Participative, transparent, open democracy in action at Occupy Wall Street

i posted this on thursday...

i believe that the next steps for the occupy movement is to show that the brand of participative democracy that is flowering among the protestors is not only sustainable but also the right way to go for the country...

encouragingly, somebody else sees it from the same perspective...

"The process is the demand" is something of a mantra here at Occupy Wall Street. A direct democracy where a General Assembly, composed of whoever wishes to participate, hears proposals from autonomous, leaderless working groups and approves them, when it manages to, by consensus. "Process," for Occupy Wall Street, usually means full equality for all people, with no one officially designated a chairperson, a spokesperson, a leader.

[...]

If the process is the demand, then esteem for a robust welfare state providing equal access to free social services is easy to extrapolate, park to nation.

more like this...

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Constantly celebrating the people we kill

glenn comments on the celebratory atmosphere surrounding gadhafi's killing (and bin laden and al awlaki and al awlaki's son and al qaeda leaders and countless victims of drone attacks)...

Constantly celebrating the people we kill — dancing over their corpses — is now one of the most significant and common American rituals shaping our political culture. One of the most consequential aspects of the Obama legacy is that this mentality has become fully bipartisan. And it’s hard to see how this will change any time soon: once one goes down that road, it’s very difficult to turn around and go back. That’s true both individually and of a nation.

personally, i'd like to be celebrating a revival of a national devotion to the common good of all as so clearly described in the declaration of independence and the preamble to the constitution...

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The First Amendment IS our permit and Dissent IS Patriotic

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I'm not so sure strong demands are what's necessary for Occupy Wall Street

shamus cooke in a post entitled, Next Steps for the Occupy Movement, says this...

City governments are slow-playing the Occupy Movement where it is especially strong — New York and Portland, Oregon, etc. — and are attacking quickly in cities where momentum hasn't caught fire —, Denver, Boston, etc. The massive demonstrations in New York and Portland have protected the occupied spaces thus far, as the mayor, police,and media attempt to chip away at public opinion by exploiting disunity in the movement or focusing on individuals promoting violence, drug use, etc.

To combat this dynamic, the Occupy Movement people needs to unite around common messages that they can effectively broadcast to those 99% not yet on the streets; or to maintain the sympathy of those who've already attended large marches and demonstrations. And although sections of the Occupy Movement scoff at demands, they are crucially necessary. Demands unite people in action, and distinguish them from their opponents; demands give an aim and purpose to a movement and act as a communications and recruiting tool to the wider public. There is nothing to win if no demands are articulated.

One reason that the wealthy are strong is because they are united around demands that raise profits for the corporations they own: slashing wages and benefits, destroying unions, lowering corporate tax rates, destroying social programs, privatization, ending Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, etc.

To consolidate the ranks of the Occupy Movement we need similar demands that can inspire the 99%. These are the type of demands that will spur people into action — demands that will get working class people off their couches and into the streets! The immediate task of the movement is to broadcast demands that will agitate the majority of the 99% into action.

i disagree with cooke's suggested direction...

there's an assumption implicit in making demands that says you believe there is someone out there who has more power than you do who can respond to those demands... i think both the beauty and the strength of the occupy movement so far has been its independence and self-sufficiency as well as its belief that they already have the power... i've marveled at observations coming out of the encampments describing a wonderfully transparent participative democracy supported by people helping each other in all the important ways...

i believe that the next steps for the occupy movement is to show that the brand of participative democracy that is flowering among the protestors is not only sustainable but also the right way to go for the country... "demands" that somebody outside of the protestors themselves should do something to fix things doesn't feel right for the spirit of this movement... i think the protestors are fixing things among themselves just fine...

i don't fault cooke for his views... given his background as an organizer, he comes by them naturally but i think the approach he describes is of another era...

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The business of America used to be business, now it's death

glenn...

Every now and then it’s worth pausing to reflect on how often we talk about the killing of people by the U.S. Literally, the U.S. government is just continuously killing people in multiple countries around the world. Who else does that? Nobody — certainly nowhere near on this scale. The U.S. President expressly claims the power to target anyone he wants, anywhere in the world, for death, including his own citizens; he does it in total secrecy and with no oversight; and this power is not just asserted but routinely exercised. The U.S., over and over, eradicates people’s lives by the dozens from the sky, with bombs, with checkpoint shootings, with night raids — in far more places and far more frequently than any other nation or group on the planet. Those are just facts.

i'd really like it if civil liberties and endless war were to rise higher on the radar of the occupy wall street movement... behind the curtain, the financial motu's are an intimate part of the corporate military industrial government complex, and have a great deal invested in ensuring that endless war and the national security state continue unimpeded...

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Chris Hedges says "this one could take them all down." I sure hope he's right

chris hedges...

What happens is in all of these movements ... the foot soldiers of the elite -- the blue uniformed police, the mechanisms of control -- finally don't want to impede the movement and at that point the power elite is left defenseless ... the only thing I can say having been in the middle of similar movements is that this one is real, and this one could take them all down ... I can guarantee you that huge segments of those blue uniformed police sympathize with everything that you're doing.

well worth watching... the best part is when hedges has to choke back his tears at the end... after being exposed to his tendency to rant - a tendency i tend to indulge in myself - it's heartwarming to see that side of his humanity...

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The decorated Marine Iraq veteran who stood up to the NY police who were trying to silence protestors

first, here's the marine sergeant, shamar thomas, talking with keith olbermann on tuesday...



and here's a video of the event itself that took place on the saturday the 15th...



memorable quote from sergeant thomas...

"You can laugh all you want but it takes a coward to harm unarmed civilians."

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FWIW - an open letter to liberals, progressives and my fellow citizens

dear friends...

we have reached the point where we can go no further unless we come together and move forward as one... i believe what's happening in new york city, across the nation and around the world with the occupy movement offers us the best chance for that...

this i do know... if we keep on splintering our efforts to restore the ideal of the common good that is the basis for all the best humanity has to offer, we will never get there...

here's what i mean by "splintered"... below is just a sampling of my email from only the past 18 hours...

If we want to put a stop to the Republican War on Women once and for all, we must take back the House, to make sure disastrous bills like this one never get off the ground.

Contribute to EMILY's List today. Help us keep up the fight to take back the House and hold the Senate.

and...

Our Chairman and Founder, former Vice President Al Gore, has personally trained more than 3,000 people to deliver a multimedia presentation based on our worldwide event, 24 Hours of Reality. This is a powerful story about how climate change is affecting us now and what we can do to solve it. People across the globe have asked to bring a Climate Presenter to their communities. Now, you can too.

Join us today. Host a free Climate Reality presentation where you live.

and...

The White House's official website has a new feature that allows citizens to create petitions to request the Obama Administration to take a specific action. We submitted a petition last month asking the President to crack down on unlicensed puppy mills by closing a loophole in the Animal Welfare Act regulations.

We are determined to make this one of the top petitions on the White House website and need your help to get as many signatures as possible before the Oct. 23 deadline. There are only five days left -- will you help us bring puppy mill cruelty to the attention of the President?

and...

[Common Dreams] One week into our Fall Fundraising Campaign and the momentum is building - but we are still far short of our goal of $50,000.

You can help us reach it by making a secure, online donation right now here. Or, by printing our donation form and mailing it back to us with a check here. Or go here for other options.

and...

Every kid needs access to a good school. Give every student a chance at a great education and support the Empowering Parents Through Charter Schools Act.

and...

The special offer below from CREDO Mobile expires tomorrow, so I urge you to join them today. CREDO is the only phone company mobilizing its members and activists to support the Occupy Wall Street movement - and they have a 25-year history of supporting progressive causes and nonprofit organizations. Why not put your phone bill to work supporting social change instead of right-wing politicians?

and...

Recently, Republicans in the Senate voted not to even discuss the President's jobs bill, which could have put millions of people back to work.

To show your solidarity with workers and the unemployed, and send a message that come November, JOBS will be the number one issue on the minds of voters we want you to have this sticker.

Please donate $5 and we'll send you a sticker right away.

and...

The campaign has put together a debate watch game to make sure there's a real cost to all the attacks and nonsense. Here's how it works: You pick a word or phrase from the list below to sponsor, and pledge to give $3 or $5 (or however much you'd like) for each mention. So tonight, as the Republican candidates prattle on about defunding Social Security, ending Medicare as we know it, and everything else they support, they will literally be building this campaign.

Check it out, and get your guesses in now before the debate starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

Don't worry, you can set a cap on how much you want to give, in case someone (not saying who) says "9-9-9" two dozen times.

and...

All that energy means we have an opportunity to be a part of new ambitious campaigns across the country, including in Reno, to hold the big Wall Street banks accountable. That's why, as we continue to support occupations nationwide, we're also organizing Make Wall Street Pay meetings from October 23-26. The idea is to set a time in each community when MoveOn members and others can come together to determine how to Make Wall Street Pay in our communities—from stopping illegal foreclosures, to forcing the big banks to pay their fair share in taxes, to closing our personal accounts at the big Wall Street banks and urging our schools, municipalities, and other institutions to do the same.

and...

Meanwhile, time is running out for the so-called Congressional "Super Committee" to deliver its recommendations to cut over $1 trillion from federal spending over the next ten years. In just a few short weeks, the Super Committee will finalize its report. With all eyes on the 99%, we have an opportunity to make the news again before it's too late.

Show the Super Committee they can't ignore us! Write a letter to the editor today and make your message heard: Move the Money from wars and weapons back to our communities!

and...

Opponents of the open Internet are gearing up to convince the Senate to pass a Net Neutrality-killing "resolution of disapproval."

Meanwhile, we're fighting back with all we've got. So far more than 2,000 people have called their senators and urged them to stop the corporate takeover of the Internet.

If you haven't already, please pick up the phone and tell your senator to vote "no" on the resolution of disapproval.

is it any wonder we're not getting anywhere...?

everybody's built their own little world and their own little organization and their own little fiefdom around their own little perspective of what they think is the most important thing in the world and that simply ain't gonna cut it... we're bleeding energy off in every direction and the thing that's most important, the common good for all suffers...

i believe it's a gut-level understanding of the need to restore the common good that is driving so many people to support the occupy movement... i respectfully suggest that all you little progressive, liberal interest and advocacy groups out there do likewise...

here's what i wrote in response to the first solicitation cited above and i will continue to do the same with every one i receive... i recommend that anyone who agrees that the restoration of the pursuit of the common good is our paramount objective do the same...

There is no solution to the climate crisis or any other crisis as long as our political and economic system remains fundamentally broken.

I suggest that, instead of continuing to pursue this singular issue in isolation, that the Climate Reality Project throws its organizational support behind what's happening with Occupy Wall Street. OWS has taken on the key money and power interests that have contributed substantially to the climate issue as it now stands and are obstructing every move to fix it. If Al Gore had any cojones, he would take the lead on this but that would probably mean giving up his seat at Kleiner Perkins.

Just sayin'...

whaddaya say...?

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Another goddam bailout

worth posting in full...

david dayen posting at firedoglake...

Bank of America announced a way for them to make it look like they made a $6.2 billion profit in the last quarter. The “profit” came mostly from an accounting trick and the sale of their stake in a Chinese bank, part of their downsizing strategy. But they had lower revenue and income in their credit card, real estate and investment banking businesses, which is pretty much their entire business. If you add up the accounting gains totaling $6.2 billion and the net on the sale of the bank, you’d see that the bank lost $1.4 billion last quarter.

The market shrugged off the gimmicks, and at this point BofA is up 10% on the day. But I think that actually has a lot more to do with this:

Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people. The bank doesn’t believe regulatory approval is needed, said people with knowledge of its position.

Three years after taxpayers rescued some of the biggest U.S. lenders, regulators are grappling with how to protect FDIC- insured bank accounts from risks generated by investment-banking operations. Bank of America, which got a $45 billion bailout during the financial crisis, had $1.04 trillion in deposits as of midyear, ranking it second among U.S. firms.

“The concern is that there is always an enormous temptation to dump the losers on the insured institution,” said William Black, professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a former bank regulator. “We should have fairly tight restrictions on that.”

This has been described as another bailout, and it’s not hard to see why. The derivatives go into the insured institution, protecting the counter-parties, and they would be paid off in the event of a failure. Notice that the counter-parties themselves are managing the process, requesting that their bets get implicit government backing. The notional value on these derivatives trades is $75 trillion, with a T. This includes their European derivatives exposure. And according to Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase has already done this.

When the FDIC is screaming bloody murder and the Federal Reserve reassures that an action is perfectly legitimate and should cause no concern, watch your wallet.

i am so utterly sick of money being thrown at goddam, worthless, too-big-to-fail banks... it's enough to gag a maggot... this is the shit the ows folks (and me) are pissed about...

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Goldman Sachs takes a 3d Quarter loss but that doesn't impact the bonus pool

THIS is precisely why ows is garnering such a response in the u.s. and worldwide...

Today’s Goldman Sachs earning reports provides a valuable lesson on how things really work inside Wall Street’s largest investment houses. Goldmhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifan Sachs had an awful three months, losing $428 million in the third quarter of 2011, and yet it continued to shovel billions into the bonus pool it will share with its employees at year’s end.

Through the first nine months of 2011, Goldman set aside $10 billion in its compensation fund. If Goldman’s 30,000 employees split that bounty evenly, that would work out to $333,000 per person—plus the billions more Goldman will no doubt set aside in the last few months of the year.

[...]

But that’s the beauty of working at a major investment bank. Performance doesn’t matter nearly as much as just showing up. Goldman booked $13 billion in pre-tax profits in 2010—a steep drop from the $20 billion the bank booked in 2009. Despite a precipitous drop in profits between 2009 and 2010 and a stock stuck in neutral throughout the year, the Goldman board of directors raised Blankfein’s base salary to $2 million, up from $600,000, and showered an extra $13 million in stock grants on Blankfein and his executive team.

Not bad for the executives of a bank forced to pay a $550 million fine after being accused by the SEC of duping its clients by selling them shares of a morhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giftgage-backed security they allowed a hedge firm to secretly hand-pick. Still, this is hardly like the fat and happy subprime mortgage days, when Goldman was buying toxic subprime mortgages and selling them to unsuspecting clients. In 2007, the year before the economic collapse, Blankfein made $68 million in stock and bonus money.

Is it any wonder the Occupy Wall Street crowd might think there’s something rotten about the system?

meanwhile, lloyd blankfein, goldman crook-in-chief, is crying all the way to the bank to deposit his haul...


Lloyd Blankfein, CEO, Goldman Sachs

"Our results were significantly impacted by the environment and we were disappointed to record a loss in the quarter,” said Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive, in a statement.

yes, is it any wonder...?

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Some observations on the broad support for OWS from Rebecca Solnit at TomDispatch

tomdispatch...

The other day in my Manhattan neighborhood, a woman passed http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifme in the street. She was obviously headed for a demonstration somewhere in the big city, with a sign tucked sideways under her arm. I could just make out the large black letters on a white background that said: “I Want My Job Back.” And they claim the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have no demands!

Here are a few observations from recent trips to Zuccotti Park and various marches I’ve been on, including last Saturday when the Occupy movement went global with, the Washington Post reports, rallies in “more than 900” cities in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the United States. Having been at many demonstrations in my life, here’s the strangest and perhaps the most striking thing I’ve noticed: I have yet to see a single counterdemonstration, or even a single counterdemonstrator. Not one. Nor a single sign expressing disapproval, outrage, or upset with the Occupy Wall Street movement. This, believe me, is not normal for protests. Talk about expressing the will of the 99%!

And the earliest public opinion polls reflect this. According to an Ipsos poll, a startling 82% of Americans have heard of the movement, striking percentages are following it with some attention, and -- according to TIME magazine -- 54% of Americans have a favorable view of it, only 23% an unfavorable one. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising in a country in which 86% of those polled believe “Wall Street and its lobbyists have too much influence in Washington,” or in which median household income fell by 6.7% after the Great Recession of 2008 was officially declared over (9.8% since it began).

interesting and very encouraging...

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A list of indictments - the awakening is here...

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Hope is a word whose meaning was drained by Barack Obama

reverend billy delivers a sermon at the bank of america...

remember reverend billy...? one of my all-time faves... i've devoted more than one post to reverend billy (see here)...

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Glenn wonders why our media is puzzled by OWS anger [UPDATE: another obscene headline]

and offers this headline from today's nyt as a possible reason...

Citigroup Earnings Rise 74% to $3.8 Billion

glenn further observes...

Americans in particular have been inculcated for decades with the belief that even substantial outcome inequality is acceptable (even desirable) provided that it is the by-product of fairly applied rules. What makes this inequality so infuriating (aside from the human suffering it is generating) is precisely that it is illegitimate: it is caused and bolstered by decisively unfair application of laws and rules, by undemocratic control of the political http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifprocess by the nation’s oligarchs, and by a full-scale shield of immunity that allows them — and only them — to engage in the most egregious corruption and even criminality without any consequence (other than a further entrenching of their prerogatives and ill-gotten gains).

those big headlines touting more obscene profits for corporations, especially those that were bailed out by our money, are enough to make anybody see red...

[UPDATE]

Wells Fargo Earnings Rise 21%, to $4.1 Billion

this is really poor timing to be announcing third-quarter earnings...

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The liberal class has become a useless and despised appendage of corporate power and all hope lies now with those in the street

which is one of the main reasons why ows has picked up such a head of steam so quickly...

chris hedges...

Human history has amply demonstrated that once those in positions of power become redundant and impotent, yet retain the trappings and privileges of power, they are brutally discarded. The liberal class, which insists on clinging to its positions of privilege while at the same time refusing to play its traditional role within the democratic state, has become a useless and despised appendage of corporate power. And as the engines of corporate power pollute and poison the ecosystem and propel us into a world where there will be only masters and serfs, the liberal class, which serves no purpose in the new configuration, is being abandoned and discarded by both the corporate state and radical dissidents. The best it can do is attach itself meekly to the new political configuration rising up to replace it.

An ineffectual liberal class means there is no hope of a correction or a reversal through the formal mechanisms of power. It ensures that the frustration and anger among the working and the middle class will find expression now in these protests that lie outside the confines of democratic institutions and the civilities of a liberal democracy. By emasculating the liberal class, which once ensured that restive citizens could institute moderate reforms, the corporate state has created a closed system defined by polarization, gridlock and political charades. It has removed the veneer of virtue and goodness that the liberal class offered to the power elite.

[...]

But the liberal class, by having refused to question the utopian promises of unfettered capitalism and globalization and by condemning those who did, severed itself from the roots of creative and bold thought, the only forces that could have prevented the liberal class from merging completely with the power elite. The liberal class, which at once was betrayed and betrayed itself, has no role left to play in the battle between us and corporate dominance. All hope lies now with those in the street.

[...]

Corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill and lie to make money. They throw poor families out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars to make profits, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship money and power.

[...]

What took place early Friday morning in Zuccotti Park was the first salvo in a long struggle for justice. It signaled a step backward by the corporate state in the face of popular pressure. And it was carried out by ordinary men and women who sleep at night on concrete, get soaked in rainstorms, eat donated food and have nothing as weapons but their dignity, resilience and courage. It is they, and they alone, who hold out the possibility of salvation. And if we join them we might have a chance.

chris hedges could as easily deliver a screed like this from a pulpit as in a column written for the internet... reading it, i can almost smell the sulfur and brimstone and hear the electricity of his passion crackling from the page... with such vehemence, it's almost too much to take in large, long doses... however, that said, there is a broad vein of truth in what he writes, particularly in what he says here... the optimism in this piece is a bit surprising to me given the near despair that's informed a lot of his more recent writing... i feel some of that optimism beginning to trickle through me as well, although i confess to almost wishing it wasn't... i've had my hopes dashed entirely too often...

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AL Jazeera devotes a half-hour program overviewing the global Occupy movement

al jazeera...



meanwhile, in the u.s., former obama confidant cornel west was arrested yesterday on the steps of the supreme court...

russia today...

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What's most amazing about OWS – and the support it's receiving – is not that it happened, but frankly why the hell it took so long

the article does a reasonably good job of presenting what i feel is a fair perspective on occupy wall street and the general mood in the u.s. today... the main theme of the piece, however, is to offer his thoughts on how ows might impact the upcoming 2012 election and in particular how it might affect democratic politics... since, at this point, i am almost completely disengaged from even caring about the u.s. political process, i left that part out...

michael cohen of the uk observer writes in the guardian's "comment is free"...

In a nutshell, Americans are ticked off. Millions are struggling financially; many are out of a job or are underemployed. They can't pay their bills. They are falling deeper into personal debt. They are losing hope that things will improve in the foreseeable future. Worst of all, while they are falling further behind a small minority appears to be leaping further ahead.

Wall Street and the big banks caused the market crash that cost millions of jobs and plunged the US economy into near-depression. Yet three years later, the country's financial elite continues to prosper while the other 99% suffers. Meanwhile, Washington, due mainly to the unceasing obstructionism of the Republican party, seems completely incapable of arresting America's decline.

In some ways, what's most amazing about OWS – and the support it's receiving – is not that it happened, but frankly why the hell it took so long.

[...]

OWS has arisen not because of the left's activism, but despite it. Focusing on electoral victories and legislative accomplishments, the left has failed to push an effective populist movement, focusing its energy more on social issues than economic ones. Democratic leaders have stayed at arm's length from the party's activist base for fear of being stained by their perceived political excesses (a position that has rightly alienated a generation of liberals). Considering these larger failures of the left, it seems almost appropriate that OWS has come about in such an organic and ad hoc manner.

i have been itching for many, many years for something like ows to come along... i was getting to the point where i honestly thought either all the like-minded people in my country were either comatose or that i was simply mentally deranged... i still haven't discounted the latter possibility...

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Marcy says what needs to be said about the Very Scarey Iran Plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador

amazingly, there has not yet been a case submitted to a grand jury...

marcy - emptywheel - wheeler...

Our government has had eleven business days now to subject its amended case to the scrutiny of a grand jury, it had two and a half months to subject its original case to the scrutiny of a grand jury, and it hasn’t yet bothered to do so. We’re sharing our case with the rest of the world before we’re subjecting it to the most basic level of oversight enshrined in our Constitution. Instead of using the legal process laid out in our founding document, we’ve gotten the signature of a Magistrate Judge and run off with it to the rest of the world. And while I have no doubt of the competence of Magistrate Judge Michael Dolinger, the judge who signed the complaint in this case, that’s simply not the way our judicial system is supposed to work. Average citizens are supposed to review the work of the government when it makes legal cases, not just Magistrates.

All of which ought to raise real questions why our government has decided to share these details with the rest of the world, but bypassed the step where they’re supposed to share them with its own citizens.

how interesting that it takes a lone blogger to make the kind of substantial point that should have been a glaring omission to even the least perceptive of our so-called professional news media... if the case was worth the paper it's printed on, a grand jury indictment should have been a slam dunk and certainly something our fear-mongering leaders would have wanted to have had in hand before trying to put that horribly scarey country, iran, back on the front burner...

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A map of the dramatic increase in U.S. drone activity

nick turse has all the grim details...

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