Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie report for New Scientist:

As protests against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere. But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).

"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based."

Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance.

The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

~ more... ~ Also... 'One super-corporation runs the global economy'... and it could be terrifyingly unstable ~

HOLY BAILOUT - Federal Reserve Now Backstopping $75 Trillion Of Bank Of America's Derivatives Trades
This story from Bloomberg just hit the wires this morning. Bank of America is shifting derivatives in its Merrill investment banking unit to its depository arm, which has access to the Fed discount window and is protected by the FDIC.
This means that the investment bank's European derivatives exposure is now backstopped by U.S. taxpayers. Bank of America didn't get regulatory approval to do this, they just did it at the request of frightened counterparties. Now the Fed and the FDIC are fighting as to whether this was sound. The Fed wants to "give relief" to the bank holding company, which is under heavy pressure.
This is a direct transfer of risk to the taxpayer done by the bank without approval by regulators and without public input. You will also read below that JP Morgan is apparently doing the same thing with $79 trillion of notional derivatives guaranteed by the FDIC and Federal Reserve.
What this means for you is that when Europe finally implodes and banks fail, U.S. taxpayers will hold the bag for trillions in CDS insurance contracts sold by Bank of America and JP Morgan. Even worse, the total exposure is unknown because Wall Street successfully lobbied during Dodd-Frank passage so that no central exchange would exist keeping track of net derivative exposure.
This is a recipe for Armageddon. Bernanke is absolutely insane. No wonder Geithner has been hopping all over Europe begging and cajoling leaders to put together a massive bailout of troubled banks. His worst nightmare is Eurozone bank defaults leading to the collapse of the large U.S. banks who have been happily selling default insurance on European banks since the crisis began...

Oct 20: Athens Protests – Live Blogging in English-News, Pcts, Videos

Watch live streaming video from syntagmasquare at livestream.com

Live updates from the General Strike, day 2 – October 20

The Occupy movement has lit a fire for real change
In just a few weeks the Occupy movement has helped bust open the political class veto on the scale of change demanded by the crisis – and now that opportunity needs to be seized.

An Occupy Wall Street Challenge to the "Professional Left"
The time for lip service is OVER. That's why people are camped out in a park.

Occupy Sydney trio charged with crate theft

Propaganda 2.0 and the Rise of ‘Narrative Networks’
DARPA, the Pentagon’s advanced concepts think-tank, is looking to take propaganda to the next level, and they’re hoping to do so by controlling the very way their targets perceive and interpret the flow of incoming information.

Darpa Wants to Master the Science of Propaganda
Mark Twain once tried to distinguish between the storyteller’s art and tales that a machine could generate. He observed that stringing “incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities,” was the province of the American storyteller. A machine might imitate simple formulas behind yarns, but never quite master them.

Birth of 7th Military Information Support Battalion is a special event
The 7th is the final battalion to be activated as part of the growth of military information support operations, formerly known as psychological operations.
Those soldiers' job is to convey selected information to foreign audiences to influence emotions, reasoning and behavior.
The battalion will work for the special operations commander of Africa Command, which has headquarters in Germany and oversees U.S. military activity in Africa.

Euro-Parliament opens its own propaganda centre: and you're paying for it
Parlamentarium eu siteToday was the first open day of the new 'Parlamentarium' at the European Parliament here in Brussels. The thing is billed as a visitors' centre, but in fact it is a propaganda centre, a multi-million pound way for the MEPs to stroke their own egos.

Project Hostile Intent (FAST)

The US Department of Homeland Security is developing a system designed to detect "hostile thoughts" in people walking through border posts, airports and public places. The DHS says recent tests prove it works.
roject Hostile Intent as it was called, is aimed to help security staff choose who to pull over for a gently probing interview - "or more".
The DHS science unit gave an update on the project, now dubbed the less-hostile-sounding Future Attribute Screening Technologies (FAST) .
DHS Claims The FAST Program has been through stringent privacy controls and that the data is never matched to a name. It is only used to make decisions about whether to question someone, and then discarded.
Make no mistake, they have no intentions on discarding any data as DHS states that they have a Congressional Mandate to conduct data mining activities from almost all public and private sources. This has raised some very serious privacy concerns. DHS claims they respect our privacy and have tried to work that into their solution however, they police themselves as they have their own Chief Privacy Officer they consult on OUR privacy concerns.
DHS knows they walk a tight line when it comes to doing whatever the hell they wan't and breaking the law when it comes to projects such as FAST. In order to get around some restrictions they fly under the flag of "research and science"
For More Information On How They Plan To Use "research" to justify this privacy assult on you, be sure to read this 2008 document produced by DHS is quite the display of using the Delphi Technique to achieve consensus -
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_datamining_July24_2008_min...

Skirmishes break out during largely peaceful Greece protest
Angry protesters vowed to bring Greece to a standstill on the second day of a general strike today while disgruntled lawmakers vote on the details of a deeply unpopular austerity package needed to stave off bankruptcy.

Athens night clashes as Greece fights austerity [RT]

Firefighters were called in late on Wednesday to extinguish piles of rubbish set ablaze by protesters in Athens after riots broke out during a demonstration by about 100-thousand people on the first of a two-day general strike. Violence spread across the centre of the city earlier in the day, following the massive anti-government rally against painful new austerity measures. Authorities said about 3,000 police were deployed on the capital's streets.

Special Lord Monckton Interview: Scientific Misconduct Needed to Push Nwo Objective 1/5

special interiview with Lord Christopher Monckton about Al Gore's climate gate hoax, and the hidden Nwo objective behind it all.

The Hamster Wheel: Lord Monckton

Craig Reucassel interviews comedy genius Sacha Baron Cohen in character as his latest creation: climate skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton.

Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

THE GLOBAL CHANGE - INDIGNADOS OCCUPY TOGETHER

Audiovisual project that shows the evolution of the indignant movement initiated in Spain and that has multiplied in different countries of the world crystallising in a world-wide demonstration on October 15, 2011 whose peculiarity is that finishes in Wall Street, the heart of the financial system and origin of the global crisis.

Facebook Is Building Shadow Profiles of Non-Users
An anonymous reader writes
"As noted previously, Max Schrems of Europe Versus Facebook has filed numerous complaints about Facebook's data collection practices. One complaint that has failed to draw much scrutiny regards Facebook's creation of Shadow Profiles. 'This is done by different functions that encourage users to hand personal data of other users and non-users to Facebook... (e.g. synchronizing mobile phones, importing personal data from e-mail providers, importing personal information from instant messaging services, sending invitations to friends or saving search queries when users search for other people on facebook.com). This means that even if you don't use it, you may already have a profile on Facebook.'"

Russian artists VOINA detained, harassed
Russian police pose as German journalists

Palestinian 'terrorist' takes aim at Sacha Baron Cohen
Man depicted as Lebanese terrorist in Cohen's film Bruno files suit against him for $115 million.

Art as a Weapon
Eric Drooker and the persistence of the committed artist

How nonviolence protects the state

http://submedia.tv/stimulator/2010/05/31/the-resistance-is-blowing-up/
This week's guest is Peter Gelderloos

Parasite Turns Wasps Into Outsider Zombie Queens
Even in a world where parasites routinely turn insects into zombies, radically altering their bodies and behavior to serve the parasites’ demands, the story of Polistes dominulus and Xenos vesparum stands out for its weirdness.

Evidence
While there are many success stories that have been told by macrobiotic supporters, there are a number of strong exceptions. Aveline and Lilly Kushi (wife and daughter of the father of American macrobiotics) were lifelong, dedicated practitioners of the macrobiotic lifestyle but both passed away as a result of cancer. Renowned macrobiotics teacher Cecile Levin and macrobiotics speaker Dr. Anthony Sattilaro, both longtime macrobiotic practitioners, also passed away from cancer. Even Michio Kushi, the student of George Ohsawa who brought macrobiotics to America has undergone an operation to remove a tumor in his intestine.

Greece: 'Mother Of All Strikes' Begins

Athens Protests – Live Blogging – Oct 19, 2011
Unprecedented! It must be the biggest protest since 1974. Already more than 80,000 protests ( some sources speak of 100,000) have gathered in front of the Parliament at Syntagma square, just 1,5 hour after the beginning of today’s demonstration. Members of the public and private sector unions and political parties, students and teachers, but also people without a union or party umbrella flock in downtown Athens to raise their voice against the strict austerity measures that crack down the back bones of the society.
This is the latest stand of the protests as of 13:10 local time.

GREECE LIVE CAM - Massive protest in front of the Greek Parliament
[link to www.zerohedge.com]
[link to www.zougla.gr]
Greece general strike begins over spending cuts
Thousands of protesters have begun marching in Athens amid tight security.
The 48-hour strike comes as parliament prepares to vote on the latest round of austerity measures, including more tax hikes, pay cuts and job losses.
Greece is struggling to reduce a huge government deficit amid fears it may default and set off a eurozone crisis.
The EU and IMF have demanded tough cuts in return for two bailouts.
The BBC's Chris Morris in Athens says the pace of protests in Greece has been increasing for several weeks.
There have been lightning strikes across virtually every sector of the economy, with rubbish not collected and government ministries blockaded by their own workers.
The strike for Wednesday and Thursday has been called by the two big unions that cover public and private sector workers.
[link to www.bbc.co.uk]

STOPCARTEL TV-GR

Watch live streaming video from stopcarteltvgr at livestream.com

Syntagma Square Assembly

Watch live streaming video from syntagmasquare at livestream.com

Greece: The Mother of All Strikes, Oct 19-20/2011
The Mother of All Strikes, the 48-hour general strike of public and private sector where even shops are closed has started already. For 48 hours the country will be paralysed. Greece’ capital is getting ready for a ‘battle’ that would possibly take place in the city’s centre due to an expected wave of protest marches. The 48-hour strike in public and private sector started already and strikers are preparing to raise their voices against the odious measures that will further reduce the living standards of citizens and will circumvent decades-old labour rights.

Massive Greece strike turns violent
A massive general strike brought Greece to a standstill on Wednesday and thousands of angry protesters took to the streets, while parliament prepared to vote on deep public sector cuts.
Greek riot police fired tear gas at hooded youths hurling petrol bombs on the fringes of the strike in Athens on Wednesday, a Reuters witness said.
[...]
‘THERE WILL BE WAR’
“With these measures they are killing us slowly. There will be war today and I am going to take part,” said 75-year old private sector pensioner Dimitris Panagiotopoulos.

Athens Clashes LIVE: RT at Greece massive protest showdown

For latest updates, follow RT on http://twitter.com/RT_com and http://www.facebook.com/RTnews
In the streets of Greece, arguably the biggest protest in years is now descending into violence. People are venting their anger against a new package of austerity measures the country is likley to adopt as soon as Thursday.

Athens Public Transport Strike Schedule, Oct 19-20/11
Public transport in Athens will participate only partially to the general strike on October 19-20, 2011 in order to facilitate demonstrators participate in the protests.

Greece Braces For 'Mother Of All Strikes'
Greece is braced for one of the biggest strikes by workers in years as demonstrators protest against austerity measures.

Genesis - Get 'Em Out By Friday


Journalists walk off job to protest Greek cutbacks
Journalists walked out of newsrooms across Greece on Tuesday as tax officials, lawyers and ferry and railway workers scaled up their protests ahead of a two-day general strike to coincide with a vote of new austerity measures in parliament.

Syrians living in Greece protest in Athens
Syrians living in Greece shout slogans during a protest at Syntagma square in support to the peoples unrest in Syria in Athens, Greece, 15 October 2011.

A Message From Anonymous To The Global (R)evolution

FREE-THINKERS, HYPERBOREANS, BUILDERS OF THE FUTURE,

We are Anonymous.

First and foremost, we would like to congratulate you from the bottom of our hearts: What we, Anonymous, the people, have accomplished in just give or take 10 months, has exceeded even our wildest aspirations and our most endearing dreams. Yes indeed: we had gambled on more than we could hope for - and yet we have been able to harvest even more. This in itself is already a tiny miracle, and can only make one feel humbled towards the virtually limitless potential and capabilities of our collective self: the hive.

However, it is of the utmost importance to keep in mind that this is only the beginning of the struggle we have chosen to pick up. While we now have occupied the planet, so far we have only taken our starting grounds - a great and difficult task still lies ahead of us: we now have to create the principles and procedures that we want our new world to be organized upon - and we have to do it swiftly, so as to take the old world by surprise. We will have to externalize the hivemind and re-conceptualize it into the real-life reality of a truly direct, participatory democracy - and we have to do it before the old world sees the chance to 'recuperate' our 'movement' and lull the masses back to sleep.

This means we will have to set up new institutions today - according to the principles of the world we want tomorrow. We will have to create and BE a new world while the old world has not yet fully withered away. For true greatness is only achieved by they who don't ask for permission - and true freedom is not something that can be given or bestowed upon us - it can only be occupied, conquered, taken up and be (re)claimed.

This means we will have to make ourselves as independent and autonomous from the old world as in any way imaginable. However, we can only do this if all of us cooperate and work and share together: Set up local general assemblies and start organizing your community. Withdraw your money from the banks and - if possible - start investing in local cooperative initiatives that will be able to provide the needs of your local community. Start producing life-necessities, energy and consumer-goods in local cooperatives as much as realistically possible, and stop buying these products from the large multinationals that have monopolized our so-called 'free markets'. Start cooperative initiatives to supply your local community with public services and work out alternative ways of grass roots job creation and the local creation of 'wealth'.

Be creative! Share! Experiment! Improvise! And profit! But most of all: don't give up! It is true that a lot of good work has already been done, but so much more is cautiously showing it's silhouette at the horizon. We, Anonymous, the people, pledge to make it real...

Now show the world some loving - and be Anonymous!

You are expected.

United For Global Change - Budapest March, 15-10-2011


GlobalChangeLuxembourg-15Octobre


A hashtag revolution
The “Occupy” movements springing up around the world are a new form of political participation: the unorganised citizen is calling for an ongoing dialogue with institutions such as political parties and trade unions, from which authority is slowly draining.

They predict a riot: U.S. intelligence agency to 'foresee the news' before it happens using Twitter
Some hedge funds already use Twitter and other social networks to 'predict' fluctuations in the stock market.
ow a U.S. government agency is to use the social network to attempt to predict revolutions.
Iarpa - the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity - hopes to be able to predict 'unexpected' events such as revolutions using a wide range of data.
Iarpa is to spend three years analysing data taken from 'open' sources such as Wikipedia edits, Twitter posts and even publicly available data from traffic systems and webcams.

People v. The State of Illusion

People v. The State of Illusion, a film by Austin Vickers. The movie includes appearances by Dr. Thomas Moore, Dr. Candace Pert, Debbie Ford, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Dr. Robert Jahn, Dr. Peter Senge, Brenda Dunne, and Dr. Michael Vandermark, and is an exploration into the science of perception, thought, and imagination. The film was directed by award-winning Director Scott Cervine.

The Fight for 'Real Democracy' at the Heart of Occupy Wall Street
Summary: Occupy Wall Street's anger is mostly directed at the ruling economic class. But the movement is gaining traction because it is exposing a larger failure of democratic representation.

Big Time Crime - Smothers Brothers Song about Wall St Fat Cat

Song about Fat Cats on Wall St. and corruption. From 1968...sadly relevant today.

Building the Revolution: Building blocks
The Russian Revolution unleashed a massive burst of creative energy among avant-garde artists and architects, who aspired to build a brave new world with radical and iconoclastic imagery. Arkady Ostrovsky charts the rise and fall of the Russian Constructivists, while on the following pages we assess the impact of the iconic yet unrealised Tatlin’s Tower, and the varying fortunes of Russia’s avant-garde buildings

Musical Innerlube: Kutiman - This is Real Democracy

Video creator kutiman says "This video doesn't intend to promote violence!
this is only my reflection of what is going on around the world.

كوتي مان.
هاذه هي الديموقراطية الحقيقية
هاذه الفيديو لا يهدف لنشر العنف بأي شكل من الأشكال انه فقط أنعكاس لما يجري حول العام من وجهة نظري.

esta é a real democracia.
Este video não tem a intenção de promover a violência! Esta é apenas a minha reflexão sobre o que está acontecendo no mundo.

Это видео не пропагандирует насилие. Оно лишь отображает то, что происходит в мире

Αυτό είναι η πραγματική δημοκρατία.
Αυτό το βίντεο δεν έχει πρόθεση να προωθήσει τη βία.
Είναι μόνο η σκέψη μου για το τί συμβαίνει σε όλο τον κόσμο.

Ceci est LA démocratie. Le but de cette vidéo n'est pas de promouvoir la violence, mais seulement de partager ma vision de ce qui se passe dans le monde en ce moment.

Special tnx to the musicians , it was a pleasure finding your youtube videos."


-Playing Drums Outside
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKlhTmnEJmc
-Sanford and Sonny Blue Beard Fuzz on Bass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mFOH2uFRQI
-Fender Strat with Heavy Distortion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Xgu2g3KOA&feature=related
-Blues Shredding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_z2xgX4Das&feature=related
-ACA Allertor 125 Siren Test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rd80_T2DaI&
-Free Speech vs. the Metropolitan Police in London UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3793DK_dAs&
-Space Wankin 13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3erLOVbF_8&feature=related
-ARP Odyssey Analog Synthesizer (1972)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OwSNz7lLLo
-Electric Guitar Power Chords Power chords 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl_gPTq_8lE
-SoundLab Overview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euCVsCz1ITY&

The military response to direct action, General Kitson’s manual

From Direct Action Station:

Tom Griffin writes:

In 1971 a counter-insurgency manual set out an operational response to non-violent direct action protest movements as well as military insurgencies like the Provision IRA in Northern Ireland, drawing on the UK’s colonial experience. Today, it holds a surprise for a new reader.

General Frank Kitson’s 1971 counter-insurgency manual Low Intensity Operations [12] has long been of interest to students of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Within months of its publication, its author was commanding 39 Brigade in Belfast where he pioneered the use of the Parachute Regiment [13] as shock troops, and of plain-clothes ‘counter-gangs’ [14] to combat paramilitary groups.

However, what struck me most when I obtained a copy recently was not the book’s obvious significance for such controversial episodes, but its striking relevance to events in Britain in recent weeks.

That’s because Kitson gives considerable attention to the question of how a government can combat a campaign of non-violent direct action. He devotes a whole chapter to the subject, despite showing considerable scepticism about the value of direct action as a tactic:

“It is rare to find large numbers of people who are so interested in a political cause that they are prepared to abandon their work and sacrifice their recreational time merely to stand around in a group being troublesome to the government on the off chance that it will make concessions in some direction which will probably bring them little personal benefit or satisfaction. In fact only the hard core organizers are likely to be sufficiently dedicated to behave in this way, and such people are normally viewed with suspicion by the normal working man or housewife and even by the majority of the student population.”

Kitson argued that to overcome this problem, the hard core organizers need to mobilise an intermediate group of ‘politically conscious idealists’ in sufficient numbers to goad the authorities into discrediting themselves by some violent action.

Kitson wrote primarily on the basis of his experiences in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus, dealing with highly centralised communist or nationalist movements, in situations where direct action was ultimately replaced by outright insurgency.

He did recognise that the students involved in the then recent events of May 1968 in France were resistant to centralised control, but he regarded this as illustrating a general weakness of direct action, its dependence on mobilising large numbers of ordinary people.

For Kitson, the workers and students of 1968 had been bought off with concessions on wages and universities, frustrating the larger socialist ambitions of the organisers. His practical recommendations are a generalisation of this model:

“In practical terms the most promising line of approach lies in separating the mass of those engaged in the campaign from the leadership by the judicious promise of concessions, at the same time imposing a period of calm by the use of government forces backed up by statements to the effect that most of the concessions can only be implemented once the life of the country returns to normal. Although with an eye to world opinion, and to the need to retain the allegiance of the people, no more force than is necessary for containing the situation should be used, conditions can be made reasonably uncomfortable for the population as a whole, in order to provide an incentive for a return to normal life and to act as a deterrent towards a resumption of the campaign.

Having once succeeded in providing a breathing space by these means, it is most important to do three further things quickly. The first is to implement the promised concessions quickly so as to avoid allegations of bad faith which may enable the subversive element to regain control over certain sections of the people. The second is to discover and neutralise the subversive element. The third is to associate as many prominent members of the population, especially those who have been engaged in non-violent action, with the government. This last technique is known in America as co-optation..”

~ more... ~


Time to stop counterinsurgency, and cut the troops that do it, says Obama’s favorite military think tank
Obama’s Favorite Think Tank: Cut The Army, Forget Counterinsurgency

Al Qaeda: The End of a Legend? Wherever there is Counterinsurgency, there are “Al Qaeda Affiliated Organizations”…
Throughout the post 9/11 era, Al Qaeda and the “threat of Islamic terrorism” have played a central role in defining Washington’s diplomatic agenda, shaping its rhetoric at World summits as well as establishing the contours of US military doctrine.

Will False Flag Terror Discredit Protests?
A survey of state-sponsored terrorism in Europe

(U//FOUO) FBI Anonymous’ Participation in “Day of Rage” Protest May Coincide with Cyber Attack
(U//FOUO) The FBI assesses that the hacktivist group Anonymous is likely to participate in the “Day of Rage” protest scheduled for 17 September 2011 in New York City‟s financial district. While the extent of group members‟ participation in the event is unknown, in late August 2011 Anonymous endorsed the event through propaganda consisting of a video posted on YouTube and a campaign poster, as well as references in their Twitter accounts.

Wave of protests, strikes hammer Greece as European debt crisis enters crucial week
Strikes halted ferries to the Greek islands Monday and left rotting trash piling up in Athens for the 16th straight day, as unions fought back against more austerity measures at the start of a crucial week for both Greece and the 17-nation eurozone.

Greece braced for all-out strike
Greek ships were harboured and trains halted today as angry workers built momentum for "the mother of all strikes" expected to bring the entire country to a halt in protest against a new package of tax hikes and wage cuts.

Occupations of Cities Continue, Growing Income Gap, Worst Financial Crisis Ever
Revealing News Articles
October 18, 2011

Occupy Wall Street-Global Photos, 15 October 2011, Day 29

Groups hold emergency action to protest killing of Italian rural missionary
The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan together with Karapatan and the Promotion of Church Peoples Response (PCPR) today held an emergency action in front of the Department of Justice to condemn the killing of Italian rural missionary Fr. Fausto Tentorio in Kidapwan province yesterday.

The Primate Diaries - Freedom to Riot: On the Evolution of Collective Violence
From London to the Middle East riots have shaken political stability. Are the answers to be found in human nature?

Animal Rights: The Brown Dog Riots of 1907
It can be surprising to discover that the largest, most controversial and violent riot in Britain concerning the emotive issue of animal rights occurred not in recent years, but in 1907 – and that the most vociferous and heated protagonists were not those demonstrating on behalf of animals, but medical students defending their cruel, barbaric and unregulated scientific experiments. The so-called Brown Dog Affair – which saw its worst night of rioting in Trafalgar Square, as some 1,000 rowdy medical students clashed with police, suffragettes, trade unionists and working-class animal lovers – raged for seven years and was one of the most divisive issues in Edwardian London.

LEADERSHIP & OPEN SOURCE PROTEST #ows
Fluid, constrained leadership is an important part of open source protest. Fluid in that there are no fixed positions. Contrained in that it is limited to managing a single function. There isn't any overarching leadership.

Occupy World St.: From NYC to Everywhere
All over the globe people are rising up and demanding their rights in a worldwide rally of discontent as protests inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement spread around the world on Saturday.

OCCUPY WALL STREET (the theory)
Occupy Wall Street is an open source protest.
This type of protest has been very effective over the last year in toppling regimes in north Africa. It's proving relatively successful in the US too.

The Tribal Organizational Model & Open Source Tribal Insurgency
John Robb at Global Guerrillas has written a couple of pieces on “manufactured” tribes. That is, using a tribal organizational structure to advance a group’s goals and protect its members. He writes:
How do you manufacture a strong community that protects, defends and advances the interests of its members? You build a tribe. Tribal organization is the most survivable of all organizational types and it was the dominant form for 99.99% of human history. The most important aspect of tribal organization is that it is the organizational cockroach of human history. It has proved it can withstand the onslaught of the harshest of environments. Global depression? No problem.

Assange Addresses Occupy London Protesters
The WikiLeaks founder made a surprise appearance as the Occupy Wall Street movement spread to London.

Decentralized Demonstrations require a Decentralized Sound System.
THIS is a Decentralized Sound System:

The DSS is extremely resilient and extremely effective and 20 boomboxes can easily transmit music or voice to a crowd of 500. It is infinitely scaleable, and can also be rigged to broadcast silently to portable radios with headphones when noise regulations are an issue. All the equipment required is portable, cheap and readily available.

VersuS – Rome, October 15th, the riots on social networks

This short video displays the activity on social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare) during the riots of October 15th which took place in Rome during the local instance of the 15th October initiative created in the planetary process started by the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The peaks and contours you see represent the intensity of the communication and conversations that was taking place from the start of the protest (at 3pm local time) up until its approximate end (at 8pm local time).
The animation shows the geo-referenced intensity of messages for each 30 minute time slot from the beginning to the end of the protest.

Olympic Gold Medalist John Carlos Joins Occupy Wall Street Movement

October 11, 2011 CURRENT TV Keith Olbermann
http://MOXNews.com

World News on Bush Visit to Canada: Arrest the War Criminal
On March 17th 2009, Cynthia McKinney’s birthday, we broke the police line defending the puppet of Wall Street G.W. Bush in Calgary Alberta and attempted to serve him the papers drawn up by Gail Davidson and Lawyers Against War (LAW).
This mass torturer/murderer is coming to Surrey, BC this October 20th 2011, lets give him and Bill Clinton a huge welcome. (P.S. Bring an extra pair of handcuffs for Mayor Watts for collaborating with self confessed war criminals.)

Occupy protests around the world: full list visualised
The Occupy protests have spread from Wall Street to London to Bogota.

How to riot [funnyjunk.com]

Occupy Seattle – Shining Bright With Non-Violence as Our Voices Are Heard
October 13th could be hailed as an accomplishment in the ‘Occupy’ Movement. An example to be held up to illustrate what is possible when we realize each of us has a right to voice our opinion AND maintain respect to those whose jobs include keeping the peace and enforcing law.

Investigative reporters and websites again threatened by proposed “gag law”
Reporters Without Borders strongly condemns the resumption of parliamentary discussion of a government bill that would curb the publication of police wiretaps in the news media and would force websites to publish corrections automatically. Approved by the senate in June 2010, the bill had been shelved because of an outcry from civil society.

New study encourages broadcasters to work together to battle censorship
The Canada Center for Global Security Studies, a University of Toronto organization that focuses on Internet security, as well as Citizen Lab and the Munk School of Global Affairs, have joint-released a report titled Casting a Wider Net: Lessons Learned in Delivering BBC Content on the Censored Internet.

Internet censorship growth hampers news, study says
A detailed study of Internet censorship in China and Iran shows that blocking techniques are changing rapidly and are becoming significant new obstacles for news organizations, governments and businesses.

Internet censorship circumvention
Internet censorship circumvention is the process used by technologically savvy Internet users to bypass the technical aspects of Internet filtering and gain access to otherwise censored material.

A Force More Powerful (3 of 6) : Civil Rights Movement

"When people decide they want to be free... There is nothing that can stop them." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
A Force More Powerful explores one of the 20th century's most important but least understood stories: how nonviolent power has overcome oppression and authoritarian rule all over the world. Narrated by Ben Kingsley, and nominated for an Emmy, A Force More Powerful premiered on ©PBS in September 2000.

News to Me
Project Censored picks old media's most ignored news stories

600 Mysteries in the Night Sky
NASA's Fermi team recently released the second catalog of gamma-ray sources detected by their satellite's Large Area Telescope (LAT). Of the 1873 sources found, nearly 600 are complete mysteries. No one knows what they are.