Egregious Fact Number One: Our tax dollars were used to bail out Wall Street.

In case you need a reminder: Wall Street banks and companies are private corporations, not public institutions. In a democracy, taxes are supposed to go toward funding roads, parks, health clinics, schools, social security–anything that benefits the common good. Despite the lame claims of some vociferous Tea Party morons, the government is not actually “taking” our money–we collectively maintain infrastructure and social services through consensually paying taxes. The consensus is implicit in being alive.

If we did not pay taxes, society would collapse. You cannot maintain society through anarchic private entities–that’s antithetical to democracy. So the fact that our public dollars were used to bail out banks that do not have societal interests as their primary or even secondary or even tertiary concern means that our money was stolen from us. The banks use those public dollars to fatten their coffers. Meanwhile, cuts to social services–mental health, education, social security, and on and on and on and on and on–pervade. House foreclosures abound, while Wall Street executives acquire three and four homes. It’s the very embodiment of kleptocracy: enrich the elite while bleeding the effete.

Egregious Fact Number Two:... more »

Early this week, hundreds of citizens gathered in New York’s Zuccotti Park. Loud, unruly people chanted strange slogans while standing in the streets wearing strange costumes. The city’s police resources were pushed to the limit trying to contain the spontaneous gathering. The demonstration was similar in tone to similar gatherings in recent years in places like Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco and even Green Bay. In fact, demonstrations like this are common in cities with football teams after a Super Bowl or other major sports championship win.

I look forward to the city denouncing these Giants fans and press releases about how much this occupation of the New York streets cost the taxpayers.

Personally, I’m more afraid of football fans than I am anarchists, but all the Occupy water cooler chat this week was about this Chris Hedges piece, warning Occupiers that Black Bloc Anarchists are rotting the movement from the inside. A “cancer,” he calls them, and warns us that the Black Bloc will ultimately bring down Occupy itself with the same shortsighted narcissism that compels them to reject and denounce all movements and institutions. In their dogmatic refusal to work with political allies or authorities, the Anarchists have to be... more »

(Jeff Questad is taking a well-deserved week off, but he did send me the lion’s share of the following links. And never fear, Q-Heads–he’ll be back at the Occupy Roundup helm next week.)

Saturday in Oakland turned into a clusterfuck (although doesn’t it always?) as OPD arrested over 400 protestors–and, by accounts which are beginning to trickle in/out, members of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department proceeded to humiliate and possibly torture the detainees. Keep your eye on this one, folks.

And keep your other eye on Miami, where police have raided the #OM encampment. I don’t have anything to link to yet (as usual, a big Thank You to the mainstream media), but here’s a piece from the Miami Herald which details the situation just after sundown, the time at which the protestors were ordered to be gone.

Boy, for a movement that’s supposed to be on its last gasp …

I can in no way come up with anything new to say about last week’s release of Mitt Romney’s tax returns, but here’s a calculator to tell you how long it took Mitt to make what you made in all of 2010. FYI (TMI?), Mitt took in my entire 2010’s-worth of income in less than half a... more »

– I am a writer and a photographer, and sometimes I like to combine the two art forms, which in fact are my favorite vices. Such is the case with “Ask Not,” which is what I hope is the first in a series of visual texts is support of the Occupy Movement. For “Ask Not,” I wanted to re-invent the statement made by John Kennedy in his inaugural address. I understood that the young president wanted us to look beyond our personal lives to see the greater good. Ironically, as a little kid I saw John Kennedy in Houston on November 21, 1963, the night before he was assassinated.

You never forget your first victim of police brutality. Way back in October, Scott Olsen took one for the team in in Oakland, the victim of an apparent tear gas canister fired at close range by an Oakland cop. In a movement that has no leaders and no big names, that knock on the head made Scott a rock star, and now he’s profiled in Rolling Stone. This piece also has some good stuff about life on the Occupied streets of Oakland and a picture of Scott rockin’ the neck brace.

Don’t call it a comeback. Occupy San Fran has been feeding people and shutting down banks, licking its wounds after having its encampments forcibly taken down. But the movement is being reborn for Spring 2012 as Occupy Wall Street West. Friday’s march through the financial district included more than 50 groups that have aligned with Occupy. It rained, but Occupy says it was the biggest turn out they’ve had yet and the banks suffered more than the Occupiers. Of course, if Mark Wahlberg had been there, it wouldn’t have gone down like it did.

Your Occupation Calendar:

• February 3rd – National day of action against the NDAA (Facebook)
• March 30th – National Occupation of... more »

The nature of the occupy movement has a striking resemblance to the Vietnam War protests back in the 1960s. Pundits of that era characterized the protestors as pot-smoking hippies who needed to get a haircut, bath and a job. Not much has changed. A single event crystallized that generation and is memorialized in photos that are as powerful today as they were fifty years ago. The words of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Ohio” still summon vivid memories of that horrific day on the campus of Kent State University.

It is an over-dramatization to compare the protestors who were pepper sprayed on the University of California-Davis campus with the students who were shot dead by National Guardsmen in May of 1970. But the image of a campus police officer calmly stepping over a peaceful group of protestors, displaying a can of pepper spray like an actor displaying the Oscar he’d just won, and methodically spraying the chemicals directly into the faces of defenseless students, was disturbing. Fellow-officers forming a defensive circle with weapons fixed on the nonviolent students who watched added to the absurdity.

Over the past couple of months, pundits have vilified the protestors as dirty, naïve and aimless—actually those were some... more »

Jeff Questad will be on hiatus for a bit, but he did send me the majority of these links. Because he’s a stand-up dude and Black Sabbath enthusiast.

We’re still taking submissions for Occupy Fringe, FYI. Send your poetry, essays, short fiction, or artwork to FringetheMagazine@gmail.com.

Lots of fun stuff to talk about from last week, and plenty of upcoming Occupy events all around the word. So spread the word, huh? And join in if you can. Your local Occupy group likely has Facebook and Twitter accounts.

– — This happened a few weeks ago, but I’m just seeing it now: Newt Gingrich being “mic-checked” during a speech in Iowa. I can’t decide how I feel about this one. On the one hand, anyone who wants to disrupt anything Newt Gingrich is doing has my support. I’d very much like it if the American people gave Newt plenty of free time with which to write more of those shitty alternate history novels. And this clip did make me grin from ear to ear. And giggle some more at that awkward oaf who knew he wanted to do something but couldn’t quite figure himself out.

But. Is this the right kind of action? Or does it bring negative attention and... more »

The Occupation continues into the new year.

We can begin 2012 by looking at some of the battles the 99% have won. Don’t forget the smaller cities. Even serious movement watchers and participants sometimes make the mistake of overlooking Occupy groups in smaller cities, even as their wins stack up. Check out McAllen, Texas, a little (but fast-growing) town on the southern most tip of Texas just across the Rio Grande from Reynosa, Mexico.

We can look way back, as Michael Moore tells us the story of The First Occupy.

We can embrace the new year by looking to the future. Noam Chomsky says it’s time to advance to the next stage. While we’re at it, we could start speculating about the proposed May 1 celebration/demonstration/occupation.

We could look outward, to the Arab world, where the Occupiers Of Tahir Square say they support the American Occupy movement. Democracy Now has a special episode looking at the year of global uprisings. Did you know there was an Occupy Tokyo?

We can look in the mirror, at the best Occupy photos of 2011.

Or we can stay in the moment:

January 17 is the next big occupied date on the calendar. Organizers hope Occupy Congress will be the biggest gathering yet. The date is... more »

On January 17th, Occupy Wall Street goes to Washington. The 4th-month anniversary of the movement just happens to coincide with the day Congress comes back, and OWS wants a million tents there to set the tone for the session.

That’s ambitious, and it wouldn’t be out of line to question if it can be done. Just how big is the movement today? Nobody has more of a finger on the pulse than Firedoglake, and they put the number of active encampments at 61 this week. This number is in constant flux and may not reflect some smaller groups.

But the strength of the movement is measured in the many fronts on which news is happening and things are getting done. That’s why you read Occupy Fringe. Let’s see where things are, and have a little fun. Day 100 of The Occupation was celebrated on Christmas day. Here’s what was happening this week in Occupied America:

“We Are The 99%” has been chosen as the year’s top quote by a guy who chooses the year’s top quote.

The 99% celebrated Christmas in public spaces all over the country. In Zuccotti Park, now fenced off and tightly guarded, at huge cost to the city, demonstrators came together for a holiday celebration... more »

Recognizing the Roche limit

He shakes his head. ‘Ah it is a shortage.’

‘A shortage of what?’

‘A shortage of initiative,’ he says, without missing a beat.

It seems as though we are always seeking

seeking

seeking.

And never finding.

I came from such a long way away

Now I pass my time daydreaming about Conceivable.

Anything beautiful bequeaths a strong aftertaste

Like rejection.

Or wasted ambition.

Or an idea that resonates.

Or clarified possibility.

We would have smiled here,

and embraced here.

We would have ignited here.

Revolutionized here.

But you quickly look away,

and now I am exhausted.

I want to sit quietly for a minute, or a decade or a life time or so

and watch the world dismantle

and rise

from compulsory renovations,

without requesting anyone’s

Compliance

anymore.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has been spreading like a plague. American protestors are pretty upset that big business got the bailouts while the Regular Joe got diddlysquat. Approximately one in ten Americans is unemployed. All those out-of-work people have one thing in common: a lot of free time for gossip and complaint. Yet, whether you are part of the “99 percent” or the “1 percent,” we’re all in this together. If we want the “occupiers” to stop protesting and get back to work, we must change the current economic system. Capitalism isn’t working and neither is communism. It’s time to find something different that will satisfy both the needs of the poor and the wealthy.

I have rediscovered an economic system that will do just that. History provides us with a successful economic structure that, with just a few tweaks for this modern age, could be just what the United States needs. Although this system hasn’t been in use since the fourteenth century, it was highly successful for over a thousand years in Western Europe. It will provide all the basics for the many unemployed individuals who are fit and able to work. At the same time, it will continue... more »

(Today’s post is a two-parter from Ian Singleton. Ian joined the Oakland arm of the recent Occupy the Ports protest, and shares his experience below. After the page break are Ian’s reflections on an earlier action, the November 2nd incident in Oakland during which protestors also shut down the Port.)

Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Last night I again rode the subway to West Oakland and walked to the port, which had been long shut down and remained shut down throughout the evening, until after 3 a.m.

During these last couple of weeks, we’ve seen actions including bank shutdowns, plaza demonstrations (as we’ve seen before), and—best of all—demonstrations against home foreclosures, known as “Occupy Our Homes.” This was a return to the Port of Oakland; however, this time with solidarity port shutdowns along the West Coast and including Houston. Portland shut down its port, Seattle shut down some of its port, and Los Angeles had some success as well. In Oakland, the police were in greater presence within the port area than they were last time, but they did very little violence in comparison with other port occupations. This time, there were fewer people, even though we still numbered in the thousands, meaning that... more »

(Each Tuesday during Occupy Fringe, Jeff Questad will bring us a roundup of the latest Occupy news.)

(Each Tuesday during Occupy Fringe, Jeff Questad will bring us a roundup of the latest Occupy news.)

Don’t call it a comeback.

You wouldn’t be blamed for thinking Occupy has taken a step back or receded from public consciousness a bit. After surviving a bleak (and physically painful) period of police assaults, Occupiers now face antagonistic weather and a news media determined to ignore them. The squatting phase, tent villages outside city halls, was a good opening act, but where does a young and growing protest movement just beginning to feel its strength go as winter moves in?

South. Yes, yes. But in the bigger sense?

Indoors. And what do they focus their attention on?

Foreclosures. Justin Elliot, who has covered Occupy since the beginning, has a conversation with MSNBC about what might be next, and The Nation has more about how Occupy might be coming to the aid of underwater homeowners. I know privately and semi-privately many Occupy groups around the country are sending out calls to find people facing eviction. There are already stories of officials arriving to evict people from homes and finding the residents have invited Occupiers to stand with them.

JPMorgan Chase was ready to make a 103-year-old Atlanta woman and her 83-year-old... more »

(Each Tuesday during Occupy Fringe, Jeff Questad will bring us a roundup of the latest Occupy news.)

– — This week Occupy groups in major cities celebrated Thanksgiving by serving meals for protestors and the homeless. Let’s give thanks for what at least seems like a de-escalation of the violence of last week. After New York, Oakland, Seattle, Portland, Berkeley and U.C. Davis, the week seemed relatively serene.

– — Our usual way of thinking about these things is that the perpetrators of police violence are rogue officers, individuals who respond with a little too much zeal in a situation where everyone is tense. The police definitely want us to believe that their violence amounts to isolated events, mistakes happening when police are pushed too far.

But Naomi Wolf suggests something far more sinister in the most talked about Occupy media story of the week. Wolf looks at the madness of last week, from Zuccotti to California, then traces the command chain from local police up to the U.S. Congress. She says last week was “the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence.” She says protestors are threatening a symbiotic relationship between... more »

(Each Tuesday during Occupy Fringe, Jeff Questad will bring us a roundup of the latest Occupy news.)

—— In the early morning hours of Tuesday, November 15, police in Manhattan raided the tent city in Zuccotti Park, arresting hundreds of protestors and dozens of journalists.  It was two days before the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street and a Day Of Action planned to commemorate the day.

The park was dirty, says the City Of New York. Have you ever been to New York? The city is filthy. But Wall Street is clearly a very special street; cleaning it requires pepper spray, batons and hundreds of armored police officers descending on sleeping people in the middle of the night.

If New York is a city of stories, the Zuccotti Park evictions, their aftermath and the Day Of Action on Thursday are the source of most of them this week. Here are a just a few:

• New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez was knocked around and arrested.
• The Daily News editorially endorsed the raid; before one of their reporters was arrested, which they found it “alarming.” (Welcome to the 99%)
• Churches in New York have given refuge to protestors. The NYPD is now watching those churches:
• When they’re not protecting and serving... more »

When I first heard about the Occupy Wall Street movement, I regarded it with the same attitude I reserve for my fantasies about other important moments in history; it felt distant and impenetrable—a story available only for my passive, albeit passionate, consumption. So, when I learned that Austin was about to begin its very own occupation, I eagerly took an inventory of which of my skills and interests I could contribute to the cause.  I went to a few preliminary general assemblies and sat quietly in the back, understanding that my presence mattered, but feeling nonetheless like dead weight.  Here were energetic people who collected donations, organized childcare, and drafted mission statements, but, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t envision myself filling any of these roles.

Then, during one meeting, my mind wandered to a text I had recently taught to a group of college students.  In the first book of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift maroons his titular character on an island full of tiny people (called Lilliputians), who signify their political affiliations by modifying the height of their shoe heels—a difference that, imperceptible to the comparably gigantic Gulliver, limits each Lilliputian to choosing either one or the other political party,... more »

How We Got Peace At Last

Three hundred angels sang Hallelujah
While the birds ate porridge.
Never have I seen such a songfest
Said the King to the Queen.
Put a humble blackbird first
And we shall have plums
Said the Prince.

Chaos reigned among the land
In the US-Libya decision room.
Send planes missiles bombs
The priest cried.

And sure enough,
Just like that
Planes soared!
Missiles slammed buildings!
Bombs exploded bridges and heads!
And chaos reigned among the land
And here at home as well
Here at home as well.

(Editor’s note: For as long as it takes, Fringe is giving over its blog to original work inspired by the Occupy protests. Send your essays, poetry, short stories, artwork, photography and whatever else you’ve got, including questions, to FringeTheMagazine@gmail.com. See guidelines here, and catch up with previous posts.)