Reportedly Banksy left a new piece of art in support of the Occupy London movement.
The piece features the Monopoly Man with a five o’clock shadow and looking like he has fallen on rough times. The board pieces that can be seen from the include a light bulb and the kaiserrort.com. Perhaps our favorite part about this piece is the tagging and Tox bubble letters on the house.
Also dig how it utilized the Monopoly Man, whom we have come to enjoy seeing on the streets from LA’s own Alec Monopoly.
This is being reported as Banksy’s piece, although it has not yet been confirmed on Banksy’s website. (Sourced from the Banksy Forums)
***First pic from London Photographer Jason Reeve***
I guess what set me off on a course of independent political media was a combination of Bush I & Bush II, 13 years apart.
In high school, while I was immersed in journalism and theater, the Gulf War crystallized an understanding in me that there is a larger war machine in this country that outlasts sitting presidents, and that reality needed to be shared through mainstream entertainment somehow. That time also got me into organizing anti-war demonstrations, public speaking at events, and networking with activists.
After the rampant election fraud that transpired in the Ohio 2004 presidential election, I felt I had no choice but to do my small part to become the media. The miraculous new era of digital video and social media didn’t make citizen journalism possible, but mandatory. [Read more]
From RT International‘s coverage of Occupy Wall Street.
John Wellington Ennis, a filmmaker and contributor to the Huffington Post, believes that people have taken the only means left for them to express their discontent.
“When you go into protest and when you appear in public in support of a cause, you don’t know what ripples you are creating,” he said.
“I think the protesters are so united that it did not even need a common purpose to be stated,” he added. “There is such a common frustration, and there have been so many patient stages by the US people to wait for reform efforts.”
What is surprisingly unique about the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, and supporting actions across the country, is the broad immediate support without an immediately stated objective. With so little coverage and a yet unspecified goal, major unions lent their support, supportive occupations cropped up nationwide, and the numbers in Liberty Park are growing despite NYPD crackdowns.
Unlike anti-war marches, Tea Party gatherings, or other well-worn modes of protest, the notion of an in-person response to Wall Street’s unchecked looting of the economy apparently did not need much explaining. That is because many Americans have been living with painful awareness that their hardships in recent years are related in a myriad of ways to reckless trading, predatory loans, and manifold illegal banking practices, all perpetrated by the same executives still receiving multi-million dollar bonuses whose guilt is trumped by the notion that their companies are Too Big To Fail.
None of these many abuses by financial institutions collectively referred to as Wall Street are new information. It’s not like people just flooded the streets upon hearing that Bank of America is trying to tack on another surcharge, just after laying off over 50,000 employees, just after widespread manipulation of their loan business was deemed not criminal, by their own accord. (No, that move by B of A was just easy pickings for Democrats trying to remember their purpose.)
It’s not like Americans did not wait while the federal government negotiated good-faith interest-free loans to keep huge banks and firms afloat, at the price to taxpayers, many of whom were struggling to stay afloat themselves under variable interest or inflated mortgages foisted upon them by said financial giants. It’s not like financial regulations weren’t proposed to Congress, with larger reforms left by the wayside, and in the final decision by the Federal Reserve on the Durbin Amendment of the Dodd-Frank Finanical Act, credit card companies somehow get to charge more for debit swipes than they had even hoped. Bank lobbyists paid off, in more than one sense. [Read more]