Be The Revolution: How Occupy Wall Street and the Bernie Sanders Movement Reshaped American Politics
Be The Revolution: How Occupy Wall Street and the Bernie Sanders Movement Reshaped American Politics

Author: Jay Ponti

Publisher: Fire Drill Press

Published: 2023-10-19

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13:

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BE THE REVOLUTION: HOW OCCUPY WALL STREET AND THE BERNIE SANDERS MOVEMENT RESHAPED AMERICAN POLITICS Most people think that Occupy Wall Street failed, and Bernie Sanders's meteoric rise to the national stage was simply a 'viral' phenomenon that captured the hearts of unrealistic Millenials. Be The Revolution reveals how Occupy organizers strategically activated their national network of activists to fuel the grassroots movement that propelled the Senator’s campaign to change the course of American history. This is an inside journey through the key events of the 2016 and 2020 primary races. It follows a secret group of Sanders influencers called Bernie’s Avengers as they challenge the Democratic establishment and then join the historic pipeline fight at Standing Rock. This book also offers important insights into the rise of QAnon and neofascism. Be The Revolution is a gonzo adventure into the heart of the grassroots movements that defined a decade, a memoir that also contains a theory of change to guide the development of the movements urgently needed to take on national and global crises. PRAISE FOR BE THE REVOLUTION: Be The Revolution offers Important insights into some of the most significant developments in modern America, based on intimate knowledge and direct participation. -Noam Chomsky “We should thank Jay for his life’s work. As an organizer, he is a wonder to watch in action. This accounting of events of the last ten years is a profound and seismic piece of American political, and cultural history that has gone all but unnoticed in the mainstream. Be The Revolution is not about a battle of right or left, but the battle for humanity and the natural world. The timing of this book couldn’t be more right, nor the message more on point.” Ken Burns should do a doc on this!” -Mark Ruffalo “Jay Ponti is a legendary long distance revolutionary thinker and activist whose vision, analysis and courage is a beacon of hope in our bleak times! Don’t miss this jewel of a book!” -Dr Cornel West “This book is a great history of progressive action from the Occupy moment to the present—clear, invigorating, and encouraging of future efforts. We owe Jay Ponti a big thank you for his tireless efforts to change the American political landscape, and thus to help save Earth’s biosphere from a catastrophic mass extinction event. It’s crucial work he describes here, and joining the effort can give anyone a project that includes meaning and hope.” -Kim Stanley Robinson Be The Revolution is an important first-hand account of the efforts led by Occupy Wall Street and Bernie Sanders’ inspired activists to resist the forces of neoliberalism and mobilize for an equitable future. This history is crucial to understand if the human race is going to save itself from the climate emergency and rise of neofascism. -Thom Hartmann “Be The Revolution is a love letter to our movements, an honest and searching testimonial from the heart of the grassroots. Jay Ponti is a ride or die revolutionary who has given us a glimpse into some of the most important moments of political struggle in the last decade. This is the book the establishment doesn't want you to read.” -Nina Turner “The prevailing narrative of American politics is not the real story. It obliterates the deeper reality of who we are as people and the overarching meaning of struggles for justice. Beneath the corporate-created hype and the games of our political establishment lie the activism and sacrifices of real people doing the gut-wrenching work of trying to further and save our democracy. Be The Revolution tells the story of those people.” -Marianne Williamson Wopila (Thank you) for writing the blow by blow actions of the War we faced at the Oceti Sakowin Camp (Standing Rock). Jay Ponti had great influence on the two Declarations written at Oceti Sakowin , particularly the Divestment Treaty among Nations. The First Declaration defies the Doctrine of Discovery and illegal actions used by it. The second called for Divestment by countries from fossil fuels, especially by DAPL, and all other oil corporations.. Thank you for your written words. -Phyllis Young American Indian Rights Activist “Stories are vitally important when it comes to the thing called politics. Jay Ponti has done everyone on the left a remarkable service by telling stories that could so easily be lost.” -Tim Morton

Generation Occupy
Generation Occupy

Author: Michael Levitin

Publisher: Catapult

Published: 2023-09-19

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 164009556X

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The fight for a $15 minimum wage. Nationwide teacher strikes. Bernie Sanders’s political revolution and the rise of AOC. Black Lives Matter. #MeToo. Read how the Occupy movement helped reshape American politics, culture and the groundbreaking movements to follow. "Fluidly written . . . Levitin’s enthusiasm is infectious . . . It is no exaggeration to say that Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots changed a good deal more of the landscape than Zuccotti Park’s three-quarters of an acre in New York’s financial district." —Tod Gitlin, The New York Times Book Review On the ten-year anniversary of the Occupy movement, Generation Occupy sets the historical record straight about the movement’s lasting impacts. Far from a passing phenomenon, Occupy Wall Street marked a new era of social and political transformation, reigniting the labor movement, remaking the Democratic Party and reviving a culture of protest that has put the fight for social, economic, environmental and racial justice at the forefront of a generation. The movement changed the way Americans see themselves and their role in the economy through the language of the 99 versus the 1 percent. But beyond that, in its demands for fairness and equality, Occupy reinvigorated grassroots activism, inaugurating a decade of youth-led resistance movements that have altered the social fabric, from Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock to March for Our Lives, the Global Climate Strikes and #MeToo. Bookended by the 2008 financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, Generation Occupy attempts to help us understand how we got to where we are today and how to draw on lessons from Occupy in the future.

The End of Protest
The End of Protest

Author: Micah White

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Published: 2016-03-15

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 034581004X

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Is protest broken? Micah White, co-creator of Occupy Wall Street, thinks so. Disruptive tactics have failed to halt the rise of Donald Trump. Movements ranging from Black Lives Matter to environmentalism are leaving activists frustrated. Meanwhile, recent years have witnessed the largest protests in human history. Yet these mass mobilizations no longer change society. Now activism is at a crossroads: innovation or irrelevance. In The End of Protest Micah White heralds the future of activism. Drawing on his unique experience with Occupy Wall Street, a contagious protest that spread to eighty-two countries, White articulates a unified theory of revolution and eight principles of tactical innovation that are destined to catalyze the next generation of social movements. Despite global challenges—catastrophic climate change, economic collapse and the decline of democracy—White finds reason for optimism: the end of protest inaugurates a new era of social change. On the horizon are increasingly sophisticated movements that will emerge in a bid to challenge elections, govern cities and reorient the way we live. Activists will reshape society by forming a global political party capable of winning elections worldwide. In this provocative playbook, White offers three bold, revolutionary scenarios for harnessing the creativity of people from across the political spectrum. He also shows how social movements are created and how they spread, how materialism limits contemporary activism, and why we must re-conceive protest in timelines of centuries, not days. Rigorous, original and compelling, The End of Protest is an exhilarating vision of an all-encompassing revolution of revolution.

Rivalry and Reform
Rivalry and Reform

Author: Sidney M. Milkis

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-01-25

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 022656942X

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Few relationships have proved more pivotal in changing the course of American politics than those between presidents and social movements. For all their differences, both presidents and social movements are driven by a desire to recast the political system, often pursuing rival agendas that set them on a collision course. Even when their interests converge, these two actors often compete to control the timing and conditions of political change. During rare historical moments, however, presidents and social movements forged partnerships that profoundly recast American politics. Rivalry and Reform explores the relationship between presidents and social movements throughout history and into the present day, revealing the patterns that emerge from the epic battles and uneasy partnerships that have profoundly shaped reform. Through a series of case studies, including Abraham Lincoln and abolitionism, Lyndon Johnson and the civil rights movement, and Ronald Reagan and the religious right, Sidney M. Milkis and Daniel J. Tichenor argue persuasively that major political change usually reflects neither a top-down nor bottom-up strategy but a crucial interplay between the two. Savvy leaders, the authors show, use social movements to support their policy goals. At the same time, the most successful social movements target the president as either a source of powerful support or the center of opposition. The book concludes with a consideration of Barack Obama’s approach to contemporary social movements such as Black Lives Matter, United We Dream, and Marriage Equality.

The Speech
The Speech

Author: Bernie Sanders

Publisher: Bold Type Books

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1568585543

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On Friday, December 10, 2010, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders walked on to the floor of the United States Senate and began speaking. It turned out to be a very long speech, lasting over eight and a half hours. And it hit a nerve. Millions followed the speech online until the traffic crashed the Senate server. A huge, positive grassroots response tied up the phones in the senator's offices in Vermont and Washington. President Obama reportedly held an impromptu press conference with former President Clinton to deflect media attention away from Sanders' speech. Editorials and news coverage appeared throughout the world. In his speech, Sanders blasted the agreement that President Obama struck with Republicans, which extended the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, lowered estate tax rates for the very, very rich, and set a terrible precedent by establishing a "payroll tax holiday" diverting revenue away from the Social Security Trust Fund, threatening the fund's very future. But the speech was more than a critique of a particular piece of legislation. It was a dissection of the collapse of the American middle class and a well-researched attack on corporate greed and on public policy which, over the last several decades, has led to a huge growth in millionaires even as the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. It was a plea for a fundamental change in national priorities, for government policy that reflects the needs of working families, and not just the wealthy and their lobbyists. Finally, Sanders' speech-published here in its entirety with a new introduction by the senator-is a call for action. It is a passionate statement informing us that the only people who will save the middle class of this country is the middle class itself, but only if it is informed, organized, and prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests dominating Washington.

Being Numerous
Being Numerous

Author: Natasha Lennard

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2021-04-27

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1788734602

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An urgent challenge to the prevailing moral order from one of the freshest, most compelling voices in radical politics today Being Numerous shatters the mainstream consensus on politics and personhood, offering in its place a bracing analysis of a perilous world and how we should live in it. Beginning with an interrogation of what it means to fight fascism, Natasha Lennard explores the limits of individual rights, the criminalization of political dissent, the myths of radical sex, and the ghosts in our lives. At once politically committed and philosophically capacious, Being Numerous is a revaluation of the idea that the personal is political, and situates as the central question of our time—How can we live a non-fascist life?

Hegemony How-To
Hegemony How-To

Author: Jonathan Smucker

Publisher: AK Press

Published: 2017-01-02

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1849352550

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A guide to political struggle for a generation that is deeply ambivalent about power. While many activists gravitate toward mere self-expression and identity-affirming rituals at the expense of serious political intervention, Smucker provides an apologia for leadership, organization, and collective power, a moral argument for its cultivation, and a discussion of dilemmas that movements must navigate in order to succeed.

Protest and Democracy
Protest and Democracy

Author: Moises Arce

Publisher:

Published: 2019-06-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781773854366

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In 2011, political protests sprang up across the world. In the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, the United States unlikely people sparked or led massive protest campaigns from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street. These protests were made up of educated and precariously employed young people who challenged the legitimacy of their political leaders, exposed a failure of representation, and expressed their dissatisfaction with their place in the aftermath of financial and economic crisis. This book interrogates what impacts--if any--this global protest cycle had on politics and policy and shows the sometimes unintended ways it continues to influence contemporary political dynamics throughout the world. Proposing a new framework of analysis that calls attention to the content and claims of protests, their global connections, and the responsiveness of political institutions to protest demands, this is one of the few books that not only asks how protest movements are formed but also provides an in-depth examination of what protest movements can accomplish. With contributions examining the political consequences of protest, the roles of social media and the internet in protest organization, left- and right-wing movements in the United States, Chile's student movements, the Arab Uprisings, and much more this collection is essential reading for all those interested in the power of protest to shape our world.

World Protests
World Protests

Author: Isabel Ortiz

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-11-03

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 3030885135

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This is an open access book. The start of the 21st century has seen the world shaken by protests, from the Arab Spring to the Yellow Vests, from the Occupy movement to the social uprisings in Latin America. There are periods in history when large numbers of people have rebelled against the way things are, demanding change, such as in 1848, 1917, and 1968. Today we are living in another time of outrage and discontent, a time that has already produced some of the largest protests in world history. This book analyzes almost three thousand protests that occurred between 2006 and 2020 in 101 countries covering over 93 per cent of the world population. The study focuses on the major demands driving world protests, such as those for real democracy, jobs, public services, social protection, civil rights, global justice, and those against austerity and corruption. It also analyzes who was demonstrating in each protest; what protest methods they used; who the protestors opposed; what was achieved; whether protests were repressed; and trends such as inequality and the rise of women’s and radical right protests. The book concludes that the demands of protestors in most of the protests surveyed are in full accordance with human rights and internationally agreed-upon UN development goals. The book calls for policy-makers to listen and act on these demands.