by Fred Topel

“This film is really my way of saying we’ve had enough.”
– Nadine-Labaki

Nadine Labaki is my kind of woman. A Lebanese filmmaker, Labaki has lived life and experienced war and tragedy, so the perspective in her art is perceptive and philosophical. Certainly not superficial. You would think coming from a conflicted region, Labaki’s films would be serious and perhaps difficult to take. She actually makes comedies. Her first film, Caramel, was a romantic comedy. Her second, Where Do We Go Now?, is a comedy about religious conflict between Christians and Muslims.

How can such a subject be funny? Well, Where Do We Go Now? opens with a procession of Muslim women marching and swaying in rhythm, so you know there’s something different here. The men of their unnamed village are always on the brink of fighting. The women do everything they can to distract the men, from drowning out news broadcasts to bussing in a group of bikini models. With a light touch, Labaki gets people thinking and talking about important matters. Speaking with her in person was equally impressive. Though she was from the other side of the world, she spoke my language both literally (English) and spiritually. We had a gentle conversation about the culture and film making of Lebanon.

Read our exclusive interview with Nadine-Labaki on SuicideGirls.com.

by Nicole Powers

The day started out so well. We began it with a hearty breakfast (our first sit-down meal in 4 days!), before heading down to the Occupy Chicago Convergence Center. The well-organized facility is located in the basement of Wellington Ave United Church, a branch of the United Church of Christ which is run by Dan Dale, a pastor that is sympathetic to the movement, and has gone above and beyond to help the cause.

By the time we got there, Occupy Wall Street’s Lauren had made herself at home in the Chicago occupation’s kitchen, and was serving up delicious breakfast burritos to anyone in need of sustenance. We spotted many familiar faces from the bus ride from LA milling around in the grazing area/community space, and met up with several personalities we’d conversed with on Twitter and seen on the livestreams over the past few months.

Our friends from OccupyLA’s #BaconBloc, whose mission is to combat the overwhelming veganism of the movement, were busy planning an action involving candied bacon. We were also introduced to the mastermind behind Clown Bloq, which has been enjoying quite a lot of media attention of late. And while we awaited the bus, which was scheduled to take us to our next appointment, which used 99% Solidarity’s stamps to embellish our dollars bills with the meme “THE SYSTEM ISN’T BROKEN – IT’S FIXED.”

When our chauffeur arrived with his big ass bus, we headed to the back to hang with our new heroes, the Bay Area Nine, who’d been through hell and high water to make it to Chi-Town. Our destination was Homer Park, which served as a staging area for our scheduled protest outside the Ravenswood home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Our aim, to exercise the First Amendments rights he’d tried so hard to quash outside his front door.

The atmosphere was jovial as protesters gathered in the park, greeting friends and rehearsing chants ahead of the march. The sun shone and the sky was blue, the only clouds on the horizon where the two omnipresent police helicopters, which hovered overhead.

As our procession made its way through the park, and then the well-manicured streets of the upper-middle class neighborhood, the rotating chants du jour included, “Fight, fight, fight. Healthcare is a human right,” “Healthcare is under attack. What do we do? Stand up, fight back,” and “Healthcare not warfare,” echoing the sentiments of yesterday’s NNU Robin Hood Tax rally, which called for a miniscule tax on trades to pay for, among other things, true universal healthcare. It was indicative of our government’s current priorities, that they spent tax dollars on helicopters to police a march for something that more civilized countries already consider to be a fundamental human right.

While moving through the suburban streets, we were greeted with a surprising warmth by locals, who came out of their business and homes to watch our procession. Code Pink’s “MAKE OUT, NOT WAR” stickers proved to be popular with a group of young female future activists. Other locals en route that I spoke to told me they thought what we were doing was “amazing” and wished us “good luck.”

There was a large police presence when we arrived at Mayor Emanuel’s home. Most were wearing riot helmets, and were armed with plastic zip ties, batons, and bikes – the latter serving as mobile barricades which physically barred us from stepping on the Mayor’s front lawn. Not that we would have. The protesters were very respectful of the fact that it was a residential neighborhood. The chanting had mostly ceased, and the human mic was functioning at a suitably low level.

Vendors were serving refreshing frozen treats from carts. Despite their clear capitalist exploitation of our political gathering, many protesters, including this one, were more then happy to indulge in their wares. Indeed, the scene was more than a little comical, as battalions of riot cops stood amidst flowering shrubbery, policing protesters who were milling around eating ice cream.

After making their point, the protesters gradually dissipated. As I walked back to the train station I saw two ACLU legal observers, who were easily identified by their bright orange T-shirts, thanking a group of CPD officers for their mostly good natured and restrained job. When I engaged the ACLU staffers in conversation, they told me that given the size of the action, which spilled from the pavement and onto the street due to the sheer volume of people, and the fact that it was un-permitted, things could easily have gone another way.

I remarked that this show of restraint was likely prompted, not by the Mayor’s new found respect for free speech, but by the fact that he didn’t want to be portrayed as the bad guy on the world stage. After all, though the mainstream media was conspicuous by its absence at this action, many around the world had tuned in thanks to the feeds pumped out by Occupy’s ever present livestreamers. Little did I know, that in a few short hours these brave citizen journalists would become the prime target of law enforcement agencies.

TO BE CONTINUED…

To keep tabs on the progress of the Chicago bus trip and actions, subscribe to the 99% Solidarity media Twitter list and check in with us via the following livestreams:

Full disclosure: Nicole Powers has been assisting with 99% Solidarity’s efforts and is in no way an impartial observer. She is proud of this fact.

Related Posts:

99Solidarity Occu-Bus: Day 1 Of Our Epic Coast-To-Coast Road Trip From Los Angeles To New York By Way Of Chicago
99Solidarity Occu-Bus: Day 2 Of Our Epic Coast-To-Coast Road Trip From Los Angeles To New York By Way Of Chicago
99Solidarity Occu-Bus: Day 3 Of Our Epic Coast-To-Coast Road Trip From Los Angeles To New York By Way Of Chicago

by Nicole Powers

After 50 hours on the road, and three days without a proper night’s sleep, tiredness was becoming a serious factor. Our ragtag group of activists, occupiers, and livestreamers had gathered in Pershing Square between 3 and 4 AM on the morning of Wednesday, May 16, and most, including us, had foregone sleep the night before in order to make last-minute preparations. The expected 4 AM departure of the three 99% Solidarity-organized and National Nurses United-funded Los Angeles occu-buses had been delayed for two hours while we awaited the arrival of the Bay Area Nine – a heroic group of Oakland and San Francisco occupiers who had traveled down via Greyhound after their direct ride to Chicago had been cancelled at short notice. It was therefore around 6 AM before we finally set off from Downtown LA.

Our journey time had been further extended by two separate cases of overheated-engine syndrome as we convoyed through the Nevada desert, and a minor medical emergency 100+ miles away from the Illinois state line. A few over-extended, but essential, pee and smoke breaks had also impacted our ETA. When we arrived at our final destination, a short walk away from Occupy Chicago’s Convergence Center at around 6 AM on Friday May 19, we were nearly half a day late. But despite the exhaustion, our spirits were for the most part high, boosted by the excitement of what was to come, and by the beauty of the city, which the majority of our group had never visited before.

As one of three designated bus captains, I hung around to make sure everyone was situated. Since the lateness of our arrival meant we’d mostly missed our accommodation opportunities for the night, some of our group decided to join other occupiers who were occupying Lake Michigan’s beach, some headed off to meet with friends, and the rest followed representatives from Occupy Chicago, who had kindly greeted us with an offer of breakfast, which would be served was soon as their Convergence Center opened at 8.30 AM.

With photos to edit and upload, and words such as these to file, I headed to a motel room which was serving as 99% Solidarity’s temporary base. Having been starved of a reliable internet connection for the past two days, there was much to catch up on, and very little time, since the march leading up to the NNU organized People’s G8 / Robin Hood Tax Rally was scheduled to star at 11 AM.

Following a shower, and a frenzy of emails, uploads, and social media posts, I grabbed a much-needed Starbucks, a liquid breakfast/boost being all I had time for. (Unfortunately, sometimes, corporate crack is unavoidable – and this was one of those occasions!) I met up with a core group of occupiers and activists at Michigan and Madison, and headed over to Daley Plaza with them.

As we made our way down East Washington, we admired the barricades which the Chicago Police Department had kindly laid out on either side of the street to make out of town occupiers feel right at home. Given the much-publicized increased police presence, which involved importing officers from several other states, the atmosphere was surprisingly relaxed. When a group of CPD officers wearing full-on riot helmets cycled past on bikes, at this juncture, quite frankly the sight was more ridiculous than threatening. But as we closed in on Daley Plaza, the police presence was far less frivolous.

It was heartening to see an impressively large crowd had turned out to support the nurses and their call for a Robin Hood Tax. This overworked and underpaid group are on the frontlines of the war against the working and middle class – the breakdown of the economy being particularly salient to those who staff our emergency rooms. There is therefore a natural affinity between the goals of Occupy and the nurses union, who were among the first of the traditional labor organizations to support the fledgling alternative grassroots activist movement.

Another stalwart supporter of the Occupy movement is Tom Morello, who performed at the rally once the talk was done. He gleefully taunted Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who had attempted to silence the Rage Against the Machine guitarist by pulling the NNU’s permit after they announced he was scheduled to perform. The resulting public outcry, and the tenacity of the nurses who were determined to exercise their right to free speech with or without a permit, having forced Emanuel to relent.

“I know damn well I’m welcome in Chicago” Morello said to the cheering and appreciative crowd. “The mayor’s office tried to shut this whole thing down…How ridiculous for the mayor’s office to think I would do anything to hurt Chicago? Chicago is my favorite city on the whole world.”

After Morello’s perfectly pitched mix of rhetoric and rebel songs, the rally dissipated. The nurses took to their buses, occupiers took to the streets, and, after another burst of essential online activity, this activist/journalist voted for sleep.

Visit our gallery at SuicideGirls.com for oodles more images from the event.

To keep tabs on the progress of the Chicago bus trip and actions, subscribe to the 99% Solidarity media Twitter list and check in with us via the following livestreams:

Full disclosure: Nicole Powers has been assisting with 99% Solidarity’s efforts and is in no way an impartial observer. She is proud of this fact.

Related Posts:

99Solidarity Occu-Bus: Day 1 Of Our Epic Coast-To-Coast Road Trip From Los Angeles To New York By Way Of Chicago
99Solidarity Occu-Bus: Day 2 Of Our Epic Coast-To-Coast Road Trip From Los Angeles To New York By Way Of Chicago

by Nicole Powers

Day 2 of our epic journey was very flat, but literally, rather than metaphorically. Having made it through Denver’s Rocky Mountains under the cover of darkness while most on the bus were asleep, we woke up to a spectacular sunrise as we sped across the border into Nebraska. There the terrain was level, very level, as were heads on our designated LA media bus.

California Dream Stream Team member, OccupyFreedomLA conducted classes aboard the bus on livestreaming and social media. A veteran occupier, she also made sure everyone knew the local Chicago National Lawyers Guild number and also read out a briefing she’d been given on the Chicago Police Department’s provisions for press over the long weekend. The CPD “Ground Rules For Media” included these ‘highlights’:

No “cutting” in and out of police lines will be permitted, or “going up against their backs.” Those who follow protesters onto private property to document their actions are also will be subject to arrest if laws are broken. Any member of the media who is arrested will have to go through the same booking process as anyone else. Release of equipment depends on what part the equipment played in the events that led to the arrest…

There will not be any quick personal recognizance bond just for media members…

But police emphasized that those who choose to walk amid the protesters are “on your own.” The department cannot guarantee the safety of those who do so and cannot guaranteed that they can extract any reporter who ends up the target of protesters.

That last line about reporters becoming targets of protesters was particularly inflammatory, and received the appropriate derisive response from our 99% Solidarity media crew, who though not impartial, were there to accurately report the news rather than make it with acts of violence. Indeed, everyone on board all of the 99% Solidarity buses had signed a non-violence pledge confirming their peaceful intentions, which was a pre-requisite for boarding.

Talking of peaceful, positive and progressive intentions, after members participated in one of the weekly Media Consortium Inter-Occupy press briefing calls, we had some great conversations on the direction of the movement over the course of the day – and some even greater ones with our bus drivers’ who shared their thoughts on Occupy, which were all very constructive if not entirely supportive. Of the three drivers we’d had (who’d operated in shifts due to the length of our trip), somewhat surprisingly given his former occupation, it was our last driver who turned out to be our biggest champion. Though a former Marine, he shared many of our anti-NATO sentiments, expressing a frustration at our government’s overseas policy and treatment of veterans, which was naturally tempered by his loyalty to his fellow servicemen.

When the conversation died down, the documentaries Casino Jack and The United States of Money, about corrupt lobbyist (is there any other kind?) Jack Abramoff, and Exit Through the Gift Shop, about street artist Banksy and his accidental protégé Mr. Brainwash, kept our group entertained. The standard revolution diet of pizza, again, kept them sustained.

As we drove into Iowa, we were confronted by another spectacular sunset. Our livestreamers, who by now had their own designated hashtag #CaliDST, were getting quite competitive when capturing these.

A minor medical emergency delayed us for an hour just before crossing the Illinois state border. As we headed into Chicago almost 50 hours after our journey had begun, those on the bus let out a collective cheer as we spied the spectacular skyline. Another sunrise, this time over the waters of Lake Michigan, greeted us as we drove into the heart of the city.

Our buses stopped at Lakeshore & Belmont, just a few blocks away from Occupy Chicago’s Convergence Center. Local Occupy members kindly met us with promises of a much-needed breakfast as soon as the staging area opened at 8.30 AM that day. Most on the bus decided to take them up on their offer, not wanting to make history on an empty stomach. Indeed news of the protesters arrival in the Windy City in a fleet of 14 99% Solidarity/NNU buses had already found its way into the mainstream media, with a photo of the first of four from NYC taking up most of the Chicago Sun-Times front page!

To keep tabs on the progress of the Chicago bus trip and actions, subscribe to the 99% Solidarity media Twitter list and check in with us via the following livestreams:

Full disclosure: Nicole Powers has been assisting with 99% Solidarity’s efforts and is in no way an impartial observer. She is proud of this fact.

Related Posts:

99Solidarity Bus Trip: Day 1 Of Our Epic Coast-To-Coast Road Trip From Los Angeles To New York By Way Of Chicago

by Steven Whitney

In Chinatown, private detective Jake Gittes puts those two questions to Noah Cross, perhaps the richest man in 1930s California. Those same queries, and others like them, resonant more than ever in today’s America.

How many cars can you drive? How many McMansions can you live in? How many diamonds and jewels and designer clothes can you wear? How many black Escalades filled with bodyguards does it take to make you feel important? Why do you need more when you already have so much more than enough? And most tellingly: how much do you fucking want?

The movie doesn’t provide answers – after all, who can explain rampant and uncontrolled greed? But it does offer a symbolic confrontation between the 99%, in the persona of Jake Gittes, and the 1%, represented by super-rich Noah Cross.

Jake is Everyman working hard to earn a decent living, perhaps with a dodge or two here and there, but living by a code in keeping with Raymond Chandler’s “hero” – a man who walks the mean streets who is not himself mean, a common man, a man of honor.

During a short stint with the police, Jake came to know Chinatown – a dark and dangerous place controlled by a few and impervious to change.

Why? Because he knew it was a game played with a stacked deck, one he couldn’t win…and he never knew if he was helping or hurting.

As the story begins, Jake is hired to expose a love nest that will ultimately determine control of the Los Angeles water supply. While the scandal is false, it leads to an apparent suicide. But Jake senses that he was unknowingly set-up and that the victim was murdered. So he unexpectedly wades deeper into the murky waters and runs straight-on into Noah Cross.

Cross has gotten rich as Croesus by not making any positive contributions to society. He doesn’t create anything – he just buys things, forces up their value (often by illegal means), and then sells them at an obscene profit. Sound familiar?

To make matters worse, he’s everyone’s Moriarty – an old man of gross and unchecked appetites. Indulging in land fraud, assorted swindles, mayhem, murder, and incest. He is both father and grandfather to the innocent girl he now lusts after. This, of course, makes him the worst kind of fucker – worse than a motherfucker and even worse than South Park’s notorious unclefucker (but probably still not as bad as Dick Cheney). By every measure, Noah Cross is an uber-villain.

Imbued with a sense of fairness, of right and wrong, and of common decency, Jake tries to rescue a woman and the daughter who is also her sister from this psycho-sociopath. Tough, smart, and relentless, if anyone can stop Cross, it’s Jake. And, against all odds, he seems at times almost on the verge of winning.

But he can’t win. He can never win because the game is rigged from the top, with scant trickle-down benefits. You can’t fight City Hall, especially if Noah Cross owns it. Jake gives it his best, but he’s a man alone, fighting phantoms he can feel but cannot see as Cross wages scorched-earth warfare. Too late, Jake realizes the only way he can win is to kill Cross. But Jake’s not a killer…so he winds up back in Chinatown, impotent, losing everything, and bone-tired of the whole damn mess.

Cross manipulates Jake (and everyone else) like Republicans maneuver their base – holding out the carrot of the American Dream only to snatch it away at the last second, keeping all the spoils of victory for themselves. Jake, like the rest of us, has been played for a sucker.

In 2012, it’s not morning in America. It’s fucking Chinatown.

Unlike Noah Cross and his ilk, we don’t want it all, we just want a level playing field…with more education, equal access to quality healthcare, and economic parity. We want the freedom to create and control our own lives.

But freedom comes at a high cost. It can neither be given nor bestowed, and it must be fought for and earned, now and forever. If we don’t get angry, if we don’t fight as hard and as relentlessly as the opposition, if we don’t learn to vote for our own interests, if we don’t deploy every weapon at our disposal, our lives will become mere ceremonies of loss in which our rights, our freedoms, and our opportunities are eroded, little by little, until the final whistle blows…and the American Dream is officially dead, stolen by Noah Cross and his brethren of the 1%.

And then we’ll all suffer Jake’s tragic fate – a purgatory of futility.

DARKNESS DESCENDS. MUSIC UP: A noir melody, light tinkling on a piano, backed by lush woodwinds, and then…a mournful trumpet solo, wailing a plaintive cry of helplessness.

[..]

by Tim Hardy

The livestreams and photographs coming from the May 12th Occupy London action outside The Royal Exchange are deeply distressing. The police are acting with impunity, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that their behavior is being witnessed. There are many images to review and videos to watch but the sequence in this video from 8.52-9.22 stood out immediately.

As the policeman in the front pulls back at 8:52 you can see one of his colleagues in the background has his gloved hand clamped over the mouth of a woman who is seated. As the video continues, you can see quite clearly how distressed she is by police behavior.

Whatever you think of Occupy, whatever you think of protest, whatever your politics – this is unacceptable behavior and the police officer in question should be suspended from duty immediately. There needs to be an urgent review into policing of peaceful protest like this.

With the police behaving with such open aggression towards peaceful protesters, how long will it be before they kill another innocent?

There were further reports of excessive force being used against women on May 12 including this tweet from @jjarichardson:

And this video from @wyrdsisterz:

The above video was upload by YouTube user yetanotherwyrdo who writes:

May 12th 2012 peaceful protest against global economic injustice outside Bank Of England, women targeted, pulled from peaceful assembly, arrested and being man-handled by 8 x City Of London Police, arms handcuffed behind back, 4 on top of her, Police kneel on her neck and then neck braced by 4 x City Of London Police, she unsurprisingly has an anxiety attack.

Another video, below (via occupylondon.org), includes an interview with a woman who was threatened by the police with having her children put into the custody of social services because she was a protester.

If you were involved in or witnessed any of these incidents please contact the Green and Black Cross legal team at gbclegal@riseup.net.

Tim Hardy is a software engineer, activist and writer from London with a particular interest in the role of technology in driving social and political change. He is the founder and editor of beyondclicktivism.com and can be found on twitter at @bc_tmh.

by Steven Whitney

For more than a decade, even the smallest truths have been at a premium in the halls of Congress. . . and elsewhere in our government, from the Executive Office and WMDs to the Supreme Court and Citizens United.

But now, finally, Congress is *cough* aggressively attempting to restore truth in government.

Just as the Feds fully cleaned up the Wall Street and Bank disasters of 2008-2009 by convicting homemaking doyen Martha Stewart on charges of trading on “insider information,” they are now prosecuting former All-Star baseball pitcher Roger Clemens on six felony counts involving perjury, false statements, and obstruction of Congress.

The charges stem from Clemens’ voluntary 2008 appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committees in which he denied allegations by others that he had used steroids during his major league career. Stunned in much the same way Claude Rains was “shocked” to learn that nefarious criminals were hiding out in Casablanca, the Committees referred the case to the Justice Department for prosecution.

Clemens’ first trial ended abruptly in July, 2011, when the judge, citing prosecutorial misconduct, declared a mistrial on the second day. The Feds pressed fervently on, and Clemens’ second trial began just a few weeks ago.

Clemens’ defense? Through a 23-year career and 354 wins, he never once tested positive for steroids. Not once.

The government’s evidence? Well, Jose Canseco, who himself admitted to steroid use, wrote a book in which he “suggested” that Clemens “might” have taken steroids. Teammate Andy Pettitte testified that Clemens implied he had taken steroids, but also stated that he (Pettitte) might have “misunderstood.” And then there’s Clemens’ trainer, who’s changed his story five times, and now says without doubt (and no collaborating evidence) that he injected Clemens himself. In other words, the government has over four years built an airtight he-said, she-said case at a cost conservatively estimated well into eight figures.

And why not? Truth is sacred. Especially when spoken in the halls of Congress, a baseball player’s words in his own defense might threaten the security of our great nation.

So lies must be revealed. . . and prosecuted.

But perhaps – just maybe – prosecutions for perjury and making false statements should begin a little closer to home. Say, in Congress itself. After all, it impeached a President for lying about a blowjob, so why not impeach its own members for lies that undermine the very legitimacy of government?

Just a few months ago, Senator Minority Whip John Kyl (R-Arizona) gave a speech in the Upper Chamber in which he stated unequivocally that abortion was “well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does.”

Of course, only about 3% of Planned Parenthood’s activities actually involve abortion (and much of that is just consultation). But instead of copping to his egregious error, Kyl’s office doubled down by releasing a statement that the Senator’s “remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood. . . . does subsidize abortions.”

In other words, Kyl’s statement was like Aesop’s fable of the Tortoise and the Hare that “illustrated” a lesson in persistence. But fables employ symbolic metaphors, not untruths. Attempting to “illustrate” any moral virtue with a bald-faced lie disparages both the argument and the virtue it portrays.

In conceding that his oratory “was not intended to be a factual statement,” Kyl admits that he knew it wasn’t true when he said it. Hence, he lied. . . to Congress.

Kyl’s not the only one. Every day yet another elected official ambles forth nearly foaming at the mouth with one falsehood after another (like Representative Allen West’s recent comments that 74, or 82, or 61, or 55 Congressional Democrats are in fact Communists). Do these politicos have any substantiation of their “facts” whatsoever? And if not, why aren’t the Feds prosecuting them as relentlessly as they did Ms. Stewart and Mr. Clemens?

What proof would the Feds have to support prosecution? With Members of Congress (and most other elected officials), every sleazy lie is on videotape. And most are entered into the Congressional Record, signed by the liars themselves. Which leaves only two rationales: 1) our elected representatives are morons who don’t know the truth, or 2) they are lying douchebags inhabiting the lowest rung of Dante’s Inferno. Neither is an acceptable defense.

The key ingredient to a successful democracy is an informed electorate – a citizenry that is told and knows the truth. Indeed, how can any vote be legitimately cast if it is based on lies?

It follows that if truth in government is not our first priority, then government itself is inherently false. For when those in elected office distort truth into illustrative fables grounded in lies, an informed electorate is merely a myth. . . and democracy “of the people, by the people, and for the people” becomes nothing more than a fairy tale.

Photograph: Keith Allison, Creative Commons