Tag: direct action

Apr 18 2011

US is Tax Free for B of A

Reprint from US UNCUT Daily Kos Site:

On Friday, the San Francisco branch of US Uncut temporarily took over the San Francisco branch of Bank of America.

This is what happened:

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Now we want you to do the same thing, with or without musical accompaniment – and we’re going to tell you how.

As the video says, the government claims we’re broke, and is slashing  necessities for working and retired Americans. Meanwhile, corporate tax  cheats like Bank of America and GE rake in billions in profit – and pay  back zero in taxes.

Something’s wrong here – and tomorrow, on Tax Day 2011, Americans are going to stand as one and point it out.

We currently have over 100 actions planned for tomorrow. Click here to find your local US Uncut action. Not seeing one nearby that works for you? Then start your own – it’s SUPER easy.

Tomorrow, let’s show the powers that be that Americans are seriously  opposed to cutting schools, firefighters, police, healthcare, job  creation…and seriously in favor of corporations actually paying their  taxes.

Thank you,

The US Uncut Team

P.S. You can learn more here about how the San Francisco action was planned and carried out.

Originally posted to US Uncut on Sun Apr 17, 2011 at 11:12 AM PDT.

Nov 20 2010

How do i delete an essay?

Oops..  That’s what I get for posting without reading first.  My apologies to gjohnsit.  How do I delete an essay?

It was an idea that started in France when it became clear that simple protest was not going to change government financial policies.  It’s now spreading around Europe like wildfire, and appears to be beginning to jump the puddle to this side of the Atlantique:

Banque Stop!

http://dailybail.com/home/eric…

You should be aware that there is a French-based European movement that is gaining considerable strength that calls for massive, coordinated bank withdrawals across the continent on December 7.  It’s an attempt at a modern, crowd-sourced bank run.

Here’s the US Facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/event….

Pass it along.

Mar 04 2010

Bloggers awake!

Tocque’s outstanding essay on the impotence of political blogging has brought us to a watershed moment on Docudharma. Will this blog continue to be just another breast-beating exercise in group futility, or will we move the first stone to build an effective progressive political movement on the Internet? It is time to stand and deliver. If this blog is not the place to begin the fight against America’s predator elite, then we must find one that is.

Accordingly, I propose:

1. That the members of the Docudharma community recommend candidate targets for direct personal political action.

2. That the members agree, by vote or consensus, on a common target for direct political action.

3. That the Docudharma blog prominently publicize the chosen action and all traffic reference this action.

4. That the Docudharma community reach out to other Internet groups to make common cause in pursuing the chosen direct action.

To begin the dialog, I propose a national boycott of FedEx as a candidate for collective direct action. See this link for the rationale:

http://www.commondreams.org/vi…

The facts are plain. Blogging without direct action is an impotent evolutionary dead-end for Internet politics. We must learn to use the Internet to mobilize EFFECTIVE political action. It is time to awaken from the enfeebling trance of empty emotional blog posting. It is time to take action.

Aug 18 2009

General Strike. There. I said it. It’s on the table.

It been so long since a general strike has happened in the US, I better post some background from the wikipedia entry …

A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants. It is also characterized by participation of workers in a multitude of workplaces, and tends to involve entire communities. The general strike has waxed and waned in popularity since the mid-19th century, and has characterized many historically important strikes.

Aug 15 2009

Direct Action and Velvet Revolution

Every sane person on progressive blogs is boiling over with feelings of frustration, resentment, and betrayal as the Bushbama administration continues to feed the American people into the ravenous maw of the plutocracy. It was not enough for them to guarantee permanent war to fatten the Military-Industrial Complex. It was not enough for them to use hundreds of billions of future public wealth to assure the rich compensation of Wall Street bandits. It was not enough for them to continue the erosion of privacy and civil rights by making the whim of the President the supreme law of a national security state. No, they now want to create a massive permanent subsidy of a dysfunctional private health insurance system that combines the worst features of greed-based “disease management” with the unaccountability of massive Government spending.

The only way to get this increasingly dysfunctional hijacked government off our backs is direct action against its plutocratic puppet-masters. The Whole Foods boycott and the Glen Beck sponsor boycotts are, I believe, early manifestations of successful direct action that bypasses the profoundly corrupt Bushbama regime. It will take time to bring down the first targets, but once the people appreciate the power and precision of the direct action weapon, it can snowball into the velvet revolution our nation so badly needs.

I urge you to actively participate in any direct citizen action that strikes against the American Plutocracy. This is our only peaceful chance of stopping the subjugation of the American people by ruthless and sociopathic malefactors of great wealth. If we miss this chance, we run the risk of the violent disintegration of American society. It is time to rip the masks off the cancer men who buy our politicians and poison our society. It is time to strike at their wealth, the only thing that they care about, and thus to strip them of the power to destroy our future. Direct Action against the American Plutocracy is the last best hope of American democracy.

Aug 12 2009

Direct Nonviolent Action Works. Beck Loses More Advertisers.

Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, Progressive, S.C. Johnson, GEICO, Men’s Wearhouse and, just this morning, Sargento have now cancelled their ad buys on the Glenn Beck show due to direct nonviolent economic action. The boycott campaign advanced at ColorofChange.org is working.

Link…

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/…

Jul 30 2009

What is Power? pt. 3: Direct Action as Grounds For Thought

The writing of this diary was inspired in part by mwmwm’s jeremiad of Monday.  The point is this: the future is cathected negatively because our institutions have failed to catch up with the real future unfolding before our eyes.  

Thus institution-based actions are often ineffective.  Direct action approaches to social problems, however, offer the immediate replacement of power lost through institution-based strategies of “triangulation.”  In relying upon bourgeois, capitalist government in a neoliberal era, we sell out our ideals to that government’s raison d’etre.  Thus anarchist direct action (in such a context) suggests grounds for further thought about methods of political problem-solving (and of redress for lost human rights), even for progressives.

(Crossposted at Big Orange)

Jun 21 2009

What we can learn from Iran: strike for national health care

The DKos recommended list features a proposal for a general strike in the USA to force passage of progressive national health care legislation. I think progressives are waking up to the fact that free and courageous people don’t wait for a corrupt government to give them crumbs from a crooked table.

The people of Iran reached their breaking point when they saw their votes ignored. Poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans want universal coverage and affordable health care. Every advanced nation has universal coverage and affordable health care. We have effectively VOTED for universal coverage and affordable health care. Now we are being told by the DEMOCRATS, who were elected to honor this promise, that THEY DON’T HAVE THE VOTES to pass this reform of our dysfunctional health care system.

The American people are facing the deliberate betrayal of their interests by politicians bribed by the predatory managers of the existing health care (denial) system. Our corporate overlords think that the people will sit down and shut up once they have accepted the politicians’ excuses. I don’t think so.

If we, as a people, had a tenth of the courage of the people of Iran, who march in the face of brutal suppression, we would rise up as one and DEMAND decent health care and the shutting down of the predatory claim denial mills run by insurance companies for private profit.

Strike for affordable health care as a right for every citizen in America. Show the courage that our corrupt Congress thinks has vanished from America. Defend your freedom and dignity and show that we are as brave as the people of Iran.

Dec 20 2008

The New School and Republic Windows and Doors…what can we learn?

This commentary original to All Over the Board:

Are the victories achieved by Republic Windows and Doors and the New School worthy of monumental status in the coming years, or are they blips on the radar screen of the republic, soon to be forgotten much as yesterday’s mosquito bite?  In the long term, the positioning of these direct actions will depend upon us.  Can, no…will we take what is able to be learned by the actions and build upon them?

Oct 22 2008

A Pivotal Moment In History?

Historian and activist political scientist Howard Zinn talks with Paul Jay about the election, his perception of the meaning of the choice between McCain and Obama it presents for the future of America, and the pitfalls and opportunities that lie ahead.

Zinn says: “…vote against McCain, vote for Obama. Even though Obama does not represent any fundamental change, he creates an opening for a possibility of change. Obama will not fulfill that potential for change, unless he is enveloped by a social movement, which is angry enough, powerful enough, insistent enough, that he fills his abstract phrases about change with some content. We need direct action, because only that kind of indignation is going to have some affect on the people in Washington.”

October 22, 2008 – about 11 minutes