An exclusive early release just for CrooksandLiars - Occupy America: JENNIE ARNAU’s “Better Luck Next Time” is featured on Occupy This Album scheduled for a 5/15 release through Sony Music with all proceeds from the album going directly to the Occupy Wall Street movement. “Better Luck Next Time” is the follow-up single to Jennie’s 2010 release Chasing Giants (MRI) which was praised by Rolling Stone’s Joe Levy as “her most fully realized set of songs yet. If you care about the struggle for love and happiness - and who among us doesn't? -- This one's for you.”
After being inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement and other worldwide protests and upheavals including those in Egypt, Syria, Greece and Italy to name a few, Jennie approached this track with a sense of urgency. “I immersed myself in listening to protest and folk singers of the past and present including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Ani DiFranco and Steve Earle and they emboldened me to write ‘Better Luck Next Time’. I was actually nervous as I didn’t want to compare myself to such important names but I think I’ve written a song that is uniquely my own and contemporary”.
“I’m really so proud of this song,” says Jennie “I’ve tried a lyrical style that’s out-of-the box for me and really hope I can make a small difference with the song somewhere around the world”.
The past week has brought a flurry of excitement, as the Free Cooper Union effort has led to over 50 students, faculty, and staff maintaining a sit-in occupation inside college President Jamshed Bharucha’s office on the 7th floor of the Foundation Building of the Cooper Union.
This occupation comes in response to the decision to begin charging tuition for the first time, ending a 154 year tradition of free education, as well as in the context of the broader unfolding tuition and student debt crisis across the country.
Many Occupy groups have protested outside in solidarity, The Illuminator has projected on the walls, Occupy Museums delivered sushi for dinner.
We stand in solidarity with the students, faculty, and next generation of art students who have lost this amazing gift from Peter Cooper, education which is “free as air and water.”
This Monday, hundreds of occupiers and climate activists from dozens of groups came together to challenge President Obama on the Keystone XL Pipeline and climate change at large during a fundraiser he was holding with the 1%.
PressTV covered Obama being greeted in NY by Occupy protesters.
The Village Voice blog covers DebtFair, an action initiated by Occupy Museums to draw attention to debt and inequality within the art world. “Turn[ing] art fairs and auctions like Frieze New York and Sotheby’s on their heads” the fairs will display art about debt at many populist venues as well as “in front of banks or ‘more arrestable actions’ inside banks...”
At hyperallergic.com, Debtfair’s mission was described as such: “...to predicate compensation [for an artist] on their debt load, allowing patrons to make direct payments on their student loans or outstanding consumer credit. By correlating the value of an artwork with the fiscal situation of its producer, it’s an objection to capitalist exchange...”
The Arts and Labor Working Group, along with various affected unions, has been agitating for changes in the hiring practices of the Frieze New York art fair. Letters were sent out recently asking participants to boycott over Frieze’s unfair use of non-union labor.
Artist Molly Crabapple talks about her new paintings, entitled "The Shell Game" and her documentary drawings of global turmoil in 2011, including the rise of Occupy Wall Street, Anonymous hackers, the health insurance crisis, the Tunisian Revolution, protests in Greece, and the Spanish M15 movement.
Crabapple's paintings portray a darkly humorous year in cartoonish figures, and just ended their first showing in New York City.
While "Shell Game" bursts with depictions of corruption and violence, for Crabapple, the past few years have been a mix of birth amid destruction. "Yes, it was awful, but it was also magic, she told Wired in an interview. "It was the magic of people speaking to each other, waking up, helping each other. For every person beaten up, everyone arrested, it was also a year of fierce aliveness."
Molly has generously released "The Shell Game" art on Creative Commons for non-commercial use only and attribution is mandatory.
The May Day celebrations here in NYC were full of joy!
To give you just a taste of what transpired, many Occupiers helped organize and took part in a Free University in Cooper Square Park, outside of Cooper Union, the art school besieged by their greedy and inept Trustees who have decided to charge tuition for the first time since its founding, against the express conditions under which Peter Cooper set up the school. Courses included “Organizing a NYC Student Movement,” “Understanding Basic Economics and Finance,” “Imagining a Student-Worker Run University,” “Climate Debt/Climate Justice,” and “Building a Commons in NYC.”
The OWS Screenprinters Coop were busy at work in Union Square during the May Day rally, screenprinting t-shirts and upcycled materials brought by the public. The design, from the 1968 French student riots - “Beauty is in the Street.”
Thousands of people marched about 2 1/2 miles from the Central District toward Seattle's downtown Jackson Federal Building on Wednesday after a May Day rally supporting immigrant rights and labor.
Many carried signs, with messages such as "We are America," and "There are no illegal humans." One sign suggested forgetting about marijuana and instead asking the United States to "Legalize my mom," a reference to Washington's recent legalization of marijuana.
The crowd chanted "Si se peude," Spanish for "Yes, we can," and a rallying cry for the United Farm Workers. Many wore bright purple, red or orange shirts, identifying them with their unions.
Also in Seattle, a May Day protester says a motorcycle cop ran over his bicycle. Also a look at May Day in Olympia, Washington.
It's May Day in Berlin! Hundreds of thousands of people were on the streets of Berlin all day on Wednesday, celebrating May Day. There were no cars, no traffic, no people at work, only people dancing, kissing, drinking and enjoying life. At least until the May Day march entered the banking district...
Clashes took place in Berlin during May Day protests. Part of the demonstrators broke the glass of Sparkasse Bank in central Berlin. Earlier on masked youth through bottles and other objects towards police vans and police officers. As a result the police came closer to the protest and accompanied them until the march ended.
Vermont:
Over 1500 people from across the state of Vermont came together on this day in historic show of unity, to say that the people of Vermont want a state that "PUT PEOPLE FIRST."
Dozens of organizations and communities united to hold the annual May Day march and a day of action in front of the State House.
Some of the sights and sounds of May Day 2013 at Union Square Park in NYC, just a fun day in the sun celebrating workers, unions...
Turkey: Clashes have erupted in Istanbul as 20,000 police attempted to cordon off Taksim Square.
Protesters are attempting to defy a government ban on May Day celebrations in the square.
Having allowed labour day gatherings for the last three years, the Turkish authorities did not grant permission due to safety concerns. The central square is undergoing major renovation. All transport to the area was canceled.
Amsterdam: May Day protesters march through the center of Amsterdam.
It's May Day, and Occupy Wall Street will be acting in force across New York City.
Join us on this day of celebration and agitation for the struggles of workers the world over. As the May Day music video "We Stand For Justice" depicts.
"We stand for justice. We know what it feels like. We stand together, for justice we will fight!"
Indeed, the most important way you can show your support is by joining us in the streets on May Day. But we also need financial and material resources to spread the word and to support actions.
We begin the day early in 2 groups: Uptown (meeting in Bryant Park at 10am) and Downtown (meeting in Union Sq at 11am). After marching with different groups, we’ll meet back at Union Square for more performances, especially game time at 4pm!
The Free University of NYC invites neighborhood organizations, schools, unions, spiritual centers, and other community education-oriented groups to create your own Free Universities this May 1st. The impetus behind this May Day call to education is to encourage local communities to host your own gatherings of free education to ensure they’re directly relevant and empowering on a ground level.
Join immigrants and workers this May Day as we highlight the daily struggles facing immigrants and workers in New York City. We will visit several workplaces in midtown to demand an end to exploitation of immigrant workers, ending at Schumer's office for a speak-out on what real immigration reform looks like.
Join 99 Pickets, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, and allies as we march on employers around Union Square to demand fair pay and justice for all workers. We'll be visiting the offices of Frieze Art Fair to call for a fairer art world, Wendy's to support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Travel Channel to support members of the Writers Guild. Gather at 2:30pm in the NE corner of Union Square; we'll leave at 3pm. Look for Rude Mechanical Orchestra!
Everybody Now! is a choir that you join as soon as you start to sing (or whisper or hum). On May Day, we will be sharing this song, "We Stand For Justice", at the beginning of the rally at Union Square, and we would love to you to lift your voice and sing with us! Our goal is to make it as resonant and contagious as possible - ideally everyone at the rally will feel empowered and excited to sing along! Listen to a demo of the song and meet us at the SE corner of Union Square (14th St between Broadway and Lafayette, right across from the Duane Reade) AND THEN SING WITH US IN THE RALLY AT 4 PM!!
Joint rally with the May 1st Coalition; the Alliance for Labor Rights, Immigrant Rights and Jobs for All; immigrant rights groups; and Occupy Wall Street. The rally will be a mix of speakers and entertainment drawing attention to the struggles and victories of labor unions, workers, immigrants and the 99%. Followed by a march down Broadway to City Hall.
This Assembly will be the first in a series of monthly People's Assemblies that will take place on the first Wednesday of each month. What do we have in common, how do our experiences vary, and what can we build together? As the march ends, gather in Foley Square starting at 7pm. We will split into multiple groups based on the struggles, campaigns and people present.
Emphasis on current labor struggles, ending Police Murder and Brutality, stop & frisk, mass incarceration and the War on Black and Brown People, justice for victims of Hurricane Sandy and building Occupy Wall Street to truly reflect and fight for all of the people in New York City.
We are Anonymous. We hereby call forth this May 1st a Global Day Of Resistance. We call upon every person in the world, every city or town, every country; Unite, rise up - and take back the public commons from the oppressors. March in your streets, occupy public space - be free and reclaim your world. And stay. Become part of a world-wide "Global Spring". From Idle No More in Canada to the pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain, on May 1st let us shake the world and the very foundations of all power and authority.
Anonymous will use all the tools at our disposal to facilitate and encourage this Global Day of Awakening. We are tired of having activists around the world hunted, jailed - and abused. We are tired of watching our own fall. And so Anonymous will stand with our freedom loving comrades all over the world and in unity raise our fist to the sky and shout: We Are Not Afraid!
