We are living in a period of increased surveillance, especially electronic, and  the use of police at the local, State, and national level to limit protest and  resistance to an economic and social system that is broken and needs to be revolutionized, transformed. … Grand Juries, especially Federal Grand Juries, have been continually used as tools of political repression and increasingly to jail those who refuse to cooperate with government investigations of radical movements.  … The most recent case and the focus of tonight’s meeting is the Federal Grand Jury that convened in Seattle in July, 2012. This Grand Jury is investigating the May Day demonstration in Seattle on May 1^st of this year.

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Talk on Grand Juries, September 7, 2012 (.docx)

The Occupy Movement in the United States: Revealing the Failure of 21st Century U.S. Capitalism; a Step towards Participatory Socialism
Peter Bohmer, (presented at the University of Havana, June 20, 2012)

The Occupy Movement in the United States is part of a global upsurge that began in Tunisia in December, 2010 and then spread to Egypt and the Middle East, Wisconsin, Chile, Spain, Greece, Wall Street and the rest of the United States and now Quebec. I focus on the United States, particularly the Pacific Northwest where I have been an active participant…

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The Occupy Movement in the U.S.: Revealing the Failure of U.S. Capitalism and Pointing the Way Forward

Peter Bohmer, November 28, 2011, “ There is Some Way Out of Here”

I’d like to take a minute to acknowledge the moment.  So often, we are alienated, or apathetic to the injustices taking place every day.  But we have reached a point where we can no longer accept what is happening.  We have had enough!  The top 1% have pushed us to this and so now, we are in the beginning phase of a global movement.  I think we all know what is at stake and I hope we understand the amount of hard work and dedication it will take to accomplish real economic and social justice and liberation.  We have some differences in our visions of what a just society looks like, but we know it doesn’t look like this…

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Talk at the Washington State Capitol on the Occupy Movement