… with an inspiring review of the events of the past month, highlighting the voices of some of the people of many different backgrounds who have put other parts of their lives aside to help sustain Occupy Wall Street since mid-September. A few of us from Vermont were in NYC this past weekend to participate in a host of Occupy-related events, including the action at Duarte Park, the 10th anniversary of the lockout of the Charas-El Bohio community center on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, an immigrant rights march from Foley Square to Zuccotti Park and a very large strategy and long-range visioning conference at Pace University. While people in New York are confronting many of the internal problems that movements invariably struggle with as they begin to dig in for the long haul, it is still very clear that the Occupy movement has changed New York, and continues to change the way we think and talk about politics and economics everywhere.

From Story of Stuff creator Annie Leonard, we now have an accessible and visually engaging outlook on the financial crisis, deficit mania in Washington, and how to shift public funds toward a greener future. She makes a few compromises in the pursuit [...]

This beautifully written article by author/activist Dan LaBotz asks, “Where does the tremendous power of the occupation of city spaces, particularly the square, come from?” He replies that it’s powerful because it resonates with the long history of popular revolts, since ancient times, that were often rooted in the utopian dimensions of the [...]

The specter of “overpopulation” has returned to the public airwaves following the UN’s recent announcement that the earth is now home to 7 billion people. The coverage is highly reminiscent of the debates that raged throughout the 1970s and eighties and, once again, there’s a dearth of critical evaluation of this issue. Do rising human [...]

Here are links to 2 interesting commentaries addressing historical antecedents to the Occupy Wall Street movement. In a recent column, Chris Hedges interviewed an OWS participant in New York and used this to introduce some perceptive comments about the historic role of the underclass in political movements, drawing on the 19th century debates [...]

All photos are © 2011 by Eliot Tokar, whose website is http://www.tibetanmedicine.com/. My brother Eliot is interviewed about his Tibetan medicine practice at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKro_d-6nX4. More of his Wall St. photos can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuVxVDs3i68.

From The New Significance, an excellent new webzine on global rebellions from former ZNet co-editor Chris Spannos. He is just back from visiting and interviewing activists across Europe, and promises continuing coverage from on the ground there, as well as in New York and elsewhere:

The author of this report from [...]

The Occupy Wall Street campaign, now in its third week, has inspired a wide range of commentaries, as well as like-minded events all across the US. Here are two somewhat contrasting views from commentators I trust. Arun Gupta of New York City’s Indypendent newspaper offers a positive outlook on [...]

My friend and colleague Richard Greeman, now living in France, has recently added some provocative and forward-looking comments to the ongoing discussion of whether a “Green New Deal” — centered in publicly funded expansion of renewable energy and other “green” technologies — can provide a necessary opening toward a more ecological future. Appropriately for a [...]

David Noble, a pioneering historian and critic of technology and of corporate dominance over academic institutions, passed away suddenly this past week. David lectured a couple of times at the ISE, spent summers in Barnet, just around the bend from Grace’s house, and remained a good friend of both of ours.  Very sad news…