Homeless allies’ plight haunts Occupy protesters
For many of those who spent their nights at the Occupy Boston encampment, Dewey Square was not just a meeting place – it was a home.
In the nearly two weeks since Mayor Thomas M. Menino ordered the closing of the Financial District camp, the movement has scrambled to find housing for some of its most vulnerable members.
And for many involved in Occupy Boston, the challenge of finding shelter for those people every night has opened a window onto the vast complexity of homelessness, framed by substance abuse, mental health issues, and economic forces.
http://tinyurl.com/87p22p3
OWS metamorphosis three months later
(video)
Joseph Ramsey, a member of Occupy Boston, joins us (RT) to discuss how the Occupy movement is doing nationwide.
http://tinyurl.com/bl8huuj
Ocupemos el Barrio: A Growing Voice Within the 99 Percent
They marched and chanted and gave speeches, lamenting the ills of corporate greed. But these are not your typical Occupy Boston protesters.
Meet Ocupemos el Barrio, a group comprised of Latinos from all walks of life. Its participants say they formed the group to address issues within the larger Occupy Wall Street movement, matters – namely, immigration – specific to Latino concerns. It is one of a handful of so-called affinity groups that have emerged since the Occupy protestors first hit the streets.
At its first public rally earlier this month, Ocupemos el Barrio staged a protest in front of the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in downtown Boston, home to the offices of Immigration Customs and Enforcement, in part to highlight the 400,000 deportations that have been carried out under the Obama administration.
http://tinyurl.com/7o7kqb9
Occupy Somerville protestors look to spread their message
Wednesday night was the first “general assembly” for Occupy Somerville, held in Davis Square’s Statue Park. Before making plans for the local movement, the crowd opened the floor up to an airing of grievances.
“I’m angry that my money is being used to subsidize big corporations,” said Lynette Culverhouse, of Arlington. “I’m tired of having my money go to bail out big banks.”
Others complained about the large number of people incarcerated in the country – 7.2 million, as of 2009, according to federal stats – the dearth of affordable housing, and upcoming subway and bus fare increases, which inspired a shout of “Occupy the T.”
http://tinyurl.com/6o2td4q
Will Latino Groups Choose To Occupy?
In late October, Tatiana Maurin made her way to Deutsche Bank’s offices at 60 Wall St. She was just one of a few dozen immigrant voices from Colombia, Argentina, Guatemala and Spain attending a weekly Occupy Wall Street (OWS) meeting in Spanish held in front of the bank.
Maurin, 34, was born in Argentina and raised in Venezuela but now lives in Queens, where she runs a small organization helping Latino families fight foreclosure. “We fight against the banks so people don’t lose their homes,” Maurin says. “This especially impacts the Latino community.”
http://tinyurl.com/6vjh3l7
If Occupy’s radicalism breeds reform, it won’t be the first time
The idea of the occupation-of a class revolt against the power of big money-has outlasted Zuccotti Park. For their movement to endure, and to have a lasting impact not just on the national consciousness but on policy as well, the Occupiers might take a lesson from the Populists. The People’s Party exploded on the American scene and quickly faded, though its platform did not. After years of ferment and debate, the party made what were once considered radical demands. It called for a progressive income tax, some form of social security, workplace regulation, banking regulation. It sought the secret ballot and direct election of senators. The hard-core Populists remained on the fringes, shouting to be heard, refusing to be co-opted, holding fast to their dream of a cooperative commonwealth. Yet much of what they envisioned came to pass within 40 years of the party’s flameout in the 1890s.
I expect the hard core of OWS will also shout from the outside looking in. The Occupiers have no interest in accommodating mere parties that play by the old rules. They want to raise consciousness-transform consciousness-and this they have already accomplished. That OWS calls for revolution is, perhaps, the first step toward reform.
http://tinyurl.com/d8o8uf6
Fleet of Wahhhhhmbulances Arrive to Carry Off Grieving 1%
I’ve tended to ignore the litany of “poor oppressed rich folks” articles that have popped up over the last year. It has been exhilarating to see those who get every advantage in American life so weepy because some of the unwashed masses have decided not to love them unconditionally anymore. But it’s just kind of a broken record at this point, and it’s an attempt to work the refs on Capitol Hill so they get even more favorable policies. That’s a game I’m not interested in helping them play.
However, you do have to marvel at the way in which the 1% tries to pull off this trick, as if a commentary on income inequality above where it was during the Roman empire is actually just an attack on their character. A case in point:
http://tinyurl.com/6vx2db9
Obama and Geithner: Government, Enron-Style
The notion that what Wall Street firms did was merely unethical and not illegal is not just mistaken but preposterous: most everyone who works in the financial services industry understands that fraud right now is not just pervasive but epidemic, with many of the biggest banks committing entire departments to the routine commission of fraud and perjury – every single one of the major banks, for instance, devotes significant manpower to robosigning affidavits for foreclosures and credit card judgments, acts which are openly and inarguably criminal.
Banks and hedge funds routinely withhold derogatory information about the instruments they sell, they routinely trade on insider information or ahead of their own clients’ orders, and corrupt accounting is so rampant now that industry analysts have begun to figure in estimated levels of fraud in their examinations of the public disclosures of major financial companies.
http://tinyurl.com/brgm38h
NY top court allows private securities claims, opening door to flood of lawsuits against investment companies
New York’s top court ruled Tuesday that securities fraud enforcement by the state attorney general doesn’t pre-empt private common-law suits against investment companies, keeping the door open to billions of dollars in claims by those hurt in the Wall Street crash.
http://tinyurl.com/6qd5xh5
President Obama’s view of fraud “from 40,000 feet” (without an oxygen mask)
Hallucinations occur at high altitude when you become oxygen deprived. Let’s review the bidding on the Bush/Obama record in prosecuting the elite control frauds that drove the ongoing crisis. There are no convictions of the Wall Street elites that made, purchased, packaged, and sold millions of fraudulent liar’s loans. There are no federal prosecutions of the major banks that committed over 100,000 fraudulent foreclosures. There are a few settlements that sound like large dollar amounts, but are merely what even Obama concedes to be the (deeply inadequate) “cost of doing (fraudulent) business.” Fraud pays – it pays enormously and our elites now commit it with impunity as a means of becoming wealthy. We have just witnessed the travesty of Wachovia admitting to criminal conduct in their (grotesquely weak) settlement with the Department of Justice (which has a policy of no longer prosecuting large corporations that commit crimes) – and having the SEC refuse to require Wachovia to make similar admissions in its settlement. All this, the President implicitly or even explicitly concedes.
But the President asserts: “I can tell you, just from 40,000 feet, that some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn’t illegal.”
http://tinyurl.com/7ceqmwn
How “Occupy Our Homes” Speaks to Communities of Color – Housing is Essential to Economic Equality
The 99 Percent movement hit Main Street earlier this month as protesters began reclaiming bank-owned homes and other properties at risk of foreclosure or eviction. Activists are gathering at homes of people such as Mary Lee Ward, an 82-year-old Brooklyn resident who is struggling to fend off foreclosure procedures on her home of 44 years after falling victim to a mortgage refinancing scam.
The home mortgage market is a worthy target of the collective angst of the 99 Percent. Today’s leaden housing market has brought unmanageable debt and economic insecurity to millions of American families, while the financial institutions that pursued reckless lending policies and brought us a global financial crisis have been given taxpayer assistance and shown government leniency.
http://tinyurl.com/dx47ebn
American Prospect: OWS update (national)
This week saw the continuation of two hunger strikes, one by occupiers in New York demanding an occupation space, and another by occupiers in DC demanding full congressional representation for the district. Activists continued taking foreclosed homes, including a “Home for the Holidays” home occupation kicked off Friday by Occupy Boston and City Life. Occupy delegations from multiple cities converged yesterday in Fort Meade, Maryland, where PFC Bradley Manning faces pre-trial hearings over alleged leaking to WikiLeaks. Saturday at noon, Wall Street occupiers marked their three-month anniversary with “an all-day performance event”-and some plan to begin a new occupation.
The future of blue collar work: Temp agencies, outsourcing and lasting poverty
In the case of the warehouse industry, where permanent temps are now common, many workers performing the most difficult jobs don’t even enjoy the status of basic employees. They work at the pleasure of the agencies employing them. For many of them, getting hurt or slowing down means the end of their gig with no parting compensation — similar to the arrangement detailed in a devastating expose of an Amazon warehouse by the Pennsylvania Morning Call in September.
“We have the re-industrialization of America in this distribution nexus,” says Lichtenstein. “It’s a booming sector of our economy. The kind of work they do is factory labor, and they should be earning [good wages] with benefits. But instead, it’s insecure, and it’s low-wage. “This is the blue-collar working class that should be replacing the steel worker,” he says.
The Richest Members of the US Congress 2011
(slideshow)
Occupy protesters indicted on felony charges in Houston
Seven Occupy Houston protesters were indicted on felony charges by a grand jury on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office says, in connection with their demonstration at the local port as part of a national day of action by the movement.
The decision comes nearly a week after a judge initially dismissed the charges, saying the protesters could not be charged with possessing or using a “criminal instrument” – a felony in Texas – for their use of PVC pipe. The protesters had put their arms through the pipe and used latches on it to connect together, making their arrest more difficult but not preventing it, said one of their attorneys, Daphne Silverman, of the National Lawyer’s Guild.
http://tinyurl.com/79jnyfu
Denver protest camp set ablaze in clash with police
A holdout group of anti-Wall Street protesters set fire to their tent camp in downtown Denver during an overnight raid by police that dismantled the site, authorities said on Tuesday.
Occupy Crackdown: CIA plays new version of ‘I Won’t Tell You’
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is refusing to process a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that would reveal what role, if any, the agency has played in law enforcement’s coordinated, nationwide campaign to shut down and evict Occupy movement encampments in cities throughout the country.
The FOIA demand for records was filed by the Washington D.C.-based civil rights legal organization, the Partnership for Civil Justice (PCJF).
The language used by the agency to announce its refusal to process the FOIA request concerning its role in the crackdown on the Occupy movement is “a classic case of CIA-double speak,” according to the attorneys at the PCJF.
Is Occupy Wall Street The New Civil Rights Movement?
Despite challenges – like winter weather and the destruction of most of the major encampments – the occupiers do not seem to have lost their momentum. In fact, it appears the number of participants is growing. With these new challenges, occupiers’ tactics are continually changing on a day-to-day basis. One tactic, however, that has not changed is the protesters’ commitment to acts of non-violent, civil disobedience. This has led many experts to compare and contrast occupy to that of the civil rights movement and other major social movements.
http://tinyurl.com/72nxlvk
Occupying Jesus and His Church
It is an inconvenient truth for mainstream and right-wing Christians that Jesus was crucified for taking his protest against income inequality to the power center of Jerusalem, where he challenged how money had perverted religious principles. Now, that tension is returning with the Occupy protests, Rev. Howard Bess says.
How Student Debt Changed One Woman’s Mind on “Christian Charity”
If you feel that this is solely my fault, that I should have known better, and that the predatory lenders in question bear no responsibility, I invite you to stop calling yourself my “friend.” Which you won’t like, because evangelicals really love that word, “friendship.”
Here’s the thing: I almost never experience you as people who understand what real-world friendship is about. Friendship, true friendship, doesn’t come in the form of paternalistic charity from the powerful to the weak. I don’t want crumbs from your share of the non-profit industrial complex charity, I want you to fight with me for a world where I don’t need charity.
So stand up and join the class war, please, or get out of my way. Do not expect me to be grateful for your prayers. I have survival to worry about, literally.
http://tinyurl.com/c8lml9b
EU fails to raise 200-billion-euro fund as small nations suffer
The EU has failed to raise 200 billion euros to fund an IMF rescue loan for its indebted members. The sum was promised at a summit of EU leaders 10 days ago, and the fact that it has not materialized signals further rifts within the 27-member bloc.
The package European Union finance ministers have come up with is 50 billion euros short of what is deemed necessary to help debt-stricken nations avoid default.
Women march in Cairo to protest violence
Egypt’s capital remained engulfed in tension on Tuesday, as security forces and protesters clashed and demonstrators at a “Million Women” march railed against the regime and assaults on citizens. Security forces wielding batons, firearms and tear gas attacked defiant protesters Tuesday on the fifth consecutive day of clashes in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
SOPA: Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works
http://tinyurl.com/79uny7r
SOPA: Dear Internet, It’s No Longer OK to Not Know How Congress Works
http://tinyurl.com/869etbr
Reddit manager warns site to shut down if anti-piracy bill passes
Erik Martin, general manager of Reddit, one of the Internet’s most popular community-driven media websites, said in a recent post that independent experts have told the site that if the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) passes Congress, the laws as written would be Reddit’s death sentence.
http://tinyurl.com/755js26
Co-opt fail: New Batman movie pr flaks promoting tame line about greedy rich to get coveted ‘OWS bump’
[OWS/Batman link discussed yesterday in the Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, LA Times, etc, etc]
Fact checking website Politifact, R.I.P.
This is really awful. Politifact, which is supposed to police false claims in politics, has announced its Lie of the Year – and it’s a statement that happens to be true, the claim that Republicans have voted to end Medicare.
Let me just repeat the basics. Republicans voted to replace Medicare with a voucher system to buy private insurance – and not just that, a voucher system in which the value of the vouchers would systematically lag the cost of health care, so that there was no guarantee that seniors would even be able to afford private insurance.
Politifact won the Internets today
Is there any wonder our national debate so often devolves into bullshit about death panels and light bulbs? When Politifact gleefully promotes the truth as a lie, and they are supposed to be the “factcheckers,” what does that leave us with?
http://tinyurl.com/d4fsw75
Hedge Funds Pay For Early Congressional News
After previous reports of insider trading by members of Congress privy to information that had not yet been released to the public, the Wall Street Journal has found that some investment groups have cashed in as well.
“When Senate Democrats finally brokered a compromise over the proposed health-care law, a group of hedge funds were let in on the deal, learning details hours before a public announcement on Dec. 8, 2009. The news was potentially worth millions of dollars to the investors, though none would publicly divulge how they used the information. They belong to a select group who pay for early, firsthand reports on Capitol Hill. Seeking advance word of government decisions is part of a growing, lucrative–and legal– practice in Washington that employs a network of brokers, lobbyists and political insiders.”
http://tinyurl.com/83s93ab
Europe moves to block trade in medical drugs used in US executions
The European Commission has imposed tough new restrictions on the export of anaesthetics used to execute people in the US, in a move that will exacerbate the already extreme shortage of the drugs in many of the 34 states that still practice the death penalty.
The EC has added eight barbiturates to its list of restricted products that are tightly controlled on the grounds that they may be used for “capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. The eight include pentobarbital and sodium thiopental – the two drugs on which almost all American executions currently depend.
. . .
In 2009 the only American manufacturer of sodium thiopental, the Illinois-based Hospira, suspended production because it was suffering commercially as a result of having its drug connected to executions.