Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
Posted in Creative Commons, Gonzo Notes, and Occupy Wall Street
September 17, 2012: the financial district was in chaos.
On the morning of the one year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement, marking the day that tents first went up in Zuccotti Park, activists flooded Wall Street for hours.
Some held birthday parties in bank lobbies until the police came. Others took the furniture out of buildings and threw it in the street. One group I knew blocked traffic with a makeshift donut stand, offering dumpster-dived pastries and coffee to the NYPD.
Posted in Creative Commons, Occupy Wall Street, and Radical Media
The objects around you right now, from your phone to the clothes you wear to the coffee in your mug, most likely traveled to America in a shipping container on a massive cargo ship.
This simple fact, both obvious and mostly overlooked, has radically transformed virtually every aspect of global capitalism over the past several decades. That prosaic shipping container, and the process called “containerization,” are the subject of a recent 8-part audio podcast documentary called “Containers.”
The podcast is sponsored by a shipping company, which stirred some controversy, but the show usually reads as if it’s most sympathetic toward the rank and file workers of the docks, and the people who live nearby, than toward the industry as a whole.. While “Containers” is hardly anti-capitalist, the series and its creator Alexis Madrigal are openly critical of the consequences of unchecked growth.
Posted in Creative Commons, Gonzo Notes, Journalism, MintPress News, and Occupy Wall Street
I wrote the last issue of Gonzo Notes, about creating resilience to both man-made and natural disasters, with a specific comrade in mind.
Just hours after the newsletter hit inboxes, I found out my comrade Liam Shea had died.
His death was devastating and unexpected to all his friends and allies, but most of all to his partner Luna. His loss robbed the world of a powerful activist; an old-school nazi-punching punk; someone who had, time and again, put himself at risk for the needs of others, to the point that he tattooed his knuckles with Y.N.W.A. (You’ll Never Walk Alone).
Posted in Austin, Creative Commons, Gonzo Notes, Journalism, and Occupy Wall Street
Resilient communities are more resistant.
Strong communities survive and strong communities resist.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, radical activists and community organizers created Common Ground Relief to step in where the government and traditional NGOs like the Red Cross failed. They organized both the immediate needs of the community, like food and rebuilding, while also enabling long term political organizing. Today, the Common Ground Health Clinic still remains in New Orleans, offering “solidarity not charity.”
Occupy Sandy was a more recent, well known response to disaster. With their skills honed by Occupy Wall Street, activists created an ambitious network of neighborhood relief centers offering supplies of all kinds and connecting people with builders and other volunteers after Hurricane Sandy.
Posted in Act Out!, Journalism, and Occupy Wall Street
We are the 99 percent!
These words made famous by Occupy Wall Street helped bring new attention to the problem of systemic inequality. The chant isn’t just some hyperbole made up by hippies however: it’s backed by actual economic truth — you know, facts as opposed to alternative facts.
According to Credit Suisse in their 2015 Global Wealth Report, “the lower half of the global population collectively own less than 1% of global wealth, while the richest 10% of adults own 88% of all wealth and the top 1% account for half of all assets in the world.” HALF OF ALL ASSETS on planet earth. ——- And now, this latest report from Oxfam reveals that an already grim picture is actually even more dire. According to their research, the world’s 8 richest men collectively possess more wealth than the poorest 50 percent of the world. That’s right, 8 multi-billionaires have as much money as about 3 billion, 370 million of the world’s poor.
Welcome to this week’s Fucked Fact.
Posted in Journalism, MintPress News, and Occupy Wall Street
Both the Democrats and Republican party tickets are calling for a no-fly zone in Syria, even though this could provoke a nuclear war with Russia in a worst-case scenario. Meanwhile, the mainstream media, and even many “progressive” news outlets are beating the drums of war. And who is Booz Allen Hamilton, the NSA contractor linked in two significant leaks of classified information?
On Wednesday, I made my monthly appearance on Black Tower Radio to touch on overlooked or poorly reported news. Also mentioned in our discussion: Occupy Austin, independent journalist Vanessa Beeley’s reports from Aleppo, and Tim Shorrock’s reporting on the NSA’s “Private Spies.”
