KPFA COVERS THE OCCUPIED MOVEMENT
Since day one KPFA has been on the Occupy story. We have opened up space for the Occupy community to broadcast on our airwaves. And we will continue to cover the most important movement to explode on the scene in many years.
In New York, at Pacifica’s WBAI, there is now a five-day-a-week OCCUPY WALL STREET RADIO program. The Occupy movement offers KPFA and Pacifica a new audience; and we offer the movement more than 60 years of experience covering social change movements in the U.S. and around the world.
The Occupy movement is the brainchild of Canadian-based agitational Culture Jammers, Adbusters. The Adbusters Media Foundation is a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist, pro-environment organization founded in 1989 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The foundation describes itself as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age."
Characterized by some as anti-capitalist or opposed to capitalism it publishes the reader-supported, advertising-free Adbusters, an activist magazine with an international circulation of 120,000 devoted to challenging consumerism. Past and present contributors to the magazine include Christopher Hedges, Matt Taibbi, Bill McKibben, Jim Munroe, Douglas Rushkoff, Jonathan Barnbrook, David Graeber, Simon Critchley, Slavoj Zizek, Michael Hardt and others.
Adbusters has launched numerous international campaigns, including Buy Nothing Day, TV Turnoff Week and Occupy Wall Street, and is known for their "subvertisements" that spoof popular advertisements. In English, Adbusters has bi-monthly American, Canadian, Australian, UK and International editions of each issue. Adbusters's sister organizations include Résistance à l'Aggression Publicitaire and Casseurs de Pu in France, Adbusters Norge in Norway, Adbusters Sverige in Sweden and Culture Jammers in Japan.
The initial phase of the #OCCUPY movement was marked by several weeks of viral 
growth that peaked on October 15 with a global day of action. The next phase turned towards addressing the deep philosophical and strategic questions of how to escalate this democracy moment into a revolutionary people's movement. Across the nation there are clear signs that the #OCCUPY movement is simultaneously maturing and growing more militant.
Of the many questions swirling around #OCCUPY, the most challenging is how to gel into a global movement without sacrificing the decentralized, leaderless model. There is a widespread acknowledgment that there are challenges that can only be dealt with on a global scale, such as a climate change accord and overturning international casino capitalism, and that we must therefore forge a globally united people's movement. However, there is also a growing recognition that the general assembly model that has worked beautifully thus far may be fundamentally limited on a structural level.
A breakthrough came in New York City General Assembly where the structure working group proposed, and the general assembly accepted, the adoption of a modified spokes council model works in conjunction with the general assembly.
This lays the foundation for a regional, national and potentially international spokes council, something that both #OCCUPYPHILLY and The 99 Percent Declaration have been pushing for. We are beginning to see how the #OCCUPY movement will elevate itself into an international force.
Meanwhile, the power center of the movement is shifting away from the East Coast towards the West. On Wednesday November 2nd, #OCCUPYOAKLAND organized a General Strike. Solidarity actions are planned in occupations nationwide. Within the movement, there is a sense that this may be a turning point as militant tactics come to the fore and direct confrontation with the structures of the corporate-state becomes the norm.
Other sparks on the horizon include the November 5 Transition Day/Bank Transfer Day, the November 25 Buy Nothing Day kick off to #OCCUPYXMAS and the December 10 Global Day of Action which was proposed this week by the international network behind the blast on October 15.
OCCUPY LINKS
Occupy San Francisco
Occupy Oakland
Occupy Wall Street
Adbusters
Videos
OLM News Coverage of Occupy Oakland.. Intv w/ former Black Panther chair Elaine Brown
My Citizen Report from the Oakland Strike on Nov. 2nd 2011, by Carlos Bazua. (English and Spanish)
