Reports of end of Occupy Charlottesville premature
Occupy Charlottesville is still alive and well and focusing on continuing to build community while highlighting among other issues the great level of income disparity in this country, according to a press release shared today with AugustaFreePress.com.
According to the release, the Nov. 30 action that resulted in several members being arrested for trespassing in a public park was the first direct action of civil disobedience for this group.
Occupy Charlottesville will use the winter to do action planning to bring a continually larger spotlight on what is not working in this country and why it is not working. There are many ideas being discussed.
“Now that the community at large knows that we are here, it is time to reach out to more individuals and groups,” says a participant who wishes to remain anonymous.
Flashpoint to tackle Occupy Wall Street
The latest in James Madison University’s Faculty Flashpoint Series, sponsored by the Center for Faculty Innovation, will explore the Occupy Wall Street movement that has been gaining momentum in many U.S. cities and around the world over the past few months. The flashpoint will be held Friday, Dec. 2, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in the East Campus Library 3rd Floor Flex Space. JMU faculty, staff, students and community members are welcome.
Crafted by some as protest against economic exploitation and seen by others as a public nuisance, Occupy Wall Street has led to protestor encampments in public parks and on university campuses in Philadelphia, New York City, South Carolina, at the University of California-Davis and many other locations. Faculty panelists will delve into the inner workings of the U.S. capitalistic economy and examine how people have benefited, experienced loss or been exploited by Wall Street.
Dr. Mary Gayne, assistant professor of history, will serve as moderator. Other JMU faculty panelists include:
• Esther Poveda, instructor of foreign languages, literatures and cultures
• Dr. Stephen Poulson, associate professor of sociology
• Dr. William Van Norman, assistant professor of history
• Dr. Brian Kaylor, assistant professor of communication studies
For more information, visit www.jmu.edu/cfi/programs/flashpoint/occupy.html.
Verizon to union: The grill must go, or else
In recent days, sparks are still flying over a controversial “Unify Main Street” BBQ dinner attended by several community groups that gathered with Communication Workers of America Local 2204 near Verizon headquarters on Nov. 3 in support of a fair contract for Verizon employees and for preserving middle-class jobs in the Shenandoah Valley.
In a clear act of retaliation against the union’s involvement in the community event, a Verizon manager has demanded that the BBQ grill used to cook the group’s food be removed from the company’s property before Thanksgiving.
“I just learned from a union newsletter this morning that, when my union friends got to work last week, their boss gave them an ultimatum,” said Donald Wilson Bush, a member of several Occupy Wall Street/Unify Main Street groups forming in the Valley, “Either they move the grill away from Verizon property by Thanksgiving or else Verizon management will throw it away in the company dumpster.”
Presented in the questionable context of a concern for “worker safety,” this demand on the part of local Verizon management to remove the grill followed publication of a Letter to Editor on Tuesday, Nov. 15 sent to the Staunton News Leader by Harry J. Mitchell, Verizon’s director of public relations in Richmond.
In his letter, Mitchell referred to the community-sponsored BBQ event as filled with “empty rhetoric,” and argued against the CWA’s proposition that middle-class jobs in America are due, at least in part, to years of successful contract negotiation between leaders of organized labor and corporate management.
“Mr. Mitchell is certainly entitled to his own opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts,” Bush replied. “Clearly, as any fair study of labor history will prove, the upward trajectory of middle-class growth in America shows that he is absolutely mistaken about the positive impact that organized labor relations have had on the livelihoods of working class people all around the world.”
“I was shocked to learn that the BBQ grill in question has been on company property for at least 12 years and has been used by management and associates alike for different events,” Bush continued. “It has never been a safety concern before. This is simply what happens when you try to unify groups of people in the community like we did in support of CWA’s current campaign against corporate greed.”
The BBQ grill in question will be given to a family of Verizon customers living in Staunton after it is removed from Verizon property this week. The family receiving the grill says that it will be used again in future community-sponsored BBQ events that support middle-class jobs.
Growing pains: Occupy Charlottesville gets personal
Secrecy, personal vendettas and radicalization are at the root of problems being experienced by the Occupy Charlottesville movement, which a founding member feels is on the brink of splitting apart at the seams.
“It feels like chopping off a limb. The people there … I thought they were pretty good people. But I realize that the real issue there is not my issue, but other people’s issues that are festering,” said Evan Knappenberger, an Albemarle High School graduate and Iraq war veteran who signed for the group’s first permit and helped to negotiate the group’s stay in Lee Park with police.
What had begun as a movement that was supposed to be an “expression of the community’s will” devolved into a “recruiting tool for radical feminists and anarchists trying to radicalize people using the movement as a facade,” Knappenberger said in an interview with The Augusta Free Press on Monday.
A key issue to Knappenberger was an ongoing debate over the term “nonviolence.” Knappenberger said several members were playing around with the definition, which to him seems resolute.
“The tone was, What is nonviolence? Well, I reserve the right to defend myself, whatever that means,” Knappenberger summarized the discussion.
Occupy Charlottesville addressed this issue head-on in a news release sent out late Monday night.
“We, the participants in Occupy Charlottesville, collectively and wholeheartedly affirm our commitment to nonviolence. We all desire the best possible relationship with our community. That includes law enforcement,” read the statement adopted by the Occupy Charlottesville General Assembly Monday evening.
“As a matter of conscience, some of us choose to obey all laws and obtain all permits in the course of our occupation. We believe we best serve our community and ideals by entirely legal direct action. Also as a matter of conscience, some of us may choose to participate in nonviolent civil disobedience. We believe we best serve ourcommunity through nonviolent direct action which may include sit-ins and other methods of passive resistance. These may result in our arrests. We consider it ethical to physically but nonaggressively shield ourselves and others from violence in the course of such actions. We will not attack or retaliate against any member of law enforcement or anyone else,” the statement read.
Knappenberger saw something far different in his interactions with a few group members who he feels are at best using statements about nonviolence as cover.
“This is what anarchists do. It’s their methodology,” said Knappenberger, who will leave Charlottesville this week to return to his current home in Washington state with mixed emotions about his role in Occupy Charlottesville.
“With any movement, there are going to be differences of opinion. That should be understood,” said Knappenberger, who still supports “the idea of the movement” and plans to involve himself with the Occupy effort upon his return to Washington state.
“I feel really good. I feel like I helped a lot of people. I did some tutoring. I was helping feed homeless people. I feel like I did a lot of good. I want to remember that stuff. I hopefully can try to forget the personal-vendetta stuff that was going on,” Knappenberger said.
Key Occupy Charlottesville leader steps down, warns others away after contentious meeting
Occupy Charlottesville has taken a turn for the worse, with more radical sub-elements censoring moderate members and ideologically purging others.
Evan Knappenberger, who signed for the group’s first permit, was the first member to speak to city council, and helped to negotiate the group’s stay with police before campers began spending the night in Lee Park, is officially removing himself from the group and warning others away from participation.
“A group of individuals with personal vendettas, axes to grind, has gradually taken control of the park,” Knappenberger said after the Saturday night general assembly. “It is to the point now, where if you watch the videos, they have corrupted the consensus process, and turned the group in an immoderate direction. They are now resorting to personal attacks out of fear and anger, and are censoring those that disagree with them.”
Reaction against the moderate members of the group began Friday morning after an article was published by Graham Moomaw in the Daily Progress describing some of the various dynamics within the Occupy Charlottesville movement. Many members expressed outrage at the tone of the article, especially those whom the article described as “less-experienced,” and as a sub-group wanting to get arrested in order to draw more members. The only agenda item for the Friday night general assembly was the article, according to the group’s website.
Knappenberger publicly speculates a negative future for the movement. “The Occupy Charlottesville that began camping in Lee Park is not the same Occupy Charlottesville that is there now. The general tone of fear and mistrust is so high, they are talking about snitches and moles… they are playing around with unusual definitions of ‘self-defense’ and ‘non-violence’… they have lost sight of their own values and even their consensus process. The revolution has begun eating its own babies.”
Knappenberger, an Albemarle High School graduate, an Iraq war veteran and experienced activist, says that he is “warning people away” from associating themselves with the movement. “Occupy Charlottesville is in a downward spiral that will only end badly. It will end with a handful of anarchists and a few other desperately fearful people getting arrested, fined, and doing community service. But before it ends, it will be dragged through a gauntlet of mistrust and infighting which will leave it broken, and will damage anyone who is involved.”
Knappenberger would also like to publicly distance himself for any personal responsibility for the group’s future actions. “It was good while it lasted,” he said, “but I can’t have my name attached to it any more.”
Occupy Staunton General Assembly
Transition Staunton-Augusta is hosting an Occupy Staunton General Assembly Thursday, Nov. 10, at 6 p.m. at 19 W. Beverley St. in Downtown Staunton.
Learn more about the Occupy movement that’s sweeping the nation and the world and see how local citizens are applying its approach right here at home.
Holly Sklar: Repatriation con games
Lobbyists are storming Capitol Hill, pushing a tax holiday that would give billions of dollars in tax breaks to less than 1 percent of American businesses – and stick the other 99 percent with the bill. But of course, they can’t say that. So tax holiday advocates are using a high-powered version of the email con known as the “Nigerian scam.”
You’re probably familiar with it: a prince, business executive or government official promises rich rewards for your urgently needed assistance to move “funds which are presently trapped in Nigeria” or some other country into the United States. “The con works by blinding the victim with promises of an unimaginable fortune,” the myth-busting Snopes.com explains. “He fails to realize during the sting that he’s never going to get the promised fortune.” He’s going to lose his shirt.
“Currently, there is over $1 trillion earned by American businesses trapped overseas that could be brought back and invested here at home,” the WIN America campaign for a tax holiday on “repatriated” corporate profits says in its mission statement. “There is no time to waste, our economy needs all the help it can get.”
Never mind that the money “trapped” overseas was moved by U.S. corporations to their subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland and other tax-haven countries in order to avoid taxes. As former Treasury Department economist Martin Sullivan told Bloomberg, “A lot of what companies report as foreign profit is really U.S. profit that should be subject to U.S. tax.”
For example, “Cisco transfers a portion of the patent rights to technology developed in the U.S. to a Dutch unit, which sells some of the resulting products back to its parent for eventual distribution in the U.S.,” Bloomberg reported. “Cisco credits about $5 billion in U.S. sales annually to the Netherlands.”
Cisco, Google, Pfizer and other big businesses in the WIN America campaign have deployed more than 160 lobbyists to convince Congress to let U.S. multinationals pay a “repatriation” tax rate as low as 5.25 percent. It would tilt the playing field even further against small businesses hiring, investing and paying taxes in America.
Most tax holiday legislation co-sponsors have received campaign donations from WIN America-affiliated companies, reports the Center for Public Integrity.
Congress already fell for this scam with a “one-time” tax holiday passed in 2004. Companies didn’t create the jobs or investment they promised – layoffs actually increased.
Instead, they boosted CEO pay, stock buybacks and shareholder dividends, and stockpiled even more money offshore to avoid taxes, according to reports by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Congressional Research Service, National Bureau of Economic Research and others. Since 2004, the amount of earnings by U.S. corporations held offshore has more than tripled.
“Another temporary holiday may condition US multinationals to never routinely repatriate any foreign profits because, eventually, Congress can be expected to pass another ‘temporary’ tax holiday,” said a Goldman Sachs report.
As more people understand that another tax holiday would be bad for the U.S. economy, advocates are pitching a variation on the “I’ve got a bridge to sell you” scam that notorious con men like George C. Parker foisted on gullible buyers.
You can use our tax holiday to fund an infrastructure bank to buy bridges, roads and other public works, the hucksters pitch. In this crazy math, a tax holiday that the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation says will cost the U.S. Treasury $42 billion to $79 billion is supposed to finance an infrastructure bank.
If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Here’s a real way to fund an infrastructure bank with a tax haven link: enact the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. That would put $100 billion a year into the U.S. Treasury that is now being lost to tax dodging through tax havens.
That would mean real money for rebuilding our infrastructure and other national priorities, which would strengthen Main Street business, job creation and our economy.
“We can’t afford the waste of another massive corporate tax break that rewards those who have made an art form of avoiding their tax responsibility through tax havens and other accounting manipulation,” says Dean Cycon, owner of Dean’s Beans coffee company.
America has suffered enough from corporate con artists.
Holly Sklar is director of Business for Shared Prosperity (www.businessforsharedprosperity.org). She can be reached at hsklar.writer@gmail.com. An earlier version was distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service. Copyright 2011 Holly Sklar.
Teach-in looks at how the 1 percent crashed the economy
How did 1 percent of the population end up with 40 percent of our nation’s wealth? Why have middle class wages been stagnant while America has grown richer by the year? And, most importantly, what can we, the 99 percent, do about it?
These questions and others related will be examined at a teach-in sponsored by Transition Staunton-Augusta Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. at the Staunton Public Library.
In conjunction with the growing Occupy movement, Transition Staunton-Augusta co-founder Erik Curren will give a presentation on how our immediate economic situation relates to energy and ecology and to the goals of the Transition movement to build strong local economies.
The event is free and open to the public.
Occupy movement comes to Valley, Charlottesville
The Occupy Wall Street movement that has brought international attention to issues of income inequality and the redistribution of weatlh to the superwealthy has spawned sister movements in Staunton and Charlottesville.
A newly-formed Occupy Staunton/Unify Main Street group is coordinating a rally on Thursday to support Communication Workers of America Local 2204 and its efforts to renegotiate a new labor contract with Verizon.
The 4 p.m. rally will be held in front of the local Verizon corporate headquarters at 22 Christians Creek Road in Staunton.
A press release sent by the group notes that the event “is not a strike against Verizon.”
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Rather, as a reflection of recent displays of solidarity among citizens supporting the demonstrators currently occupying Wall Street, this Unify Main Street event represents a new strategy on the part of traditional labor union organizers to join with members of other non-union groups dedicated to reforming the current political system in America that affords untold economic advantages to a smallminority of rich people (the 1%) at the expense of the middle class and the poor (the 99%),” according to the release.
The Staunton rally is being organized by Transition Staunton Augusta, the Augusta Coalition for Peace and Justice and Virginia Organizing.
The Occupy Charlottesville movement is now in its third week. The Charlottesville effort has operated largely with the support and cooperation of city government, unlike what has been seen in other cities, where local governments have engaged in policing efforts that have led to numerous arrests and in the case of a police action in Oakland, Calif., a disturbing scene that involved the use of tear gas to break up a protest last week.
A news release sent out today by Occupy Charlottesville notes that the group “exists to fight for social and economic justice.”
“We believe that the corporatization of our society is directly responsible for all forms of injustice. One of our fundamental purposes is to subvert the power of greed; money itself is not the ends of, but the means to, the social cooperation which is the real basis of any economy. Therefore, we have been camping downtown under the statue of Robert E. Lee, demonstrating cooperative justice with the homeless, the mentally ill, and the addicted. The purpose of this three-week protest is to prove to ourselves and to the world that peaceful, abundant community is possible without corporate sponsorship, huge budgets, or leaders,” according to the release.
Occupy Charlottesville leaders have offered an open invitation to local residents to take part in the occupation.
“There is an especial need for social workers, teachers, security volunteers, counselors of all kinds, cooks, cleaners, campers and anyone seeking solidarity, community or camaraderie. We would like to welcome questions and comments in person at our camp, and are happy to engage in polite discussion at any hour. Please come in a spirit of nonviolence and respect, and bring your friends. There is free food and beverage available to anyone, as well as coats and blankets, books and tarps. All are welcome.”
Nancy Carpenter: Support for Occupy Charlottesville
Posted by afp on December 8, 2011 · Leave a Comment
All over the country, the work is just beginning to address what is unjust both morally and economically. Here in Charlottesville, the plight of the homeless has been brought into our visual collective consciousness more so than it has in the past. It will not be an issue that will be swept away. Another regional issue is the financing of companies that desecrate our environment through mountain top coal removal, by Bank of America and Wells Fargo (both have branches here locally) when they had stated in writing they would not finance these activities.
We also know that Goldman-Sachs is the largest commodities index trader in the world. When you see those pictures of starving children here and across the globe, remember that Goldman-Sachs hoards the rice, corn, soybeans, and wheat crops till prices, double-triple-etc. all in the name of profit while having no care that a mother may have to decide which child LIVES OR DIES! Can you look at your own children and decide? Continue reading “Nancy Carpenter: Support for Occupy Charlottesville” »
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