Monthly Archives: March 2012

March 10, 2012 · 2:52 am

Occupying the Inland Empire

Hey there,

Last week we went to Southern California’s Inland Empire to report on an Occupy action to shut down Walmart warehouse distribution centers. If you have never been there, it’s where the American dream degenerates into a landscape of mammoth sprawl, endless highways and rank consumerism. A few hundred people from five different occupations showed up at sunrise in support of hundreds of low-wage workers enduring abusive conditions in Walmart’s gigantic warehouses.

We were with protesters the whole day, and it was a moment where you can see the idealism of a new social movement crashing into the harsh reality of workers scraping by in a crumbling society. You can read the article here: http://occupyusatoday.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3e3faca56242aece8e20ba5bb&id=29cef8daa6&e=930dda90cf

We’re going to have plenty of new articles coming out, most of which will be on Salon. Next week we have an article coming out in The Nation. All our articles, films and updates are available on our website, occupyusatoday.com.

Best,
Arun Gupta and Michelle Fawcett

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

March 8, 2012 · 10:16 am

Occupy invades “America’s storage shed” (Salon)

Faced with protest, Walmart unilaterally shuts down three warehouses in Southern California

TOPICS: 

Spilling out below the snow-dusted San Bernardino Mountains, California’s Inland Empire in Southern California is America’s storage shed. Its economy is a key link in the global supply chain. Goods from Asia funnel through the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports that handle more than one-quarter of all the imports pouring into the United States every year, and much of it is warehoused here before finding its way into homes and businesses across the nation. If all the storage space was gathered under one roof, more than 700 million square feet, it would make a warehouse larger than Manhattan.

With manufacturing scant in the Inland Empire, an estimated 118,000 workers are employed hustling through cavernous warehouses to stack and fetch goods or hauling them in rigs. The area is infested with banal exurbs that clump in towns such as Mira Loma, which has been tagged the “diesel death zone” for the lung-searing truck pollution that envelops it. It was in Mira Loma that a few hundred members of various Southern California Occupy movements converged at sunrise  on Feb. 29 with the goal of shutting down a Walmart distribution center.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Economy, Occupy Movement

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 5, 2012 · 9:30 am

To camp or not to camp? That is Occupy’s question (Salon)

Occupy Tampa protest Oct 2011

Occupy Tampa protest Oct 2011 (Photo credit: Sasha Rae Photo - Shanna Gillette)

After a wave of shutdowns, about 20 Occupy camps still stand. What do they tell us about the state of the movement?

Occupy Tampa has had a rough life. Born on a “Day of Rage” that drew 1,000 people to Tampa, Fla.’s downtown on Oct. 6, it put down roots three days later on a public sidewalk bordering Curtis Hixon Park. It soon blossomed into a community of more than 100 residents adorned with tents, medics, media, kitchen and library on a concrete patch less than 10 feet wide.

From day one, the Tampa police were a fixture in their lives. “They would come by at 6 a.m. to wake us up, and again in the afternoon to make us move our belongings off the sidewalk,” says Samantha Bowden, a 23-year-old senior at the University of South Florida. The occupiers taped off a 6-foot section of the sidewalk for egress and say the city conceded it had the right to a 24-hour presence, but the police were intent on retarding the occupation’s development by wielding a code against leaving articles on the sidewalk. Occupy Tampa occupiers adapted by placing their belongings on carts so they could be wheeled away whenever the police descended.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Occupy Movement

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

March 2, 2012 · 11:30 am

Occupy’s challenge: Reinventing democracy (Salon)

Behind the scenes with rogue drummers, homeless, liberals and the black bloc as OWS grapples with self-government

Occupy Wall Street protesters demonstrate on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 17. (Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

The panicked emails and texts sounded like a prank worthy of the Yes Men. Occupy Wall Street — which like some comic book character only grew stronger after each attack by nefarious forces, whether pepper spray, mass arrests or New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s threat to close the park for cleaning – had finally been brought to its knees.

What was about to kill the most successful American activist movement in decades? The drum circle.

Drummers possessed with a Dionysian fervor were demanding that they be allowed to pound their bongos and congas late into the night because they were the “heartbeat of this movement.” In response, a letter circulated with the dramatic warning that “OWS is over after Tuesday.” With equal doses of Middle East diplomacy and Burning Man theatrics, the writer explained that weeks of negotiations between a drummers’ working group called Pulse, the OWS General Assembly and the local community board had collapsed.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Occupy Movement

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,