Occupy Silicon Valley, ‘Wall Street of the West’
The One Percent are not only the bankers and traders on Wall Street — they're alive and thriving in Silicon Valley. And yet no one is encamped outside of Google in Mountain View or in front of Facebook. The protestors have rather targeted Wall Street and the government. But the new super rich of Silicon Valley have managed to come up in an economy that has shed jobs and houses and social safety nets — and their money allows them to set its rules.
President Obama flies to Silicon Valley and is flattered by the company of the valley's One Percent. Steven Jobs even famously criticized the way the president was doing his job. And the president took it.
At the southern end of Silicon Valley, in front of San Jose's City Hall, there are dozens of Occupy San Jose protesters, championing the call to action that originated with New York's Occupy Wall Street. But at the Martin Luther King Library around the corner, a young rapper named Ookie is showing a photo essay on the impact of closing youth centers and libraries. It's the image of a baggie stuck on a fence of a closed city community center that raises the most anger in the audience. They held an event called "Growing Up Poor" where young people — through photo, video, spoken word — are sharing to a group of policy-makers, advocates, and media what their Silicon Valley looks like in a time when family poverty has climbed to unprecedented levels, and in a place with such a high cost of living, the impact is even more acute.
In San Jose, the city that used to promote itself as the capitol of Silicon Valley, city budget cuts have either eliminated or dramatically slashed hours for youth sanctuaries like libraries and community centers. And for young people, libraries had been the only public spaces left where they could shelter themselves from the fall out of the economy — the escalating violence on the streets, cops, the cold — and as one young poet from a neighborhood in East San Jose that has seen multiple stabbings and shootings in the past few months shared, "A place where you can read James Baldwin before you die."
After Ookie's photo display, the event becomes an amped up strategy session; everyone is ignited to save the libraries and centers. They shout about taking over library commission meetings, or marching on City Hall. But the truth is, City Hall is still part of the 99%, and is broke too.
San Jose is different than all the other Occupy's across the county. For us, the 1% are just up the street — the 101 to be precise. Those tech giants exist in the same Silicon Valley that cannot even keep its library doors open. Why have they not given? Why have we not demanded?
In Silicon Valley, the 99% demanding from the 1% is not hypothetical; we can literally knock on their doors, or more in the spirit of the moment, occupy their space.
Occupy Wall Street has inspired the world in what it started by lifting the veil on a corrupt economic setup. And the general strike at Occupy Oakland turned that protest into an action so real it literally disrupted the flow the economy when it shut down the ports. But an Occupy the 101 movement -- protesting the high-tech firms along California Highway 101, the bastion of Silicon Valley -- might be able to accomplish the most tangible result of all, even if it sounds less revolutionary. It could keep our library doors open. And what's more radical then allowing kids to read Baldwin?
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3 comments on "Occupy Silicon Valley, ‘Wall Street of the West’"
November 17, 2011 4:37pm
HEY OWS and the 99%! Aren’t you angry? Use it!
HIT THESE BASTARDS WHERE IT HURTS. IN THEIR BANK ACCOUNTS.
We have POWER! “Buying Power.” And, it’s about time we used it. Here’s how.
STOP BUYING THINGS. STOP BUYING…EVERYTHING.
WE CAN INSTANTLY STOP THE FLOW OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
STRANGLE THE COMPANIES THAT ARE KILLING US!
Companies want our money, but they don’t want to help America get back on its feet?
We are being starved, now let’s starve those greedy corporations who took our money.
We want companies to hire us, politicians to vote for us, and this is how to force it.
We have an incredible mobile army of millions and millions and millions of people!
Let’s combine the power that we all have. VOTE, by NOT spending.
Stop buying as much as you can. Stop buying from ALL of the big corporations, retailers and banks; Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s, CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger, Costco, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, Sears, Lowe’s, Supervalu, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Georgia Pacific, RJR, Brown & Williamson, Kraft Global, Sara Lee, Tyson, BP, Shell Oil, Exxon Mobile, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Sprint, Dell, Microsoft, Dow Chemical, Chevron, Kimberly-Clark, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Capital One, Ford, Chrysler, GM, Disney, Macy’s, Kohl’s, The Gap, Penny’s, Colgate, Nike, Staples, Office Depot, Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Avon, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Kellogg’s, Dean Foods, General Mills, eBay, etc., All of them!
Add your own companies to our list and pass it on.
Don’t use global banks. Move your money from a big bank to a neighborhood bank.
Don’t use your credit cards or ATM’s…at all.
Don’t shop any retail chain stores. Shop local, or mom and pop shops.
Don’t buy gasoline. Walk, take a bus, car pool, or ride a bike.
Don’t buy any extras like music, movies, electronics, or toys…nothing.
BUY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.
STOP SPENDING OUR BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.
Greedy global companies will be left in shock not knowing what to do.
Wall Street, the oil barons, corporate fat cats, stockholders, executives, marketers, retailers, politicians, and President Obama, will be asking us, the 99%, what we want!
“WE” WILL FORCE WALL STREET AND CORPORATIONS TO HELP AMERICA!
We have already started.
V
November 17, 2011 2:47pm
Yet, take a look at the tax rates Amazon and Google have paid in the last couple of years. Amazon was 4.4% on 4 billion in profits over the last five years. While Amazon is hardly Exxon or GE, they are still stiffing us and I bet they have their lobbyists on Capitol Hill also and are members of the US Chamber of Commerce. Less bad, maybe, but still part of the problem.
November 17, 2011 10:14am
This is FOOLISH. The 99% are not protesting against the 1% per se, or wealth in general. The protests are about undue influence, the policies that allow the upward redistribution and obscene concentration of wealth, and the corruption of Wall Street and the entanglement of corporate special interests and lawmakers. Of course some of the companies in Silicon Valley contribute to the culture of corruption, but it's also a place where the 99% have found some allies in the 1% -- and tech firms are hardly at the front of the corporate juggernaut that's pushing our country off a cliff. It's appropriate that more eyes be on Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and even industries like defense contractors, the prison industry and some other manufacturers ... even more than some of these industries, it's important to keep the blame on policies, lawmakers and corporatist right-wing judges, like the Supreme Court justices who gave us Citizens United v. FEC and a host of other decisions that further stack the deck for the powerful over pe0ple.