Suffolk County ADA subpoenas Twitter Inc. for Occupy Boston info
[The text below is from a MyFoxBoston story that was pulled several hours after being published last night. Here’s a link to a website that has the same information: http://tinyurl.com/7vxcqq2]
The Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney has requested all available information from a few twitter accounts related to Occupy Boston.
In the document, Goldberger requests, “All available subscriber information, for the account or accounts associated with the following information, including IP address logs for account creation and for the period December 8, 2011 to December 13, 2011.” The subpoena requests the aforementioned info from the following accounts and hashtags:
Guido Fawkes
@p0isAn0N
@OccupyBoston
#BostonPD
#d0xcak3
Original MyFoxBoston link: http://tinyurl.com/7l9p77s
Civil rights blog live link to the same info: http://tinyurl.com/7vxcqq2
City to meet with Occupy, homeless advocates
A spokesman for Providence’s mayor says the city plans to meet with Occupy Providence about ways to help the homeless after the activists agreed to dismantle their tent city downtown if the city opens a shelter.
David Ortiz, a spokesman for Mayor Angel Taveras (tuh-VEHR’-us), said Friday that city officials will meet with Occupy Providence and homeless advocates to discuss the group’s proposal, or other ways the city can assist the homeless. Occupy Providence this week approved the plan to leave its 24-hour encampment if the city opens a temporary day shelter.
http://tinyurl.com/7jkywqv
Occupy-supporting actors stage ‘protest play’ in Chicago – ‘Occupy My Heart: A Revolutionary Christmas Carol’
On a cold, snowy Christmas Eve, an ambitious Chicago banker loses his job and his money-hungry girlfriend, encounters a former love who is part of the Occupy movement, is visited by three spirits who show him painful truths, and finds redemption.
The action is set amid a protest, and last week it was seen by audience members who had just come from one. The premiere – a single outdoor performance Friday afternoon – was coordinated to begin at the end of a protest march that set out from LaSalle and Jackson.
http://tinyurl.com/7gchxqq
Occupy actors take on Dickens in San Francisco
Ebenezer Scrooge is a corporate banker, busy foreclosing on the hapless masses. Bob Cratchit and his beleaguered family live in a chilly tent in an anonymous Occupy encampment. The ghost of Christmas future sports a flowing black robe of taped-together trash bags and plastic sheeting. Tiny Tim dies. At least that’s how the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s resident playwright, Michael Gene Sullivan, has re-imagined “A Christmas Carol” for the troubled 21st century.
Truth be told, it wasn’t much of a stretch to place Charles Dickens’ Victorian classic into today’s Occupy world. And that, as Sullivan would be the first to tell you, is exactly the point. Dickens’ novella was written in the heart of the “Hungry ’40s,” a time of labor unrest, unemployment and starvation across 19th century Europe. The gap between rich and poor was wide – and getting ever wider. The Cratchits as depicted by Dickens “are an example of where most people actually are today,” said Sullivan.
http://tinyurl.com/7kk75qj
Anarchist Nation
Thanks to the involvement of anarchists in the Occupy movement, anarchism is generating increased attention from the mainstream news media. Most of the press reports, however, have been negative – with some exceptions. The stories on anarchist David Graeber, for example, have been relatively even-handed.
Generally, the mainstream media has thrown around the words “anarchy” and “anarchists” without the slightest hint of insight into the theory and practice of anarchism. Members of the mainstream media aren’t the only ones guilty of peddling unfounded stories about anarchism. Occupiers themselves, many of whom are unfamiliar with the tradition of anarchism, have attacked anarchists, blaming them for sabotaging or hijacking the Occupy movement. How ironic is this, given that the global Occupy movement adopted the anarchist critique of hierarchy and domination.
http://tinyurl.com/85hocas
Corporations gear up for major U.S. tax battle
Huge U.S. corporations are forming lobbying groups to try to influence what could become the hottest congressional debate over comprehensive tax reform in a generation.
By forming broad alliances, companies are able to pull together research, consulting staffs and other resources, said Jim McCrery, a former Republican congressman who now lobbies for WIN America and others. “They’re able to marshal their resources in a coordinated fashion,” said McCrery, a partner at Capitol Counsel.
Corporate groups face an especially skeptical audience in congressional Democrats. Representative Sander Levin of the Ways and Means Committee has said that some of the ideas under discussion would cause a further shift in the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class.
http://tinyurl.com/89ppfd9
Phase two of Occupy Movement is all about recapturing power from elite
Occupation is the first stage in a battle to dethrone markets and regulate them to the collective benefit of the people. But Occupation is not the last stage – tents are not a permanent solution to the malady that is destroying our society. If we are to regain our dignity, our rights and our future, we must recapture power from those that privatized it.
Economic inequality an issue for 2012 campaign
Fighting to win over unhappy American voters, President Barack Obama and his Republican challengers are seizing on one of the most potent issues this election season: the struggling middle class and the widening gap between rich and poor.
Highlighted by the Occupy movement and fanned by record profits on Wall Street at a time of stubborn unemployment, economic inequality is now taking center stage in the 2012 presidential campaign, emphasized by Obama and offering opportunities and risks for him and his GOP opponents as both sides battle for the allegiance of the angst-ridden electorate.
http://tinyurl.com/6r9rzzv
Occupy’s 2012 Agenda: Visiting Campaign Cities
Occupy protesters have voiced their concerns at several presidential campaign events, including disrupting President Obama during a speech at a high school in Manchester, N.H., on Nov. 22, and occupying one of his campaign offices in Des Moines, Iowa, over the weekend. The Occupy protesters make it clear they do not endorse any particular candidate, and they do not discriminate based on party when it comes to criticism.
“I think the typical OWS person is really upset with both parties and the whole idea of a two-party system,” Pete Dutro, an Occupy Wall Street finance committee member in New York City, said.
http://tinyurl.com/838anso
Occupy San Diego Riders Raid Malls, Port
“The concept of the bike raid is simple,” writes Nexus Watts in an Occupy San Diego Riders mall raid event invite.
“First you pick a few targets, set a date, and make related signs, banners, and flyers. On the day of the raid everyone meets up and rides to the first location. On arrival we all dismount and demonstrate for 10 to 15 minutes. When the time is up everyone hops back on their bikes and heads to the next location. With the mall we will want to pick the main entrances of major stores as well as riding laps and chanting.”
http://tinyurl.com/8yo2eym
Archbishop of Wales on church’s duty to ‘change society’
The Archbishop of Wales has said the church has a duty to gets its hands dirty to change society “to overturn poverty, injustice and oppression”. In his Christmas message, Dr Barry Morgan said religion could not distance itself from events in the wider world. He said the authorities at St Paul’s Cathedral had given this “unfortunate impression” when it initially closed its doors to economic protesters. Dr Morgan said Jesus felt compassion was more important than purity.
The archbishop added that to do God’s will on earth was not “just a matter of changing our own lives to do God’s will – a personal morality. It is more radical than that – it means trying to change the structures of our society and world, overturning poverty, injustice and oppression. Paradoxically, it is the Occupy movement which has reminded us that in Jesus, the view of God as a holy set-apart God, has been shattered forever, in the birth in a cowshed and death on a cross.”
Occupiers, Jesus and the meaning of Christmas
Sometimes we forget why Christmas was first created. It wasn’t about shopping or ensuring a successful year for business. It was about the birth of Jesus.
If Jesus came by these days, he would probably join the Occupy movement. Jesus barely lived to his 30s and during his short life he was a radical opponent of oppression and a champion of the poor.
http://tinyurl.com/7uaruyv
Stanford faculty, students “occupy the future”
More than 250 students, faculty and community members gathered at teach-ins across campus and a rally in White Plaza on Friday, December 9th, for “Breakthrough: Occupy the Future,” part of a series of events organized by faculty and students to foster discussion of the Occupy movement and inequality in America. Preceding the event, The Boston Review published a collection of faculty opinions and The Daily published a collection of student opinions.
Six faculty members signed the “Occupy the Future” statement: Paul Ehrlich, biology; David Grusky, sociology; David Laitin, political science; Rob Reich, political science; Debra Satz, philosophy; and Doug McAdam, sociology.
Occupy the Future – Holding Our Institutions and Practices Accountable to Our Ideals
Editor’s Note: We have closely followed the Occupy movement and welcome both the attention it has drawn to societal problems and its potential to re-democratize American politics. As part of our continuing engagement with the protests, we are publishing a series of opinion essays by Stanford University professors exploring key issues raised by Occupy.
Are we entering another moment in history in which the disjuncture between our principles and our institutions is being cast into especially sharp relief? Are new developments, such as the rise of extreme inequality, opening up new threats to realizing our most cherished principles? Can we build an open, democratic, and successful movement to realize our ideals?
http://tinyurl.com/7upeff6
Money’s stranglehold on government is key issue
The defining political issue of 2012 won’t be the government’s size. It will be whom government is for. Americans have never much liked government. After all, the nation was conceived in a revolution against government.
But the surge of cynicism engulfing America isn’t about how big government has become. It’s a growing perception that our government is no longer working for average people. It’s for big business, Wall Street and the very rich.
http://tinyurl.com/cnbgllw
Vanguard founder: Speculators must pay more Tax setup is ‘absolute absurdity’
Q: What do you think about the ongoing discussion over tax fairness?
Bogle: I believe the rich should pay more, but that’s not a good platform for tax policy. What has gone wrong is that we’ve failed to recognize the difference between earned income and unearned income. Is it really fair for gamblers on Wall Street to pay a 15 percent rate when they make a winning investment, and an honest working person – a bricklayer, for example – may pay an equal or higher tax on their wages than a gambler? That’s absolute absurdity. Rates may have to be changed, but we also need to look at what is taxed, and how. Dividend income should be taxed at the same rate as ordinary income. As for capital gains, there ought to be some distinction between capital made by people who start businesses and contribute value to society and capital made by gamblers on Wall Street, some of whom win.
http://tinyurl.com/cmok4sq
Neoliberal Rampage in Canada
The only recent questioning of the established socio-economic order in Canada came from the Occupy Movement arguing for the 99%. But that, for now, shows just the seeds of future potential, and was nowhere near as widespread and developed as in some other countries. Still, the mainstream media in Canada has seen fit to devote a lot of time and space to trying to convince us that the Occupy Movement amounts to nothing. It seems that any threat to the system makes the powers that be uneasy. Why else would police move in to evict Occupy camps in Canadian cities?
Overall, we are seeing in Canada the two-pronged attack of the neoliberals — austerity and law and order. But these policies will only worsen the systemic crisis and show up the need for alternatives.
Goldman Sachs: ‘It’s web of influence is like a neoliberal version of freemasonry’
An awe-struck salute to UK Uncut, whose visibility this year peaked when supporters occupied Fortnum & Mason in London on the day of the TUC’s March for an Alternative and were ambushed by the police. Nine months on, we end the year with the Commons public accounts committee issuing a report about more than £25bn in “unresolved” corporate tax bills, and “sweetheart” deals apparently hatched between Revenue & Customs, and Vodafone and Goldman Sachs – and validating just about every word UK Uncut has shouted about big companies’ tax avoidance.
Why did this issue become so inescapable? I cannot put it any better than the group’s own online blurb. “Because of the actions organised from Aberystwyth to Edinburgh . . . Tunbridge Wells to Nottingham . . . because protest works.” Having launched a big fundraising drive, UK Uncut has begun judicial review proceedings focused on up to £20m of Goldman’s tax liabilities that HMRC is said to have passed over. In context, the money amounts to peanuts. But given the sinister centrality of that firm to the grim turn of events in the eurozone – witness the backstories of the new European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi, the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, and Greece’s PM, Lucas Papademos – this part of the story will have a beautiful symbolic resonance: grassroots activists shining a light on an organisation whose web of influence is regularly portrayed as a neoliberal version of freemasonry.
http://tinyurl.com/8759fo4
Capital One ignores bankruptcy laws, continues to pursue collections from people who have had debts discharged in court
A court-appointed auditor concluded earlier this year that Capital One pursued 15,500 “erroneous claims” seeking money previously erased by a bankruptcy-court judge.
More than 800 of those borrowers have filed lawsuits or other legal actions against Capital One, the auditor said in a Dec. 6 court filing. Without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Capital One agreed to reimburse about 130 borrowers, lawyers and bankruptcy trustees for legal costs incurred trying to fend off Capital One.
Consumers Cry Foul Over Debt Collectors
Complaints about debt collectors are pouring into a federal database that tracks allegations of illegal late-night phone calls, arrest threats and other abuse. But few of the complaints are likely to result in enforcement actions.
The debt-collection industry, booming as many Americans struggle to catch up on their payments or walk away from what they owe, was the subject of a record 164,361 complaints through Dec. 8 of this year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The total is 17% higher than the 140,036 debt-collection complaints the FTC got for all of 2010.
Since the start of this year, though, the FTC has launched just four enforcement actions against debt-collection firms under the primary federal law used to oversee the industry. From 2005 to 2010, the average was two cases a year.
Russia’s New Decemberists Gear Up for Massive Dec. 24 Protests
While Occupy Wall Street deals with legalized corruption, aka lobbying, the Russian opposition faces illegal corruption that is blatant and out-in-the-open; it faces a wealthy class that is so breathtakingly sure of its inalienable right to rob its fellow citizens that it sees no need to cover itself with a fig leaf of special interest groups and campaign donations. While the opposition chants at Putin to leave, most of the “bastards” that Navalny speaks of are not led by Putin in the strictest sense — that’s beside the fact that Navalny includes both Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev on his list of bastards. Instead, they are a kind of cancer on both Russian society and government, a cancer that began under the Soviets and grew out of all proportion during the 1990s.
http://tinyurl.com/bnrwhj7