Thursday morning, thousands of people moved into Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C., site of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign’s Resurrection city.

Can a movement of the 99% of us who are living off the plutocrats’ crumbs pick up the cause of social justice?

Day 1 was largely speeches and music, but energized by the sense that something new is building. We went over to the Chamber of Commerce and shut that criminal operation down for a while, and as we marched through the streets, including read more

I sat down during a lengthy protest occupation to play a game of chess, but my friend was better than I am. So, halfway through the match, I said to him, “What’s your one move?”

He didn’t know what I meant. “What’s your one winning move,” I said, “and which piece are you going to use? Get all the other pieces off the board. If you can’t win with one piece in one move, you’ll never win!”
My voice was getting louder as I said this.

He read more

At the conconcon.org conference we just had a good workshop on left-right organizing. Some asked that this list be posted where they could find it.  This was produced by 3 people, no one of whom necessarily agrees with all the proposals in it:

The individual national right to vote with automatic registration, and with votes publicly and transparently counted at each polling place.

A ban on gerrymandering.

A ban on the revolving door of politician-lobbyist.

A ban on reductions read more

LISTEN TO DAVID SWANSON:

The Fight Back

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We will be nonviolently shutting down buildings and offices and hallways and streets. – David Swanson

Oct. 6 marks the end of the first decade of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the beginning of a nonviolent action that may make D.C.’s Freedom Plaza feel a bit like Egypt’s Tahrir Square. “Thousands and thousands of people have pledged to be there, and not for one day,” said author and activist David Swanson, who is helping organize the read more

September 9, 2011, edition of Electric Politics

Praxis

I’ve admired David Swanson for a number of years. He’s one of the most active progressive activists I know — indeed, both astonishingly productive and absolutely on message. Since he gets out and about all the time, and I don’t, it was a real treat to hear his sense of where things stand politically, and his advice regarding what people should be doing. (Think read more

Here’s a simple proposal. I’m sure it’s too much to ask for, but I’m asking anyway. Let’s set aside a single month, say the month of April, following each federal election, and for that single month behave like the citizens and elected officials of a normal representative republic.

For this month, there will be no election campaigning. All the campaigns that were launched in December will be suspended for the entire month of April. They will not exist. Nobody will read more

The Solution Zone

Topic: THE REAL PEOPLE’S PROTEST!! – October2011.org

Guest: David Swanson – Author of “War Is a Lie” and “Daybreak and Progressive activist and blogger at DavidSwanson.org , WarIsACrime.org and toyysaction.org

On October 6th 2011 people from across the nation will come together in Freedom Plaza Washington DC to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent movement. We will make it our Tahrir Square, Cairo, our Madison, Wisconsin and through NON_VIOLENT civil read more

LISTEN HERE.

A coalition of community organizers, peace activists, left, liberal, progressive groupsand supporting organizations are calling on volunteers to join them October 6, 2011, for an “occupation” of Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C.

U.S.author, blogger, and activist David Swanson says the event is being organized to take over Freedom Plaza to “nonviolently resist what our government is doing.”

Swanson told Press TV’s U.S. Desk on Monday that “we are going to occupy read more

Alan Grayson says “This is a textbook for a college-level course on what it means to be a thinking, feeling American.  I recommend it to everyone with a head and heart.”

He’s talking about this book: http://planamerica.org  It’s called “Fix America! How Each of Us Can Help All of Us.”

I’m proud to have contributed two chapters to it, but even gladder to have read it.  What a wealth of information and inspiration.  This is a collection read more

First they ignore you.

Then they laugh at you.

Then Glenn Beck attacks you as “anarchist communists.”

Then you win.

Join us: http://october2011.org

More at The Real News

To Constitutionally convene or not to Constitutionally convene: that is the question.  (And one taken up by an upcoming conference I’ll be taking part in at Harvard: http://conconcon.org )  Or is it?  The government’s broken, but would a Constitutional convention be broken too?  This debate among those on the left usually takes the form of:

Progressive #1: We need to fix a system that is rotten to the core and outdated by centuries.
Progressive #2: But then read more

The Satan Sandwich budget deal seems to have been left lying on the table in some television green rooms. Dylan Ratigan has begun cursing both political parties, even while still fantasizing about the President saving us. Keith Olbermann and Al Gore want a Tahrir Square in Washington, even while ignoring the actual preparations for it that are going on. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, who are part of those preparations, read more

I’m excited to be speaking at an important conference upcoming at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass.  I’d like to invite you to attend (at no charge).   It’s called the Conference on the Constitutional Convention, and more info can be found at http://conconcon.org

From both the Right and the Left, citizens are increasingly coming to recognize that our Republic does not work as our Framers intended.  Reform of any kind is stalled by those who profit from read more

From Nicole Sandler

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