Welcome! "What's Happenin'?" is a casual community diary (a daily series, 8:30 AM Eastern on weekdays, 10 AM on weekends and holidays) where we hang out and talk about the goings on here and everywhere.
We welcome links to your writings here on dkos or elsewhere, posts of pictures, music, news, etc.
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Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Good Morning!
Wisteria through a pergola roof. April, 2012. Photo credit: joanneleon
Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.
~ Simone Weil
News
From Gangs to Gardens: How Community Agriculture Transformed Quesada Avenue
“Even though there was a throng of people—drug dealers who were carrying guns, pretty scary folks—she had planted flowers on this little strip of dirt by my driveway,” he told me. “I was so moved by that . . . I thought, that’s what life is about. That’s what community development is about. That’s what’s going to change this block faster than any public investment or outside strategy. And in fact it did.”
A group of neighbors got together for a barbeque, and Jeffrey—who has a background in community organizing—started a conversation about the positive aspects of living in the neighborhood. What followed was a long-term, consensus-based process that resulted in the creation of a series of gardens on vacant land in the surrounding blocks. On Quesada Avenue, the median strip was transformed into a wonderland of Canary Island date palms, bright flowers, and leafy vegetation. Any neighbor who wants to can organize a new gardening effort, take responsibility for the existing gardens, or put together a public art project.
The facts are clear. This cruel austerity experiment has failed
While the human cost of economic stupidity is all too visible, the world's leaders are paralysed by their dogma
Last week was an awesome warning of where go-it-alone austerity can lead. It produced some brutal evidence of where we end up when we place finance above economy and society. The markets are now betting not just on the break-up of the euro but on the arrival of a new economic dark age. The world economy is edging nearer to the abyss, and policymakers, none more than in Britain, are paralysed by the stupidities of their home-spun economics. Yanis Varoufakis, ex-speechwriter for former Greek prime minister George Papandreou and now an economics professor in the US, said last week: "There is precisely zero chance of austerity working. It is the same as thinking you can escape from gravity by waving your arms up and down."
OWS Events This Week
Every Day, 8pm
Casseroles March in Solidarity with the Quebec Infinite General Strike
Washington Square Park and everywhere else
Bang your pots at 8pm every night! Show your indignation for corruption, undemocratic practices, and debt slavery!
Daily #OccupyUnionSq Info Table, 9am - 9pm
@OWSUnionSquare
Every day Occupy Union Square has an info table open and staffed, acting as a hub to promote the constant flurry of events and meetings occurring in the park and across OWS. Click here to find out how you can help out with immediate needs of the Union Square occupiers to keep it running and growing.
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Every Wednesday, 4pm
The People’s Gong
This Wednesday, and every Wednesday thereafter, we call on all people to join Occupy Wall Street in ringing the People's Gong on Wall Street. We invite all working groups to re-connect and re-occupy Liberty Park with us.
4pm: Meet at Federal Hall, mic check, and ring the gong.
5:30pm: Return to Liberty Plaza to debrief and work on projects across OWS. This week’s Direct Action meeting will focus on planning for Black Monday (September 17 2012).
7:30pm: Report-back circle.
Wednesday, June 6th, 530
March To Call on the SEC to Investigate Jamie Dimon
Liberty Plaza
On the anniversary of the founding of the SEC, Occupy the SEC and Alternative Banking are holding a march calling on the SEC to investigate Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, under Sarbanes-Oxley and refer the case the the Department of Justice for prosecution.
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Save the Dates
June 16 - People’s Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - NYC Solidarity Rally
June 16 - Occupy Town Square: Staten Island
September 17 - Black Monday - OWS One-Year Anniversary
Tomorrow, June 4th,
#BlackoutSpeakout
Budget bill triggers national campaign in defence of nature and democracy
But as the federal government has made clear in its recent budget legislation, Bill C-38, not everyone has the same respect for nature and democracy.
In recent weeks, Canadians have watched in shock and anger as the federal government works swiftly to dismantle the rights and protections we — and the environment — all depend on. It's an assault that seeks to gut many of the country's most important environmental protections and strip Canadians of their right to stand up for clean water, air and land. All to clear the way for faster oil and gas development across the country.
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Since Ecojustice and the David Suzuki Foundation, in collaboration with nine other leading environmental groups, launched the Black Out Speak Out campaign, more than 13,000 individuals and over 100 organizations have decided to speak out against Bill C-38. Celebrities like Margaret Atwood and Bruce Cockburn are standing up to say silence is not an option when nature and democracy are at risk. And they're backed by groups like the United Steelworkers, Oxfam Canada and Democracy Watch, as well as doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists and even politicians who know that a country without open debate is a country in crisis.
Quebec's 'grand awakening:' not a revolution, but a confrontation
Public protest has a long tradition in Quebec. Since the 1950s, when the shackles of church and authoritarian provincial rule began to loosen, Quebeckers have not felt the need to wait for an election, or even a phone call from a pollster, to express how they feel about the way their province is run. When fed up, they shout, and the louder they shout, the more often they seem to get their way.
Which is why hundreds of thousands of students, social activists, union members and even citizens normally loath to do so have been taking to the street day after day. With the government's sudden refusal to back down, what started in February as a class boycott over the tuition hike has given rise to something far greater.
A growing list of philosophers, political scientists and activists who have seen upheaval come and go over the years argues that a sort of “grand awakening” is under way, bringing with it the level of public discourse that Quebeckers call a débat de société.
As well as protesting against the tuition rise and the legal measures imposed to tighten the rules on protests, Quebeckers are marching against dwindling economic opportunity, corruption, and a widespread view that their Liberal rulers are tired and disconnected.
All 67 Florida Election Supervisors Suspend Governor Rick Scott's Voter Purge
On Thursday, the Justice Department demanded Florida Governor Rick Scott end his extensive purge of registered voters from the rolls because it was in violation of federal law. Scott still hasn’t formally responded but his county election supervisors have already taken action.
For-Profit Education: Milking Students and the Taxpayers for Corporate Profits
If you pay attention to the investment banking industry, the for-profit prisons, the health insurance industry and now for-profit colleges you will see this same pattern; private profits with public risks. When industries are structured in this manner, we also get intense lobbying for favorable legal treatment, the spreading around of campaign money and a revolving door for politicians and regulators. The public often foots the bill with little or no benefit from the process.
Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's Ousted President, Sentenced To Life In Prison
CAIRO — Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison Saturday for failing to stop the killing of protesters during the uprising that forced him from power last year. The ousted president and his sons were acquitted of corruption in a mixed verdict that swiftly provoked a new wave of anger on Egypt's streets.
By dusk, thousands filled Cairo's central Tahrir Square, the heart of last year's uprising, in a demonstration called by revolutionary groups and the powerful Muslim Brotherhood to vent anger over the acquittals.
After the sentencing, the 84-year old Mubarak suffered a "health crisis" on a helicopter flight to a Cairo prison hospital, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity [ ... ] The officials said Mubarak cried in protest and resisted leaving the helicopter that took him to a prison hospital for the first time since he was detained in April 2011. They said the former leader insisted he be flown to the military hospital on the outskirts of Cairo where he was held during the trial. Mubarak finally left the chopper and moved to the Torah prison hospital more than two hours after the helicopter landed there.
No one was found guilty for killing protesters. Mubarak and a minister were sentenced to life in prison for allowing it to happen. His sons an four other ministers were acquitted. Protesters are calling for "a cleansing of the justice system". Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, is calling on protesters to continue the revolution.
Protests Erupt Across Egypt After Surprise Mubarak Verdict
Mubarak's sons and assistant ministers of interior acquittals causing outrage
UPDATE: A massive protest has broken out tonight in Cairo's Tahrir square as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians express outrage over today's verdicts against former President Mubarak and other members of his regime.
There are reports of large protests breaking out in cities all over Egypt.
Leon Panetta: US to deploy 60% of navy fleet to Pacific
The US is planning to move the majority of its warships to the Asia-Pacific region by 2020, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has revealed.
He said that by 2020 about 60% of the US fleet would be deployed there, in the clearest indication yet of the new US strategy in Asia.
Mr Panetta told a regional security meeting in Singapore that the shift was not aiming to contain Chinese power.
The Dronification of Planet Earth
It’s now commonly estimated that more than 50 nations have drones, are making plans to develop them, or are at least planning to buy them from those who do produce them. In other words, the future global skies are going to be a busy -- and increasingly dangerous -- place. They will be filled not just with robotic surveillance aircraft, but also with non-U.S. remotely piloted armed assassins which, thanks to the path Washington has blazed, need pay no attention to anyone’s national sovereignty in a search for their version of bad guys to destroy. Iranians, Israelis, Russians, Chinese, Indians, British -- you name it and if they don’t already have something robotic aloft, they undoubtedly will soon enough. And those estimates don’t even include insurgent groups and terrorists, who are undoubtedly giving real thought to how to develop and use the equivalent of suicide drones.
Just keep an eye on the news, because those numbers are only going to rise. In fact, just this month they’ve gone up by at least one, thanks to the decision of the Obama administration to sell surveillance drones to the Iraqis (and it is evidently also preparing to arm Italy's six Reaper drones with Hellfire missiles and bombs). [ ... ]
Take Pakistan. Last week, among other attacks, a U.S. drone launched two missiles at a bakery in the North Waziristan tribal area, killing (we are assured by ever-anonymous officials) four suspected “foreign” militants “buying goods.” (No information was available on the fate of the baker, of course.) Strange to say, the Pakistani people, or at least 97% of them, haven’t taken as well as Washington might have expected to its urge to launch endless drone attacks on their territory, no matter what they or their parliament might say. Drones, which have certainly killed their share of “bad guys” (and children) in the Pakistani borderlands, have also managed to throw U.S.-Pakistan relations into chaos, caused a surge of anti-Americanism, undoubtedly created future blowback among the relatives of the dead, and have almost singlehandedly made it impossible for the Pakistani government to reopen its borders to supplies for our Afghan War. This, in turn, has helped send the already-exorbitant costs of that war skyrocketing, an immediate form of blowback for the American taxpayer.
Army accuses Bales of using steroids, alcohol at base in Kandahar
The Army today refined the charges it pressed against Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 38, of Lewis-McChord’s 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. It added the new misconduct charges while dropping one of the 17 murder counts it initially filed against the soldier.
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Emma Scanlan, an attorney on Bales’ defense team, said the Army alleges that Bales obtained steroids from a Special Forces soldier at his base in Panjwai. She said witness statements suggest Bales consumed a “moderate amount” of alcohol with other service members on the day of the killings, and the amount should not have influenced his behavior.
A
historian wants to determine "why the Watergate break-in occurred, who ordered it, and what the burglars were looking for" and has requested release of some documents.
Government won’t oppose release of some long-sealed court documents from Watergate case
The Department of Justice on Friday responded to a request by a Texas history professor who is seeking access to the materials which he believes may help answer lingering questions about the burglary that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Luke Nichter wrote a judge in Washington to ask that potentially hundreds of pages of documents be unsealed. The judge earlier this year ordered the Department of Justice to respond with any objections.
Blog Posts of Interest
If you love birds
Dawn Chorus ~Lineatus
Solidarity #casseroles #manifencours