Golden Dawn, G.D. (in Greek, Chrysi Avgi), the neo-Nazi, ultra-nationalistic party, which was recently elected to the Greek Parliament under the pretext of concern over unemployment, austerity and the economy, and while engaging in virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric and anti-democratic, nationalistic activities, has now established a chapter in New York City. Several groups and organizations have already publicly expressed their outrage and have called for immediate action.
For over 30 years, G.D. has operated from the margins of the far right political spectrum using the symbols, practices and methods of a racist, anti-democratic and intolerant neo-Nazi ideology. The recent economic crisis, however, has brought them to the forefront of political developments. They recently drew the attention of the international media when one of their Parliament members physically attacked two women from Left wing parties on live television. Before that incident and since, G.D. thugs have organized murderous attacks against immigrants, left wingers, gays as well as anyone who will stand in their way.
G.D. harbors common criminals. In the 70s, the “Fuhrer,” as they honorably call their leader, was imprisoned for setting off bombs in cinemas that showed films of Soviet production. Around the same period, members of the organization were also prosecuted for committing acts of terrorism against left wing newspapers and organizations. Today, they exhibit particular disdain against Muslims while they also openly deny the Holocaust.
In New York City, G.D. masquerades as a philanthropic organization conducting food and clothing drives. The goal of such activities is to popularize G.D.’s neo-Nazi ideology and enlist public sympathy. G.D.’s ‘philanthropic’ activity is a cynical ploy and has to be condemned as such. Alternatively, “Doctors of the World,” “AHEPA,” and a number of other international or community- based NGOs rely on our help to support the Greek people. We urge all who wish to do so to support legitimate charities and Greek solidarity groups, and reject Golden Dawn’s advances.
History teaches us that economic crises can breed hatred, racism and ultimately fascism. Capitalism divides us along social, cultural and political lines so as to dominate us more effectively. Few cities in the world other than New York know this better. We therefore invite immigrant organizations, unions, teachers’ associations and cultural organizations to an open meeting where we can freely discuss and decide how we can effectively act against racism, violence and fascism.
PLEASE JOIN US ON October 9, 2012 • 7–10pm Church of the Redeemer 30-14 Crescent Street (Corner of 30th Road), Astoria, NY 11102-3249
This short film chronicles recent events in Spain where hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand the resignation of the government and an end to police brutality. Many of the protests ended in clashes with the police. Since the stand off began on September 25th, the images of police brutality have travelled the world over, shocking and inspiring people across Europe and leading to an international day of action on September 29th. This film tells the story of why so many people took to the streets and follows these events as they unfolded.
Go to globaluprisings.org for the full series of mini-documenaries about reactions to the economic crisis around the world.
My name is Ethan Murphy and I’d like to share some of the things the OWS People's Kitchen accomplished last week, largely thanks to your support. I also wanted to tell the story of how I got here and what we're planning next, I share this on my own birthday, just three days after feeding 6,000 people for the S17 anniversary weekend.
I assisted in the coordination of feeding our visitors from around the country (and the world) who joined us for the weekend leading up to our birthday march on Wall Street. Your donations allowed us to serve homemade sandwiches, wraps, granola bars, quiche and fresh fruit every day, and also a hearty family-style buffet dinner each night that included fresh produce from our allied farms. Our service culminated in three types of birthday cake (with candles) for more than a thousand people. So, thank you very much for helping make this all possible! Though we are unable at this time to physically serve our community every day, we will continue to provide nourishment for activists and protesters whenever we can.
What follows is the story of how I ended up here:
For the past few years the need to reform our way of life has increasingly become apparent to more and more of us. For me, events such as the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, rampant wildfires throughout the U.S. and fracking that causes earthquakes and flammable water have generated feelings of fear, despair, rage, sorrow, misery and hopelessness. Not to mention anger at a government that shields corporate wrongdoers from any repercussions, even waging wars without our consent in order to protect the interests of a destructive system. It’s been clear to me from a very early age that our dependence on non-renewable energy would have to change one day, and I had passively “supported” reform, basically giving lip-service to a progressive idea of change and liberal progress for decades. Obviously, that attitude does not serve a greater good.
This realization resulted in a drastic personal transformation of my worldview and compelled me to action. I realize there have been others screaming this exact sentiment for longer than I’ve even been alive, but like many Americans, I’d allowed myself to be hypnotized by the industrial infotainment complex.
But last year, when I witnessed innocent young people, right here in New York City, brutalized and arrested for publicly stating that they believed our world was in peril, it triggered in me an uncontrollable desire to help. This is something I hadn’t ever felt before and didn’t know how to start, so I went to investigate what these kids were doing in Zuccotti Park - rather, the newly-anointed Liberty Plaza - and found at least a sliver of hope in the bravery of these young’uns.
I also found out it wasn’t just kids. The people I met in the Financial District included all ages, races, religions (and, like me, non-religious types), every kind of political philosophy and gender identity you could imagine, the homeless and hungry, union workers, veterans, a retired police captain, the middle class and the poor, even some sympathetic 1%ers (though many in the movement were not ready to accept the inclusion of the bourgeois). Each of these people independently came to realize that, as the slogan goes, “Shit’s fucked up and bullshit.”
OCCUPY, THEN AND NOW: An Occupy mainstay waits on the meal line, right, on September 17, 2012.
Thousands upon thousands of people kept showing up. Occupy spread first nationally and then globally, and a network has since formed that isn’t going anywhere.
I kept trying to find a way to utilize my (admittedly very narrow) skill set to actually benefit this growing movement. I learned some of the techniques of Outreach and Facilitation that the activists preached so much about, and I continued to seek ways to plug in that I felt would be a substantive contribution.
This is when I began to volunteer for the Kitchen Working Group of Occupy Wall Street. My professional experience, after all, has been in the food and beverage industry. For six months I helped organize volunteers in a donated professional kitchen Monday through Wednesday, then I worked my “real” job tending bar Thursday through Sunday. Over time, my day job became secondary and I found myself yearning to be back in the kitchen cooking for OWS all the time because that’s where I felt the most useful. I was recently asked why I don’t cook professionally here in New York, to which I replied without even thinking, “Cooks don’t get paid enough in this town.” After a pause I added defiantly, “And since they can’t pay me enough to cook professionally I’ll just give my skills away for free!” It was a joke, but it resonated with me because I increasingly found that my happiest place was cooking for scores of strangers who were each, in their own way, trying to build a brighter future.
We prepared food for hundreds of activists and protesters in the park every day, and then, after the eviction, wherever the Occupation ended up each day. We even fed two thousand people on Thanksgiving Day, just days after being violently forced from our peaceful encampment, and it was so moving! Over the winter we moved our operation indoors, serving our buffet on Wall Street proper. It felt like we were giving The Man the stiff middle finger every time we delivered our donated bounty to the atrium at 60 Wall Street, or on the steps of the Federal building. This was real to me; every day there were tangible results, and I worked myself to exhaustion before I discovered this was not sustainable for me or for the movement.
I took a break after May Day - an enormous action feeding thousands all over Manhattan - as did many of the volunteers responsible for the daily feedings. Since then I have been working on ways to sustainably support not just the movement, but the world. Last week we reunited to serve the needs of the Occupation for our anniversary. We assembled a dedicated team and even recruited some additional service industry professionals, but we still pushed ourselves to our absolute limit, cooking for nearly 100 hours in five days. We will continue to serve actions on an as-needed basis.
I have also been working on Occupalooza/Occupicnic, a free concert and information expo for the 99%, with one of our primary kitchen delivery drivers and a few others for months now, the idea gaining steam during those long drives to Zuccotti. We were admittedly wide-eyed when we began planning the event, and expected much more support from our fellow Occupiers, but since then we have learned a great deal and will continue pursuing this event by building up to it with a series of small fundraisers and festivals. Here is a link to our website, <www.occupalooza.info> / <www.occupicnic.info>, and what follows is an overview of our upcoming Occupalooza / Occupicnic.
The purpose of Occupalooza / Occupicnic is to demystify the OWS movement, to broaden our outreach and to demonstrate the importance of standing together in unity. We aim to create better opportunities for people who have suffered the injustices of greed and poverty.
We will represent the Vision and Goals and the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City under the Occupy umbrella with the following themes: Occupy Peace, Food, Health, Knowledge, Environment, Ethics, and Liberty
The second project I want to mention, and the one most most directly related to my kitchen work with Occupy and my professional life experience (and the one closest to my heart), is a nonprofit community center /restaurant/event space. We call it Public Domain. This is a long-term project that will be occupying my time for possibly years to come. It is also something that I believe will be of long-lasting benefit to all people, not just activist and organizers, but whole communities.
Our mission is to nourish body and mind by establishing a venue, open to all, where people can safely and comfortably gather, dine and work together, while sharing knowledge and incubating community based projects.
We serve this mission by pursuing the following goals:
To establish member owned and operated multi-use facilities focused on community building, conversation and education, where delicious and healthful food is served on a donation basis. The food we serve emphasizes organic, locally grown, unprocessed ingredients supporting local farmers and promoting a healthy well informed population.
To nurture a more equitable society by establishing a solidarity economy based on principles of mutual aid, sustainability and environmental justice. All decisions will be made in accordance with a non-hierarchical cooperative model outlined in the bylaws of the organization.
To reform patterns of food production, distribution and consumption in New York City and beyond. We will feed people in need, reduces waste in the food industry, create volunteer and employment opportunities, as well as provide a venue for skill-sharing workshops and education about food and food industry related issues.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Your support means a great deal to me.
With all the global actions and uprisings happening this month, along with all the projects and work that Occupy has already been doing – maintaining strong communication channels is getting increasingly more important.
InterOccupy is putting out a call for people who want to help maintain strong communication with us for the movement. Whatever level of time commitment you can afford would help! We have tasks large and small that we need help with. It could even be just an hour per month if that’s what you can spare!
We at InterOccupy seek to foster communication between individuals, Working Groups and local General Assemblies, across the movement. We do this in the spirit of the Occupy Movement and general assemblies which use direct democratic and horizontal decision-making processes in service to the interests of the 99%.
RECENT ADDITIONS TO JOIN #GLOBALNOISE ON #O13 ARE:
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Calgary, Canada
Frankfurt, Germany
Kassel – Saarbrücken, Germany
Portugal
Edinburgh, Scotland
Madrid, Sol, Spain
Coruña, Spain
Alicante Toma la Plaza Alicante
Michigan, USA
New York City, NY, USA
HOW TO GET INVOLVED?
To find a globalNOISE action happening near you visit this page.
We’re looking for experienced webmasters who can help us manage & improve the website. We plan to make a real-time map on #O13 as Madrid had on #25s www.voces25s.es
We plan to have a special version of the website to cover worldwide globalNOISE actions from 12.-20. Oct.
Check out #London – they made a nice video for you to watch and share!
DRY66 made this video:
You can download the no-text version, where there’s a black space prepared to fill in local text in each country language here: http://www.mediafire.com/?113lozzf21q4vk1
There are loads of globalNOISE videos and fliers available on youtube and on our site. Please visit us at www.globalnoise.net
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER #GLOBALNOISE?
We are already thinking about what happens after globalNOISE…via22 made a proposal to protest on the 22nd of every month, starting in October – read more here: http://via22.org/