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This week on Uprising:

* A report from Occupy DC with Kevin Zeese
* Participatory Democracy At the Occupy Movements
* Mumia Abu Jamal on the Occupy Wall Street Movement
* Lt. Dan Choi Speaks Out at Occupy LA
* Roberto Lovato and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Analyze the Occupy Wall Street Movements

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A report from Occupy DC

Fearful of being evicted from their nearly month-long encampment that has sparked a global movement, members of Occupy Wall Street organized a national campaign to remain in Zucotti park. The park is close to Wall Street and protesters were informed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that they would have to temporarily vacate it for a planned cleanup. Zucotti Park is a privately owned public space, and early on Friday, the Mayor tweeted that the owner of the Park, Brookfield Properties, decided to postpone the cleaning. Victorious protesters marched that morning, and clashed with the NYPD. NBC reports that some protesters threw bottles and a garbage can at police on horses and scooters who were attempting to stop the march. At least ten people were reported to have been arrested. A global demonstration has been announced for Saturday October 15th, when people in over 950 cities will protest “in an international day of solidarity against the greed and corruption of the 1%.” Meanwhile, demonstrations that began in Washington DC on October 6th against the war in Afghanistan took up the Occupy Wall Street banner early on and have remained in Freedom Plaza. They have also planned rallies on Saturday October 15th in solidarity with the global demonstrations and are also considering marching on K Street in DC, a center of corporate lobbying. This week, members of the Occupy DC coalition disrupted a Senate Finance Committee meeting during discussion on a raft of Free Trade deals with Columbia, Panama, and South Korea. Earlier that morning, Capitol police arrested 6 protestors inside of the Senate’s Hart Building. One participant told the Washington Post that a few hundred protestors occupied the building for half and hour, chanting, “How do you fix the deficit? End the Wars! Tax the rich!” before the arrests began.

GUEST: Kevin Zeese, organizer with October2011.org.

Participatory Democracy At the Occupy Movements

People in hundreds of cities have set up “occupations” against economic injustice across the country and even in many other nations, calling attention to the extent of corporate greed during the Great Recession. The rallying cry that 1% of Americans own nearly 40% of the nation’s wealth has struck a chord among the 99% of Americans that the protesters say they represent. Echoes of “we are the 99%” have prompted in-depth media coverage of crucial issues like wealth inequality and the impact of the recession on the majority of Americans. While the various occupy encampments have not necessarily articulated clear demands, some assert that there is broad unity over the general sentiment that the current economic reality is untenable, and that having demands could actually limit the movement toward reformist goals. On the surface, the Occupy movements are leaderless, using an innovative method of consensus decision making to come to agreement and foster democratic participation. Here in Los Angeles where this program is recorded, the Occupy LA encampment is in full force in front of the LA City Hall in downtown. They too have adopted similar decision making methods and today we get a primer on this form of participatory democracy.

GUEST: Anastasia Krylov, chief food coordinator at Occupy LA

Mumia Abu Jamal on the Occupy Wall Street Movement

Mumia Abu Jamal is a political prisoner and an award winning journalist. In a victory for prison rights advocates internationally, the US Supreme Court this Tuesday refused to hear a petition by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office seeking to reinstate the death penalty against him. If the Philly DA decides not to conduct a new sentencing hearing – which could raise new evidence in favor of Abu Jamal – he will continue to serve out a life sentence without the possibility of parole and be spared the death penalty. Mumia Abu Jamal’s radio commentaries are heard around the world, enabling him to reach beyond the confines of prison to express his political views. He recently filed a commentary about the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Listen to Abu Jamal’s commentaries online at www.prisonradio.org.

Lt. Dan Choi Speaks Out at Occupy LA

Here in Los Angeles where the Occupy LA movement is in full force, I met Lt. Dan Choi, prominent gay rights activist who was visiting Los Angeles from Washington DC where he is based.

GUEST: Dan Choi is perhaps best known for his opposition to the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. He was discharged from the Army for revealing his sexual orientation and arrested in at least three protests in front of the White House against the now-defunct policy. Choi is in the process of attempting to re-enlist but has maintained and expanded his activism. He joined with the environmental movement against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would transport dirty tar-sands across the US earlier this year. Choi has also expressed solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protests and in an interview this week from Occupy LA, he made the connections between the intersecting causes he support.

Roberto Lovato and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Analyze the Occupy Wall Street Movements

A poll conducted by Time Magazine this week found that the Occupy Wall Street movement is twice as popular than the Tea Party. Fifty four percent think favorably of the growing movement for economic justice, compared to 27% support for the Tea party. The mainstream media has been comparing the two movements, in what many Occupy Wall Street protesters deem is an unfair manner, given the Astroturf nature of the Tea Party. Progressive analysts are examining the new movement in great detail. News commentator and writer Roberto Lovato has analyzed the movement in his article, ‘Our Berlin Wall Is Breaking’: Taking on Wall Streets Dictatorship’ originally published on his blog Of America. Lovato identifies the underlying message of the Occupy Wall Street movement as a dethroning of “Big Corporate Control.” He also predicts that ultimately the two major political parties will try to co-opt the movement for their own political ends as the next election draws near. Activist and academic Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz recently reflected on the link between corporate power and the foundation of this movement saying, “The protestors may not make the connection consciously, but their passionate actions are for the liberation from the market that now enslaves the 99 percent of the world peoples.”

GUESTS: Roberto Lovato is a writer and commentator at New America Media, a strategy consultant and a Co-Founder of Presente.org, the country’s pre-eminent online Latino advocacy organization, with a membership of over 250,000 people. In March 2011, Roberto was awarded a crisis reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center and, a month later, readers of Alternet voted him one of the country’s “Most Influential Progressives” in media. He blogs at www.ofamerica.wordpress.com;

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a long-time activist and author whose books include “Red Dirt: Growing up Okie,” “Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975,” “Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War,” and “Roots of Resistance.” She is professor emeritus in the Department of Ethnic Studies at California State University East Bay in Hayward, California, and her forthcoming book is called “Myth and Empire: Indigenous History of the United States.”

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.” — Alexis de Tocqueville