Solidarity Economies

Excerpts from another update received by Other Worlds staff from Liberty Plaza in New York City. 

Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 9:31 PM

Another amazing day in the Plaza.

Over a thousand there at last count this evening - numbers go up and down between around 500 and 1500. A powerful anti oppression workshop took place this evening. Long and wonderfully facilitated assemblies are almost ongoing. They all use the people's microphone, with new terms invented to maintain a positive spirit all the time. Like taking the groups 'temperature', where people respond with hand signals as if on a barometer, or doing 'mic checks' to see if people are getting tired of repeating all the time and maybe need a break.

Thousands of people gathered on Wall Street yesterday. We marched, rallied, and then met in a park to form dozens of horizontal assemblies - some with over 100 people in each.
 

The disconnect between how economists insist the world works and how it actually works has rarely been more obvious than it is right now. Although officially the recession "ended" in the summer of 2009, a year and a half later millions of Americans remain out of work and are struggling to get by.  Even before the financial collapse, decades of economic growth failed to help most workers, whose incomes remained stagnant compared to inflation.