Conversation with Occupy the “T” Activists

Activists with #OccupyBoston and associated groups in surrounding cities and towns served by the MBTA transit system are mobilizing their supporters to oppose extensive cuts in services and large fare increases on the trains and buses of the “T.”

On Sunday, members of Occupy the T joined the hosts of “RADIO with a VIEW” on WMBR-FM in Cambridge to discuss the consequences of fare hikes and service cuts and the reaction from Occupy activists and their allies.

http://tinyurl.com/7x7ebsp

Students Occupy Lamont Library Café

Members of the Occupy Harvard movement parked themselves in Lamont Library Café on Sunday night, pledging to stay in the café until 10 p.m. on Friday in order to protest planned staff reductions in Harvard libraries.

More than 23 supporters of the movement gathered in the café to inaugurate the next phase of their protest, the first to involve a physical occupation since Harvard administrators removed the Occupy Harvard dome from the Yard on Jan. 13.

http://tinyurl.com/7oe9rml

Occupy Movement and Libertarians, Tea Partiers Find Common Cause in Fight Against NDAA

A coalition of three Southern Oregon Occupy Movements is joining forces with a local libertarian/Tea Party goup called Wake Up America Southern Oregon for a Monday February 13th protest in Medford against the National Defense Authorization Act. This is one of the first cooperative efforts between such groups. A statement noted that the joint action will “show that united we can begin to stand up to the problems which face us as a nation and a people.”

http://tinyurl.com/7b6o3re

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 2/13/12” »

Occupy Kindergarten: The Rich-Poor Divide Starts With Education

Economic class is increasingly becoming the great dividing line of American education.

The New York Times has published a roundup of recent research showing the growing academic achievement gap between rich and poor students. It prominently features a paper by Stanford sociologist Sean F. Reardon, which found that, since the 1960s, the difference in test scores between affluent and underprivileged students has grown 40%, and is now double gap between black and white students.

The children of the wealthy are pulling away from their lower-class peers — the same way their parents are pulling away from their peers’ parents. When it comes to college completion rates, the rich-poor gulf has grown by 50% since the 1980s. Upper income families are also spending vastly more on their children compared to the poor than they did 40 years ago, and spending more time as parents cultivating their intellectual development.

http://tinyurl.com/7mapmeo

The Power of the Occupy Movement

You may question the power of the Occupy movement, but think back less than a year ago. The Tea Party was setting the agenda: the federal deficit and national debt were preeminent issues, President Obama was anxious to trim Social Security, Medicare and other essential social services in order to get any kind of  deal with the newly powerful and recalcitrant GOP leadership. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner had this president by the short hairs, and Barack Obama seemed eager to cut any deal he could. Millionaires and billionaires didn’t need to worry about losing their tax breaks.

Fast forward to September of last year. Occupy Wall Street goes to the heart of the financial industry, and within weeks the focus of political discussion had changed to the corruption without accountability of Big Banks, and the wide gap in wealth between the One Percent and the 99%. Issues of class and economic fairness that had been swept under the rug for years suddenly became issues for discussion. Middle class Americans began to understand that corporations and the wealthy were paying a lower tax rate than they were.

http://tinyurl.com/888bdjp

Across U.S., Occupy movement preparing for its next phase

The Occupy Wall Street encampments that sprang up in scores of cities last fall, thrusting “We are the 99 percent” into the vernacular, have largely been dismantled, with a new wave of crackdowns and evictions. Since clashes last month in Oakland, Calif., headlines have dwindled, too.

Far from dissipating, groups around the country say they are preparing for a new phase of larger marches and strikes this spring that they hope will rebuild momentum and cast an even brighter glare on inequality and corporate greed. But without the visible camps or clear goals, can Occupy become a lasting force for change? Will disruptive protests do more to galvanize or alienate the public?

Though still loosely organized, the movement is putting down roots in many cities. Activists in Chicago and Des Moines, Iowa, have rented offices, a significant change for groups accustomed to holding open-air assemblies or huddling in tents in bad weather.

http://tinyurl.com/7clfngu

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 2/12/12” »

Obama omnibus mortgage settlement sets cost of doing business at $2,000 per loan – if the business is fraud, forgery, looting, bailouts and worthless ‘legal’ contracts

[Note: Before the advent of modern contract law, justification of contractual obligation was derived from appraisal of “the inherent justice or fairness of the exchange”, (http://tinyurl.com/79hnxkw) so if business and government are going to enable by inaction and ‘moral hazard’ widespread conduct that undermines contract law as the foundation of the US legal system, then we should adopt new standards:http://tinyurl.com/833c5sh]

We’ve now set a price for forgeries and fabricating documents. It’s $2000 per loan. This is a rounding error compared to the chain of title problem these systematic practices were designed to circumvent. The cost is also trivial in comparison to the average loan, which is roughly $180k, so the settlement represents about 1% of loan balances. It is less than the price of the title insurance that banks failed to get when they transferred the loans to the trust. It is a fraction of the cost of the legal expenses when foreclosures are challenged. It’s a great deal for the banks because no one is at any of the servicers going to jail for forgery and the banks have set the upper bound of the cost of riding roughshod over 300 years of real estate law.

http://tinyurl.com/79spced

Mortgage settlement is too little, too late for many

To underwater homeowners such as Samuel Guzman, whose three-bedroom Westminster home was foreclosed in August, it’s all “too little too late.”

“It’s not going to solve the problem,” said the hairdresser, who along with four family members is trying to avoid eviction. “It’s not going to make things right.”

The sentiment was echoed outside a downtown Los Angeles building where California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris announced the state’s role in the settlement. About 100 Occupy L.A. activists assembled to deride the deal, calling the government a “sell-out” that lets banks “off the hook.”

http://tinyurl.com/83zvtlu

Occupy Seattle vows counter-protest against Westboro Baptist church followers who will picket funeral for murdered children

A notoriously anti-gay church plans to picket Saturday’s funeral for Charlie and Braden Powell and will be counterprotested by Occupy Seattle.

Margie Phelps, daughter of the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church’s founder, tweeted Wednesday night that the church will attend the boys’ memorial service. The protest is to “remind” Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire “they died because of her rebellion,” a reference to her support of same-sex marriages.

Charlie Powell, 7, and Braden Powell, 5, were killed Sunday after their father, Josh Powell, blew up his house when they were dropped off for a supervised visit.

Word of Westboro’s plans spread quickly online and Occupy Seattle sounded a call for its members to counterprotest the church. The group’s Facebook page said the church “has decided to capitalize on these sad events by bringing their unique brand of hate to Washington.”

Occupy Seattle said its members don’t intend to disrupt the funeral, but want to “protect it from Westboro’s abhorrent message.”

http://tinyurl.com/6wdjpgt

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 2/10/12” »