Occupy Colleges: Berkeley or Penn State

Occupycolleges.org, Wisdom Quarterly, Occupy Cal, Occupy Together

History in the making: Students lock arms as violent police in riot gear move in to beat them in front of Sproul Hall, UC Berkeley campus, Nov. 9 (AP/Ben Margot).

"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come."
- French writer Victor Hugo

Penn State and Berkeley: A Tale of Two Protests

On Wednesday night, two proud universities saw student demonstrations that spiraled into violence [one by police, the other by footballers]. On the campus of Penn... More

Stand up by sitting down: A peaceful movement for peace and justice. Violence for peace and justice has never worked. Because change comes from within, we have to "be the change we want to see in the world."

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious -- makes you so sick at heart -- that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

- Sixties student leader Mario Savio

Occupy Cal (Berkeley) tents on the famous free speech zone of Sproul Plaza surrounded by supporters. Students and faculty staged a walk-out at Occupy SFSU (San Francisco State Univ.) as well protesting budget cuts and fee hikes. Students gathered at UC Davis to protest police brutality and tuition hikes (Occupy Together).

It's not true. But since the New York Times (the most visible manifestation of State propaganda) says it is, people believe it:

Occupy Wall Street protesters shifting to college campuses
Malia Wollan and Elizabeth A. Harris (Nov. 14, 2011)
BERKELEY, California - Goodbye, city park, hello, college green[?] As city officials around the country move to disband Occupy Wall Street encampments amid growing concerns over health and public safety, protesters have begun to erect more tents on college campuses [which was happening long before any camp got disbanded]. “We are trying to... More

• The Nation begins student articles
• Pledge of Nonviolence (ahimsa)
• Become a student journalist
  

A New Student Youth Movement?
UC Berkeley students Caroline and Aaron (Wisdom Quarterly)
Is it true? Is the police state re-turning this into a student protest movement? Look what it did the last time. No, this is not a "youth" movement. This is ALL of us now -- parents, whistleblowers, teachers, labor, monastics, the 99.9%!

What happened in the Sixties when the US war machine was attacking Vietnam (and secretly bombing Cambodia, Laos, and anyone else who stood in its way) was student bulldozing.

War is a way of life at the CIA, Pentagon, and Corporate-Military Complex. This is more true at home than on foreign soil. We are the ones being monitored, controlled, and deprived of rights.

But like fish in a bowl, we are unaware of the water most of the time. Yet it becomes clear when our MIC (military-industrial complex) is annihilating others. What it does it does in the "storm trooper" style of that famous would-be world empire: The jack boots are the same, the insignia a little different, full of badges, batons, and black outfits.

• Occupy Cal makes Occupy history at Berkeley
  
• Occupy protesters move to California universities
• Occupy California (UC Santa Cruz - San Francisco)
  
• Occupy Affiliated ReFund California march on Cal State
• Occupy protesters move to California universities
• Latest developments in the Occupy protests in places...
• VIDEOS: Police, unprovoked, beat Berkeley students
  

• Bay Area Occupy Blog: Occupy Cal takes field trip to SF
  
• Live Blog: Scene calms at Cal; more details from SF raid
  
• Police shoot armed man at UC Berkeley's business school
  
• Occupy Cal protesters vote to pitch tents
  
• Occupy Oakland protester could be deported
  
• VIDEOS: Police clash with Berkeley protesters, Nov. 9th
  
• Occupy Oakland protesters to join Occupy Cal action
  
• Peaceful raid on Oakland tent city likely not the end
  
• Occupy Oakland: Police outnumber protesters at plaza
  
• 'Occupy Martinez' debuts outside Shell refinery
  
• BART reopens 12th St. station after Oakland police raid
  
• Occupy Oakland gets third eviction notice

Why Wall Street is being Occupied (video)

Wisdom Quarterly, Mediaite.com

Are the anti-corporatist ideals of the Occupy Wall Street movement safe on Real Time with Bill Maher? “The don’t really have a coherent message,” Maher complained about the Wall Street “hippies.” His audience loves the O.W.S. ideology. But until candidate Alan Grayson passionately stood up for the cause and got a standing ovation, Maher and his panel mocked the Occupation ruthlessly for their “bongo drums,” disorganization, and incoherence. More

What did Grayson say to get a standing ovation?

• "Wall Street wrecked the economy three years ago -- and nobody's been held responsible for that."
• "Not a single person has been indicted or convicted for destroying 20 percent of our national net worth accumulated over the course of two centuries."
• "Wall Street has iron control over the economic policies of this country."
  
• "One party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street, and the other party caters to them as well."

The Grayson message on The Rachel Maddow Show

• "We should not have 24 million people in this country who can't find a full time job."
• "We should not have 50 million people in this country who can't see a doctor when they're sick."
• "We should not have 47 million people in this country who need government help in order to feed themselves."
• "We should not have 15 million families who owe more on their mortgage than the value of their home."

• OccupyWallStreet.com
• OccupyTheNation.com
• OccupyTogether.org
• October2011.org
• UprisingRadio.org
  
• OccupyEverything.org[?]
• Alan Grayson events: (310) 858-6643

What our Occupy Movement wants

What does the Occupy Movement want?
Wisdom Quarterly at Occupy LA, Berkeley, and Oakland

There are no "demands." But what do we the people, the 99%, want?

(1) An end to corporate rule and stricter regulation of banking greed.
(2) An end to war (American occupations and hegemony around the world, covert actions by CIA/NSA/NSC and other clandestine agencies, and the Pentagon being in charge of US foreign policy).
(3) Jobs.
(4) An end to US prison culture and torture in US jails and abroad by US agents -- and instead a right to an education without being drowned in debt.
(5) Equality: fair treatment of ALL the people in this country.
(6) Government by the people for the people (not by and for corporations).
(7) Participatory-representative democracy that actually represents 99% of we the people.

It might be enough to say that what Americans want is for this country to actually try to live up to the Constitution and Bill of Rights it claims: The right to life, liberty, and not-happiness but at least the right to pursue happiness the way each of us chooses without harming others.

Corporations (in the guise of corporate personhood) are pursuing their happiness at our expense. Corporate rule must end.

• OccupyWallStreet.com
• OccupyTheNation.com
• OccupyTogether.org
• Occupy Wall St. growing and moving fast
  
• Blaming Wall St. and D.C. as protests spread
  

When the nagas wanted to be on the original rebel flag

(OccupyLA.org)

(Wrestlingdivanewyork) Oct. 15, 2011 solidarity march of estimated 10,000+ people in LA.

Occupy America: Join the 99 percent

(occupythenation.com)

Russian and American patriotism (video)

Joe Bendel (Libertas Film Magazine)

Russians were apparently better 1950's style all-American US patriots.

Even though he was badly hung-over, he knew there was a national crisis. Though the bleary-eyed Russian did not know at the time the hard line Communist coup had deposed Mikhail Gorbachev, he saw that Swan Lake was the only program on television. For some reason, the Soviets always broadcasted the Tchaikovsky ballet during periods of internal turmoil. It is telling details like this that connect the personal to the grandly historical in Robin Hessman’s My Perestroika, which screened earlier this year at New Directors/New Films.

A Russophile in high school, Hessman was working for LENFILM, the Soviet film agency based in what was then Leningrad, at the time of the infamous coup. Through her time working and studying in Russia, Hessman developed a keen appreciation for the stoic nobility of average Russian citizens, which is clearly reflected in Perestroika. Using five former classmates as representative everymen, Hessman subjectively presents the last 40-some years of Russian and Soviet history through their reminiscences and home movies. More

Why the World WILL End Tomorrow

Wisdom Quarterly (Photo: 123rf.com)

The Buddha rested between two Sal trees in the midst of countless devas and members of the Sangha. He greeted well wishers, answered questions, and gave his last instructions, passing in joy through the jhanas ("meditative absorptions") with one final exhortation.

When the Buddha was passing away --that is, irreversibly entering parinirvana -- his final words were: "All conditioned things are hurtling towards destruction; work out your liberation with diligence!"

It is not enough to have faith (confidence in the Teacher, Teaching, and well Taught disciples). The value of faith is that it inspires one to investigate.

The purpose of investigation is to set off on a quest to make an end of all suffering.

Drugs do not "end" suffering. Death does not end suffering. Rebirth does not end suffering. What ends suffering?

This one possibility is the final end of all suffering -- nirvana.

• To experience nirvana directly, one must practice (not believe, debate, memorize, study, preach...) the Path of Awakening. The power is in the practice. Ananda knew the more sutras than any monk in the Buddha's time. But he was not enlightened until after the Buddha was gone. Why? Because he had not practiced even though he spent more time with the Buddha than anyone else.

What is the the Path? It combines serenity and insight as the marriage of compassion and wisdom. It is called the Middle Way to complete liberation.

A summary of the Noble Eightfold Path could describe it as cultivating virtue, concentration (samadhi), and wisdom -- all of which support one another. Realizing (not memorizing) the Four Noble Truths is the gateway to the deathless. It establishes one on the supramundane Path.

The world as a whole will not be ending. But "the world" for the individual will end, even now as it passes from this moment. No one will get out alive, which is to say that every personality will undergo transformation into something else. Clinging to identity is painful because one is not anything that can be clung to. There is no use in accepting these things on "faith." Realization is the way to happiness. The bliss of nirvana is within reach. But this is not it.

And whether one strives for wisdom and freedom or sinks into delusion and slavery, the Buddha's last words ring true:

"All conditioned things are hurtling toward destruction; work out your liberation with diligence [mindfulness and clear comprehension]!"

Fully enlightened beings (arhats) are the only beings who do not die. They enter nirvana, which is completely different than death and rebirth. Buddhas point the way, and humans and light beings (devas) are in the best position to reach this ultimate goal (salagram.net).

• Passing away consciously is the greatest journey

The End is Near; Heaven is Nearer (cartoon)

Will we end up in one of the many heavens?WATCH: "The Most Adequate X-mas Ever"

Fundamentalist Christians (FamilyRadio.com) researching and interpreting the Judeo-Christian Bible determined that we have been in the End Times for quite some time.

And the exact date of "Judgment Day" is May 21, 2011 "guaranteed."

• "American Dad" cartoonists say pride is to blame
  

Social psychologists have studied doomsday cults particularly before and after a definite prediction of doom. The remarkable and consistent finding is that failure strengthens rather than destroying them.

Why did the world not end when it "should" have? Could it have been something we did? Was it our prayers? Did we awaken people by bringing their attention to the impending end which is yet to come?

The fact of the matter is, this is not the first end, nor will it be the last. The end is always near. Each individual will face it. But we look for it collectively. The CIA/Shadow Government will oblige us with a simulated Space Invasion, a Second Coming, or some such calamity that will bring us into the (Brave) New World Order of full-spectrum control, conformity, and a precipitous population "adjustment"?

The Many Buddhist Heavens

A Thai Buddhist temple emulating one of the many "mansions" (vimanas) in the many planes of heaven or "space" (Stuck in Customs/Flickr.com)

In Buddhist cosmology, Sakka (Sakra, Indra, Rudra) is the "King of Kings," "Lord of Lords," and the "son-of-god" (Sanskrit, devaputra or "a being born among devas").

He threw out the "demons" (asuras or "titans") when he was reborn as lord among the deva-lords of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three (Tavatimsa). He is king of the lesser Four Great Kings of the heavenly plane (divided into cardinal quadrants) immediately above the Earth.

He was once a human or "son of man" but was reborn among the "gods" (devas) and so is referred to as a "son of god." Change the "a" to a "the," and there we have the Eastern philosophical rudiments of Christianity.

It's no accident that this ancient pre-Buddhist cosmology/mythology was appropriated by early Christians as the great "wisdom of the East" along with the teaching of how to be "born again" into that heaven -- karma or "reaping what is sown."

• Judgment Day! (May 21, 2011?) "There are three things that cannot be kept hidden: the Sun, the Moon, and the Truth" - the Buddha.

(Panic Button 13/Flickr.com)

There will be a tomorrow. And many days after that. The [updated, added to, edited, retranslated] Christian Bible now teaches that one day true believers elected by God to receive salvation [not redeemed by their own actions?] will be raptured (taken up) out of this world to meet the sky-God in the air and forever be with the Lord:

• "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:16,17).

The Wisdom of Malcolm X

"We declare our right on this Earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this Earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary!" - Malcolm X

"The Ballot or The Bullet" was a speech by Malcolm X. It is about the struggle of all disenfranchised people from the example of 1950-1960's American black nationalism, the wish to have a nation where displaced blacks (who were enslaved by early Euro-Americans) can be treated fairly and equally). It was delivered on April 12, 1964 in Detroit, Michigan (Vincent Voice Library, Michigan State University).

• Transcript
• Unedited transcript

"Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention"

Marable’s Exhaustive Biography of the Civil Rights Leader
DemocracyNow.org

Events are being held today, May 19th, across the country to mark what would have been Malcolm X’s 86th birthday. Earlier this year a major new biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention was published. The book’s author, Columbia Univ. Professor Dr. Manning Marable, died at the age of 60 just days before its publication. Two decades in the making, the nearly 600-page biography is described as a re-evaluation of Malcolm X’s life, providing new insights into the circumstances of his assassination [by the American government through the FBI and the war against black America through the FBI's Cointelpro?], as well as raising questions about Malcolm X’s own autobiography. DemocracyNow! speaks with Zaheer Ali, one of the researchers who worked with Dr. Marable on the biography. "In a sense, this book is a kind of iconoclasm in that way, in that it takes Malcolm off of the pedestal to examine him as a human being struggling through these political and religious currents that he was in," says Zaheer. More

Malcolm X versus the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Life in America (animation)

Things turn at minute 7:00 in "Make Mine Freedom" (Harding College)