Latin American Social Movements and the Occupation of Everything
Massive buildings tower over Wall Street, making the sidewalks feel like valleys in an urban mountain range. The incense, drum beats and chants of Occupy Wall Street echo down New York City’s financial district from Liberty Plaza, where thousands of activists have converged to protest economic injustice and fight for a better world.
As unemployment and poverty in the US reaches record levels, the protest is catching on, with hundreds of parallel occupations sprouting up across the country.
It was a similar disparity in economic and political power that led people to the streets in the Arab Spring and in Wisconsin, Greece, Spain and London. Occupy Wall Street is part of this global revolt. This new movement in the US also shares much in common with uprisings in another part of the world: Latin America.
This report from Liberty Plaza connects tactics and philosophies surrounding the Occupy Wall Street movement with similar movements in Latin America, from the popular assemblies and occupation of factories during Argentina’s economic crisis in 2001-2002, to grassroots struggles for land in Brazil.
the day after that Oct 28,
Adbusters has put out a call to all Occupy general assemblies
for a Robin Hood march
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/robinhood.html
*in case you didn’t know, Adbusters put out the initial call to occupy wall street
haha mysti — and i went to kinko’s last night to do some printing & faxing!
😉
The Argentinian economic system was modeled on free market economics from Milton Friedman. And so it has been here for decades as well, even though events proved that such an economic system doesn’t work when applied. Ah, yes. “The Shock Doctrine.”
Certainly a new consciousness is going to be absolutely necessary to eradicate decades (centuries?) of an economic “consciousness” that is based on significant inequality and utterly lacking in compassion.
It’s only ten days until October 28, 2011, one of the claimed end dates of the Mayan Long Count Calendar. We can always hope that there will be some flash of bright light that erases old thinking.
JannKinz
Great coverage about London demo from good old Guardian here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2011/oct/17/occupy-london-we-re-here-indefinitely-video.
The riots that took place in the UK last summer, were of a totally different nature from the occupy movement that is now going on there and round the world.
So odd! I was (well, still am) a Latin-Americanist by training. Today I was making giant photoposters of my fave “The Beginning is Near” image, and the chap at Kinkos gave me a substantial discount on the enlargements. As we sweated the specs, we were discussing the 25% poverty rate in the US now, and I said: “You know, it’s like one night you go to bed and wake up the next day in Argentina.”
Amanda, who was eavesdropping whom? This is the first time I’ve checked PW all day!
***
**
*
i had the chance to attend a talk from the main coordinator of the MST (Landless Workers Movement in Brazil) when he came to Ottawa, and took some notes:
http://equitableeducation.ca/2003/social-movements-joao-stedile
i think the ideas he was talking about with us were tailored for a ‘North American’ application, to not take stuff from Brazil out of context. and yes, are very relevant now with the occupying going on