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This week on Uprising:

* Occupy Wall Street Regroups, Fights Back
* Special Report from Occupy Los Angeles
* Occupy Wall Street and Struggle for Racial Justice
* Angela Davis on the Importance of Occupy Wall Street
* Insider Trading in Congress Under Scrutiny

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Occupy Wall Street Regroups, Fights Back

This week marked two months since the first tents were pitched in New York and protestors began Occupy Wall Street. The anniversary came only days after New York police raided the Occupy Wall Street camp at the privately owned Zuccotti Park (renamed Liberty Square), destroying their personal belongings, camping gear, and even their 5000 book library. Early Tuesday morning a state judge granted a temporary restraining order, barring the eviction. However later in the day, Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman ruled against the protestors, saying their encampment at Zuccotti was not protected free speech. Occupy New York protestors have been agitating for a return to Zuccotti since, and on Thursday, a day of action included a call to Occupy the New York stock exchange with massive turnout in the city, and solidarity actions elsewhere. Protestors succeeded in delaying the ringing of the New York Stock Exchange bell by 15 minutes on Thursday morning; they also shut-down at least one subway station and blocked traffic in New York’s financial district. Over three hundred people were arrested.

The Occupy movement in the Bay area is in full force. Occupy San Francisco on Wednesday took over a Bank of America branch. There were no reports of vandalism or arrests. And in Berkeley, early on Thursday around 3:30 am, police cleared an encampment set up by Occupy activists on the UC Berkeley campus. All tents were removed and the area bulldozed and two people were arrested. The raid was conducted by more than 100 officers from various agencies including the UC Berkeley campus police. Meanwhile, in Oakland, the District Attorney’s office there has just dropped charges against an undocumented activist with Occupy Oakland, but that won’t stop his impending deportation. Thirty six year old Pancho Ramos Stierle was arrested for “loitering and refusing to disperse from Frank H. Ogawa Plaza” during Oakland riot police’s raid on the Occupy encampment there on Monday. That arrest triggered immigration officials into taking him into custody and beginning deportation proceedings. Although Stierle was released from custody by immigration officials, Alameda County officials are saying they have no power to stop his deportation.

And here in Southern California where Uprising is recorded, Occupy Los Angeles protesters participated in an International Day of Action on Thursday, gathering at 7 am at the Bank of America Plaza along with the coalition, Good Jobs LA. There were acts of civil disobedience and a second encampment set up in the Bank of America Plaza. More than 70 people were arrested.

GUEST: Jim Lafferty, Executive Director of the National Lawyer’s Guild Los Angeles chapter, Mark Lippman, member of Occupy LA’s General Assembly

Occupy Wall Street and the Struggle for Racial Justice

Nationwide Occupy camps are facing antagonism from local governments and falling winter temperatures, testing the resolve of a movement that is nearly two months old and has grown larger than most expected, with recent polls suggesting that about half of Americans support the cause. Organizers within the movement are also faced with tough decisions around strategy, and still face criticism regarding the racial make-up of the movement, namely whether people of color are discouraged from joining and fully participating. Last week in an article for The Nation magazine Rinku Sen weighed in on the topic, writing that racial justice, not simple diversity, was the key to greater success.

GUEST: Rinku Sen Executive Director of the Applied Research Center, Publisher of Colorlines.com; author of The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization and Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing.

Read Rinku Sen’s article on Race and Occupy Wall Street at www.thenation.com/article/164212/race-and-occupy-wall-street

Read Colorlines.com’s coverage of the Occupy Movement and other news at www.colorlines.com.

Angela Davis on the Importance of Occupy Wall Street

Angela Davis is a retired professor at University of California Santa Cruz, and the former director of the University’s Feminist Studies Department. She is also the founder of Critical Resistance, an organization whose goal is to abolish the prison industrial complex. Angela Davis became a household name in the 1970s when she was arrested and imprisoned in connection with a court room murder. The “Free Angela Davis slogan” became a rallying cry among activists across the country who saw her incarceration as symbolic of the mass arrests and police violence targeting leaders in the Black Power and civil rights movements. She was eventually acquitted of all charges. Today Davis remains a giant among progressives. She was recently awarded the Historian of the Lions Award by the Los Angeles based Center for the Study of Political Graphics. She spoke in Los Angeles at CSPG’s 25th Annual Dinner on November 6th, addressing, among other things, the importance of the Occupy movement.

Insider Trading in Congress Under Scrutiny

The public uproar in response to Sunday’s 60 minutes investigation into legalized Congressional insider trading has rattled Washington DC. Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts this week introduced the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge, or STOCK Act. The STOCK Act would prohibit elected officials and staff from trading stock based on information gleaned on pending legislation in meetings and from each other. Government officials can currently trade using non-public information, but so far none will admit to doing so. The man who sparked interest in the issue is Peter Schweizer, a fellow at the conservative think tank, the Hoover Institute, and author of an upcoming book on “soft corruption” in Washington. Talking to Steve Kroft of 60 minutes, Schweizer gave an example of how an elected official could use privileged information for personal gain. 60 minutes specifically investigated the trading activity of three officials, Speaker of the House John Boehner, Congresswomen Nancy Pelosi, and Congressman Spencer Bachus. Pelosi, accused of buying stock in Visa credit card company shortly before legislation harmful to credit card profits died in the House, said 60 minutes crafted a “smear ” piece. Boehner, accused of profiting from knowledge of pending healthcare legislation, and Bachus, accused of making profitable trades after highly sensitive meetings on finance during the economic collapse in 2008, each professed to maintaining a firewall between their jobs and their investments.

GUEST: Craig Holman, Legislative Representative for Public Citizen. He serves as the organization’s Capitol Hill lobbyist on campaign finance and governmental ethics.

Find out more at www.citizen.org.

Watch the 60 minutes special here: http://tinyurl.com/89p8a6u

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Money and corruption are ruining the land, crooked politicians betray the working man, pocketing the profits and treating us like sheep, and we’re tired of hearing promises that we know they’ll never keep.” — Singer/Songwriter Ray Davies of The Kinks