#occupy seattle

[dheston]

watch man

[ultralaser]

The riot, then, is not a hindrance to “real” struggle or a well-intentioned accident where people’s “understandable” anger gets “out of control.” Getting out of control is the point, which is precisely why the riot is the foundation from which any future worth the name must be built. And we will be the ones to build it. Our generation: the millenials, generation fucked, or, as we’ve taken to calling it: Generation Zero. Zero because we’ve got nothing left except debt—but also nothing to lose. And zero because, like the riot, it all starts here. In the end, then, you can lose the economics, you can lose the spectacle and the moralizing and the god-awful appeals to cute and fuzzy “social/racial/environmental justice.” Throw all of this in the alembic of the riot, and it boils down to the simplest of propositions: Our future’s already been looted. It’s time to loot back.

Why Riot? | ULTRA

i've been trying to find a way to read this that doesn't scream 'i am a white kid who just found out about inequality because it happened to ME' and i can't find one

tyler durden was the villain and his revolution was a terrible fantasy, why do i keep having to explain that

there were people living in entrenched structural inequality before the economic collapse, but millenials lack the opportunities our parents had TIME TO BURN IT ALL DOWN AND START FRESH, WE'LL LIVE OFF THE LAND LIKE IN OLDEN TIMES

WHAT THE FUCK IS SLOW STEADY PROGRESSIVE REFORM WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT

I WAS PROMISED BETTER

I //DESERVE// BETTER

it's the french revolution, when the poor were poor it was fine for years and year, but when the bourgousie were poor there were heads rolling in the street

white kids reading a bunch of poc criticism of white-supremacist colonial empire and missing the fucking point

convinced they can make communism work when russia and china couldn't without massive oppression, while simultaneously being utterly convinced that romney's vampire capitalism is not an extremist form but the only //possible// form, because absolute rigidity is real as long as it's the other side

plan consists of smash the state, tearing down what little infrastructure is keeping people alive now, and replacing it with, something?

we promise to build a new system that doesn't carry over the prejudices of the old, but also we think your reform movements aimed at "social / racial / environmental justice" are a hilarious fucking joke

[alternateviewpointref1-blog]

Occupy Movement photos

A few occupy movement images I found:

Image by Leptonist Occupy Seattle Photographer: Jon Fowler @…

View Post

[seattlish]

Protesters are downtown demanding City Hall acknowledge homelessness

Each night, approximately 3,000 people (including many youths) sleep outdoors in King County, which is fucking awful on its face, but is made worse when you consider the decidedly icked-out opinion of those individuals that seems to be pervasive in the media and politics.* 

BUT the homeless (and those living in poverty) have some advocates -- chiefly, the Occupy Seattle crowd that's gathered in City Hall right this minute to demand that City Hall pay attention to the problem and try to fix it.

The protest is chiefly geared toward King County's 10-year plan to end homelessness which, eight years in, has failed to meet many of its goals. Called the Homeless Advocate March, the activists' explicit goal is to get 1000 people off the streets of King County by next summer.

(Which, btw, could easily be achieved just by not closing down the tent cities. Nickelsville alone had room for 1,000 residents. City Council kind of fucked this up a few months ago, which we wrote about.) 

ANYWAY!

Following a camp-out at Westlake Park and a march earlier today, the protesters are currently inside City Hall, according to the police scanner and on-scene reports, to be present for a meeting of the Committee to End Homeless in King County.

Mostly, the protesters are there to do what Samuel L. Jackson is doing in that gif -- refusing to be quiet about it and wait for everything to just magically get better.

Because like, there's a great deal of progressive hope in Seattle right now; Kshama Sawant has managed the seemlingly impossible chore of upending Richard Conlin's five-term City Council career. However, one politician can't do all the work -- and she'd be the first one to tell you that. You (and we) all need to help, too. We can't vote someone in and be like WHELP, OK, NOW YOU MAKE IT BETTER, K?

This is a community effort, and this is a work-in-progress.

SO! How can you help?

If you're downtown today and you have the ability (not everyone does, but if you're like, white collar and can "take a long coffee break), GO TO CITY HALL AND SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO. Buy some snacks for people who are camped out. Just add your body to the numbers. Get on a mailing list and pledge to help out in the future. Just be there if you can, and if you can't today, find out how to be there in the future. I guarantee you, someone down there will put your ass to work.

Or, if you're not downtown, you can...

Go to a homeless advocacy workshop, wherein you will learn a ton of shit about how to help the homeless. BOOM. 

Go to one of these meetings, which can also help you make an action plan in your community OR AT LEAST help you re-frame the conversation so rather than being like "EW HOMELESS," you're like "EW, THE SYSTEM THAT CREATED HOMELESSNESS."

Write to your congressperson REGARDLESS OF WHERE YOU VOTE. Even if your representation already tends to skew toward giving a shit about the homeless/those living in poverty, letters of encouragement matter. THEY FUCKING DO. Find your representation here. 

Volunteer somewhere. Seriously. I know you have like, two hours a week that you can spend not binge-watching Dr. Who. I'm sure those hours exist. Spend them at LITERALLY ANY non-profit in town. Think of something you care about (kids? Adults? Food stability?) and then Google an organization and then volunteer.

Throw money at it. If you have money but not time, donate some of it. To somewhere like The Orion Center, which is basically fucked right now. Or a food bank. Look, here's a list of places where you can just donate food. 

Look, you don't have to be a goddamned superhero who rescues every single person living in poverty, but every day that all of us sit around and kvetch and don't volunteer/donate/at least question the system that has created this problem LOUDLY AND OFTEN, you're making it worse. Your silence and your feckless hand-wringing makes it worse. Your consumption of media that depicts those living in poverty as gross and a problem makes it worse.

So like, go pitch in. However the fuck you can. And to the protesters at City Hall right now, WE SUPPORT YOU. Please get at us on Twitter if you need anything and think maybe we can help. We're at your service in whatever little way we can be. 

*Example from one news article about the protest:

"A march from Westlake Park to City Hall will begin at 7 a.m. Wednesday, so drivers may want to avoid the area."

Or, you know, they could not just try to find an alternative route and maybe actually help out/look at the spectacle because IT MEANS SOMETHING.

[thecomplexsquare-blog]

To end my morning post , here is a throwback video from my guy klaptastic documenting occupy seattle ... btw what happen to the occupy movement ....

[lillyison-blog]

They Say

They will incorporate the world

Over my Dead body,

Over my dead body Over Mine!