Examples of Resistance

For our final meeting, our primary topic is to consider the range of responses and resistance to the global economic crisis, and to project from the previous discussions what might be the economic environment for collective liberation in the next period.

Preparing for our discussion, the thinking (journaling? free writing?) part is more important than the reading, which can only be a small sample of the hundreds of thousands of activist projects taking place.

Nevertheless, I have picked out instances which range from the ultra-local (Occupy Bernal) to a small nation (Iceland, as we mentioned last time), to international (Bolivarian revolution) to abstract ("The Global Economic Meltdown" in Capital and Its Discontents). Below are links to articles which address these. I would also encourage everyone to follow Sharon's suggestion to look over the very substantial Catalyzing Liberation Toolkit prepared by Catalyst for Occupy organizers, available as a 184 page PDF file from the Occupy Resource Center of their website, collectiveliberation.org.

About Occupy Bernal:

• "Occupy Bernal, Petaluma zero in on foreclosures" in the SF Chronicle Business Report with Bloomberg February 6, 2012 by Carolyn Said
• February 22, 2012 on CBS San Francisco: "SF Homeowner Gets Last-Minute Eviction Reprieve"
• "After Pressure from Occupy Bernal, Wells Fargo execs fly across country to meet with Bernal Heights man" on the SFBG Politics Blog February 23, 2012,  by Yael Chanoff

About Iceland (Mickey may recommend something additional):

• "Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness in Best Recovery Story" By Omar R. Valdimarsson - Feb 19, 2012 on Bloomberg.com.

About "21st Century Socialism," "Communitarian Socialism" and new Internationals:

• "Evo's Way: Bolivia's Path to Socialism" by Roger Burbach, Counterpunch, April 6, 2010

About Keynesian reforms versus collective liberation:

• A brief excerpt from David McNalley in Capital and Its Discontents: Conversations with Radical Thinkers in a Time of Tumult by Sasha Lilley (PM Press, 2011) (sent by email).

For additional reading, Sharon recommends  a pair of long letters from some of the leaders of the California prison hunger strike:

• "California prison hunger strikers propose ‘10 core demands’ for the national Occupy Wall Street Movement" by Heshima Denham, Zaharibu Dorrough and Kambui Robinson, San Francisco Bay View, December 6, 2011
•  "A discussion on strategy for the Occupy Movement from behind enemy lines" by J. Heshima Denham, Zaharibu Dorrough and Kambui Robinson of the NCTT Corcoran Security Housing Unit (SHU), San Francisco Bay View, February 19, 2012