New Clear Vision

Why Tents (Still) Matter for the Occupy Movement

by Jen Schradie

Last week, I responded to a 4am text and went down to the Occupy Oakland site to support the encampment during yet another raid. I saw the sunrise over various police agencies dismantling Occupy Oakland tents. That evening, I marched back at sunset with other protesters to take back the plaza. The night before, Denver and Portland authorities moved in to take down local occupy encampments, and a swat team stormed an Occupy group’s takeover of an abandoned building in Chapel Hill. The next day, I watched a livestream of the destruction of Occupy Wall Street’s tents.

But protesters have not given up on tents. On the day of a strike at, the University of California-Berkeley in response to police brutality, the Occupy Cal and Occupy Oakland movements converged with a full-sized tent on a large stick as the symbol of the union, and the movement. (more…)

Can There Be Solidarity Between Movement Activists and Police Officers?

by Randall Amster

Recent days have seen the increasing use of police violence against peaceful Occupy demonstrators around the country, including the gone-viral merciless pepper-spraying of students at UC Davis as well as that of 84-year-old Dorli Rainey in Seattle, and the critical wounding of Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen at Occupy Oakland. Police often refer to such episodes as “non-lethal intervention” and “pain compliance” intended to make people respond to their demands in particular situations, and more broadly the notion can be expanded as an effective working label for the apparent overall strategy of police in relation to the Occupy Movement everywhere. The basic idea is that if authorities apply enough force, fear will increase and people will stay home rather than mobilize. (more…)

Public Art Controversy Brought People Together for a Cause

by Kristin Anthony

{Editor’s Note: In Prescott, Arizona, a work of public art created with the participation of over a hundred community members was recently destroyed by local officials in the middle of the night. The controversy set in motion a range of reactions, including the resignation of a city council member and calls for a coherent public art policy. The originator of the art project, which was a mosaic-tiled bench, reflects on the issues and overall experience.}

During my time in Prescott, I had the opportunity to create a community bench as a senior project for Prescott College. I had seen many of these structures in Nepal where there is a deep sense of connection between people and nature.

Enthusiastic to bring this idea to the U.S., I received approval from the Parks and Recreation Department and worked with the city for many months before the bench finally came to life. After eight weeks of work we were asked to stop construction, and three weeks later the bench was torn down. (more…)

Undoing the Hijacking of the First Amendment

by Robert Reich

A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances and evicted.

First things first. The Supreme Court’s rulings that money is speech and corporations are people have now opened the floodgates to unlimited (and often secret) political contributions from millionaires and billionaires. Consider the Koch brothers (worth $25 billion each), who are bankrolling the Tea Party and already running millions of dollars worth of ads against Democrats. (more…)

Holding Space as OWS Camps Come Under Assault

by Randall Amster

As the Occupy Movement gains strength and garners worldwide support, the predominant anti-OWS tactic of authority is becoming clear: decimate as many Occupy camps as possible, in the hope that this delivers a fatal blow to the movement’s momentum. It is an outmoded, heavy-handed tack, one that starkly illuminates the gap between the casual brutality of the 1% and the core aspirations of the 99%.

And it will ultimately fail.

At each turn, the sweeping of the encampments — many of which have become little “utopian experiments” in themselves and working models for an alternative society — has only served to galvanize the resolve of Occupiers and drive even greater numbers out into the streets and parks. Mass arrests aim to make activists pay a personal price for their open defiance, but they also yield greater degrees of movement solidarity and radicalize demonstrators across generational and cultural lines. (more…)

What if Peace Were Popular?

by Reba Parker

Some of you may be thinking that peace is too important to popularize. I would beg to differ. In the fall of 2011, Charleston Peace One Day, a non-profit located in Charleston, South Carolina took on a strategic mission to do just that. The campaign was called PEACE HAPPENS, setting forth a Call to Action asking people to “do something for peace.”   During peace week, September 14-21, 2011, over 80 groups planned their own unique initiatives for peace. Recall that Charleston is where the American Civil War started (we just celebrated our Sesquicentennial) and is currently ranked forty-second on the U.S. Index of Peace. Most would think we have a long way to go, but nothing is holding us back — except maybe old, outdated images and definitions of peace, and a bit of lingering intolerant history. (more…)