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The biggest eyesore in New York is not the graffiti, argues Banksy, its under construction at ground zero.

As a visitor staying in New York for the past few weeks, one thing has become very clear to me, and I say this as a friend - you’ve got to do something about the new World Trade Center.

That building is a disaster. Well no, disasters are interesting. One World Trade Center is a non-event. Its vanilla. It looks like something they would build in Canada.

The attacks of September 11th were an attack on all of us, and we will live out our lives in their shadow. But it’s also how we react to adversity that defines us. And the response?

104 floors of compromise?

Remarkably for such a tall structure, One World Trade lacks any self confidence. How does it stand up without a spine? It looks like it never wanted to be built in the first place.

It reminds you of a really tall kid at a party, awkwardly shifting his shoulders trying not to stand out from the crowd. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a shy skyscraper.

It would be easy to view One World Trade Centre as a betrayal of everyone who lost their lives on September 11th, because it so clearly proclaims the terrorists won. Those 10 men have condemned us to live in a world more mediocre than the one they attacked, rather than be the catalyst for a dazzling new one.

Nobody comes to New York to bathe in your well-mannered common sense. We’re here for the spirit and audacity. Of which One World Trade has none.

Instead you have to look to the rooftops - to the chorus of precariously roller painted names and slogans crawling over the skyline like poison ivy.

This is the city’s true heritage - a city that made its name giving space to the mercurial and the brave.

One World Trade declares the glory days of New York are gone. You really need to put up a better building in front of it right away. Or better still, let the kids with the roller poles finish it off.

Because you currently have under construction a one thousand foot tall sign that reads - New York — we lost our nerve

Read the original post on Better Out Than In

This video is a call to action released in support of the Stop Watching Us: Rally Against Mass Surveillance being held in Washington, DC, on Saturday, Oct. 26, the 12th anniversary of the Patriot Act. Formed in June 2013, the StopWatching.us coalition is comprised of more than 100 public advocacy organizations and companies from across the political spectrum demanding that Congress investigate the full extent of the NSA's spying programs.

A diverse cast of media, academic, political and legal figures and truth-speakers unite in the video to sound the alarm over unconstitutional government surveillance. The full list, in order of appearance, includes:

• Daniel Ellsberg, “Pentagon Papers” whistleblower
• Phil Donahue, television talk-show pioneer
• US Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee
• David Segal), executive director of Demand Progress
• Maggie Gyllenhaal, actor and activist
• Oliver Stone, director of The Untold History of the United States and Nixon
• John Cusack, actor and activist
• Wil Wheaton, actor and writer
• Molly Crabapple, artist and writer
• Jesselyn Radack, U.S. Department of Justice whistleblower and national security and human rights director at the Government Accountability Project
• J. Kirk Wiebe, NSA whistleblower
• Mark Klein, AT&T whistleblower who revealed the telecommunications company’s collaboration with the NSA in collecting customer data
• Thomas Drake, NSA whistleblower
• Cindy Cohn, Legal Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Dan Choi, LGBTQ activist and Iraq War veteran
• Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School

Thomas Drake and Daniel Choi will also speak at the rally, which begins with a march from Columbus Circle to the Capitol Reflecting Pool at 12 p.m. EST on Saturday, Oct. 26. StopWatching.us will also deliver more than 500,000 signatures opposing the NSA’s mass surveillance to Congress. The coalition is calling for a full Congressional investigation of America’s surveillance programs, reform to federal surveillance law, and accountability from officials responsible for hiding this surveillance from lawmakers and the public.

Big thank you to our friends at PR Watch

As Occupiers, we love to see people taking initiative in transforming public spaces—even if doing so requires breaking some rules. So naturally we were excited to hear that the prolific street artist Banksy was visiting our home city of New York!

Then on the 4th day of his tour while visiting the neighborhood of Bushwick (Brooklyn), he did this:

Banksy, we're honored to see you paying homage to our movement by defacing our private property. You inspire as as someone who is both tasteful, and a rebel. You bring fine art to the masses where they exist rather than locking it away in an art gallery. Your work will brighten up our communities for years to come. Please keep doing what you do.

It's also worth mentioning that this isn't the first time someone has vandalized Bushwick in our honor!