hyperallergic:

OWS Library Not OK, Books Destroyed, NYPD Hampers Rebuilding Efforts

After the New York Mayor’s office assured the world via Twitter that the Occupy Wall Street library was “safely stored,” it has become apparent that the statement was a half-truth at best. READ MORE

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4,000 books are missing or destroyed by the NYPD.

as winter and feelings of despair and ennui set in, and the pundits have no idea how to boil you down to a few key phrases, and the police and authorities start trying to use any random excuse they can for shutting you down, like people dying on the streets or parks in or out of shelters, which for some reason doesn’t make the police and authorities want to shut down the problem of actual genuine human HOMELESSNESS, but gives them the idea of using it to shut down a PROTEST or POLITICAL MOVEMENT

(deep swimmy breath!)

we, the Swimmies of Doom, activist fish that we are, busily plugging away at a tiny part of this big battle, in sometimes abstract ways and other times obvious ways, have a message for you, Occupy Movement!

we have been active for ten months now.  do we get tired?  yes.  do we frequently feel ignored?  yes.  do we think sometimes it is possible we are not making any difference at all?  yes.  do we wonder why we do it?  yes.  do we get cold?  yes, but rarely, for of course we are more portable than you, and also better insulated, and we are used to it, for we are fish.

do we wonder if anyone is reading us, or thinking about doing something about problems we have talked about here on our tumblr or twitter, or our daily fishy lives?  absolutely.  we wonder these things all the time.  that is the problem with revolution.  human persons in particular remember the big clashes, and battles, and dumping tea into boston harbor (again, we thank you!), and off with heads, and guns, and what not.  you are good at remembering the drama.  you are not so good at remembering that, for example, the American Revolution had about twenty years of thought and preparation going into it, if not more, that it then was actually fought for eight entire years, and then there was another decade and a half of wrangling over a constitution that turned out to be so flawed four score and seven years later there was a second massive bloodbath to fix just one of those problems, and those problems still aren’t finished yet!

Revolutions are Long, and possibly Permanent.  that is the hard bitter truth, and it looks even harder in the cold light and frost of winter, with police eying you and pundits mocking you and politicians threatening you.

so we say, sing, and eat, and dance, and read, and take pictures, and tell your stories, and make long thoughtful decisions, and take heart!  the journey is the destination, remember that always!  we love you all, Occupiers!  no one is perfect, and no group is all perfect, but you are good, and right now you are working hard, and you can do it!  we support you!  we ARE you!

yay!

(Source: noleadersplease, via darkoisdarko)

well put!

last night someone on a very sleep-inducing show called “charlie rose” made the following remark:  I will paraphrase Gandhi, she said, who said, first they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.

we hope this is true.  we watched some ugly coverage of police beating up unarmed passively-resisting protestors in your human town of oakland, and note that all across the country local governments are cracking down under color of law.  they pretend that the law is on their side, but the american constitution disagrees with this, in that all have the right to peacefully assemble, in public places, and the american supreme court has interpreted this to mean that not just congress but government in general, local and otherwise, cannot infringe upon it.  so we hope you do not give in to the pressure, human friends!  not only are you in the right, but the law is on your side.  the police do not stand in for the law, no matter what candy-assed naysayers may claim about your obligations to obey the police even when their orders are illegal and wrong!  when they say turn off your cameras, turn them on!  when they say move, do not move!

america should not be a police state.  no place should be, but america, particularly not!

(priscilla is wondering what would happen if OccupyWallStreet humans DID show up with assault rifles, properly licensed of course, or wearing guns publically in holsters.  we brandished the apple cozy at her and she is now helping matilda paint some more signs.  priscilla’s signs are quite something.  we aren’t sure they should be publically displayed, especially if offspring are around.  hmmm.  hmmm.) 

(Source: combustionglassworks)

wearethe99percent:

What #Occupy wants is to disconnect Wallstreet from Congress - and allow THE PEOPLE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, to have their voice heard and their decisions made APPROPRIATELY in congress without their opinions and beliefs being talked over BY the top 1%.

If 70% of the American People want to have Healthcare… Then they should be properly represented by Congress, properly debated, and properly be given healthcare because - as the American Constitution and BIll of Rights states - if a majority of the public vote for something, then that vote is passed.

But almost all of our decisions have been ill-represented and ignored by congress, who are representing the 1% of the population (CEOs), not OUR demands.

If you would rather your decisions be made by incredibly rich people who you think have your best interests in mind, feel free to go back to 1760 when good King George was in power over the united states.

Me? I’d rather kick out the Wall Street influence and live in a country my founding fathers envisioned. Leave it up to the public whether or not we have government handouts. Not a few CEOs.

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democracy and capitalism do not coexist well.  this is because democracy is a concept based in equality, equal value.  this is not to say democracy has been executed perfectly in the past, or even now, where so many human persons are disenfranchised for bullshit reasons, but nonetheless, american democracy is based in the idea that all human persons are equal and therefore are entitled to a voice in their government.

capitalism is a concept, just as democracy is.  they both are socio-political theories, one driven by economics and money, the other driven by human persons.  democracy does not need capitalism to thrive, and capitalism does not need democracy to thrive.  somehow, probably in the 1950s, these two ideas became entangled in your human heads somehow, in opposition to something else you confused, which is to say communism and totalitarianism.  like capitalism and democracy, communism and totalitarianism do not need each other to thrive or exist.  in fact, capitalism has much more in common with totalitarianism, and democracy has much more in common with communism.

the thing is, it is good to have a balance, so it would be nice to make certain ideas coexist!  democracy values persons, capitalism values money.  capitalism values money over humanity.  capitalism sees human persons as assets, consumers, collateral.  if you take a system like that, and temper it with true democracy, well, you might have something tolerable.

unfortunately, that is not what you american human persons have right now.

this tumblr blog is extraordinary, and we salute the human person pictured above, who demands DEMOCRACY.  far too many of you are rushing to defend capitalism, which, frankly, is indefensible.  look at what it has done to you, to us, to our planet.  look at what it is doing right the hell now as we speak!  not good!  swim away!  swim away!

Occupy Everywhere!

today we picked up on a very sad theme, in which some persons, of varying ages, express shame and sadness that they wish to be artists.

they are not actually ashamed, we think.  they are made to feel shame, because of the great lie, that what art does is not “practical” or “useful”.  yet we have observed human persons spend a lot more time in contact with art, every single day, than they ever spend in contact with, say, some amAZEballs financial machination designed to snick trillions of dollars via some sort of hedge/vine/shrub fund.  music alone is an expression of this.

we are endlessly amazed by human artistic expression, and how the arts make everyone, even non-artists, think better!  scientists, philosophers, engineers, designers, architects, all of those people who could come up with the Next Big Thing, perhaps a solution to your energy crisis, or for clean air and water, or for any number of things— without ART, those thoughts would never be had.

your human person Steve Jobs died, and everyone said what a great visionary!  he would have never been that without art.  and he knew it.  he honored it.  he saw the connection between himself, and John Lennon, and Pablo Picasso, and Jim Henson.  he knew this truth, that art and imagination creates all breakthroughs, in every sphere.

even in business.  because a true artist would see at once, the system you human persons call “capitalism” is unsustainable and needs to be fixed, and prettied up a bit too!

Occupy Everywhere!

(Source: wearethe99percent)

whodunnknit:

I have released a tiny knitted protest mouse at Occupy London. #olsx @occupylsx #graffiti

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yay!  yarnbombing for truth!

if you have not yet read this tumblr blog, you should check it out!  it is spectacular.

today a few human persons reminded american human persons that relative to the problems and poverty of the rest of the world, america is still lucky and still consumes way too much, and this is true.  it doesn’t fix the problem with america, but it is true, and something to consider, and a problem that also needs to be fixed.

may we Swimmies humbly suggest all human persons start with respecting the planet you (and we!) live upon, and doing something together to fix that?  that will help with the starvation, and loss of coastal regions, and high water rising, and famine, and warfare over resources that is already happening.  it will help you with long term food futures, and immigration, and even one of your biggest problems you don’t want to discuss, which is your overpopulation problem.  for the more secure human persons feel, the less children they feel the need to have!

we also noted a few “pull yourselves together” and “you did this to yourselves” statements today.  we consider the entire Occupy movement a pulling together, so you can check that off the list!  but as for the “you did this to yourselves”— hmmm.  we are curious about that.

did you human persons in accidents do those to yourselves?  or the ones with cancer, or born with spinal bifida or schizophrenia or depression?  did you do that?  see, we fish cannot do those things to ourselves, but maybe you mammals are different— we’re not sure.

also, did you do that thing with interest rates to yourselves, or deregulating your banks, or pillaging and mismanaging pension funds, or creating the “credit score”, or the housing bubble?  we think that isn’t accurate:  we think that was this “1%” who did that.  but the other question we have is this:  if anyone out there thinks they are going to get through life without ever once making a mistake or a bad decision, first, you are high and on crack.  second, do you think only the 99% should pay for those bad mistakes, and the 1% should be rewarded for them?

the denials are just a coping strategy.  that is what the blobfish says.  the words “personal responsibility” are also a coping strategy, used to pretend a kind of superiority, when in fact if something bad happens to you and you didn’t do it, you can only take responsiblity for how you react, and if you react by occupying wall street?  that’s a good first step!

yay!

(#occupyOceans!)

(Source: wearethe99percent)