Hasta La Creative!

Hey you redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,

Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May. The world’s military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80 nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.

And so will we.

On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.

And this time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of police repression that happened during the Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony restrictions the City of Chicago may want to impose on our first amendment rights. We’ll go there with our heads held high and assemble for a month-long people’s summit … we’ll march and chant and sing and shout and exercise our right to tell our elected representatives what we want … the constitution will be our guide.

And when the G8 and NATO meet behind closed doors on May 19, we’ll be ready with our demands: a Robin Hood Tax … a ban on high frequency ‘flash’ trading … a binding climate change accord … a three strikes and you’re out law for corporate criminals … an all out initiative for a nuclear-free Middle East … whatever we decide in our general assemblies and in our global internet brainstorm – we the people will set the agenda for the next few years and demand our leaders carry it out.

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …

for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ

CANG8.org / ChicagoMassAction.org / Occupy Chicago
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This years’ World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, marks the start of the perennial capitalist meet-and-greet summit season.

The economic equivalent of the Oscars, the WEF is a time for the 0.1% to celebrate the achievements and successes of free-markets, and to discuss how to keep the crumbling ship from running ashore; it’s also a time to get in a few good runs on the slopes, deep tissue massages and a soothing hot tub session on the 99%’s dime.

Nestled in the picturesque Swiss Alps where the melting glaciers are deceptively intact and the hotels serviced by an army of invisible temporary workers, approximately 2000 global elites discuss everything from redistributing their obscene profits (a.k.a philanthropy) and environmental sustainability, to forecasting new areas of expansion and the future of capitalism.

On this latter note, delegates will be treated to a special brainstorming session on corporate capitalism’s forecast led by the wisdom of Bank of America CEO, Bryan Moynihan. Then to jazz things up, there will be several roundtable discussions with social media and internet hotshots, Facebook and Google, on how the revolutionary elements of web organizing can reinforce market growth.

Gag. Why hasn’t a stink bomb already gone off in this place?

Here is the latest on the Occupy igloo’s outside the Davos security permitter.

As Occupy gears up for the American Spring, our European counterparts will soon have one OWS victory to put in their cap. In France this past week, lawmakers put their backing behind a bill for a Robin Hood (Tobin) Tax. The tax, a fraction of a percent on all derivative, currency and securities transactions, will equate to billions of dollars for social programs (at a nominal cost to the markets) and will reign in the worst elements of speculative trading in Europe.

This marks the long beginning of the necessary radical shift in the economic paradigm of our age. Germany and the Eurozone states are already on board, leaving only the U.K. and the U.S. defending unbridled neo-conservative free market gains.

For all of us this side of the Atlantic, the obvious question is: why not a Tobin Tax here?

When the G8 meets in Chicago this May, lets make sure that Occupy is there to greet them with a demand for Robin Hood.

(Reuters) – France wants to target bonds and derivatives, as well as stocks, with a new tax on financial transactions which the conservative government hopes to introduce before an April presidential election, Finance Minister Francois Baroin said on Tuesday.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government is keen to push ahead with a “Tobin tax” even without its European Union partners …

Read the entire article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/10/us-france-tax-idUSTRE8091BC201…

Mike Emery is a sociology student at the University of Maine. This article first appeared in The Maine Campus.

Tuesday marks the four-month anniversary of the Occupy movement. Perhaps it’s time to ask the question: Is it working? In four months, has progress been made toward realizing the movement’s goals?

As much as I would like to be able to answer with an emphatic “yes,” reality is much less encouraging for Occupiers, who haven’t been able to maintain a consistent focus.

On July 13, 2011, Adbusters bloggers proposed an occupation of America’s financial center, slated to begin on Sept. 17. “[W]e want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months,” the post read.

So far, so good.

“Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices,” according to the post.

And that “one simple demand” is the problem.

That original proposal was based on the Egyptian uprising and the Arab Spring in general. The organization proposed that OWS should demand “a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington.”

Such a commission could have had a great and immediate impact on American politics or made proposals to lay a foundation for future reforms, like the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Instead, the idea was abandoned.

On Sept. 29, the 13th day of the Occupation, the General Assembly at Zuccotti Park issued a declaration listing 23 grievances against major corporations. Nowhere did this declaration call for a Presidential Commission, or for any action, except to suggest direct democratic participation and an admonition to “[e]xercise your right to peaceably assemble.”

We have seen peaceable assembly in the months since; we haven’t seen political action.

Compare this to the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt. Protests began on Jan. 25 and on Feb. 11, President Hosni Mubarak resigned. The revolution continued, and democracy is still at risk. Nevertheless, in less than a month, the Tahrir protesters did something that the OWS protesters haven’t yet done: They gave their country an opportunity for real change. They achieved their first major goal and then moved on to continue fighting.

The Occupy movement has tried to keep organization loose – the various local Occupy protests are linked in name and in spirit but have no obligation to support a particular political agenda. This has led to political fragmentation, as each group of protesters agitates for their own particular reforms. Some of these reforms have stayed on the target of reducing corporate influence in American politics, while others branch out unnecessarily.

For example, among the 23 grievances listed by the General Assembly at Zuccotti Park, there were references to corporations blocking renewable energy, mistreating animals and perpetuating colonialism. A flyer for an Occupy UMaine rally in November stated, “The Greedy Government & Corporations should be feeding & clothing the hungry, homeless, & struggling hard working American families.”

While I applaud the various groups of Occupiers for trying to keep these issues in the spotlight as long as the Occupy movement has it, the lack of focus on one singular, powerful reform has allowed Occupy opponents to paint the movement as one of radicals and hippies, letting inattentive members of the public gloss over the fundamental idea of the protests: Corporate influence in government perpetuates unhealthy levels of inequality.

Every other complaint, every proposed reform, stems from this issue.

As we’ve seen in Egypt – where protests and grassroots political action continue almost a year after President Mubarak’s resignation – a political movement doesn’t have to stop when it achieves its first goal.

Social activism is a task that never ends. As it stands now, the Occupy movement is showing us that without focus, a social movement with its heart in the right place and international support can squander its political potential.

Mike Emery is a fourth year sociology student at the University of Maine. His political columns appear every Wednesday in The Maine Campus.

What do you think? Does our movement have a future? Can we brainstorm/network through winter and come out swinging in the Spring?

Time to assemble once more.

This kid’s got an attitude that you just can’t fix. Pepper spray. Truncheons. Gas. Confinement. Brutality. Nothing works. You tell him he can’t loiter and he pitches a tent. You tell him he can’t assemble and he brings his friends. You tell him to be quiet and he starts a mic check. You raise your baton in one hand and squeeze the trigger on the pepper spray canister in the other. You curse this kid’s existence because deep down you know you’ll have to go through it all again … and even worse, you think he might be right.

The discourse of our world is shifting. Today is the three-month anniversary of Occupy. It’s a time to reflect, to celebrate, to think about what has been achieved already and about what’s coming up next.

From pole to pole, from East to West, people are rising up! It started in Tunisia, it moved to Egypt, then to New York, and now there are rumblings in Russia and the Far East.

Let’s celebrate our successes and dream up new offensives. Out in the streets, in our homes, as we occupyxmas and as we hibernate for the winter, let’s take this day to revel in the birth and ongoing life of our movement. And as we brainstorm this winter, what do you see happening in the next stage? Share your thoughts, tactics, epiphanies, and revelations below … and no matter what … let’s come out swinging when the crocuses bloom next Spring.

Here’s to the Year of the Dragon,

from all of us here at Adbusters