Saturday, April 28, 2012


Great poem/slide/videos from Edward Williams!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

This is the end, my friend...

Today they declared the end of public education in Philadelphia. 

And with this crime, they have surely murdered the last hope for democracy.

First they defund the schools. Then they tell us they don't work. Then they privatize them. Pretty much the same pattern they've been using on every public service. Underfund them. Starve them. Claim they don't work. Buy them for profit. Where all our public services are going, and of what little remains of our our Commons.

The full realization of this theft... the report yesterday of the end of public education in Philadelphia (and don't fool yourself--that's exactly what it is!) has been hard to absorb... just how historically significant, --is almost impossible to comprehend. Made more difficult by the near indifference of the public.

Walking down a street in Center City I remembered my feelings, riding to the cemetery after my grandfather died, seeing people on the street--realizing we inhabited at that moment, different universes, different realities.
There are no words, no names adequate for the enormity of the crimes done to us--being done to us...impossible to fathom the consequences--though the mad scramble to build more prisons certainly suggests that there are those who have more than an intimation of what's in store.
A response anywhere close to proportionate to the outrage would have had 2 million people on the streets this morning storming City Hall, the banks, marching to Harrisburg with blood in their eyes... which explains the militarization of our municipal police, the riot tanks, the drones on the drawing boards, the new prisons... cause sooner or later it's going to come to that. The longer it takes, the worse it's going to be. And from what I see and hear, it's going to be worse than anyone can now imagine.





Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Three Occupy poems up on Occupy.com


Chapbooks available now!


Occupy Spring!  The Crows have Landed! 



City of Crows
$8.00 ($9.00 with postage)

Chronic Chronos Kairos, Damask Press
Limited Edition, hand printed  $12.00

Framable 18x11 hand printed broadside $8.00
Jacob Russell
check or money order
1304 Morris Street
Phila PA 19148

City of Crows Also Available from
Plan B Press

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Strategic targeted mobile occupatioins


Talking with Michael Mizner at Independence Mall today. He said he’d been talking with a few others about moving the day time occupation/ nighttime sidewalk sleep-in to in front of the city stock exchange. I only wish there were enough to do both. I really like the Independence Mall sitting occupation, but Mizner’s point that we’re mostly visible only to tourists here made sense. … then got to thinking

What I like about the blank-sleeps and the continuing presence at Independence Mall (day 12 today!)… is the way it fits the principles of guerrilla, asymmetrical struggles. You don’t mass all your forces in one spot and sit there waiting to be crushed—you hit one place, disappear & show up somewhere else. Maybe several places at once—spreading out police without weakening our own actions.

I’m thinking, what this needs is strategic targeting—mobile occupations, planning for each move—targeting key structures in the system and over time, tying them together to illustrate how they work together. Each type of target creates different opportunities for coalition building—the Wells Fargo campaigns are a perfect example, expanding the message to cover the banking and financial system, forging tactical alliances with groups like Fight for Philly, moving out to housing & foreclosures.

So we could do this…say, at the transportation centers, Frankford, Eire Ave—do the research, have information, send press releases. A whole range of issues here—maybe with a simul at a couple of the Pendot centers (public transit & private auto… relative public expenditures—roads hiways versus transit, comparative impact on urban infrastructure. Be there for days, a couple of week.  And connect with those most affected. Hey, a post 2 AM news conference teach in at each end of the Frankford Shuttle—which is the work-life line for the cities working poor, orderlies, low end restaurant workers, nursing home workers, those who clean up the office towers in Center City.

Outside of the welfare offices…

The Food distribution centers on the river…

Move from one to the other over the course of a season, several months. Planned, strategic actions with multiple educational benefits, connecting with the cities REAL working infrastructure and those who make everything go… or not.

and who knows… after a year or so, we might have a large enough assemblage of those we’ve connected with—and learned from—to talk SERIOUSLY about a general strike.


Thursday, April 5, 2012

Samantha Sassafras Shain

...does amazing graphic narratives... here's her blog, and poems. Get to know her--she's awesome!