10:31 21st Dec 2011

Notes: 10

Mass March by Cairo Women in Protest Over Abuse by Soldiers

A poster showing a woman attacked by officers was carried by one of several thousand marchers Tuesday in downtown Cairo.

16:35 22nd Oct 2011

Notes: 194

Reblogged from

Tags: poverty ows occupy rich poor injustice violence black and white sign protest

04:19 10th Oct 2011

Notes: 6

Tags: Occupy Wall Street NYT Protest Revolution Politics

Protesters Against Wall Street

At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.

No wonder then that Occupy Wall Street has become a magnet for discontent. There are plenty of policy goals to address the grievances of the protesters — including lasting foreclosure relief, a financial transactions tax, greater legal protection for workers’ rights, and more progressive taxation. The country needs a shift in the emphasis of public policy from protecting the banks to fostering full employment, including public spending for job creation and development of a strong, long-term strategy to increase domestic manufacturing.

07:29 2nd Oct 2011

Notes: 4

Tags: NYC protest occupy wall street revolution

More than 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested on Brooklyn Bridge

The Guardian reports that 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested in “chaotic scenes” as a group of “several thousand” protesters move to cross the Brooklyn Bridge.

06:27 29th Sep 2011

Notes: 1

Tags: occupywallst.org wall st revolution protest nyc chicago

This is our movement

Our Mission

On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.

Like our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Greece, Spain, and Iceland, we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America. We also encourage the use of nonviolenceto achieve our ends and maximize the safety of all participants.

Who is Occupy Wall Street?

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.

The original call for this occupation was published byAdbusters in July; since then, many individuals across the country have stepped up to organize this event, such as the people of the NYC General Assembly andUS Day of Rage. There’ll also be similar occupations in the near future such as October2011 in Freedom Plaza, Washington D.C.

21:21 16th Aug 2011

Notes: 9

Reblogged from forthosewh0seek

Tags: poverty poor people hunger starvation justice food not bombs police intimidation police police brutality food bombs protest protest sign poster anti war war feed the hungry feed the poor orlando

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forthosewhoseek:

Feeding the poor isn’t a crime. Challenging the status quo is.

09:58 26th Jul 2011

Notes: 6

Tags: dream act protest washington dc education not deportation we are all immigrants no human being is illegal

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23:18 15th Jun 2011

Tags: peaceful protest tree hugger holy environment pollution fast Ganges Hindu

Holy Man Dies After Four-Month Fast Against Polluters is Ignored

Last February, the Swami began to fast for the sake of his beloved river. And now, after four months of inaction on the part of the government, the holy man has died, his cause ignored.

19:58 11th Jun 2011

Notes: 9

Tags: illegal immigrants dream act human rights Latin America Latinos Washington DC Protest Hippie

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2010 Protesting for the Dream Act Washington, DC

Over three million students graduate from U.S. high schools every year. Most get the opportunity to test their dreams and live their American story. However, a group of approximately 65,000 youth do not get this opportunity; they are smeared with an inherited title, an illegal immigrant.

15:59 31st May 2011

Notes: 3

Tags: human rights revolution civil war protest democracy

Are There Natural Human Rights?

There are two avenues by which to address the truth of the natural basis of human rights: (a) whether authors argued for human rights before the European Enlightenment, and (b) whether there is a logical basis for human rights that would demonstrate its applicability to all people regardless of when it was recognized to be correct.

The way we think about the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa is also conditioned by the way we understand human rights. If natural human rights exist, then the autocrats in charge that suppress them are wrong and they should either create a constitutional monarchy or a democratic republic. If natural human rights do not exist, then the whole process is one of political negotiation that on the one hand involves peaceful protests and on the other involves bloody civil war. Our entire understanding of these events requires us to take sides. But how can we do this?

This article outlines the interest-based and agency approaches:

“interest-based approach (championed by Joseph Raz and James Griffin) the critical question to ask is what conditions are necessary to ensure minimal well-being among people in a society. The force of the argument is that all people everywhere are entitled to at least a minimum level of well-being and the liberties and goods necessary to get them there” This requires a definition of minimal well-being (typically food, water, shelter).

“agency approach is rather different. The capability theory (championed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum) in its simplest form this approach seeks to promote human agency — roughly, the capacity for people to act —via public policy strategies that promote individual liberty and opportunity to seek after those goods that each person feels will promote his or her own human flourishing. Agency is thus enhanced through social initiatives.” *This allows the individual to define what makes themselves happy and healthy.*

19:28 22nd Mar 2010

Notes: 3

Tags: Immigrants Immigration Reform Protest

“Every day without reform is a day when 12 million hard-working immigrants must live in the shadow of fear”

March 21, 2010

At Rally, Call for Urgency on Immigration Reform

By JULIA PRESTON

WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of immigrants and activists rallied here on Sunday, calling for legislation this year to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants and seeking to pressure President Obama to keep working on the contentious issue once the health care debate is behind him.

Demonstrators filled five lengthy blocks of the Washington Mall, down the hill from the Capitol where last-minute negotiations were under way on the health care bill. The immigrant activists, chanting Mr. Obama’s campaign slogan of “Yes we can” in Spanish and English, tried to compete with their numbers for public and media attention which were mainly focused on the climactic health care events in the House of Representatives.

The rally brought the return to major street action by immigration activists, who turned out hundreds of thousands of protesters in marches and rallies in 2006. After an immigration overhaul measure was defeated in Congress in 2007, the pace of enforcement raids picked up and many immigrants, especially those without legal status, preferred to lay low.

But immigrant advocates decided to gamble by calling the march, to give a show of force that might impress Mr. Obama and also to vent the frustration of many immigrants who have taken to heart his repeated promises that he would move an immigration bill in Congress by early this year.

Mr. Obama addressed the crowd via a videotaped message displayed on huge screens, promising to keep working on the issue but avoiding a specific time frame.

“I have always pledged to be your partner as we work to fix our broken immigration system, and that’s a commitment that I reaffirm today,” Mr. Obama said.

He expressed his support for the outline of an immigration bill presented last week by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. While pledging to help build bipartisan support, Mr. Obama warned, “You know as well as I do that this won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight.”

But speaker after speaker rose to demand immigration legislation sooner rather than later, leaving aside any mention of the acrid political environment in Washington in the aftermath of the health care battle.

“Every day without reform is a day when 12 million hard-working immigrants must live in the shadow of fear,” said Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, a Democrat from New York who is the chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

“Don’t forget that in the last presidential election 10 million Hispanics came out to vote,” she said. She told the crowd to tell lawmakers “that you will not forget which side of this debate they stood on.”

Representative Luis V. Gutierrez of Illinois, a Democrat who has been a leader of the immigrants’ movement, said he was optimistic that Mr. Obama would try to get an immigration bill this year.

“I see a new focus on the part of this president,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “That’s why we are here to say we are not invisible.”

The urgency was echoed by church leaders who spoke, including Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles, and Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, the leader of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the largest organization of Latino evangelical churches.

“The angst and trepidation in our communities is unprecedented,” Mr. Rodriguez said. He compared the mood among Latinos to the hard days of the civil rights movement. “This is our Selma,” he said.

Echoing that thought were an array of African-American leaders who turned out for the event. Speakers included the Rev. Jesse Jackson; Benjamin T. Jealous, president of the N.A.A.C.P; Cornel West, a Princeton scholar, and Marc H. Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans and the president of the National Urban League.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum and a leading organizer of the event, said that rallies were planned in several cities on April 10, the last day of the Congressional recess. On May 1, Mr. Noorani said, immigrant groups would release a report card of every lawmaker and where they stand on the immigration overhaul.

Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said he thought an immigration bill could pass at the end of the year, after the storm of the November elections had passed.

The crowd, overwhelmingly Latino immigrants, arrived on buses from California, Ohio, Texas, Michigan, Colorado and many other places. Unions brought thousands of members, including dozens of workers from a meat-packing plant in Tar Heel, N.C.

While a few demonstrators waved flags from other countries, most flew American flags overhead, recalling the negative reaction from American voters to earlier protests where Mexican flags dominated. Farm workers from Florida held one billowing flag overhead and propped it with sticks, forming a tent.

In the crowd, frustration with Mr. Obama was strong. Rudy Romero, 19, and Andrea Rentaria, 23, said they boarded buses early Friday in Colorado with 54 other people, and 36 hours later, arrived in Washington. They said they were disappointed with the pace of progress on immigration.

“We’ve been waiting for so long,” Mr. Romero said. “I know it takes time, but a promise is a promise. We are demanding it today.”

Ms. Rentaria added, “We want to step up and say, ‘Hey, wake up. We’re here. We’re still waiting. We’ve given you time to settle in. When is this going happen?’ ”

“I understand you have to take care of health care,” Ms. Rentaria said. “As soon as we’re done with that,” she said, immigration should be next.

Although there were a few jeers for Mr. Obama during a morning rally, the crowd roared when he appeared on video.

Adrian Vasquez, 32, held up a sign reading “Support Our President, Immigration Reform Now!” Mr. Vasquez, who has been in the United States for 20 years and is now an illegal immigrant, admitted that the push for an overhaul “could not come at a worse time” for Mr. Obama.

But he said, “I’m eager for change. I think we can get it done.”

Me: Protesting outside the White House