"PERISCOPE - ПЕРИСКОП" via Mike Nova
The Brains Behind 'Occupy Wall Street' - Forbes
via www.forbes.com on 10/16/11
Meet the second most evilest man in the world (after George Soros).
This isn’t the 60s. And it isn’t the pre-Iraq War protests either. Occupy Wall Street, supposedly, is different. It has no leader. It has no political action committee behind it. One can argue that the protests against Wall Street this month really started in Tunisia. That’s where the idea came from. But the guys who took that Arab movement and ran with it are based in Vancouver.
Kalle Lasn, 69, is their quasi leader. He’s the publisher and editor of Adbusters magazine. It’s a small, non-influential critical and artsy magazine with a decent following of around 90,000 who call themselves “culture jammers”. Occupy Wall Street began in the conference rooms at that Vancouver mag.
I spoke with Lasn in July, right after the new edition of Adbusters hit the news stands with the now famous image of a ballerina balancing on the Wall Street bull. Above her head read the Twitter hashtag #OccupyWallStreet. Lasn didn’t know what this movement would become. Just two and a half short months later, it’s the talk on The Talk, The View and every major news channel.
I spoke with him again this afternoon about this weekend’s European wide protest, the G-20 and a worldwide Robin Hood tax.
Kenneth R: The Washington Post calls you the leader of Occupy Wall Street. What do you make of that?
Kalle L: This is a leaderless movement. But the founding of the idea came out of lots of brainstorming here among our staff editors, photographers, freelancers and people on our list-serve. Back in the summer we were all talking about what we were going to do next with the magazine and we were all inspired by what happened in Tunisia and thought that America was ripe for this type of rage. We put feelers out on our forums. So it was relatively recent, in June, when we came up with this idea and launched the hashtag in mid-July with the magazine and then it just took off. Once that issue was published, we started putting out tactical briefings to our list serve.
Kalle is a man of the world, so it is no surprise to him or his network of culture jammers, that a Wall Street protest was conceived far away in Vancouver, Canada. That’s fairly close to the site where another surprising protest in U.S. history took place. The 1995 anti-globalization protests caught everyone by surprise in Seattle during the annual meeting of the World Trade Organization. Back then, the model was to attack corporate control over the public sphere like a pack of wolves. There was an alpha male and those who followed behind in a pack. The new model has evolved from a pack…to a swarm. Kalle gets inquiries and emails about Occupy Wall Street from London to Shanghai, but he’s not ringing his hands and sticking pins in a wall-sized map about where his next diabolical plan against capitalism will take shape.
Kalle was born in Estonia and moved to Australia when he was 7. He hit Canada in his 30s and has been in Vancouver ever since. He traveled to the U.S. for a year, back in the 1960s. We joked a little tongue in cheek. (This is me getting my Fox on.)
KR: Of course, you did. You were a hippy and you were radicalized in San Francisco.
KL: I went to a Jimi Hendrix concert.
KR: See.
KL: But it wasn’t the concert that radicalized me. I remember the people there were so alive. The young people in Occupy Wall Street are a lot like that.
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The Brains Behind 'Occupy Wall Street' - Forbes
via www.forbes.com on 10/16/11
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KR: Seriously? Everyone thinks their movement is the one to really change things.
KL: You can’t think too rationally about this. These movements are best understood years after they are gone. We have a long history of movements that have just fizzled out, but I think this time it’s different. This movement has an edge. First, it is a global moment. We are all living in dire times. We are all facing major tipping points around the world. We are faced with a political crisis in the U.S. and concern that the U.S., with no help from Washington, is now in irreversible decline. The economy is surely in decline. So people see this, young people see this, and they wonder what their future holds for them given those circumstances. The future doesn’t compute. The backbone of the movement that helped end the Vietnam war was the fact that young people were faced with the draft. Their bodies were on the line. They could get scooped up from wherever they were and sent to Vietnam to killed by the Viet Cong. When your future is on the line, when your kids’ future is on the line, people will fight for what they want. Occupy Wall Street says our future is on the line. Is there a chance that this will all fizzle out? Yes, but I think over time we will pull it off and are getting our point across.
KR: Who’s on your side in DC?
KL: Nobody is on our side in DC. We don’t want to hop into bed with anyone. We don’t mind Al Gore saying ‘Hey, I like you guys’, that’s fine with us. But we are not going to hop into bed with the Democratic Party the way the Tea Party did with the Republicans. Once you do that, you’re dead. You align yourself with existing power players. The Tea Party got a few people elected, had a few protests, but that’s it. Now it’s our turn.
KR: Talk about divide and conquer. We have a long history of that in the West, when public movements are overthrown by splitting the public up on the issue. Should Occupy Wall Street guys and Tea Party guys join forces?
KL: Forget divide and conquer. It’s too soon for that. And it may happen. I don’t know. The good thing about the Tea Party is that deep down in their guts they understand that there is something fundamentally wrong with our system. But they want to recapture the past when there is no going back. Their target is the government. Our target is the people who run the government: corporations and Wall Street. If some Tea Party people want to come out and protest, please come. They know we have to take away some of the powers the financial markets and speculators have over our system. They know that we have to make money less important in politics or this democracy is in very big trouble.
KR: Where is this all going?
KL: We don’t know. We will see what happens in Europe this weekend. Social movements there have been planning protests for Saturday. We could have some Occupy Wall Street people involved in that, as well. Then on Oct. 29th we are thinking about protesting in Paris ahead of the G-20 meeting. Look, people of all ages are looking at their political leaders, they are looking at Wall Street or the London Stock Exchange and they are saying, ‘fuck you guys. You don’t know what you are doing. All you can talk about is stimulus and cuts and should we provide stimulus here or should we provide stimulus there.’ It doesn’t address the problem the financial sector has over our lives.
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The Brains Behind 'Occupy Wall Street' - Forbes
via www.forbes.com on 10/16/11
Page 3 of 3
KR: What should they do?
KL: We would like to see a 1% Robin Hood tax on all financial transactions. We want to push for that. We want to kill some of the global casino and one way to do that is to slow down the fast money, the derivatives markets, the credit default swaps and exotic financial products that wiped us out in 2008; a way to slow that market is with a tax.
KR: This is going from being a national conversation to a global conversation.
KL: Lots of people are coming to our website from outside the U.S. and Canada. It is already a global conversation.
Kalle seems younger than his years let on. He’s as alive as the young protesters he’s talking about. So as a former reader of Adbusters, I had to have some fun with Kalle in the last few minutes of our call.
KR: Okay, I’m looking through an old Adbusters magazine and see that George Soros is on your editorial board. He must tell you what to write and give you money for all of this. Is he your main funder?
KL: Sadly, George Soros is not on our editorial board.
KR: He must be a subscriber and donor.
KL: I don’t know if he is a subscriber. I know he is not on the board. He has never sent us any money, though I wish he would. I liked a few of his books, though.
KR: When are you going to do an Occupy K Street?
KL: We’ll have to talk about that one.
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Occupy Wall Street - News Topic - Links's Facebook Wall 16 октября 2011 г., &rlm
via Russian Politics - Российская Политика's Facebook Wall by Russian Politics - Российская Политика on 10/16/11
Occupy Wall Street - News Topic - Links's Facebook Wall 16 октября 2011 г., &rlm 
Occupy Wall Street - News Topic - Links's Facebook Wall 16 октября 2011 г., &rlm
Occupy Wall Street - News Topic - Links's Facebook Wall 16 октября 2011 г., 17:35:41 16 октября 2011 г., 17:35:41 | Occupy Wall Street - News Topic - Links https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-ash2/273606_100002807160383_756515252_q.jpg Mike Nova A Festival of Rage A Festival of Rage - New Act of World Political Drama and Acting Out....
Occupy Wall Street - News Topic - Links's Facebook Wall 16 октября 2011 г., 17:3...
via Russian Politics - Российская Политика's Facebook Wall by Russian Politics - Российская Политика on 10/16/11
Occupy Wall Street - News Topic - Links's Facebook Wall 16 октября 2011 г., 17:35:41
Occupy Wall Street - News Topic - Links's Facebook Wall 16 октября 2011 г., 17:35:41
Occupy Wall Street - News Topic - Links's Facebook Wall 16 октября 2011 г., 17:35:41 16 октября 2011 г., 17:35:41 | Occupy Wall Street - News Topic - Links https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-ash2/273606_100002807160383_756515252_q.jpg Mike Nova A Festival of Rage A Festival of Rage - New Act of World Political Drama and Acting Out....
via Russian Politics - Российская Политика's Facebook Wall by Russian Politics - Российская Политика on 10/16/11
17 октября, вечером
17 октября, вечером
http://arkhangelsky.livejournal.com/209831.htmlЗавтра начнется показ нового докфильма Александра Архангельского "Жара" (про религиозных диссидентов 70-80-х). Перед показом будет его же программа "Тем временем", где я немного участвую (вместе с Сергеем Кравцом, Андреем Десницким и др.).
Syrian Opponent Says AL Not Able to Suspend Syria's Membership - CRIENGLISH.com
via Russian Politics - Российская Политика's Facebook Wall by Russian Politics - Российская Политика on 10/16/11
Syrian Opponent Says AL Not Able to Suspend Syria's Membership - CRIENGLISH.com
Syrian Opponent Says AL Not Able to Suspend Syria's Membership - CRIENGLISH.com
Syrian Opponent Says AL Not Able to Suspend Syria's MembershipCRIENGLISH.comJamil was one of a seven-man delegation from the moderate Syrian opposition that headed to the Russian capital of Moscow last week to promote for the demands of the Syrian opposition that favors dialogue over any other solution to the seven-month-old ...and more »
Can Russia Ever Change? - Wall Street Journal
via Russian Politics - Российская Политика's Facebook Wall by Russian Politics - Российская Политика on 10/16/11
Can Russia Ever Change? - Wall Street Journal
Can Russia Ever Change? - Wall Street Journal
Can Russia Ever Change?Wall Street JournalThe question is whether Russian society will have the strength and will to seize their opportunity as Putinism runs its course. Mr. Egiazaryan is a member of Russia's outgoing State Duma and is currently living in the United States out of fear for his ...and more »
via Russian Politics - Российская Политика's Facebook Wall by Russian Politics - Российская Политика on 10/16/11
7 недель до выборов в Госдуму
7 недель до выборов в Госдуму
5 октября Центризбирком (ЦИК) завершил заверение партийных списков (эту процедуру успешно прошли все семь партий) и в тот же день приступил к новому этапу избирательной кампании — регистрации кандидатов. Первой этой чести удостоилась ЛДПР. Как парламентской партии ей не требовалось собирать подписи в свою поддержку, но и без подписей члены комиссии нашли к чему придраться.
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