by Michael Hauser What exactly has the Occupy Wall Street movement come to symbolize from a distance of ten years from its founding? For some, it is seen as a movement that lacked concrete demands, and in which decentralization and an anti-hierarchical sensibility were more important than a coherent political program. For others, it represents …
It was, I think, Barack Obama’s decision to rescue the banks and largely ignore the people that helped to create the political backdrop for Occupy. It was as though Obama’s campaign slogan of 2008, “Yes, we can,” had degenerated into “No, we can’t – at least not for you.” The political backlash this generated from …
Read morePolitically Non-Political: The 10th Anniversary of Occupy Tucson (Some Reflections)
Long ago, and in all four of our print editions, the OTC ran a feature called “The Shifting Geography of Protest: A Global Digest,” in which we listed and summarized all the different areas of the world in which protests had erupted. The feature was inspired by a blog written by the late, distinguished sociologist …
Do the mass protests taking place in France in the last few weeks, which have been triggered by the “gilets jaunes” movement, represent (at least on their non-violent side) another Occupy? The answer, in the opinion of our French-speaking European correspondent, Karel Rehor, is both yes (in the movement’s opposition to neo-liberal policies and its …
Read moreDo the Protests in France Represent Another Occupy?
One hundred years ago Bisbee, Arizona, hosted the beginning of the defeat of one of the world’s boldest and most effective labor organizations, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies, when 1186 striking copper mine workers were rounded up, loaded into cattle cars, then dumped in the desert of southwest New Mexico at …