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Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street is a history and ethnography of Occupy Wall Street, and the Occupy movement. Author, sociologist, and longtime leftist activist Todd Gitlin has written an account of how a social movement was born, grew, and died. After reading it, I felt utter despair at our ability to create a more democratic political system, and a more just economic system. I'm pretty sure that's not what Gitlin was going for! It's easy to forget how present the Occupy movement became -- how quickly it spread, the attention it drew, how it forced a change in the terms of the debate. Hundreds of thousands of people in nearly 1,000 cities around the globe took part in Occupy demonstrations. The expression "the 99%" entered a common vocabulary. Occupy focused public and media attention on income inequality in a way I had not seen in my lifetime. Together with the Fight for 15, Occupy made labour and economic issues truly...

I've wanted to write about these two books for a long time, but adequately summarizing them is a daunting task. I just want to say to every activist and organizer: READ THESE BOOKS . I don't want to represent the authors' ideas, I want you to read them yourself . No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age by Jane F. McAlevey and The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution by Micah White are both aimed at activists and organizers -- people who already believe in the need for social change and are trying to influence the world in a progressive direction. Both books identify pitfalls and shortcomings in the current ways we approach our activism, and they offer concrete ideas for change, along with theory and philosophy to guide our decisions. Both are beautifully written, powerful, and essential. No Shortcuts  focuses on the labour movement, but McAlevey's analysis could apply to any movement. The labour movement is an excellent lens through which to...

Last night, I heard author, journalist, and activist Chris Hedges speak at the Bloor Street United Church in Toronto, sponsored by the excellent Canadian Dimension . Hedges is a radical intellectual, in the Chomsky vein, also compassionate and fearless, in the mode of Howard Zinn. He touched on many subjects - and credited the work and thoughts of many others. I can only hope to impart a few snippets of the many threads Hedges wove. "A seismic moment" Hedges called the recent US debate on Syria a "seismic moment". The Obama administration pulled out all the familiar mechanisms used to sell wars to the public: the ruthless dictator, the weapons of mass destruction, the atrocities. It invoked the Normandy invasion, the liberation of Europe. It did the usual war dance... but none of it worked. The ploys, usually so effective, failed both internationally and domestically, blindsiding the Obama administration. Hedges compared the distaste for war on Syria to the turning...

" There's something happening here , what it is ain't exactly clear..." This week, I attended a talk put on by the International Socialists, featuring an organizer with OUR Walmart , by Skype from Texas, and a Toronto-based union activist. Both speakers were terrific and so inspiring, but although I took copious notes, I'm not posting a summary of the talk. It was similar to the talk I blogged about here -  from greece to chicago to toronto, workers fighting back against austerity  - and an extension to an article I wrote recently:  workers doing it for themselves: fighting the austerity agenda in north america . The themes are the same. In a unionized workplace, rank-and-file membership need to challenge the complacency of the official union (so-called) leadership, and apply pressure to be more militant. In a non-unionized workplace, workers need to meet, discuss their issues, work out their demands. They need to link up with other workers, possibly contact estab...

Of all the reasons for hope that we've seen in recent times - Wisconsin, the Occupy Movement, the Quebec students' actions, the Chicago teachers' strike - this trend gives me the most joy and the most hope. Here are three stories of non-unionized workers organizing themselves to change conditions in their own workplaces. In September, New York City restaurant workers walked off the job and won a historic victory against their oppressive and vindictive employer. The restaurant workers who were fired and locked out of their store for organizing a union have won after a week of escalating protests outside the Manhattan cafe. Saturday afternoon, the owner declared that he had bowed to the workers demands to reopen the store, rehire all the workers and recognize their newly formed union, an inspiring labor victory at a time when many are attacking the power of unions. The 23 workers at the Upper East Side Hot and Crusty, which is one of a string of 24-hour cafes in New York Ci...

Working my way backwards, this the second of four talks I attended that I'll be reporting on. * * * * The most important internationalist event in decades In November, I heard Nikos Loudos of the Socialist Workers Party in Greece (by Skype) and Canadian activist and organizer Carolyn Egan speak about the recent general strike in Europe , and the fight against austerity at home and abroad. It was after 1:00 a.m. in Greece, but Nikos was full of energy. He reminded us, "I cannot complain, there are people who have bigger problems". In Brussels, the Eurogroup was staying up all night discussing "the Greek problem". Greece was supposed to get $30 billion in aid - "which all goes to the bankers," Nikos reminded us - but the money was still not forthcoming, because Germany, the Eurogroup, and the IMF were not able to come to terms. These problems from the other side, the ruling class, are behind the general strike of November 14, which Nikos called "the...

I spent the summer and fall of 2004 working on a Get Out The Vote campaign for the Democrats, not because they were my party of choice, but because I was angry at the prospect of another stolen election, and I wanted to make a difference in the popular vote numbers. After that election was stolen, too , I stopped voting in the US. Now, in 2012, voter suppression has reached new depths . If I still lived in the US, I don't know if I'd vote Green or not at all. Voting Green can be seen as a protest against the duopoly, and it shows support for a progressive agenda. Voting for any candidate can be seen as an endorsement of the rigged system. I am entitled to vote in the US election by absentee ballot, but I choose not to engage in that pointless bit of theatre . One problem with voting is the widely held assumption, seldom questioned, that voting is engagement with the political system - that it's a form of activism. Voting (when the system is fair and not rigged) is certai...

When did "entitled" become a dirty word? Why do we hear "entitled" being used as catch-all slur, a derogatory description to be thrown at progressive people working for change? And why should we permit this word to retain such a heavily negative connotation? Here are some people I have seen called entitled in this negative sense by bloggers and commenters. Brigette DePape. Occupy protesters. Refugee claimants. Quebec student protesters. People opposed to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. Voters who believe they were defrauded by the Conservative Party of Canada. Here is a synonym for entitled: deserve . Here is another synonym for entitlements: rights . Some of our entitlements are specified in national documents, such as the US Constitution or the more comprehensive and inclusive Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. Other entitlements are specified in international documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . These are rights that most p...

The photo is real. The interpretation, unfortunately, was not. Police in Frankfurt, Germany, did indeed remove their helmets, and they were walking ahead of Occupy protesters. However, they were not escorting, they were using a blocking technique similar to kettling. They also arrested hundreds of people who were peacefully demonstrating, and bashed a few heads in the bargain. A discussion is here , with links to more info. Organizers in Germany are upset that the photo was misinterpreted as the police identifying with and demonstrating with the 99%, and I can understand that. But we were given a brief glimpse of a possible future.

This is one of the most beautiful things I've seen in a very long time. The German police took off their helmets and marched with the protest clearing the way for them. . . . . German police officers escort an anti-capitalism protest march with some 20,000 people in Frankfurt, Germany, Saturday, May 19, 2012. Protesters peacefully filled the city center of continental Europe’s biggest financial hub in their protest against the dominance of banks and what they perceive to be untamed capitalism, Frankfurt police spokesman Ruediger Regis said. The protest group calling itself Blockupy has called for blocking the access to the European Central Bank, which is located in Frankfurt’s business district. At the 2012 Marxism conference, one theme was heard again and again: how the ruling class seeks to divide us. Nonunion workers against union workers. Queers against straights. Men against women. Brown against white. Christian against Muslim. Native-born against immigrants. Police against po...

All eyes will be on Chicago this weekend, as thousands of protesters from all over North American converge on the the NATO summit. The symbolism could not be more trenchant, as Chicago was the scene of protests and rebellion against an earlier US war, and famously out-of-control police violence. Iraq Veterans Against the War , Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War , and other veterans' and peace groups will march under the banner of Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda , co-sponsored by a long list of peace and social justice organizations, including ADAPT , a radical disability-rights organization (people I love), Michael Moore, the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), Military Families Speak Out , and Occupy Chicago , among others. At the end of the march, veterans will ceremoniously return their NATO service medals to denounce the disastrous 11-year war in Afghanistan. In Toronto, US war resisters and their supporters will hold a solidarity de...

Conventional wisdom has it that healthy foods cost more than junk food, that buying and preparing nutritious food is more expensive than eating processed food. How many people bemoan the supposed fact that low-income people cannot afford to eat healthfully: "When carrots are less expensive than chips, then everyone will have access to a healthy diet." There's only one problem with that. It's wrong. Carrots are less expensive than chips. Brown rice and lentils is way cheaper than McDonald's. I'm not talking about the difference between organic and conventionally grown produce, just the difference between processed foods or fast-food and buying basic ingredients and cooking them yourself. It's almost always cheaper to shop, cook, and eat at home than it is to buy processed food. So why don't more people do it? In September of last year, Mark Bittman asked, "Is junk food really cheaper?" The “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has b...