Sad and Beautiful Occupy

 activism, anti-corporate  Comments Off
Jan 112013
 

The libraries in every camp were treated as sacred, and they were. They were all open and well-stocked with how-to and educational books, political tracts across the spectrum, novels and literature.

occupy_lib

They were true libraries, trusting and trusted places. They were well-lit and quiet, kept as warm as possible through the fall and into winter. You could feel in the air how much the people loved the libraries. In Toronto, when the eviction came, they chained themselves around the library. In DC during the eviction, the librarians accepted being locked in for hours without food or water or bathrooms just to protect their library.

Story about Occupy movement. This is required reading. Quinn Norton at Wired.

Eulogy for Occupy
via Boing Boing

Satyagraha

 activism  Comments Off
Dec 022011
 

In the case you might be wondering what brought Philip Glass, Alex Ross, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and many more beautiful, inspired, hardworking people together last night, check the video below (gets very beautiful after mark 3:00).

When righteousness withers away and evil rules the land, we come into being, age after age, and take visible shape, and move, a man among men, for the protection of good, thrusting back evil and setting virtue on her seat again.

(via Kottke)

At least they didn’t throw them away

 activism, books, libraries  Comments Off
Nov 152011
 

Update, 20th November: Unfortunately, they do destroy books. And they do hurt people.

library

This short Boing Boing post got me madly furious in less than a second.

Luckily, here is Huffington Post update on what really happened.

And here is a picture of books stored in dry and safe place.

Let’s hope tents for people will be allowed. It’s getting cold out there.

New beginnings

 activism  Comments Off
Nov 022011
 

Slavoj Žižek summarized his Zuccotti park address. The essay is different from the original speech. His attention focused on what is to be done. (via Dangerous Minds)

“But what do they want?” After all, this is the archetypal question addressed by a male master to a hysterical woman: “You whine and you complain, but do you know at all what you really want?” In the psychoanalytic sense, the protests effectively are a hysterical act, provoking the master, undermining his authority. And the question “But what do you want?” aims precisely to preclude the true answer — its real purpose is: “Tell it in my terms or shut up!”

The situation is like that of psychoanalysis, where the patient knows the answer (his symptoms are such answers) but doesn’t know what they are answers to, and it is up to the analyst to formulate the appropriate questions. We should treat the demands of the Wall Street protests in a similar way: Instead of wondering “What are they asking for? What are their demands and what are their proposed programs?”, intellectuals should see the Occupy protests as the answers for which we are not yet asking the right questions.

Library

 activism, libraries  Comments Off
Oct 052011
 

I am very enthusiastic about this unique library.

The People’s Library is the collective, public, open library of the Occupy Wall Street leaderless resistance movement.

Located in the northeast corner of Liberty Plaza, the library provides free, open and unrestricted access to our collection of books, magazines, newspapers, ‘zines, pamphlets and other materials that have been donated, collected, gathered and discovered during the occupation.