Tahrir Square, Zucotti Park, Times Square, and the world

good stuff...

Thousands of anti-Wall Street protesters rallied in New York City's Times Square Saturday, buoyed by a global day of demonstrations in support of their monthlong campaign against corporate greed.

Inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, protests Saturday started in Asia and rippled through Europe back to the United States and Canada. Protesters fed up with economic inequality took to the streets in cities from Washington, Boston and Chicago to Los Angeles, Miami and Toronto.

After weeks of intense media coverage, the size of the U.S. protests Saturday have been smaller than G20 meetings or political conventions have yielded in recent years. Such events often draw tens of thousands of demonstrators.

In New York, where the movement began when protesters set up camp in a Lower Manhattan park on Sept. 17, organizers said the protest grew to at least 5,000 people as they marched to Times Square from their makeshift outdoor headquarters.

"These protests are already making a difference,'' said Jordan Smith, 25, a former substance abuse counselor from San Francisco, who joined the New York protest. "The dialogue is now happening all over the world."

let's keep it going... this is certainly the most spirit-lifting thing that's happened in my lifetime...

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Bankers on NY Senators supporting Occupy Wall Street: They need to understand who their constituency is

if you ever wanted a pure distillation of the mindset of the super-rich elites, the quote in the post title leaves no doubt... the elites see themselves as not just A constituency but THE constituency of the elected officials they bought and paid for... how could they dare not to toe the line that was drawn for them...?

a really revealing article in the nyt... (emphases added are mine...)

“Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,” said one top hedge fund manager.

“It’s not a middle-class uprising,” adds another veteran bank executive. “It’s fringe groups. It’s people who have the time to do this.”

As the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have grown and spread to other cities, an open question is: Do the bankers get it? Their different worldview speaks volumes about the wide chasms that have opened over who is to blame for the continuing economic malaise and what is best for the country.

Some on Wall Street viewed the protesters with disdain, and a degree of caution, as hundreds marched through the financial district on Friday. Others say they feel their pain, but are befuddled about what they are supposed to do to ease it. A few even feel personally attacked, and say the Occupy Wall Street protesters who have been in Zuccotti Park for weeks are just bitter about their own economic fate and looking for an easy target. If anything, they say, people should show some gratitude.

“Who do you think pays the taxes?” said one longtime money manager. “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just disgruntled people.”

He added that he was disappointed that members of Congress from New York, especially Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had not come out swinging for an industry that donates heavily to their campaigns. “They need to understand who their constituency is,” he said.

and there ya have it... disconnected, arrogant and condescending... i'd like them try to pigeon-hole ME quite so easily...

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Catholic bishop indicted in KC over sex abuse failure to report

this kind of response to a horrific, global problem is long overdue and will, hopefully, serve as a strong precedent...

The Roman Catholic bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Robert Finn, and the diocese he leads have been indicted by a county grand jury on a charge of failure to report suspected child abuse in the case of a priest who had been accused of taking lewd photographs of young girls.

The indictment is the first ever of a Catholic bishop in the 25 years since the scandal over sexual abuse by priests first became public in the United States.

Bishop Finn is accused of covering up abuse that occurred as recently as last year — almost 10 years since the nation’s Catholic bishops passed a charter pledging to report suspected abusers to law enforcement authorities.

The bishop has acknowledged that he knew of the existence of the photos last December but did not turn them over to the police until May.

this interesting tidbit concludes the article...

Bishop Finn, who was appointed in 2005, alienated many of his priests and parishioners, and won praise from others, when he remade the diocese to conform with his traditionalist theological views. He is one of few bishops affiliated with the conservative movement Opus Dei.

as a born and raised catholic who has long since left that particular piece of his life in the far distant past, i am all too suspicious of religion in general and much more so conservative societies within the tentacles of the catholic church...

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I am not moving

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Tomorrow - 951 cities, 82 countries

this is what I'M talkin' about...



believe it or not, there's even a gathering planned for here in acapulco at noon tomorrow...

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Tom Toles on OWS in today's WAPO

you always have to look in the lower right-hand corner for the punchline...

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Occupy Wall Street gets to stay in Zucotti Park - for at least a while longer

this morning...

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Quote of the day

atrios...

The New York Times is perhaps a commendable jobs program for special needs people.

i love it...

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Citigroup CEO Pandit says OWS protestors should "come up" for a talk

yeah, right... REAL sincerity would be if pandit would "come on down"...

Vikram Pandit, chief executive officer of Citigroup Inc., said he would be happy to talk with Occupy Wall Street protesters, calling their sentiments “completely understandable.”

[...]

“I’d talk about the fact that they should hold Citi and the financial institutions accountable for practicing responsible finance,” Pandit, 54, said. “I’d be happy to talk to them any time they want to come up.”

he probably doesn't want to risk meeting anybody outside of his fortress and phalanx of security guards...

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I moved my money out of the big banks over a year ago

it was last year that i decided i had had enough, closed my wells fargo and hsbc accounts and consolidated them into my credit union account... i only wish i had done it a lot sooner...

anonymous is calling for "bank transfer day" on november 5... more here...

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A Park Avenue M.D. Rheumatologist supports OWS

Alexander Reed Kelly
Bertha Bauer is a board certified rheumatologist
who has been practicing medicine for 30 years.

she has an office in a building very close to where jpmorgan chase ceo jamie dimon lives... here's what she had to say...

I am completely sympathetic to what’s going on here. My profession is being ruined and decimated by the greed of Wall Street, by Big Pharma, by insurance companies. I’m practically forced out of practice after 30 years because I’m honest, because people looking at ways of hurting me and patients while CEOs are making millions and billions of dollars in the industries that control us now. So I am—I came running out of my office to say ‘Yes! Yes! I agree with you.’

nothing like a quote from somebody in the 'hood...

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Argentina deja vu: Occupy SF forces employees of Wells Fargo to be escorted in and out

today in san francisco...

Protesters associated with Occupy SF, an offshoot of New York’s ongoing Occupy Wall Street demonstration, have migrated and formed a thick cluster outside the headquarters of Wells Fargo bank, making it necessary for police officers to escort workers in and out of the building’s doors.

Eleven protesters have been arrested at the scene, an officer told San Francisco Chronicle reporter Vivian Ho. They were charged with trespassing.

Protesters also reportedly sat in front of the bank’s doors, holding signs that said “make banks pay” and hanging mock eviction signs to the building’s doors. The signs were secured by stickers bearing one of the protest’s slogans: “We are the 99 percent.”

[...]

People on the scene estimate that the crowd holds about 200 protesters. The demonstrators are obstructing at least three of the four entrances to the bank.

a bell went off and i went searching for a blog post i put up way back in march 2005 when i was first living in buenos aires... i had gone walking down on the florida pedestrian mall in the microcentro...

It took me a few minutes to grasp what I was seeing. There were roughly fifteen to twenty people pounding with hammers on a corrugated metal wall that had been erected immediately around the outside of a tall office building and they were making one hell of a racket. The wall was clearly not new and showed evidence of severe pounding that must have occurred over quite a period of time. I noticed that the "pounders" were casually dressed and were accompanied by protestors carrying signs. My first thought was that it was a construction site and they were demonstrating against some new development. As I examined the building in greater detail, I noticed a familiar white and blue sign and logo high up as well as blue and white trim partially exposed behind the corrugated metal. Slowly it began to dawn on me. This wasn't a construction site, it was Citibank's main office in Buenos Aires. I also realized that there was a heavily guarded door at the corner of the building where employees coming and going were flashing their badges.

as i was wont to do more often in the early days of the blog, i continued with the following rant...

WHY AREN'T WE CHAINING OURSELVES TO THE FRONT DOORS OF HALLIBURTON'S CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS TO PROTEST WAR PROFITEERING? WHY AREN'T WE POUNDING ON THE WALLS OF CITIBANK FOR PRACTICING USURY, ACCUMULATING PROFITS ON THE BACKS OF THE POOR, AND BUYING POLITICAL INFLUENCE?

[...]

We oughta be joining hands and marching across the country to toss the ringleaders of this godawful mess OUT, OUT, OUT!!!

HA...! i've always claimed that i'm years ahead of my time...

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A card-carrying MOTU thinks Europe should follow the U.S. example

what a bunch of hooey...

Roger Altman: America’s blueprint for saving Europe’s banks

The financial crisis struck the US harder and more quickly than it did Europe. The complete freezing of credit markets required an immediate and overwhelming intervention – and the American fiscal and monetary authorities delivered it.

Between the Federal Reserve, Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, approximately $13,000bn of credit support was arranged for financial institutions in late 2008 and 2009.

There was no alternative to this massive reaction, and it worked. US credit markets are now healthy, and the recapitalised banking system is stable. History will look favorably on the boldness of America’s response. [emphasis added]

so, who is this guy roger altman anyway...?

wikipedia...

Altman holds a B.A. from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

He was a general partner of Lehman Brothers from 1974 to 1977. From 1977 to 1981 he served as the Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury, during which time he helped oversee the then-troubled financial affairs of Chrysler. In 1981, he returned to Lehman Brothers, where he became the co-head of investment banking and served on the board of the company and the management committee. During the 1980s, he was a lecturer and adjunct professor at the Yale School of Management. In 1987, Altman joined the newly-formed Blackstone Group as vice-chairman, head of its mergers and acquisitions advisory business and a member of the investment committee.

Altman served as the Deputy Treasury Secretary, before resigning in 1994 following a record-keeping scandal. In 1996, instead of returning to Blackstone he co-founded Evercore Partners, a boutique advisory and private equity investment firm in New York City, and currently serves as firm's Chairman.

Altman has served as advisor to two presidential candidates: John Kerry in 2004, and Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Altman is founder and chairman of Evercore Partners, which advised on the GM deal. Evercore, after being paid $46 million by GM pre-bankruptcy, asked for a $17.9 million "success fee." A U.S. bankruptcy trustee termed the fees "staggering" and "inordinately large" and said it "clearly exceeds the bounds of reasonableness" given that "Evercore had no success at finding a purchaser or funder for the Debtors."

Altman is listed as a member of the Steering Committee of The Bilderberg Group, a controversial group of influential business and government leaders who meet annually behind closed doors under a media blackout to discuss world issues. In 2009, Altman was on the list of Bilderberg conference attendees in Greece. [emphases added]

yep... altman is the guy the financial times thinks we should all be listening to... i don't think so...

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Rebellion will not stop until the corporate state is extinguished

chris hedges writing about his perspectives on ows...

These protesters have not come to work within the system. They are not pleading with Congress for electoral reform. They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power. They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties. They know the press will not amplify their voices, and so they created a press of their own. They know the economy serves the oligarchs, so they formed their own communal system. This movement is an effort to take our country back.

This is a goal the power elite cannot comprehend. They cannot envision a day when they will not be in charge of our lives. The elites believe, and seek to make us believe, that globalization and unfettered capitalism are natural law, some kind of permanent and eternal dynamic that can never be altered. What the elites fail to realize is that rebellion will not stop until the corporate state is extinguished. It will not stop until there is an end to the corporate abuse of the poor, the working class, the elderly, the sick, children, those being slaughtered in our imperial wars and tortured in our black sites. It will not stop until foreclosures and bank repossessions stop. It will not stop until students no longer have to go into debt to be educated, and families no longer have to plunge into bankruptcy to pay medical bills. It will not stop until the corporate destruction of the ecosystem stops, and our relationships with each other and the planet are radically reconfigured. And that is why the elites, and the rotted and degenerate system of corporate power they sustain, are in trouble. That is why they keep asking what the demands are. They don’t understand what is happening. They are deaf, dumb and blind.

no, of course they wouldn't "get it"... the mindset of the super-rich elites is so far from what's going on with ows it isn't even funny...

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So, if income falls faster AFTER a recession, what can we expect when the NEXT recession hits?

nyt...

Between June 2009, when the recession officially ended, and June 2011, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 6.7 percent, to $49,909, according to a study by two former Census Bureau officials. During the recession — from December 2007 to June 2009 — household income fell 3.2 percent.

The finding helps explain why Americans’ attitudes toward the economy, the country’s direction and its political leaders have continued to sour even as the economy has been growing. Unhappiness and anger have come to dominate the political scene, including the early stages of the 2012 presidential campaign.

just think back to all the glowing media reports about the end of the recession... HA...!

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An email from a friend on Occupy Wall Street

this was waiting for me in my inbox this morning...

Interesting - 23 days straight of growing protests outside Wall Street of people with placards and organized marches that is spreading to other points in the country. All saying it's time for financial reform and to bring to justice the banking and wall street people that have not been convicted of the financial collapse of the country. Have you seen much in the papers on it or on the TV?! I haven't. It was a piece on CBS Sunday Morning.

i have repeatedly suggested that his attachment to traditional news media doesn't serve him well in the "keeping informed" department... he thinks he's in touch with what's going on but he's not, and what he IS in touch with is so loaded with corporate, propagandist spin, it's sometimes almost impossible to hold a discussion with him...

tom tomorrow on the same subject (courtesy of daily kos)...


(click on image for larger version)

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