Phoenix: Couple Pics and Scenes from #OccupyBoston First Night Festivities
I hope that the Boston Police Department had a few undercover officers embedded in the Occupy Boston First Night operation. Whoever they sent deep into the heart of last evening’s activism would have found a whole mess of juicy goods to bring back to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, which is apparently investigating its local Occupy outpost.
http://tinyurl.com/7od5rjp
Mass. lawmakers may look at cost of college
With nearly two-thirds of college students in Massachusetts carrying debt of about $25,000, concerns are growing about whether students and insitutions can keep up.
. . .
Student loans have been an issue among Occupy Wall Street protesters, who feel extreme measures are needed to get true reform. The Occupy Student Debt campaign, launched in November, encourages members to pledge to default on their student loans if the movement can get 1 million pledges.
“You’re not going to get reform by keep paying,” said John Murphy, an Occupy Boston protester who lost his job as a carpenter and took a semester of classes at Cape Cod Community College before quitting to join the movement. “You’re just clearly showing people you are a slave to society, a slave to the dollar pretty much.”
http://tinyurl.com/7zaxqfc
Candidate cites his work with Occupy Boston as he announces campaign for Barney Frank’s seat
Mr. Levine said in his announcement that he addressed Occupy Boston at its encampment in Dewey Square, and has been participating in two of its working groups, particularly on removing the influence of money from politics.
“This is a natural extension of my efforts for the ballot question creating the Massachusetts ‘Clean Elections Law,’ which the Legislature regrettably repealed in 2003. Public financing of election campaigns can lead to the enactment of many of the laudable reforms sought by Occupy Boston, for it should result in lawmakers who are responsive to the 99 percent, rather than exclusively to the 1 percent,” Mr. Levine said.
The Morning Crawl. There are 828 stories in today’s crawl, a compilation of RSS news feeds from MSM and major alternative media. Go here for the crawl or click the “continue reading” link below to continue reading the digest, which has much fewer links but may include more articles from smaller sources and commentators that publish less frequently.
Is shadow housing inventory vastly larger than widely believed?
Parasitic financial institutions have pushed the boundaries so far that they’ve put their host, the middle-class itself, at risk. One new bit of information suggests the housing front is in more perilous shape than most pundits believe.
. . .
There is one piece of data only recently released – and, as far as I can tell, has gone unnoticed – that, if true, suggests the housing market is in such dire straits we’ve finally reached a critical mass where only radical out-of-the-box solutions will work. If this information, which comes of a highly suspect albeit well connected insider, is accurate, then extend and pretend has finally reached its natural end.
Montana High Court Says ‘Citizens United’ Does Not Apply In Big Sky State
Montana’s Supreme Court has issued a stunning rebuke to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 that infamously decreed corporations had constitutional rights to directly spend money on ‘independent expenditures’ in campaigns.
http://tinyurl.com/6st5vsp
Plutarchy Files: Glenn Greenwald on Ron Paul – Why Worldview Matters
I recently sent a tweet to Glenn Greenwald expressing my hope he’d write something on Ron Paul. Coincidentally, he did. I don’t think for a moment it had anything to do with me, but I mention it because the reason I specifically hoped Greenwald would write on the topic is because I think he ably – perhaps most ably – expresses a view of Paul popular among many members of the Left (and many supporters of OWS). I disagree with that view, but progressives’ support for Ron Paul is clearly highlighting a significant rift on the Left.
http://tinyurl.com/7fs7law
Obama Crowned Himself on New Year’s Eve
President Barack Obama waited until New Year’s Eve to take an action that I suspect he wanted his willfully deluded followers to have a good excuse not to notice. On that day, Obama issued an unconstitutional signing statement rewriting a law as he signed it into law, a practice that candidate Obama had rightly condemned. The law that Obama was signing was the most direct assault yet seen on the basic structure of self-governance and human rights that once made all the endless U.S. shouting of “We’re number one!” significantly less ludicrous. The National Defense Authorization Act is not a leap from democracy to tyranny, but it is another major step on a steady and accelerating decade-long march toward a police-and-war state.
President Obama has claimed the power to imprison people without a trial since his earliest months in office. He spoke in front of the Constitution in the National Archives while gutting our founding document in 2009. President Obama has claimed the power to torture “if needed,” issued an executive order claiming the power of imprisonment without trial, exercised that power on a massive scale at Bagram, and claimed and exercised the power to assassinate U.S. citizens. Obama routinely kills people with unmanned drones.
http://tinyurl.com/7wd75z6
Vampire Squid Watch: 4 Scary Economic Trends for 2012
Back-door Bailout of the Eurozone, Record-breaking Political Finance, Executive Pay Explosion, Pathological Corporate Leadership
http://tinyurl.com/86rqdcs
68 Occupy protesters arrested in NYC on New Year’s
Authorities say dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested as they tore down the barricades surrounding New York City’s Zuccotti Park just before midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Police say 68 people were arrested during the scuffle. At least one person was accused of assaulting a police officer, who suffered cuts on one hand. Other charges include trespassing, disorderly conduct and reckless endangerment. Protester Jason Amadi says he was pepper-sprayed when police tried to prevent the crowd of about 500 demonstrators from taking down the barricades. Amadi says the crowd piled the barricade pieces in the center of the park and stood on top of them, chanting and singing.
http://tinyurl.com/72wjrbm
Which Way Forward for the 99%? General Strike – May 1
To show our power, on May 1st, 2012, we will be organizing for such a mass participatory and bold collective action: a national general strike, mass boycott, student strike/ walk-out and mass day of action. We will be organizing within our unions- or informal workplace organizations where there’s no union or the union isn’t supportive- to hold a one-day general strike. Where a strike is not possible, we will be organizing people to call in sick, or take a personal day, as part of a coordinated “sick-out”. Those who are students will be walking-out of their schools (or not showing up in the first place). In the community, we will be holding a mass boycott and refusing to make any purchase on that day.
http://tinyurl.com/72hzqd5
Newsmakers of the year
3. KALLE LASN
This left-wing editor, barely known in Metro Vancouver where he lives, used his Adbusters magazine to spark the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In July they fired off a Twitter hashtag from the Adbusters office in Vancouver’s Fairview Slopes _ #OccupyWallStreet. That month’s edition carried an iconic centrefold poster of a ballerina perched atop a charging bull, the bronzed symbol of Wall Street. Protesters in anarchist black emerge behind it – and above the ballerina is the question: “What is our demand?”
The 17-character hashtag and the poster helped bring nearly 1,000 people to Manhattan’s financial district on Sept. 17.
http://tinyurl.com/7gnadyz
Strengthening Protest Movements With Logo Militarization
Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, is very passionate. People are living in the streets, being tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets, and beaten with night sticks. The imagery is both powerful and shocking, and strikes a chord in just about everyone. It’s not the chaos and destruction of a WTO riot, it’s people expressing themselves peacefully and then being attacked by police. The video footage of protesters shot in the face with tear gas canisters, sprayed in the face with mace, and beaten over the head is iconic and memorable. One could compare the shock value to that of the movements in the 1960s that saw fire hoses, police dogs, and live ammunition.
http://tinyurl.com/78ck3br
Where Were the Wall Street ‘Perp Walks’ in 2011?
As every media critic learns, the worst sin of our press is not its blatant biases, or crimes of commission, but rather the pervasive patterns of omission; what’s left out!
Already, with two weeks to go, the Associated Press has crossed the finish line with the top choice of the newspapers it serves. Perhaps in the outdated spirit of Mark Twain’s famous dictum that: “There are only two forces that can carry light to all corners of the globe – only two – the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press on earth”, their pick for story of the year is the killing of Osama bin Laden.
The AP can’t bring itself to label it for what it was – a state-sponsored assassination. As ever, the mainstream/lamestream – call it what you will – media tails after people in power and promotes/validates their great achievements, even when it was an extra-judicial murder in the dead of night.
‘Occupy The Caucus’ Activists Target Iowa Campaign Headquarters
99 Percenters allied to Occupy Wall Street have launched what they call “Occupy The Caucus” to protest against corporate influence in American politics by occupying the offices of various campaign headquarters in the state of Iowa.
http://tinyurl.com/89r6bbg
Nobody Home as Occupy Protesters Attempt to Meet with Democratic Leader at Iowa Caucuses
Occupy Des Moines demonstrators went to the Democratic National Committee’s “war room” in downtown Des Moines twice on Sunday to try to meet with the committee’s chairwoman, but the party says she won’t be in town until late tonight.
A day after police made 18 arrests at sometimes-heated rallies at political offices in the metro area, protesters carried out several more subdued actions Sunday. One man was arrested at Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign offices in Des Moines.
Occupy this: What happened to America?
It was quite the Advent season, anticipating the birth of the Prince of Peace while I watched a scenario unfurl in this country that would make Kafka and Camus puke. We had President Obama tell us the war in Iraq was over and the mainstream media mouthing the same. The reality is that while American troops may be coming home, our taxpayer funded private mercenary soldiers will remain, so don’t look for a “peace dividend” (remember that phrase?).
And just what are these young people who were told that they were protecting our freedoms coming home to? (Less in the way of opportunity freedom than when they left, that’s for damn sure):
— An economy that has been raped by Wall Street and the ultra rich with the help of our elected officials (half of whom are multimillionaires and the other half getting close to it) who sent them to die and kill in the first place; one in which very few of our returning soldiers will flourish.
http://tinyurl.com/7s4l5vo
Fascism watch: New Illinois bill could make it illegal to sing national anthem ‘inappropriately’
Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville, has introduced a bill that would set specific “performance standards” for singing and playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at any event sponsored by public schools and state universities. The law also would cover private schools receiving state or local scholarship funds, including vouchers.
Performers would have to sign a contract agreeing to follow the guidelines. Musicians — whether amateur or professional — would be fined $25 if it were deemed they failed to meet the appropriate standards.
Becker stressed that her intent is to punish only those who make intentional changes — not those who can’t carry a tune.
http://tinyurl.com/754b3fb
India: On Anger Street – Anarchy has a grammar and a purpose, freedom is self-propagating
It’s all so immediate, theatrical and deafening that a quieter thrum of truth may be obscured: the Indian powers-that-be have gotten off very, very lightly this year. Or perhaps it would be more apt to say that they have gotten off lightly so far.
No Indian protests have threatened to overthrow the regime. Cities have not as yet shut down. But only a fat, myopic political complacency would interpret surviving this year as a reliable predictor of surviving the next. And only a fat, myopic economic complacency would assume that continuous growth itself will ease the tensions and dissatisfactions that are manifest in our season of multi-directional protest.
http://tinyurl.com/879283j