Global Occupy Movement #32 Flood WallStr. & Occupy Hong Kong.

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Update: London police torment #OccupyDemocracy protestors on Parliament Square

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Overnight in Parliament Square, #OccupyDemocracy protestors aiming to draw attention to the growing democratic deficit in the UK, have been enduring systematic torment from the Metropolitan Police and Heritage Wardens, who have been zealously enforcing new restrictions on the right to protest and assembly in the Square (Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011).

The reaction of the Police and the State to the #OccupyDemocracy protest is in complete juxtaposition to David Cameron’s recent comments regarding the Occupy Central pro-democracy demonstrations in Kong Kong, when he said that “rights and freedoms, including those of person, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of travel, of movement, and, indeed, of strike … These are important freedoms … which, most of all, we should stand up for.” [1]

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The protest, organised by #OccupyDemocracy – a group that grew out of Occupy London – is demanding reforms to our democratic process so that it serves the public interest, rather than the interests of corporations, banks and a tiny wealthy elite.

Alison Playford from #OccupyDemocracy said: “The way the State has responded to our protest with this political policing just shows how frightened the elite are of a new movement pushing for radical democratic reform.”

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Hong Kong leader extends olive branch to pro-democracy protesters

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In an interview on Tuesday, Leung said that while Beijing would not back down on vetting his successor, the committee tasked with selecting those candidates could become more democratic.

“There is room for discussion there; there’s room to make the nominating committee more democratic and this is one of the things we’d very much like to talk to not just the students but the community at large about,” he said.

The offer is still a long way from meeting the core demands of protesters who say anything other than public nomination of candidates is unacceptable.

But Leung’s comments are the first indication of a potential negotiating point as talks began between senior government officials and student leaders at a nearby medical college.

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Occupy protesters forced to hand over pizza boxes and tarpaulin

Occupy Democracy protest in Parliament Square clashes with police over bylaw which bans sleeping equipment

When is a pizza box a pillow? Or an umbrella a ‘structure’? In Parliament Square Occupy Democracy protesters have spent their seventh night sleeping on the ground on top of piles of newspapers. According to the 2011 Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act, the local authority for the City of Westminster has the power to confiscate items that count as sleeping equipment or a structure, so mattresses and tents are forbidden.

But protesters say the police are getting creative with their interpretation of the bylaw, confiscating backpacks and pizza boxes, claiming that they count as sleeping equipment. Umbrellas have similarly been confiscated because they count as a structure. Some have been told that sleeping bags are allowed to keep them warm while they’re awake, but not when they’re asleep.

Occupy Democracy protesters have been camping out in Parliament Square since 17 October and they plan to leave on Sunday. Organisers say they are campaigning for a more representative democracy. “Parliament is supposed to represent the interests of the people, but it appears to us that they do not represent us. Rather, they represent the interests of big business and the wealthy,” says John Sinha, one of the organisers.

Last Sunday evening a group of protesters were forcibly removed from a sheet of tarpaulin laid out on the square, which was deemed by the police to count as sleeping equipment. The removals were live streamed on Bambuser and #tarpaulinrevolution began trending on Twitter. Matilda Wnek, who was there that night, says that police outnumbered protesters three to one and were accompanied by ten police vans. Her and other protesters accuse police of using unnecessarily violent tactics on a peaceful protest.

On Tuesday around 30 people were arrested for breaking the 2011 zct, including the Green Party’s Jenny Jones, who was later de-arrested. That afternoon the Greater London Authority erected fencing around the square with the stated purpose of doing maintenance work. The GLA’s heritage wardens, who are employed by private security company AOS to guard the square, told protesters that the space needs to be kept clear for the grass to grow back.

“They’ve basically privatised the space,” says Wnek. “They keep saying the grass needs to regrow as if it trumps our right to protest.” Wnek stresses that Parliament Square has historically been maintained as a space for the public to protest on.

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http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/groenlinks-wil-hyperrijken-meer-belasten~a3780796/

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GroenLinks wil de allerrijksten meer gaan belasten. 'Het is tijd voor een nieuwe nivelleringspolitiek', stelt Tweede Kamerlid Jesse Klaver in een vandaag gepresenteerd pamflet.

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De alwetende God van de economische markt bestaat niet

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De spraakmakende Tsjechische econoom Tomas Sedlacek hield gisteren de 32ste Van der Leeuwlezing. Hier de ingekorte versie van zijn lezing.

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Uiteraard heeft elk ideologisch systeem zijn eigen ethiek. Ik gebruik het woord 'ethiek' hier als aanduiding van een verzameling algemeen aanvaarde regels volgens welke degenen die onder invloed van een specifieke ideologie staan, in de praktijk abstracte waarden beschermen die van groot belang worden geacht voor een bepaalde ideologie. Je had dus nazi-ethiek en racistische ethiek om de hogere belangen van die ideologie (een beter ras) te beschermen, net zoals je een communistische ethiek had. Het feit dat een systeem een bepaalde ethiek heeft, betekent niet dat die ethiek, beoordeeld vanuit een kader buiten die ideologie, moreel of te rechtvaardigen is.

Het is dus niet zo dat we waarden moeten toevoegen aan de economie. 'Economische ethiek' bestaat al, is zeer sterk en bij sommige implicaties ervan voelen we ons niet prettig. Mijn doel is het deconstrueren van economische beeldvorming, van overtuigingen, verhalen en mythes die we gebruiken om het hele veld in zijn huidige vorm mogelijk te maken. Een tweede doelstelling is dat ik me wil richten op hoe het heeft kunnen gebeuren dat de economie stilletjes is veranderd in een bron van ethiek, hoe de discipline tot een soort religieus en ethisch baken is geworden. Economie staat immers niet los van ethiek, los van vraagstukken van goed en kwaad, al wordt die indruk dikwijls gewekt. Integendeel, economie schept ethiek - een heel eigen ethiek.

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Sjoemelende bankiers worden niet oneerlijk geboren

Sjoemelende bankiers worden niet oneerlijk geboren, maar mogelijk oneerlijk gemaakt door de bankcultuur. Dat is de strekking van een Zwitserse studie naar 'De bedrijfscultuur en eerlijkheid in het bankwezen' die vandaag in Nature wordt gepubliceerd.

De uitkomst suggereert dat werken in het bankwezen eerlijk gedrag ondermijnt. Dat de bankcultuur de oorzaak is van alle ellende, is nooit wetenschappelijk aangetoond. In dat gat sprongen drie Zwitserse economen.

Ze lieten 128 zeer ervaren bankemployees van een internationale bank achter de computer een kop-of-munt-spelletje doen, waarbij ze 200 dollar konden winnen. De ene helft van de groep werd aangesproken als privépersoon, de andere helft werd juist voortdurend herinnerd aan hun beroep van bankmedewerker.

Oneerlijker bij bewustzijn van professie

Ze werden niet individueel geobserveerd en konden dus sjoemelen. De eerste groep deed dat niet of nauwelijks. De tweede groep wel: een kwart overdreef de prestaties. Conclusie: bankpersoneel is wel eerlijk, maar dat stopt zodra ze zich bewust worden van hun professie. Het onderzoek werd herhaald met werknemers uit de telecom- en ict-sector, maar daar werden proefpersonen niet oneerlijker.

De Leidse hoogleraar psychologie, Eric van Dijk, is nog niet overtuigd door de studie. 'Het gevonden effect is interessant, maar zwak en wellicht toeval.' Van Dijk vindt het juist opvallend dat degenen die aangesproken werden als privépersoon niet of nauwelijks knoeiden met de prestaties. 'Dat lijkt in strijd met wat je meestal in dit soort onderzoek ziet. Normaal gesproken gaat een belangrijk deel van mensen (een beetje) smokkelen. Verregaande conclusies over een perverse bankcultuur zijn voorbarig.'

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Protesters using tech to run rings around cops

Tech-savvy anarchists ran rings around the NYPD during last week’s Ferguson-related protests — and cops are now on edge over what the renegades may be able to pull off after a ruling in the Eric Garner case.

The NYPD is “very concerned, more because of recent events,” a law enforcement source said.

Last week, activists armed with untraceable “burner phones” used social media and online bulletin boards to stay one step ahead of city cops and create mayhem after a grand jury cleared Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The anarchists clearly won the game of “Whac-A-Mole’’ — shutting down major roads including the FDR Drive, Lincoln Tunnel and West Side Highway and frustrating the NYPD, sources said.

“They wore me out,” said one counterterror expert who monitored the protests. “Their ability to strategize on the fly is something we haven’t dealt with before to this degree.”

While the NYPD actively monitors Twitter, Facebook and other social media for intelligence, sources said the official chain of command keeps squadrons of cops from moving around as quickly as protesters.

A “technology gap” also favors the activists, many of whom have the newest electronic gear, sources said.

“A lot of these anarchists are from the Occupy Wall Street group. They are little rich kids, little techie brats,’’ a source said.

“They get their money from Mommy and Daddy. And they travel from the West Coast to the East Coast and everywhere in between to disrupt events that involve corporate America, world summits, civil rights and especially those that involve law enforcement.”

“They have their little MacBook Air computers, their Wi-Fi, their smartphones, and they’re off to the races. We’re reacting to these situations, which means we are not fully in control of them,” the source said.

Authorities suspect “a few hundred” of the estimated 4,000 protesters who took to New York City’s streets after the Ferguson decision used their knack for mobile technology to send out real-time advisories on where cops were located and where they were headed.

“They were giving instantaneous commands to their followers, and this enabled them to stay one step ahead of us,” a source noted.

As a result, cops were left to race around the city to try to stem the disruptions.

The developments now have cops “very worried” about the upcoming ruling by a grand jury investigating Garner’s death, sources said.

The Staten Island dad died in August after being put in a police chokehold while being busted for allegedly peddling loose cigarettes.

NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo — who was recorded putting Garner into the chokehold — testified before the panel Nov. 21, and a ruling on whether to indict him could be announced as soon as Monday.

“We’re expecting strong reaction and demonstrations when the decision comes down,” one source said.

Another source said: “The cops on standby will be in riot gear. That means helmets and sticks.”

Since the success of Twitter and Facebook in fueling the Arab Spring uprisings that toppled regimes in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, US activists have increasingly used the Web to organize and mobilize protests.

Last week, hundreds of tweets directed protesters to Union Square to await the Ferguson ruling.

After the verdict, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton was splattered with fake blood, allegedly by “professional agitator’’ Diego Ibañez, 26.

Plans to disrupt the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade included the Twitter hashtag #StopTheParade.

And activist Ben Norton — busted in July during a protest in DC with the CODEPINK anti-war group — tweeted out a parade map.

“This is the route,” he wrote. “Be the change you want to see in the world. Make history. #IndictTheSystem.”

#STOPTHEPARADE This is the route. Be the change you want to see in the world. Make history. #IndictTheSystem pic.twitter.com/x8xziyC0Wq

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Revealed: how the wealth gap holds back economic growth

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The west’s leading economic thinktank on Tuesday dismissed the concept of trickle-down economics as it found that the UK economy would have been more than 20% bigger had the gap between rich and poor not widened since the 1980s.

Publishing its first clear evidence of the strong link between inequality and growth, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development proposed higher taxes on the rich and policies aimed at improving the lot of the bottom 40% of the population, identified by Ed Miliband as the “squeezed middle”.

Trickle-down economics was a central policy for Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, with the Conservatives in the UK and the Republicans in the US confident that all groups would benefit from policies designed to weaken trade unions and encourage wealth creation.

The OECD said that the richest 10% of the population now earned 9.5 times the income of the poorest 10%, up from seven times in the 1980s. However, the result had been slower, not faster, growth.

It concluded that “income inequality has a sizeable and statistically negative impact on growth, and that redistributive policies achieving greater equality in disposable income has no adverse growth consequences.

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The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden 'black site'

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o Exclusive: Secret interrogation facility reveals aspects of war on terror in US
o ‘They disappeared us’: protester details 17-hour shackling without basic rights
o Accounts describe police brutality, missing 15-year-old and one man’s death
o Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
o Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
o Shackling for prolonged periods.
o Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
o Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

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Much remains hidden about Homan Square. The Chicago police department has not responded to any of the Guardian’s recent questions – neither about any aspect of operations at Homan Square, nor about the Guardian’s investigation of Richard Zuley, the retired Chicago detective turned Guantánamo Bay torturer. (On Monday evening, it instead provided a statement to MSNBC regarding the Guardian’s Zuley investigation: “The vast majority of our officers serve the public with honor and integrity,” said the statement, adding that the department “has zero tolerance for misconduct, and has instituted a series of internal initiatives and reforms, to ensure past incidents of police misconduct are not repeated”. Without providing any specifics, it claimed “the allegations in this instance are not supported by the facts.”)

When a Guardian reporter arrived at the warehouse on Friday, a man at the gatehouse outside refused any entrance and would not answer questions. “This is a secure facility. You’re not even supposed to be standing here,” said the man, who refused to give his name.

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#Gitmo2Chicago: protests target police 'black site'

Homan Square abuse allegations encircle mayor Rahm Emanuel as Anonymous, Occupy and Black Lives Matter take to social media and streets beyond Chicago

The Chicago police facility Homan Square was becoming the focus of an organized protest movement this weekend, as the hacktivist collective Anonymous and organizers associated with the Black Lives Matter movement seized on allegations of unconstitutional abuse at the secretive warehouse.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former top adviser to Barack Obama suddenly facing a runoff for re-election, remained at the political fulcrum of a mounting campaign both on social media and the streets of Chicago, where demonstrations were planned for Saturday outside what coordinated campaigners described as mirroring a CIA “black site”.

Organizer Travis McDermott said Saturday’s “Shut Down Homan Square” protest was one of several being planned as far away as Los Angeles.

“Hopefully with the presence we expect to have, that will put a little bit of pressure to say, ‘Hey, look – this isn’t going to go away,’” he said.

On Friday night, campaigners associated with the Occupy and Anonymous collectives took to Twitter, Instagram and other social-media platforms with the hashtag #Gitmo2Chicago to decry allegations of what users alternatively labeled as a “secret prison” and “torture soon coming to a city near you”.

Six people and multiple Chicago attorneys came forward to the Guardian this week with detailed accounts of police holding suspects and witnesses for sustained periods of detention inside Homan Square, without public records, access to attorneys or being read their most basic rights – involving what they said included shackling, physical abuse and being “disappeared” from legal counsel and family. The Guardian’s recent investigation into Chicago police brutality began the week before, with a two-part account of the tactics of Detective Richard Zuley, who went from Chicago homicide investigator to Guantánamo Bay torturer.

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Nuit debout protesters occupy French cities in revolutionary call for change | World news | The Guardian


For more than a week, vast nocturnal gatherings have spread across France in a citizen-led movement that has rattled the government

As night fell over Paris, thousands of people sat cross-legged in the vast square at Place de la République, taking turns to pass round a microphone and denounce everything from the dominance of Google to tax evasion or inequality on housing estates.

The debating continued into the early hours of the morning, with soup and sandwiches on hand in the canteen tent and a protest choir singing revolutionary songs. A handful of protesters in tents then bedded down to “occupy” the square for the night before being asked to move on by police just before dawn. But the next morning they returned to set up their protest camp again.

For more than a week, these vast nocturnal protest gatherings – from parents with babies to students, workers, artists and pensioners – have spread across France, rising in number, and are beginning to panic the government.

Called Nuit debout, which loosely means “rise up at night”, the protest movement is increasingly being likened to the Occupy initiative that mobilised hundreds of thousands of people in 2011 or Spain’s Indignados.

Despite France’s long history of youth protest movements – from May 1968 to vast rallies against pension changes – Nuit debout, which has spread to cities such as Toulouse, Lyon and Nantes and even over the border to Brussels, is seen as a new phenomenon.

It began on 31 March with a night-time sit-in in Paris after the latest street demonstrations by students and unions critical of President François Hollande’s proposed changes to labour laws. But the movement and its radical nocturnal action had been dreamed up months earlier at a Paris meeting of leftwing activists.

“There were about 300 or 400 of us at a public meeting in February and we were wondering how can we really scare the government?. We had an idea: at the next big street protest, we simply wouldn’t go home,” said Michel, 60, a former delivery driver.

“On 31 March, at the time of the labour law protests, that’s what happened. There was torrential rain, but still everyone came back here to the square. Then at 9pm, the rain stopped and we stayed. We came back the next day and as we keep coming back every night, it has scared the government because it’s impossible to define.

“There’s something here that I’ve never seen before in France – all these people converge here each night of their own accord to talk and debate ideas – from housing to the universal wages, refugees, any topic they like. No one has told them to, no unions are pushing them on – they’re coming of their own accord.”

The idea emerged among activists linked to a leftwing revue and the team behind the hit documentary film Merci Patron!, which depicts a couple taking on France’s richest man, billionaire Bernard Arnault. But the movement gained its own momentum – not just because of the labour protests or in solidarity with the French Goodyear tyre plant workers who kidnapped their bosses in 2014. It has expanded to address a host of different grievances, including the state of emergency and security crackdown in response to last year’s terrorist attacks.

“The labour law was the final straw,” said Matthiew, 35, who was retraining to be a teacher after 10 years in the private sector, and had set up an impromptu revolutionary singing group at the square. “But it’s much bigger than that. This government, which is supposed to be socialist, has come up with a raft of things I don’t agree with, while failing to deal with the real problems like unemployment, climate change and a society heading for disaster.”

Many in the crowd said that after four years of Hollande’s Socialist party in power, they left felt betrayed and their anger was beginning to bubble over.

Jocelyn, 26, a former medical student acting as a press spokesman for the movement, said: “There are parallels with Occupy and Indignados. The idea is to let everyone speak out. People are really sick and tired and that feeling has been building for years. Everything Hollande once promised for the left but gave up on really gets me down. Personally, it’s the state of emergency, the new surveillance laws, the changes to the justice system and the security crackdown.”

The government and the Paris authorities are being cautious about the policing of the movement. An investigation is under way into the alleged assault by a police officer accused of hitting a student at a Paris high school last month during a demonstration against the labour overhaul.

The government is preparing possible concessions to students and youths to calm those expected to attend another such rally on Saturday.

Each night at Paris’s Place de la République, the “general assembly” begins at 6pm and the crowd discuss ideas. Hundreds of demonstrators communicate using coded hand gestures: wiggling their fingers above their heads to express agreement or crossing their wrists to disagree.

Various committees have sprung up to debate a new constitution, society, work, and how to occupy the square with more permanent wooden structures on a nightly basis. Whiteboards list the evening’s discussions and activities – from debates on economics to media training for the demonstrators. “No hatred, no arms, no violence,” was the credo described by the “action committee”.

“This must be a perfect mini-society,” a member of the gardening committee told the crowd. A poetry committee has been set up to document and create the movement’s slogans. “Every movement needs its artistic and literary element,” said the poet who proposed it.

Demonstrators regularly help other protest movements, such as a bank picket over revelations in the Panama Papers or a demonstration against migrant evictions in the north of Paris.

“Generation revolution”, was scrawled on the pavement. The concept behind the movement is a “convergence of struggles” with no one leader. There are no union banners or flags of specific groups decorating the protest in the square – a rarity in France.

Cécile, 22, a Paris law student at Thursday night’s general assembly, said: “I don’t agree with the state society is in today. To me, politics feels broken. This movement appeals in terms of citizen action. I come here after class and I intend to keep coming back. I hope it lasts.”

Bron: www.theguardian.com