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General News    H2'ed 10/7/11

Update from OTHER occupation sites

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Having visited the Occupy Wall Street encampment twice in the last week, I can assure everyone it is alive and growing - there was even some talk this morning about expanding across the street, but the ever-present police may have something to say about that.
General Assemblies meet every night and last night, my public banking colleague from across the country, Marc Armstrong, who had flown in just to work with OWS, managed to get us a time and place to describe the Public (State) Banking option that has served North Dakota so well since 1919.  I had several private discussions with people, citing ND's <4% unemployment AND foreclosure rates, their budget surpluses for 2 years in a row, their highest community bank to person ratio in the country with the State Bank acting as a mini-fed.
Of course, some of the protestors don't want to hear of banks of any kind, but, while understandable, banks of the proper size and mission do help the community (think Jimmy Stewart's bank, not Citigroup).
Earlier in the week, another colleague and I from a different group - Common Ground-NYC - passed out fliers advocating the Single Tax on resources and location, while untaxing production.  This would free up resources for production, while making housing more affordable (since the actual house would be all that was paid for, and the price of land would go down while the tax went up).  The Single Tax would discourage hoarding and speculation, while encouraging sustainable and efficient development.  It would also make parks more possible by lowering the cost of land - and hence, it's desirability as an investment. 
Finally, I passed out other fliers into eager hands, advocating the return of United States Notes - debt-free money produced directly by Congress via the Treasury, as provided for by Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution, and first enacted by Lincoln in 1863 and continued through 1971, circulation of the original $450 million finally withdrawn in 1996.

OWS and the general occupation movements have a lot in common: consensual democracy, General Assemblies, high new media savvy (unlike the old media, which I tried i vain to wrangle an interview from.  Only independent media would interview me here.), and lead by the young and disaffected.

Also, globalization of efforts.  Here is an update from a comrade in Spain, where it all began, at least in the Western world:

Vi prego di riinviare questo e mail a tutti i contatti . E sul 15 Ottobre a livello mondiale

To forward the 15th Oct

http://madrid.tomalaplaza.net/2011/10/06/mail-para-difundir-el-15oct/


Send it to all your contacts !!


http://map.15october.net ,


On   October 15th people will jump together to the streets and squares united by the desire of a global change. It will be the first
worldwide citizenmovilization in our planet, to say "enough is enough'
to the elites that govern us, and to start building new ways of
organizing ourselves.

It is us, the people of the world, the ones who should be deciding the
destiny of the world!

350 cities in more than 45 countries all around the globe have already
joined http://map.15october.net . On that day debates, protests,
actions, performances and assemblies will cover all our planet.
Organized by thousands of people holding assemblies in the streets and communicating through the net, it will not be just a common
demonstration, we will meet on the streets to know each other and to
organize a worldwide network to begin the change. It is time to unite
and work together!

In order to promote and discuss these activities before October 15th,
everyone is encouraged to participate and to organize local meetings
the days 8th and 9th, to fix the details and discuss the preparation
of the events for the 15th. Simultaneously, there will be availabe
channels of chat [1], audio-chat [2], video chat [3] to talk everyone
together, and a collaborative document [4] to compile in a permanent
way the information of each place for the 15th.

During 48 hours people from all the world will be able of talking
about the ideas and activities decided in their squares with every
other single person in the world. All the channels will be open for
everybody" just participate!

The world is getting ready, this will not be just one more
mobilization, we are reinventing ourselves, and will reinvent the
world" It will be a day to unite all the people together. What happens
then will just depend on each one of us!

To spread the call, keep forwarding this info to your contacts!

----

Tools for the virtual global meeting on the October 8th and 9th

[1] http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=15october&prompt=1

[2] (Mumble: Download in http://mumble.sourceforge.net/
Host:tomalaplaza.net Port:64738)

(mumble tutorial: http://takethesquare.net/2011/10/04/mumble-setup-walkthrough/ )

[3] http://conference.amesi-dimokratia.org/bigbluebutton/demo/syntagma.jsp

[4] http://titanpad.com/15october

----
- Ocultar texto citado -

Links and material for October 15th (constantly updating!)

- Web with the call text (multilingual), http://15october.net/

- Events map: http://map.15october.net/

- Events list: http://15october.net/where/

- Content idea:

http://takethesquare.net/2011/09/24/15th-october-whats-the-plan-15oct/

http://takethesquare.net/es/2011/09/25/15-de-octubre-%C2%BFcual-es-el-plan-15oct/

- Diffusion: http://15october.net/spread-it/

- Videos:

http://youtu.be/4y3X2VFruLM (English -- united for global change)

http://15october.net/category/video/

- Twitter, https://twitter.com/#!/15octobernet

- Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/15octobernet
_______________________________________________
sol.interna mailing list
sol.interna@madrid.tomalaplaza.net
https://madrid.tomalaplaza.net/mailman/listinfo/sol.interna

_______________________________________________
Propuestas.acampadasol mailing list
Propuestas.acampadasol@listas.tomalaplaza.net
https://listas.tomalaplaza.net/mailman/listinfo/propuestas.acampadasol

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Scott Baker Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter Page       Linked In Page       Instagram Page

Scott Baker is a Managing Editor & The Economics Editor at Opednews, and a former blogger for Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Global Economic Intersection.

His anthology of updated Opednews articles "America is Not Broke" was published by Tayen Lane Publishing (March, 2015) and may be found here:
http://www.americaisnotbroke.net/

Scott is a former and current President of Common Ground-NY (http://commongroundnyc.org/), a Geoist/Georgist activist group. He has written dozens of (more...)
 

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