FRSO on Occupy Movement

The following statement is being reposted here from the website of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization: 

Occupy Wall Street movement: Repression and resistance 

By Freedom Road Socialist Organization

On Sept. 17, 2011, a group of protesters gathered in Zuccotti Park in New York City. Their intention: to expose Wall Street greed and corporate domination over the lives of working and middle class people, the 99%. Almost immediately, police responded to the protesters with repression and pepper spray. This caused thousands of New Yorkers to flood to Zuccotti Park. Occupy Wall Street was on. Protesters camped in the park and did not leave for 59 days. Support for the protest built quickly and spread across the country and around the world. Within weeks, almost a thousand cities had Occupy protests. U.S. cities big and small had Occupations, including Chicago, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Oakland, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Tampa and Winston-Salem.

ZANU-PF’s indigenisation and economic empowerment program

The following is from Zimbabwe’s Herald: 

PRESIDENT Mugabe yesterday said the indigenisation and economic empowerment programme would take centre stage at the Zanu-PF 12th Annual National People’s Conference, which starts in Bulawayo today.

Speaking during his photographic exhibition at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) last night, the Head of State and Government and Commander-In-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces said the time has come for ordinary Zimbabweans to have a say in the national economy.

He said the liberation struggle was fought in order to repossess the land from the white minority and empower black people economically.

Democratic Korea in solidarity with Occupy movement

From the Korean Central News Agency:

Pyongyang, October 18 (KCNA) — The working masses’ struggle against capitalism was staged all at once across the world on Oct. 15 and 16. This was the biggest organized one ever in history of capitalism spanning more than 300 years.

Taking part in it were millions of people from all walks of life in more than 1 500 cities in 80 odd countries.

This struggle was erupted at Wall Street in Manhattan of New York in the United States, the heart of the capitalist economy and a synonym for monopolistic capital on Sept. 17. Under the slogan of “Occupy Wall Street!” dozens of protestors set up tents outside a stock exchange in New York to go into an action of protest. This turned in a twinkle to a chain movement across the U.S. including Washington, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Who are the one percent?

The following article by Masao Suzuki is the first in a three article series from Fight Back! News: 

Occupy Boston march, Oct. 10. (Fight Back! News/Staff)

Across the country, the movement sparked by Occupy Wall Street has caught fire. This movement, identified by the slogan, “We are the 99%” targets the 1% of rich and powerful who are running the country for their interests and profit, at the expense of the rest of us who face high unemployment, lower wages, soaring tuition costs, home foreclosures and lack of affordable health insurance. In addition, servants of Wall Street are pushing to dismantle Social Security and Medicare and to raise taxes on the poor while cutting taxes even more on the rich. They say that they have no money, but are sending bombers and troops to more and more countries, so that military spending is now the single largest expense of the federal government, costing more than $800 billion a year.

So who are the 1%?

United States entering a new recession?

Protestors shout slogans during a rally outside Houston's City Hall Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Dallas, Houston and Austin on Thursday as cities around Texas joined the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations demanding an end to corruption in politics and business. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

The following editorial is from Fight Back! News: 

On Sept. 30, the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) publicly stated that the United States economy was tipping into a new recession. This adds to the growing evidence of a serious slowdown in the U.S. economy, including the zero job growth and falling personal income in August as well as falling prices and sales of homes in August.

U.S. economic stagnation continues three years after financial crisis of 2008: Working people need to fight back against austerity

The following editorial is from Fight Back! News: 

The U.S. economy continues to stagnate with almost no economic growth or job creation more than three years after the great financial crisis of 2008 and more than two years after the recession officially ended in 2009. The official unemployment rate is still over 9% nationally, and millions of workers who have stopped looking for work are not included in this count. Even worse, the Obama administration projects unemployment to stay above 8% for all of 2012, which would be four years of near double-digit unemployment.

Reagan’s Legacy of Poverty and War

Fight Back! editor’s note: A flood of commentaries are appearing in the press to mark the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan. The following is an editorial evaluating the Reagan legacy that we published in 2004.

While the corporate-controlled media is singing praises of Ronald Reagan for “restoring confidence to America,” millions of Americans and millions more around the world have been forced into poverty and war as a result of his policies.

China and Cuba’s New Economic Reforms

Che Guevara and Mao Zedong

The following article by Heiko Khoo is from China.org.cn:

Cuban President Raul Castro and the Cuban Workers’ Federation have announced a plan to reduce the state workforce by up to a million workers in the near future, signaling the start of profound changes. Cuban society is undoubtedly in need of radical reform. At present the state employs around 80 percent of the workforce and planning is supposed to control the entire economic system.

October 2nd: All Out for Jobs, Education, Peace and Equality!

The following statement is from the Network to Fight for Economic Justice (NFEJ):

October 2nd, 2010, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

The Network to Fight for Economic Justice (NFEJ) is calling on all affiliates and supporters to rally for Jobs, Education, Peace and Equality, on October 2nd in Washington D.C. Initiated by the NAACP and labor unions, along with hundreds of progressive organizations, this rally promises to be powerful. The NFEJ is an endorser and is calling upon our members and affiliates to promote and mobilize our unions, community groups, poor people’s organizations, and student groups. We want to build our own movement that brings real change to the society we live in.

U.S. Senator comes clean on Zimbabwe sanctions

Zanu-PF supporters march against imperialist sanctions.

The following article by Stephen Gowans is from his blog, What’s Left:

The received wisdom among Western governments, journalists and some concerned progressive scholars is that there have been no broad-based, economic sanctions imposed upon Zimbabwe. Instead, in their view, there are only targeted sanctions, with limited effects, aimed at punishing President Robert Mugabe and the top leadership of the Zanu-PF party. The sanctions issue, they say, is a red herring Mugabe and his supporters use to divert attention from the true cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown: redistribution of land from white commercial farmers to hundreds of thousands of indigenous families, a program denigrated as “economic mismanagement”.