New Clear Vision


constructive commentary for the chronically farsighted


Bring the Heat

October 31, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Community, Current Events, David Swanson, Politics

Occupy the Winter of Our Discontent

by David Swanson

Can occupations survive a winter of global weirding, escalated police brutality, and the corporate media’s venom? Should they?

In some parts of the country there will be no cold weather. In others, police abuses will result in larger occupations, not smaller. And it’s certainly possible that for the first time in recent years an independent progressive populist campaign will survive the enmity of the corporate media.

In other cases, the cold, the communications assaults, fatigue, and the difficulties encountered by activist camps that also become homes for the homeless and the mentally ill may begin to erode the usefulness of encampments. What to do? (more…)

Occupy Halloween

October 30, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Community, Culture, Current Events, Matt Meyer

A Simple Suggestion for Mass Solidarity

by Matt Meyer

For everyone who wants to support the inspiring and growing “Occupy Wall Street,” “Occupy Together,” and “Occupy the Hood” movements but is feeling too busy, too scared, too overwhelmed, too young or too old (even too middle-aged!), too tired, too cautious, too far away from the center of the action, too involved with work or parenting or just trying to survive; for everyone: a simple suggestion…

THIS HALLOWEEN, MONDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2011, WEAR A “V” MASK

For Victory & Peace, For Vigilance Against Injustice, For a Vision of a New & Better Tomorrow (more…)

The Significance of OWS

October 28, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Current Events, Economy, John Clark, Politics

Emancipate Yourselves from Mental Slavery…

by John Clark

When Occupy Wall St. burst unexpectedly on the scene a mere month ago, many (and especially many in the mainstream media) had no idea what to make of it, and treated it as an incoherent outburst. We need to consider why this phenomenon was so perplexing to some, while so inspiring to many others. We need to see that the Occupy Movement does have a deep significance. Yet, we also need to be careful not to attempt to pin down its meaning too rigidly at this early point in its development.

It is crucial to understand that “Occupy Wall St.” is a floating signifier. This means that although it may have a common core of meaning for many, it also means many different things to many different people. There is simply no way to pin down what it “really means.”  What it really means is everything it is, and everything it will become.  Its various meanings at this stage of its evolution sometimes overlap and sometimes conflict. (more…)

The Process Is the Demand

October 27, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Community, Culture, Guest Author, Politics

The Occupy Movement: What Democracy Looks Like

by Ivan Boothe

In my last post, I talked about how the “Occupy” movement originated, and its potential to provide a space for renewed social justice and community organizing. In this blog, I’ll take a look at how “Occupy” events are structured and organized, drawing on my involvement with Occupy Philadelphia. I’ll also highlight some of the constructive criticism surrounding Occupy Wall Street and similar events — in particular as it relates to anti-racism and racial justice.

The Process Story

In political campaigns, there’s nothing a candidate’s staff hates more than news coverage of the campaign itself — staff changes, changes to an event schedule, behind-the-scenes negotiations with other campaigns, political party officialdom. It’s called a “process story,” and it’s frustrating to campaign staff because it takes the focus off of the candidate’s message and policies — usually positive, aspirational language — and places it on the campaign bureaucracy, inevitably leading to feelings of cynicism when people read about the “sausage making” of running for office. (more…)

The Abandoned Class

October 26, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, Economy, Politics, Robert C. Koehler

Demanding a Change of Course for the Common Good

by Robert C. Koehler

Will Occupy Wall Street hold together long enough to cut to the deep chase?

Will it find a voice to articulate not merely the pain of the struggling middle class but the endemic unfairness and racism of inescapable poverty? “Everyone is important,” read the sign of an elderly protester. My God, what if it were true? What if we could see, in the desperate thrashing of the abandoned class, everyone’s future, that of the 99 percent and that of the 1 percent?

Let the Occupy movement become such a merging of voices that it reaches and changes the rigged game of American democracy and puts the collective failure of the system, in all its manifestations — from environmental collapse to our doomed wars and the hubris of empire to the violence in our streets — at the forefront of our media and our consciousness. Let the movement be the first tremor of a new awareness that dehumanizes no one. (more…)

Democracy or Inequality?

October 20, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Current Events, Ecology, Economy, Priscilla Stuckey

Why I Support the Occupy Wall Street Movement

by Priscilla Stuckey

In a word: health. The health of the planet.

Put simply, a huge gap between the fabulously wealthy and everyone else is bad for the planet. Why? Because such a system is wasteful and costly.

It’s wasteful because it allows some to have way, way more than they need to live well and in doing so to continue raiding the planet for resources. It’s costly because waste is always costly. (more…)

From Occupation to Liberation

October 19, 2011 By: NCVeditor Category: Culture, Current Events, Economy, Politics, Randall Amster

Seeing and Believing in the Power to Change the World — and Ourselves

by Randall Amster

Words matter, especially in our mediated world where the resonance of language is greatly amplified. In this spirit, among some sectors that are otherwise sympathetic with and supportive of the overall aims of the Occupy Movement, there has been an important critique advanced about the nature of “occupation” as an operative premise, oftentimes seeking to deconstruct the racialized character of the concept as it applies to the legacy of occupiers and the makeup of the movement in its present form.

This critical perspective highlights the fact that Wall Street has always been “occupied territory,” tracing to its earliest days when an actual wall was erected, and even further back when the entire continent itself was taken by an occupying force that failed to recognize the humanity and validity of the original inhabitants. Most of us comprehend this reality — namely that we largely exist on thoroughly occupied land — even as we sometimes forget that for many of us working to #Occupy the centers of power, we ourselves are the beneficiaries of an ongoing and unremediated occupation. (more…)

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