Here is a great article from MSNBC about the IOU/USA sculpture that is in Kansas City across from the Federal Reserve Bank.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44748691/ns/us_news-life/t/iou--foot-high-sculpture-inspired-us-debt/#.TpZjbnOfFq4
Occupy is still going strong. Our march on Sunday was a resounding success, we were on the front page of the Kansas City Star today in a mostly positive article.
There is another march planned for Friday night through the Troost Art Hop and one on Saturday to the Plaza.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
IOU/USA http://occupykc.com
Reprinted Without Permission - Associated Press
Kansas City public art project takes on debt
By MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER , 10.03.11, 08:31 AM fnord EDT
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Across the street from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, a foreboding tower of shipping containers glowers at the building spelling out an in-your-face message: "IOU."
On the other side: "USA."
The 65-foot-high structure by artist John Salvest is made up of 117 carefully-aligned cargo and storage containers - the kind that ply the world's rivers and oceans carrying everything from Hyundais to Happy Meal toys.
The piece is creating a buzz in Kansas City as debate about the national deficit surfaces as a key theme of the upcoming presidential race and budget shortfalls are the top concern in the nation's statehouses.
The artist behind it says the message is open to interpretation. But the symbolism of shipping containers stacked tall in the shadow of the city's Federal Reserve building can be taken as a slap at a government groping for ways out of its debts.
"Obviously the inspiration was the national debt problem," Salvest said in a telephone interview from his home in Jonesboro, Ark., where he teaches at Arkansas State University. "But that trickles down into a lot of peoples' lives, and I think a lot of people are frustrated or angry or worried about their economic well-being."
He added: "Some people are offended by it. One woman said `I feel it's nothing but a big waste of money.' Some have sent me really sweet emails about how it really moved them."
Since the piece went up earlier this month there have been more than 50 visitors a day, said Stacy Switzer, artistic director of Grand Arts, the nonprofit Kansas City gallery and sculpture studio that funded the project.
"We've gotten everything from `When is that ugly thing coming down?' to people coming out of the Fed's Money Museum saying they may not like the looks of it, but they understand it," Switzer said.
Switzer would not say how much the project cost. But she said with renting the containers, hiring a crane to put them in place, paying for round-the-clock security to make sure no one climbs the structure or tags it with graffiti, it is "definitely one of our biggest projects."
The "IOU" side faces the Federal Reserve's new building and is fully visible to employees from windows looking directly out on to the park. Bill Medley, spokesman for the Kansas City Fed, says the bank is not commenting.
Salvest described an installation process that required NASA launch-like precision to line up the containers and bomb-sniffing dogs sent over by the Kansas City Fed to ensure the containers were safe.
So far, the piece has generated discussion, but no incidents.
Michael Mikkelsen, 29, of Kansas City, was among fans of the piece. Mikkelsen was taking part in a protest against the Federal Reserve at the site Friday and said he was excited when he heard that the IOU/USA piece was coming to Kansas City.
"The artwork's awesome," Mikkelsen said. "I think it helps people to like look into the Fed more and understand what they're doing. The way the Fed creates money, they're creating money out of debt instead of having sound money where they're encouraging savings."
The work, which comes down in mid-October, goes beyond the "anger and rhetoric circulating out there and makes us think about what it means to be in our economic situation," said Jan Schall, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.
"It's a very complex work," she said. "To me with one sculptural, monumental-sized installation piece a whole flood of ideas is released for our consideration."
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Day 3 occupykc
I was slow getting this blog started, It had not occured to me before today that I should have a place to put my notes regarding the different stories we all bring to the table. Our beliefs, how we came to those beliefs, in short our stories, our perspectives on what is going on here.
In New York, there have been brutality and mass arrests that I believe were planned ahead pen and fence operations.
We are not "handled" by the same interests in this town. We had pre-emptive contact with our local police force and they reacted positively to our cause, our goals and our peaceful mindset in the occupy movement.
An occupy movement is an evolution of the marches and boycotts. This is what Gandhi was showing could and would work. Gandhi demonstrated that even the British Empire could not stand up to peaceful, unarmed, massive, uncooperative resistance.
Since those years, the jackbooted thugs of the multiple military machines that are sometimes brought together in alliances with NATO or the UN have shown that they are willing to take it to the darthvader limit and they aim to demonstrate that, (Like O'Brien said in 1984) the future looks like 'a boot stomping on a human face - forever.'
We show that this is not necessary, we will occupy and decide what the next step is collectively. The main concerns with Wall Street is that it consists of banking cartels that have warped the meaning of money, they have devised unconscionable ways of buying and selling negatively-valued paper. When some of the banks could not maintain the balance of bad debt (that was not bringing in any money) with the fake assigned value to that paper, they were actually helped by our congress with emergency congressional measures of handing money over to a company.
This only could happen in a world where those banks OWN those congressmen, COLLECTIVELY in such a way that they will do whatever they ask. This is the world that we in fact, live in. Every company of a certain size finds it necessary to contribute to BOTH parties to cover its corporate ass. Every large food company like Kraft, Campbell's, Coca-Cola, Pepsi. Every large gasoline company, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell; Every large military and govenment contractor like Boeing, McDonnellDouglas, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Honeywell, Halliburton, Xe; Every large software company, Apple, Microsoft, Honeywell, Unisys, Oracle, Google, Facebook; Every large car and truck company, Every large industry interest like paper, food, water, electricity, gas, milk, cheese, beef. They all give money to EACH side of our bicameral system.
Why? Because they are the ones making the laws that they pay our congress to pass.
The people have been left out of the process by the false value of money.
That's why we are occupying wall street and by extension why it has spread to other cities.
http://occupykc.com
http://occupytogether.org
https://occupywallst.org/
http://livestream.com/globalrevolution
In New York, there have been brutality and mass arrests that I believe were planned ahead pen and fence operations.
We are not "handled" by the same interests in this town. We had pre-emptive contact with our local police force and they reacted positively to our cause, our goals and our peaceful mindset in the occupy movement.
An occupy movement is an evolution of the marches and boycotts. This is what Gandhi was showing could and would work. Gandhi demonstrated that even the British Empire could not stand up to peaceful, unarmed, massive, uncooperative resistance.
 |
| Power to the Peaceful |
Since those years, the jackbooted thugs of the multiple military machines that are sometimes brought together in alliances with NATO or the UN have shown that they are willing to take it to the darthvader limit and they aim to demonstrate that, (Like O'Brien said in 1984) the future looks like 'a boot stomping on a human face - forever.'
We show that this is not necessary, we will occupy and decide what the next step is collectively. The main concerns with Wall Street is that it consists of banking cartels that have warped the meaning of money, they have devised unconscionable ways of buying and selling negatively-valued paper. When some of the banks could not maintain the balance of bad debt (that was not bringing in any money) with the fake assigned value to that paper, they were actually helped by our congress with emergency congressional measures of handing money over to a company.
This only could happen in a world where those banks OWN those congressmen, COLLECTIVELY in such a way that they will do whatever they ask. This is the world that we in fact, live in. Every company of a certain size finds it necessary to contribute to BOTH parties to cover its corporate ass. Every large food company like Kraft, Campbell's, Coca-Cola, Pepsi. Every large gasoline company, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell; Every large military and govenment contractor like Boeing, McDonnellDouglas, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Honeywell, Halliburton, Xe; Every large software company, Apple, Microsoft, Honeywell, Unisys, Oracle, Google, Facebook; Every large car and truck company, Every large industry interest like paper, food, water, electricity, gas, milk, cheese, beef. They all give money to EACH side of our bicameral system.
Why? Because they are the ones making the laws that they pay our congress to pass.
The people have been left out of the process by the false value of money.
That's why we are occupying wall street and by extension why it has spread to other cities.
http://occupykc.com
http://occupytogether.org
https://occupywallst.org/
http://livestream.com/globalrevolution
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