Saturday, November 26, 2011

Inner Evolution + Outer Revolution = Planetary Awakening!

DOWNLOAD THE FULL-SIZE POSTER HERE (12.1 MB)


Declaration of the Occupation of New York City




As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

  • They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
  • They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
  • They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
  • They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
  • They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
  • They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
  • They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
  • They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
  • They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
  • They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
  • They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
  • They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
  • They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
  • They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
  • They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
  • They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
  • They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
  • They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
  • They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
  • They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
  • They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
  • They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
  • They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.


To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.


Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!


We also have a visual representation of this document from the Arts and Culture Group and the Call to Action Working Group. To download your own copy of this image as a jpeg (12.7 MB), click here, or for image inquiries e-mail flowchartart@gmail.com.


Help Publish the Declaration of Occupy Wall Street

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

Media outlets have attempted to dismiss Occupy Wall Street as a movement without a message. This baseless indictment falls apart once you have read their declaration, and this is why we think it is so important to publish it and distribute it widely!

We are going to need your help to reach our goal of printing and distributing 100,000 copies!

This document is the first and only official declaration to come from the New York City General Assembly at Liberty Plaza, the epicenter of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. It is a summation of the grievances expressed by the occupiers, it is a call to action, and moreover it is a historic mile marker in the global fight for social, environmental, and economic justice.

The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, as transcribed and edited by Ryan Hoffman, Lex Rendon, and the Call to Action Working Group of Occupy Wall Street is a powerful reference for blossoming social struggles everywhere. In this second printing of 100,000 copies we will be including two other texts from the New York General Assembly,The Principles of Solidarity, and OWS' Statement of Autonomy, we also will be including a letter from the activists at Tahrir Square to the Occupiers at Zuccotti Park. The Declaration of the Occupation, The Statement of Autonomy, and The Principles of Solidarity, are reflections of every voice amplified by the people’s mic at the NYC General Assembly at Liberty Square. You own this document. Everyone owns it.

This document was accepted by the NYC General Assembly on September 29, 2011


PROJECT BY Andy Stepanian
Andy Stepanian is the cofounder of the Sparrow Project, a grassroots PR and creative consultation agency that champions activist endeavors and creative projects for social change. Andy also writes about activism and social justice for The Huffington Post. Andy has made appearances on Democracy Now!, has been featured in New York Magazine, The Nation, Arte TV, and WNYC. His creative work has been featured in Print Magazine.


Laughing Stock
Mr Nosejib

Monday, November 21, 2011

Can a series of short films halt an impending environmental disaster called Lynas?



Madam Lai Kwan was pregnant in 1982 when she worked at the Mitsubishi rare earth refinery in Bukit Merah, Malaysia. This film is a peek into the life she has led since her child was born in 1983...

I applaud Tan Chui Mui's cinematic initiative, dubbed Survival Guide untuk Kampung Radioaktifwherein she recruited a group of young filmmakers to raise public awareness on an extremely serious issue through satire, humor and empathy. What prompted Tan to take action is the simple fact that she was born 33 years ago in a fishing village named Sungai Ular, a stone's throw from the site in Gebeng, Pahang, where Lynas Corporation is in the process of completing what is touted to be the world's largest rare earth processing plant.

Lynas Advanced Materials Plant under construction in Gebeng, Pahang

According to Fuziah Salleh, PKR member of parliament for Kuantan, Lynas submitted its Environmental Impact Assessment to the Pahang state government on 21 January 2008 - and it was approved in less than 3 weeks.

Rare earth processing in China: a health hazard
Something like that can indicate one thing only - a few powerful and privileged palms were heavily greased. Even more astounding, Malaysia's Ministry of International Trade and Industry granted Lynas the very next day a 12-year tax holiday. Undoubtedly, dishonest bureaucrats, bribeable panjandrums, and extremely lax environmental enforcement were the main reasons why Lynas picked Malaysia for its highly polluting rare earth processing plant - and the fact that Gebeng is situated in Pahang, Najib Razak's home state, may also be a factor.

Twenty years ago, Lynas would have met with little, if any, public resistance. However, times have changed. The people of Kuantan are up in arms about the imminent destruction of their peaceful, low-stress lifestyle. Indeed, the 700,000 residents of Kuantan district have good reason to be stressed out by Lynas's giant rare earth processing plant - because they live within a 35km radius of it.

Isengard, industrial stronghold of the dark wizard Saruman

Most of us know next to nothing about rare earth processing and what it entails. However, we have seen the aftermath of rare earth processing and what it does to the environment - particularly in China, which has been the world's #1 extractor and processor of rare earths over the last three decades. If you have seen Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, you would have a good idea what Mount Doom looks like. That's how the landscape is left after rare earth has been extracted... and Saruman's industrial hell, Isengard, gives you a rough idea how the landscape will look when these radioactive metals are processed.

Malaysia will have to be renamed Mordoria...

Lynas claims its rare earth processing plant will provide 350 jobs to Malaysians. Big deal - especially when Lynas will be exempt from paying taxes for 12 years on its projected earnings of approximately RM8 billion a year.

Sauron rules in Mordoria!
No surprise then that the BN government is wholly behind the project when it has already been paid an undisclosed amount as "a deposit against possible environmental damage." Apart from this, politically connected companies like Kencana Petroleum (whose CEO happens to be Mokhzani Mahathir, eldest son of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad) have been awarded lucrative construction contracts.

Lake poisoned by toxic waste from a rare earth processing plant
Radioactive waste water being pumped out from a Chinese rare earth processing plant.


"ENGINEERS FEAR RARE EARTH REFINERY 
IN MALAYSIA IS DANGEROUS"
~ New York Times

SAVE MALAYSIA STOP LYNAS!

A 10-minute summary of the world situation...



Found this video on a friend's Facebook wall. The narrator looks a bit sinister but if you can overlook this detail, what he says is pretty much accurate (though it applies only within the 3D Matrix where the majority of us remain unwittingly trapped). Now, I wonder if this message will have any effect on the unawakened....