Citizens United uniting citizens across the country

[For information about actions against Citizen’s United in the Boston area Jan. 20-21, go here: http://tinyurl.com/6ueezzw]

“The U.S. is a great place to be a corporation but increasingly a desperate place to live and work.” – A member of Occupy Boston, challenging Mitt Romney on his statement that corporations are persons.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the controversial Supreme Court case decided by a narrow majority of 5 justices in 2010, may have the consequence of uniting citizens across the country at the local level – in opposition to the ruling. “Occupy the Courts” actions, sponsored by Move to Amend and other groups including various Occupy sites, are being planned to mark the 2-year anniversary of the decision which allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts to influence elections.

http://tinyurl.com/7qdebja

Protest foils Lynn foreclosure auction

Sixty-one-year-old Cheryl D’Amico spent the past few months going to bed afraid. “I was fearful someone would knock on my door and ask me to leave my house,” she said on a sidewalk outside her Lynn home. D’Amico came close to that nightmare scenario Tuesday when a foreclosure auctioneer arrived at her Lexington Avenue home to sell it to the highest bidder.

http://tinyurl.com/8yb2bnc

Coast Guard deployed to protect grain ship that will be met by union and Occupy protesters

The U.S. Coast Guard will escort the first ship coming to the EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview this month, and the Occupy movement and local labor groups say they are planning to greet the vessel with a massive protest.

EGT officials say they have not scheduled a date for the ship’s arrival. The freighter is expected to haul thousands of tons of grain to Asia, but opposition groups are already marshaling their forces to support the lengthy protest by union dock workers at the grain terminal.

The Coast Guard will deploy one or two vessels to escort the grain ship up the Columbia River, with more on call if necessary, said Lt. Lucas Elder, a spokesman for Coast Guard’s Portland-based marine safety unit. Other law-enforcement agencies will also be present, he said. Small boat captains who refuse to get out of the way of the ship could face hefty civil penalties, Elder said.

http://tinyurl.com/6lk6qg5

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/13/12” »

Rule of law triumphs in resolution to Occupy Boston

THE RISE AND fall of the Occupy Boston encampment at Dewey Square has been hailed as a model of how police and city officials should respond to peaceful political dissent in the public sphere. Compared with video footage of cops pepper-spraying and clubbing protestors in Oakland, San Francisco, New York, and elsewhere, Boston looked pretty good. After nine weeks of occupation, most of the Boston protesters peacefully left Dewey Square-their statue of Gandhi held high, their message against economic and power inequalities heard by millions. Their banners proclaimed: “You can’t evict an idea.”

Media pundits praised police and city officials for showing “uncommon restraint.” It’s a narrative that, while true in part, misses the real story. In truth, it was a court’s intervention-not benevolent cops -that protected both the peace and the right to protest in Boston. And who brought in the courts? It was the Occupy Boston protesters themselves.

http://tinyurl.com/79g22n9

Today is the anniversary of Roosevelt’s ‘Second Bill of Rights’ Speech

[Roosevelt] We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

http://tinyurl.com/82fj4yj

Fighting Cynicism Without & Within

Among the dozens of attempts to launch a movement against greed and inequality this year alone, no one will ever know exactly why Occupy Wall Street actually worked. Now cynicism and inequality face hard questions from all corners. The challenges to inequality unfold more publicly than those to cynicism. There are at least three examples of tortured cynicism we can assume with confidence are occurring, even if the actors don’t report to duty in the twitterverse.

1) Established activists, organizers, and the institutional forces of progressivism feel hella butthurt over OWS. We spent decades shouting into the abyss, hoping our shenanigans would spark a national movement for economic justice. Then a movement started without us, and it didn’t even have the decency to give us credit or accept our obviously superior leadership. It turned out we never planned for what we would do if the uprising we always wanted to happen actually happened. We can assume that every union leader, lefty intellectual, or nonprofit operative lingering at the margins is really thinking, “Why isn’t this MY movement?”

http://tinyurl.com/7lcf724

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/12/12” »

In JP, anarchist writer Cindy Milstein speaks on Occupy’s roots

Anarchist principles provided the framework for the Occupy movement, she said, drawing from her experiences at Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Philly. As the Phoenix outlined in October, “Many of the national Occupy movement’s organizational tools – the lengthy general assemblies, the finger-waggling exercises in consensus-building, the free food and clothing available throughout camp – come from anarchist models of direct action, horizontal organizing, and gift economies.” That article also pointed out that Occupy Boston specifically drew from local activists, anarchists, and DIY enthusiasts who have “long organized non-hierarchically in collective houses and radical book shops.” The Lucy Parsons Center — founded in 1969 and recently re-opened on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain — is one of those shops.

http://tinyurl.com/6nvfn2w

Gingrich Cancels Event in Face of Protesters

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich canceled an appearance at his New Hampshire campaign headquarters after protesters swarmed the entrance.

About 40 protesters showed up Monday evening carrying placards reading “Ron Paul” and “Occupy.” One played speeches by presidential candidate Ron Paul from a loud speaker.

http://tinyurl.com/798qwc6

Gingrich says anarchists steal his right to free speech, but Ron Paul supporters are just ‘noisy’

“Some of the Occupy Wall Street people frankly have a touch of anarchism in them. I think, ultimately, the society’s going to have to say there are limits to those kind of folks blocking people from having their right to free speech,” Mr. Gingrich said. “We decided it wasn’t worth risking some kind of big confrontation, so we, frankly, decided to skip past that particular event.”

Mr. Hannity originally thought Mr. Gingrich had an issue with Ron Paul supporters. Mr. Gingrich set the record straight.

“I think our challenge was with Occupy Wall Street people, I’ve generally found that the Ron Paul people, while theyre sometimes noisy, they’re pretty civil and pretty decent,” said Mr. Gingrich.

http://tinyurl.com/7q3wyn8

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/10/12” »

At chaotic town hall, Gingrich sticks to immigration stand

Newt Gingrich planned to hold a town hall for Latinos at a Mexican restaurant here Sunday, an odd enough event in New Hampshire, where Latinos are a tiny sliver of the population holding no sway in Tuesday’s Republican primary. But then: chaos.

Occupy protesters, kicked out of the event, banged drums, rattled the windows and screamed through a bullhorn: “Newt! Newt! Come outside with your hands up and your pants down! We have you surrounded!”

Inside, Gingrich was hammered by a voter incensed by a recent statement he made about blacks and food stamps, and he was questioned about his commitment to immigration reform and his stance on corporate influence in politics. The crowd jammed the Don Quijote restaurant to dangerous levels. Gingrich’s security guards became so concerned they refused to allow him to move from a location next to an exit door and waiting vehicles.

http://tinyurl.com/88fuebe

Chris Christie blurts out sexual reference in response to group of women Occupy protesters

EXETER, N.H.-When one of several Occupy protesters who had infiltrated the event to proclaim that “Mitt kills jobs,” a popular refrain among Romey’s detratctors at these sorts of affairs, started up a similar chant to goad the Garden State governor, Christie replied to the woman: “Really? You know, something may go down tonight, but it ain’t gonna be jobs, sweetheart.”

Christie’s dis was met with thundering applause, and the reporters apparently ate it up too-the remark was widely cited in the dispatches that surfaced online shortly thereafter.

http://tinyurl.com/7n5qepw

Record number of Americans identified themselves as independents

A record-high percentage of Americans identified themselves as independents in 2011, according to a survey released Monday. Indeed, 40 percent of voters identified as independent – the highest percentage in at least 60 years, reports Gallup.

http://tinyurl.com/6wes5ql

Continue reading “The OB Media Rundown for 1/9/12” »