gangsters

The Dale Farm Eviction and the Whiff of Fascism

Cops and bailiffs began their invasion at seven this morning. Despite courageous resistance by families and a group of activists, Basildon Council are continuing their eviction of Dale Farm residents, backed up by the iron fisted brutality of Essex riot cops. Harrowing and devastating though the episode is for the people being oppressed, it also has dark implications for society as a whole, in the UK and globally.

While the corporate media routinely spreads the deception that Dale Farm is an “illegal site”, it is in fact legally owned by the travellers

themselves. In one part, residents constructed buildings having won planning permission to do so. In the other – where eighty families had been camped before today- no such permission has been won. However, the lack of legal rights for travellers is part of a broader issue, and cannot justifiably be used to excuse one of the largest mass evictions in the country’s recent past. It should be noted that 90% of planning permission applications by travellers are rejected.

The land currently called Dale Farm has been disputed for decades. Though it is often referred to as “green belt”, it was used as a scrapyard by the council as early as the 1960s. English travellers first lived there in the 1970s, but they mostly left around ten years ago, when Irish travellers moved in.

Legal battles have been raging between Basildon Council and the travellers for years, and the latter have exhausted every possible avenue in defending their homes. But when the High Court verdict was handed down last week, it became clear that the council’s eviction would be going ahead.

To READ ON click HERE…(with thanks) http://infantile-disorder.blogspot.com/2011/10/dale-farm-eviction-and-whiff-of-fascism.html

as police in riot gear

Fascists and Church stole and sold 300,000 babies, executed 150,000..

When the fascist government finally fell apart in Spain there was a ‘transition’ and an amnesty law. After 40 years in power the ‘rabid right’ and the Church owned most property and wealth and to this day they hold power behind the scenes, controlling the police, army and judiciary.( really, they control the High Court).

Half a million died in the fascist takeover, and they executed over 100,000 more afterwards. All Spain is littered with mass graves and associations of relatives pay to have them dug up and analyzed. You can’t get any official help, even the invented crimes for the mass summary executions are still legally valid.

The amnesty law still stands-. There is no closure. No justice. The Spanish State, monarchy and religion are founded on gigantic mass butchery, life sentences and the worst tortures imaginable. No wonder they’re not popular!

The criminals and their heirs are still managing their fortunes and living in luxury. The Church owns half the country and pays no tax. Britain, France and the USA of course helped set up the regime. They always armed, aided and shared profits from the Fascist reign of terror for 40 years.

Now another well known but buried fascist crime has gone public, due to a documentary by the BBC, boosting their ratings and income.

Over 300,000 babies were taken from their parents, often by nuns who controlled the hospitals, and sold, right up till the 1970s.

”The practice of removing children from parents deemed “undesirable” and placing them with “approved” families, began in the 1930s under the dictator General Francisco Franco.

At that time, the motivation may have been ideological. But years later, it seemed to change – babies began to be taken from parents considered morally – or economically – deficient. It became a money-spinner, too.

The scandal is closely linked to the Catholic Church, which under Franco assumed a prominent role in Spain’s social services including hospitals, schools and children’s homes.

Nuns and priests compiled waiting lists of would-be adoptive parents, while doctors were said to have lied to mothers about the fate of their children.

The name of one doctor, Dr Eduardo Vela, has come up in a number of victim investigations. Dr Vela is confronted with the allegations in the documentary.

In 1981, Civil Registry sources indicate that 70% of births at Dr Vela’s San Ramon clinic in Madrid were registered as “mother unknown.”read lots more on BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15335899

sor-maria-goes-free-in-babysales-scandal

Permaculture at Occupy Wall Street

permaculture design at occupy wall street

Like many of you, I’ve been watching the Occupy Wall Street (and local OccupySTL) protests with fascination. While I know the mainstream media hasn’t gotten too creative in its reporting (once it started reporting), the little bit of digging I’ve done on “on-the-ground” reporting has turned up more than just angry kids, but an ongoing experiment with political participation and governance itself.

Sure, unemployment, income disparity, and the American dream have been at the forefront of the movement… but I wondered early on if environmental sustainability was getting a “place at the table” as this movement forms and grows.

The answer: yes (as I suspected). This morning, I received email from the OWS Sustainability Working Group and Seismologik Media about a short film the latter had produced in partnership with One Pack Productions (unfortunately, embedding Vimeo wasn’t working for me today, so you’ll have to click through). Of course, I’m happy to see permaculture on display at Occupy Wall Street; I’m even happier to see that there’s more than protest going on there, but also experimentation with alternative, sustainable ways to meeting needs (which, of course, is its own form of protest).

Take a look at the film (it’s just under five minutes long), and let us know what you think. What other kids of sustainability experimentation could be going on in the midst of this activism?

macho Spain:81 mujeres muertos/ 81 women killed by sexists

1b0583f6dadac40817ceb0df536bb5ff-580x820 — anti patriarchy demo

25-N 2011: Que no nos cuenten cuentos. El patriarcado mata

25th Nov.: Don’t tell us Fairy Tales. Patrarchy kills.

Un año más, la cifra de mujeres asesinadas por la violencia machista ha sido espeluznante: 67 mujeres y 14 personas relacionadas con ellas: hijxs, hermanxs, amigxs…Seguramente, cuando estés leyendo esto, haya alguna mujer más muerta.

For yet another year the figures for women murdered by sexist violence have been horrific. 67 women and 14 related to them: daughters, sisters, girlfriends..Surely just as you’re reading this there’s another woman being killed.Ninguna persona esta a salvo cuando tiene lugar este tipo de agresión. A pesar de que la violencia que mata es escandalosa, consideramos que hay otros tipos de violencia más sutiles y, a veces, completamente invisibles a los ojos de la sociedad, que siguen perpetuando el sistema patriarcal y que impiden nuestra evolución como mujeres libres.…Secretaría de la Mujer CGT

Nobody is safe when this type of violence takes place. Even though violence that kills is a scandal, there are other types of violence more subtle and sometimes invisible to the eyes of society, which continues to perpetuate the patriarchal system and which blocks our evolution as free women.

Womens´secretary CGT (anarchist union)

LEER MÁS AQUÍ.. READ MORE HERE

http://www.rojoynegro.info/evento/eje-violeta/25-n-2011-no-nos-cuenten-cuentos-el-patriarcado-mata

Eje Violeta ›Eje Violeta en Acción

World demo news: 350,000+ Occupy Barcelona..

15o — 15 O..one of many actions in Barcelona

There was no trouble because the police kept away, though I saw dozens of banks and the stock exchange being

heavily ‘redecorated’. The mainstream paper ‘El Periodico’ estimated 350,ooo participants, an enormous turnout

of every imaginable sector in festival mood and yelling anti Capitalist slogans.

Dozens of other Iberian cities were equally swamped with demonstrators. In Madrid a large empty hotel was occupied to accomodate families evicted for failing to pay impossible mortgages .

El grupo de indignados que ha ocupado esta madrugada el hotel Madrid, en la calle Carretas, tiene intención de “resistir pacíficamente” en el edificio y “cederlo” a la Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca.

Participant numbers. Cifras de asistencia en diferentes ciudades, según van contando las agencias: en Vigo, 10.000 manifestantes; Barcelona: 400.000 según la organización (la Guardia Urbana los cifra en 60.000); Alicante: 10.000; Elche: 2.000; Baleares, 5.000; Vitoria, 3.000.

11.56

En directo: Un grupo de indignados ha ocupado esta madrugada el hotel Madrid, en la calle Carretas

Las protestas han comenzado ya en Asia y Oceanía. Seúl, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Manila, Melbourne, Sydney y Auckland ya han tenido sus concentraciones de protesta. El simpatizante de Annonymous de la foto es uno de los manifestantes que han salido a la calle en Sydney

ROME 17.02… 70 injured, 3 seriously as the street battle between Occupiers and fascist police develops in Rome

La Policía italiana emplea cañones de agua contra los agitadores de Roma. Lanzaron piedras y petardos a los agentes, convirtiendo en batalla campal lo que era una marcha pacífica y multititudinaria.

En Bruselas, 6.000 manifestantes han arrojado zapatos contra la fachada del edificio de la Bolsa. Los activistas han gritado en castellano «¡culpable!»

Berlin En Alemania ha habido manifestaciones en diferentes ciudades. Las más concurridas han tenido lugar en Berlín y Francfort. En la capital, un grupo de activistas ha intentado sin éxito adentrarse en el Bundestag, el Parlamento alemán. La foto es de AP.

New YorkUnas 2.000 personas del movimiento Ocupa Wall Street han marchado este sábado por el distrito financiero de Neuva York secundando la convocatoria global de protesta de este 15 de

indignati — 15 Oct Rome. A more typical image than the burning cars.

octubre. Esta es la primera gran marcha del día, que culminará con una concentración en Times Square.

….Al menos 71 arrestados y cerca de 5.000 personas han secundado este sábado en Nueva York la manifestación celebrada en el marco de las marchas a nivel global con motivo del día 15-O que se han extendido a más de 80 países, según ha confirmado el Departamento de la Policía neoyorquina.

London La Policía Metropolitana que hay un solo detenido en las protestas de Londres, informa The Guardian. AHy discrepancias sobre las cifras de participación, la Policía habla de unos mil asistentes y la BBC estima que hay entre 3.000 y 4.ooo manifestantes. La protesta está dividida entre la «zona cero» de la jornada, en torno al edificio de la Bolsa, con quienes logran pasar el cordón policial, y varios cientos que se han quedado fuera, más diluidos, y no siempre bien recibidos por los residentes del barrio

15 Oct. How to Occupy. Download your Guide here..

Occupy! Your guide to the international Occupation Movement

October 13, 2011 (Peoples’ Assemblies) (#OccupyTogether, #OccupyWallSt, #OCCUPYWALLSTREET)

An occupation guide out of Santa Cruz and Baltimore that provides an introduction to consensus decision-making, know your rights info, and contextualizes US occupation in the context of recent international uprisings.

The ultra-rich have us by the throats and they’ve had us by the throats for a long, long time.

While the rest of us suffer through a worldwide economic crisis, the people at the top are just getting richer. In a 2011 study, the richest 20% of the country had 85% of the privately held wealth. For the rest of us, nothing’s getting better: the state is closing schools and libraries, rolling back social services, shutting down bus lines and state parks.

But an international movement has sprung up to challenge the foundations of our global system of corporatism and greed. It’s a protest movement qualitatively different from any that has come before, a uniquely 21st century form. It’s a movement without party politics. It’s a movement inspired by the advances of communication that have allowed us to function without authority, allowing every voice to at last be weighed truly as equal. It’s a movement that doesn’t bring a list of demands to the powers that be but instead suggests that we can build a different society.

The wealth that it takes to get us out of this mess is right in front of us—we know because we are the ones who created it. We designed and built the cities. We # y the planes, crunch the numbers, grow the food, write the software, and do everything it takes to keep this society running. All the wealthiest do is sit there and watch their money make more money.

The wealth is right in front of us and yet they tell us there isn’t enough to feed us, to educate us. They’re lying. Maybe they’re lying to themselves, maybe they’re lying to us—it doesn’t matter. They don’t matter. We don’t need them.

We are the 99% and we are more powerful than they’ll ever be.