Don't join the Army (or the Air Force, the Marines or the Navy) expecting to find honor

from mr. fish at truthdig...



full disclosure - i'm a vietnam veteran...

i was invited to a veterans day assembly at my grandson's school on thursday... i went for him only, not out of any particular pride i have in being a veteran...

while it's a fact that my gi bill enabled me to earn both my undergraduate and graduate degrees (for which i'm grateful and without which i would not have been able to repeatedly land on my feet over the years), that i learned a great deal from my experience, that i never had to fire my rifle the entire time, that i came back in one piece, and that my health care provider for the past ten years has been the va (since i can't afford private insurance), being a vietnam vet isn't something i advertise... while i'm not ashamed of it, i am acutely aware of just how much my country is steeped in militarism and that is something i just can't support...

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The Occupy movement changes everything

sarah van gelder, david korten and steve piersanti, writing in yes magazine, pretty much sum up my own feelings about the occupy movement...

Here’s how the Occupy movement is already changing everything:

1. It names the source of the crisis.
Political insiders have avoided this simple reality: The problems of the 99% are caused in large part by Wall Street greed, perverse financial incentives, and a corporate takeover of the political system. Now that this is understood, the genie is out of the bottle and it can’t be put back in.

2. It provides a clear vision of the world we want.
We can create a world that works for everyone, not just the wealthiest 1%. And we, the 99%, are using the spaces opened up by the Occupy movement to conduct a dialogue about the world we want.

3. It sets a new standard for public debate.
Those advocating policies and proposals must now demonstrate that their ideas will benefit the 99%. Serving only the 1% will not suffice, nor will claims that the subsidies and policies that benefit the 1% will eventually “trickle down.”

4. It presents a new narrative.
The solution is not to starve government or impose harsh austerity measures that further harm middle-class and poor people already reeling from a bad economy. Instead, the solution is to free society and government from corporate dominance. A functioning democracy is our best shot at addressing critical social, environmental, and economic crises.

5. It creates a big tent.
We, the 99%, are people of all ages, races, occupations, and political beliefs. We will resist being divided or marginalized. We are learning to work together with respect.

6. It offers everyone a chance to create change.
No one is in charge; no organization or political party calls the shots. Anyone can get involved, offer proposals, support the occupations, and build the movement. Because leadership is everywhere and new supporters keep turning up, there is a flowering of creativity and a resilience that makes the movement nearly impossible to shut down.

7. It is a movement, not a list of demands.
The call for deep change—not temporary fixes and single-issue reforms—is the movement’s sustaining power. The movement is sometimes criticized for failing to issue a list of demands, but doing so could keep it tied to status quo power relationships and policy options. The occupiers and their supporters will not be boxed in.

8. It combines the local and the global.
People in cities and towns around the world are setting their own local agendas, tactics, and aims. What they share in common is a critique of corporate power and an identification with the 99%, creating an extraordinary wave of global solidarity.

9. It offers an ethic and practice of deep democracy and community.
Slow, patient decision-making in which every voice is heard translates into wisdom, common commitment, and power. Occupy sites are set up as communities in which anyone can discuss grievances, hopes, and dreams, and where all can experiment with living in a space built around mutual support.

10. We have reclaimed our power.
Instead of looking to politicians and leaders to bring about change, we can see now that the power rests with us. Instead of being victims to the forces upending our lives, we are claiming our sovereign right to remake the world.

i do, however, need to disagree that all ten of those items - or even the majority of them - are faits accomplis... are they extremely important and worth pursuing...? absolutely... what worries me is that they are, at this point, mostly aspirational and that the movement will run out of gas before we get there...

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Anonymous plans a Christmas present for all

it's gotta be be better than anything bought on black friday...!

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Matt Taibbi confesses - he finally "gets" the Occupy movement

i've "gotten" it from the beginning... as soon as i started reading about it, i instantly understood where the protestors were coming from because it's exactly the same place i've been coming from for a very long time and have been despairing that i would ever see like-minded people stepping forward...

matt taibbi in rolling stone...

We're all born wanting the freedom to imagine a better and more beautiful future. But modern America has become a place so drearily confining and predictable that it chokes the life out of that built-in desire. Everything from our pop culture to our economy to our politics feels oppressive and unresponsive. We see 10 million commercials a day, and every day is the same life-killing chase for money, money and more money; the only thing that changes from minute to minute is that every tick of the clock brings with it another space-age vendor dreaming up some new way to try to sell you something or reach into your pocket. The relentless sameness of the two-party political system is beginning to feel like a Jacob's Ladder nightmare with no end; we're entering another turn on the four-year merry-go-round, and the thought of having to try to get excited about yet another minor quadrennial shift in the direction of one or the other pole of alienating corporate full-of-shitness is enough to make anyone want to smash his own hand flat with a hammer.

If you think of it this way, Occupy Wall Street takes on another meaning. There's no better symbol of the gloom and psychological repression of modern America than the banking system, a huge heartless machine that attaches itself to you at an early age, and from which there is no escape. You fail to receive a few past-due notices about a $19 payment you missed on that TV you bought at Circuit City, and next thing you know a collector has filed a judgment against you for $3,000 in fees and interest. Or maybe you wake up one morning and your car is gone, legally repossessed by Vulture Inc., the debt-buying firm that bought your loan on the Internet from Chase for two cents on the dollar. This is why people hate Wall Street. They hate it because the banks have made life for ordinary people a vicious tightrope act; you slip anywhere along the way, it's 10,000 feet down into a vat of razor blades that you can never climb out of.

That, to me, is what Occupy Wall Street is addressing. People don't know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.

yep, yep and yep... that's exactly what i want... something different... not just anything different, but something different that values people over money, compassion over selfishness, serenity over anger, and social justice over pay-to-play...

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What's next for OWS

from the guardian...

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Clever, creative, funny, pointed, and non-violent protest - THIS is what the First Amendment looks like

i'll tell ya... this kind of stuff really inspires me... it's clever, it's creative, it definitely makes a point and, what's more, it attracts a lot of attention from a lot of people who, if was a routine, sign-carrying, slogan-chanting street demonstration, would probably give it a wide berth...

creativity and pointed humor get my vote every time...

On November 4th, we [the Other 98%] occupied the Kochs.

The Koch Brothers and their front group, Americans For Prosperity, held a gala for the 1% in Washington DC, called "Defending The American Dream." 1200 of our friends showed up to Occupy The Kochs. This is what happened.

here's a similar thing they did for another koch gala in nyc...



good stuff...

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Italy is TBTF Too Big to Fail but it is also TBTS Too Big To Save [UPDATE] [UPDATE II]

nouriel roubini...

The worst case scenario for Italy is inevitable

Clearly unsustainable.

and thus spake dr.doom...

[UPDATE and BUMPED]

from the financial times...

Nouriel Roubini: Why Italy’s days in the eurozone may be numbered

With interest rates on its sovereign debt surging well above seven per cent, there is a rising risk that Italy may soon lose market access. Given that it is too-big-to-fail but also too-big-to-save, this could lead to a forced restructuring of its public debt of €1,900bn.

That would partially address its “stock” problem of large and unsustainable debt but it would not resolve its “flow” problem, a large current account deficit, lack of external competitiveness and a worsening plunge in gross domestic product and economic activity.

i don't know about you, but i'm getting the distinct feeling that something really, really big is about to happen...

[UPDATE II and BUMPED]

the collapse of the euro zone appears to be getting closer and closer... accordingly, i've added two more popcorn-eating icons to graphically demo just how interesting this whole thing is getting...



from the ft...

Market spikes eurozone’s guns

This week’s market upheaval in Europe has made it difficult to increase the firepower of the eurozone’s €440bn rescue fund to the €1,000bn that the bloc’s leaders had hoped for, the fund’s chief executive said on Thursday.

Investors have fled from bonds issued by highly indebted countries. Luring them back by offering insurance on losses – the centrepiece of a plan agreed in Brussels on October 26 – would now probably use up more of the fund’s resources, Klaus Regling, head of the European financial stability facility, said.

His concerns underline Europe’s difficulties in putting in place mechanisms to contain the sovereign debt crisis and, if necessary, help Italy cope with soaring refinancing costs.

pull up a chair... get comfy... we just might be about to witness an historic economic collapse which, if it does happen, is going to have a domino effect that we can't even imagine...

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We're suckers for the lesser evil and choose to forget just how much Bill Clinton is responsible for our current mess

robert scheer delivers a teach-in at occupy la...



scheer doesn't shy away from putting a good share of the blame where it belongs, right at the feet of bill clinton...

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Robert Reich delivers a teach-in at Occupy LA

something is wrong with the system itself...

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Our rich, elite media propaganda puppets

i thought perhaps the relentless schedule of glenn's book tour was taking a toll on his posting... i was right... but he's back and still full of p & v...

Glenn Greenwald: Elite Media Biased Against Occupy Wall Street

raw story...

Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional rights attorney, said the media’s reaction to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement highlighted how mainstream media journalists had become part of the elite class.

“If you look at, say, a host on MSNBC, what you’re actually seeing is a very high ranking employee of what was General Electric and now is Comcast, who makes many millions of dollars a year and has a make-up artist sitting in front of their face for an hour applying all sorts of make-up and another person working on their hair.”

He said that journalists had traditionally been people outside of power who acted as watchdogs to aid the powerless, but that mainstream journalists now identified with the powerful.

nothing we don't already know...

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Thought for the day

thanks to anonymous...

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A little bit of good news for a Wednesday in November

some good news from yesterday's election results...

• Workers’ Rights (Ohio);
• Choice (Mississippi);
• Voting Rights (Maine);
• Marriage Equality (Iowa);
• Immigrant Civil Rights AND Government By the People (Arizona);
• Public Education (North Carolina)

there's still some voters left out there who aren't completely batshit insane...

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Here we go - using the populist-fueled defeat of the collective bargaining law in Ohio as a way to co-opt OWS

our establishment folks can only see things in terms of elections, voting and candidates... using yesterday's rejection of the effort to revoke basic worker rights by ohio voters, cfa's robert borosage calls for a ramped-up effort to get progressive candidates running for offices at all levels across the country in 2012...

Two years ago, the Tea Party turned protest into political power, fielding right-wing challengers to office holders of both parties. Public dismay with the failed economy enabled Republicans to capture the House of Representatives, and state houses and legislatures across the country. They captured 675 state legislative seats, the largest sweep since 1938. Shock-doctrine conservatives then used the crisis to cut taxes on corporations while savaging public services. They moved to roll back worker rights to weaken unions, their most organized opposition. Realizing they represented a minority position, they passed a range of laws seeking to constrict voting rights, requiring photo IDs, limiting early voting, etc. Then they went after women's rights, environmental protections and the poor while doing most of what the business lobby asked of them.

Now from Madison to Wall Street and across the country, the new populist uprising is challenging the failed conservative ideas and corporate interests that have dominated our politics to devastating effect. The question now is whether that uprising will generate progressive challengers to conservative office holders in both parties. That will take not just inspiration but organization as well.

To supply that, Progressive Majority has joined with Moveon.org, US Action, the Center for Community Change, Rebuild the Dream, the New Organizing Institute and other partners in the emerging American Dream Movement to set the goal of recruiting and supporting 2,012 candidates in 2012.

the old saw has it that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results... our electoral, two-party and campaign finance systems are so profoundly broken, i, for one, can no longer delude myself into thinking that "more and better progressives" (to paraphrase the daily kos mantra of "more and better democrats") will fix anything... it's the system that's broken, not individual office holders, and that's precisely what the occupy movement has forced us to look at...

i succumbed to my eternal and unrelenting desire to get my country back when i voted for obama, only to be rewarded with a president who has taken the national security state well beyond the excesses of george bush, who sanctions the remotely-controlled, targeted killing not only of foreign innocents but also of american civilians, who has populated the closest ranks of his advisers with wall street elites, and who is now taking a populist tack to try to win me back...

so, please don't try to crank up my enthusiasm and co-opt my energy and money for getting 2012 progressive candidates to run in 2012... ain't gonna happen...

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Livestream from Occupy London

Watch live streaming video from occupylsx at livestream.com

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We Are Legion - Anonymous, LulzSec, leaderless just like OWS

this is a trailer for a documentary entitled, We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists...

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It makes me crazy that, in all the focus on Greece, nobody mentions Goldman Sachs

just another instance of the banksters dodging accountability (and criminal prosecution) and being enabled to do so by our news media who choose to look the other way...

spiegel reported on this over 18 months ago...

How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt

Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules.

greg palast gives us a timely reminder...

In 2002, Goldman Sachs secretly bought up €2.3 billion in Greek government debt, converted it all into yen and dollars, then immediately sold it back to Greece.

[...]

Goldman had cut a secret deal with the Greek government in power then. Their game: to conceal a massive budget deficit. Goldman's fake loss was the Greek government's fake gain.

Goldman would get repayment of its “loss” from the government at loan-shark rates.

The point is, through this crazy and costly legerdemain, Greece's right-wing free-market government was able to pretend its deficits never exceeded 3 percent of GDP.

[...]

In 2007, at the same time banks were selling suspect CDS's and CDOs (packaged sub-prime mortgage securities), Goldman held a “net short” position against these securities. That is, Goldman was betting their financial "products" would end up in the toilet. Goldman picked up another half a billion dollars on their "net short" scam.

But, instead of cuffing Goldman's CEO Lloyd Blankfein and parading him in a cage through the streets of Athens, we have the victims of the frauds, the Greek people, blamed. Blamed and soaked for the cost of it. The "spread" on Greek bonds (the term used for the risk premium paid on Greece's corrupted debt) has now risen to — get ready for this––$14,000 per family per year.

when i'm at home (wherever that might happen to be at any given time), i virtually never listen to news on the radio or watch it on tv, preferring to get all my news from multiple internet sources... however, when i'm out driving around, i usually listen to npr and have been known to start screaming in the privacy of my truck while listening to multiple stories on greece none of which EVER mentions the goldman connection... what can be said about that kind of omission except that it's a blatant media cover-up...?

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MN Rep. Keith Ellison on OWS and the 99%

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Let's cut the bullshit - there's plenty of money to go around

from truthout...

The United States isn't broke; we're the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. In these and so many other ways, it just isn't working. But rather than invest in something better, we continue to keep this 'dinosaur economy' on life support with hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money. The Story of Broke calls for a shift in government spending toward investments in clean, green solutions—renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste and more—that can deliver jobs AND a healthier environment. It's time to rebuild the American Dream; but this time, let's build it better.

yeah, what if...? it's a lovely idea... it's also the RIGHT idea... first, however, we've got to put a stop to the vested interests whose wealth and power is based on the status quo from buying elected officials to make sure their vested interests are the ones that get served... which takes us right back to the occupy movement...

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First Amendment rights for Occupy Fresno...? Fuhgedaboudit...

from raw story...

For the third night in a row, protesters with “Occupy Fresno” were arrested for gathering in a public park, apparently in violation of a county ordinance that labeled them trespassers.

At least 20 were arrested over the weekend. Nine more were led away in handcuffs on Monday night.

While they could have moved their demonstration to the sidewalks at night to avoid the arrests, they’ve steadfastly refused, equating that action with forfeiture of their constitutional right to freedom of assembly.

aw, c'mon you police guys... remember where we're living and the rights our precious constitution (supposedly) grants us...

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Funny how the IAEA made a u-turn after Mohamed ElBaradei

it took 'em almost 24 months to move the iaea from a respected, objective watchdog to a shill for u.s. propaganda...

see jim white at emptywheel...

Two Years After ElBaradei’s Departure, IAEA Joins Anti-Iran Drumbeat

and, sure enough...

U.N. Finds Signs of Work by Iran Toward Nuclear Device

United Nations weapons inspectors released a trove of new evidence on Tuesday that they say makes a “credible” case that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device” and that the project may still be under way.

The long-awaited report relies on evidence whose scope and depth is far greater than any the agency has made public before, and represents the harshest judgment that the International Atomic Energy Agency has ever issued in its decade-long struggle to pierce the secrecy surrounding the Iranian program. The findings have already rekindled a debate among the Western allies and Israel about whether increased diplomatic pressure, sanctions, sabotage or military action could stop Iran’s program.

robert parry offers a rapid response as well as some context on the bogus "authority" behind this equally bogus return bout of u.s. and media hyperventilation on iran, the same guy who sold us a bill of goods on iraq's non-existent wmd...

An Iraq-WMD Replay on Iran?

The American public is about to be inundated with another flood of “expert analysis” about a dangerous Middle Eastern country presumably hiding a secret nuclear weapons program that may require a military strike, although this time it is Iran, not Iraq.

In the near future, you will be seeing more satellite photos of non-descript buildings that experts will say are housing elements of a nuclear bomb factory. There will be more diagrams of supposed nuclear devices. Some of the same talking heads will reappear to interpret this new “evidence.”

You might even recognize some of those familiar faces from the more innocent days of 2002-2003 when they explained, with unnerving confidence, how Iraq’s Saddam Hussein surely had chemical and biological weapons and likely a nuclear weapons program, too.

For instance, back then, former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright was all over the news channels, reinforcing the alarmist claims about Iraq’s WMD that were coming from President George W. Bush and his neocon-dominated administration.

Today, Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) is issuing a flurry of alarmist reports about Iran’s nuclear bomb progress, often accompanied by the same kind of satellite photos and diagrams that helped persuade many Americans that Iraq must possess unconventional weapons that turned out to be fictitious.

imho, this is nothing more and nothing less than another fabricated diversion to get us to stop focusing on real issues and keep us cowering under the bed in fear of yet another boogeyman... (pay no attention to ows... look over here at what iran's doing...!)

what's particularly disturbing about this turn of events isn't the patently propagandistic nature of the breathless revelations, it's the leaking scuttlebutt about israel's plans for attacking iran which would be ever so much worse than iran actually having the bomb...

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Debt strikes: end the slavery

from alternet...

One of the fascinating things about the media dominance of Occupy Wall Street has been how the conversation has shifted away from the deficit-obsession of the last few years. Suddenly the debt that everyone is talking about is personal, individual debt—student loans, mortgages, credit cards and other ways the big banks control our lives.

“That's one of the things, debt really does tie the 99 percent together. Everyone who is under the 99 percentile saw a debt runup in the 2000s,” Mike Konczal, finance blogger and fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, told me. “You can talk about 'the richest 1 percent makes this much money,' but part of what they're making is debt. Their wealth is a claim on everyone else's future income.”

almost 12 years ago, utterly frustrated with the fact that the greater portion of my life up to that point had been saddled with debt of one sort or another, i was finally able to get out from under it - all of it... it was one of the best things i've ever done for myself... now, at age 64, i have no mortgage, no auto loan, no credit card debt, and, in fact, no debt whatsoever... and, other than my truck and 5th wheel trailer, reasonably flush credit union savings and checking accounts, a term life insurance policy and a VERY modest 401K left over from my last corporate job (which has been totally whacked by the economy), i have no assets - no investments, no stocks, no bonds, no property, no precious metals, no valuable collectibles... i maintain one credit card (with a large credit limit and no annual fee) for the considerable amount of traveling i do but it's paid off each month... i never knowingly submit to the ever-present exhortations to "check my credit score" or take actions that would require my credit score to be checked... the last 12 years have given me a sense of economic freedom i used to only dream about...

however...

all three of my grown children (the oldest is 42) are still paying off student loan debt and, to various degrees, can be pretty much described as "debt slaves"... my youngest began a masters program this year and was facing the prospect of putting herself even deeper in hock by taking out still more student loans... fortunately, i'm at a place where i don't have to sit by gnashing my teeth while she does that and i offered to pay for the whole thing, half as a loan at less than half the interest rate she would have to pay to a lending institution and half as an outright grant... (yes, i'm extremely grateful to be able to do something like that...)

since i'm currently in the valley of the doldrums (i.e., back in the u.s. between contract assignments), i have time - too much, actually - on my hands and, once again, i'm exposed to the incessant urgings of the vast majority of the u.s. version of paid advertising to do or buy something on credit, all the while reminding me just how terribly important my credit rating is... it assaults me at every turn with the distinct implication that my credit rating and my ability to incur large amounts of debt is directly correlated with my worth as a human being...

the article is good as far as it goes but what we really need to do is to challenge our belief that credit and the resulting debt is a societal element worth maintaining at all... what it's really time to do is end the slavery...

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An embarrassment for Congress and a far-reaching blow to Washington’s financial credibility...? HAHAHAHA...!

oh, yeah... like there's any financial credibility left...

what kind of credibility could possibly remain for a country that has thrown trillions of dollars at its super-rich elites and their bankster puppets, has a larger defense budget than the rest of the planet combined, flushes billions and billions of dollars into the twin sinkholes of afghanistan and iraq, smooths the way for the loss of millions of jobs to other countries but works overtime to lighten the tax loads of the very corporations responsible, allows many more millions to be thrown out of their homes with no recourse, and then - THEN - turns around and burns the midnight oil in an attempt to shred the tattered remnants of the social safety net and place the burden for all of this on the very citizens who have already been repeatedly victimized in the decades-long rape and pillage...

from a nyt op-ed...

We are no fans of the supercommittee. It is undemocratic, and the deep, automatic cuts the law would impose if the committee fails to reach agreement are gimmicky and potentially dangerous. But walking away at this point would be an embarrassment for Congress and a far-reaching blow to Washington’s financial credibility.

[...]

Simply dismissing the committee and undoing the sequester would be such a vast admission of Congressional failure that it could push down the nation’s credit rating, lead to chaos in financial markets and severely cripple hopes for an economic recovery. Republicans created the policies that forced up the deficit and then refused to compromise with President Obama. They cannot simply walk away now. Panel members have only a few days to come up with a plan that balances new revenues with spending cuts. That is the only way to wrestle down the deficit without doing huge damage to the economy and the country.

there isn't any credibility... there hasn't been any credibility for quite some time... with the congressional approval rating at a jaw-dropping 9%, talking about congressional credibility is beyond ridiculous... whatever happens - or doesn't happen - isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference to a system that is so profoundly broken, the only sensible thing to do is sit back and wait for the implosion...

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Significant risk of a Eurozone breakup

roubini prognosticates...

There is a “significant risk of a Eurozone breakup,” sources say Roubini told a handful of select party guests recently, reports the Business Insider. Adds the economist, if the Eurozone goes under, “everything around the world goes sour.”

Roubini has claimed that in the past he correctly predicted both the housing market crash and the worldwide recession, the aftermath of both is still evident in the crises across the globe. For his forecasting, Roubini has earned the title “Dr. Doom” from members of the media, who look to him for economic outlook and have been met with not-so-optimistic — and correct — assumptions from the analyst in the past. As the American economy continues to show slumping statistics and the unemployment rate stays at or above a stagnant 9 percent for months, a collapse across the pond could cause a catastrophe for the world economy.

Sources say Roubini announced, "If the Eurozone blows up, it all gets worse."

Less than two weeks ago, Roubini had predicted that the odds of a eurozone collapse were one-in-two.

“Unfortunately, in my view there is a risk, at least a 50 percent probability, that in the U.S., in the eurozone, in the United Kingdom, and in most advanced economies, the future in the next 12 months might suggest a recession, a downturn, rather than reacceleration of growth,” Roubini said on October 24 to Bloomberg.

i hate to endlessly repeat myself but i sure as hell do wish this damn house of cards would just go ahead and collapse already...

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It's the 1 percent that pay for elections, not the 25 million workers suffering from Congressional greed and incompetence

the ability of our super-rich elites to use their bought and paid for elected puppets and media shills to manipulate us and pit us against each other knows no bounds...

dean baker...

It is truly impressive how the Washington elite have managed to make these modest protections for the country's working population (the 99 percent) into the greatest problem facing the country. The obsession with cutting these programs is occurring at a time when we have more than 25 million people unemployed, underemployed or who have given up looking for work altogether. One might think that Congress would convene a supercommittee to get people back to work rather than figuring out a way to undermine programs that people need, but it's the 1 percent that pay for elections, not the 25 million workers suffering from their greed and incompetence.

Since almost no one can be immune to the hysteria that the media have created around the cost of these programs, it is worth putting it in some context. Starting with Social Security, the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office show that the program can pay all benefits through the year 2038 with no changes whatsoever.

Even if we never did anything, the program would be able to pay more than 80 percent of scheduled benefits well into the next century. Since the value of benefits is projected to rise through time, 80 percent of the projected benefit in 2040 is considerably higher than the average benefit received by retirees today. Therefore, the often repeated comment that there will be nothing there for our children or grandchildren is a telltale sign of ignorance or dishonesty.

[...]

The public should realize that "generational warfare" is an agenda that was deliberately designed by the 1 percent to distract the rest of us from the class war that they have been successfully waging over the last three decades. Rather than have a public debate on the policies that have redistributed so much income upward, the 1 percent want to pit children against their parents and grandparents, forcing them to fight over crumbs.

it's truly astounding to me that, given the state the world is in and the many issues of real substance we have facing us as a human race, that the appointed stooges of our elites can, in what only amounts to unbelievable arrogance and deliberate denial, sit in washington and deliberate how best to destroy the precious little bit that remains of our social contract...

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Using client's money to buy influence in Congress

again, nothing we don't know but still very useful to hear it from the horse's mouth...

jack abramoff on cbs' 60 minutes...



from alternet...

Abramoff: When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, "You know, when you're done working on the Hill, we'd very much like you to consider coming to work for us." Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to 'em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they're gonna do. And not only that, they're gonna think of things we can't think of to do.

money and power... that's what we're up against...

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Everyone's bought and paid for

yes, we all know this (or at least we all SHOULD know this)...

from ows via anonymous...



once again, the pretentious and overly dramatic background music only detracts from the message...

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Protect the occupations: what the rest of the 99 percent can do

as a close observer of the occupy movement and seeing the need for evolution beyond merely "occupying," i think it's critical to find ways to effectively communicate with and potentially bring in the vast numbers of other people who share the concerns of the those who have chosen to be active in the effort...

jeremy brecher in the nation...

According to the Albany Times-Union, Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings, under pressure from the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo, thereupon directed city police to arrest several hundred Occupy Albany protesters. The police refused. The Times-Union reported that “State Police supported the defiant posture of Albany police leaders to hold off making arrests for the low-level offense of trespassing, in part because of concern it could incite a riot or draw thousands of protesters in a backlash that could endanger police and the public.” According to the official, “The bottom line is the police know policing, not the governor and not the mayor.” Meanwhile, Albany County District Attorney David Soares informed the mayor and police officials that, “Unless there is property damage or injuries to law enforcement we don’t prosecute people for protesting.”

[...]

Here are some ways 99 percenters might want to think about organizing with their own real and virtual communities:

• Bring a speaker from your local Occupy group to a meeting in your living room or to whatever organizations you belong to.
• Organize a General Assembly in your neighborhood to discuss the issues of the 99 percent. Discuss what is upsetting people and decide on some concrete action to address it.
• If your PTA supports teachers’ jobs and programs for low-income students, get them to visit their political representatives and also do a joint action with your local Occupy group.
• If your church’s food pantry or homeless shelter needs money, hold an action at your local bank offices demanding that they feed the homeless in “their” community. If they won’t, ask your elected officials to take a look at the benefits they receive from “their” community. (Remember, according to Mayor Bloomberg it was the threat of city council officials to look into benefits received by the owners of Zuccotti Park that led them to back off their efforts to shut down OWS.)
• Create a Facebook page for your own equivalent of “Knitters for the 99 Percent.”
• Create a group to monitor local media and to protest when they favor the concerns of the 1 percent over those of the 99 percent.
• Organize public hearings in your town about what’s really happening to the 99 percent and how the 1 percent’s power is affecting them.
• Create your own temporary occupations in your own milieu addressing concerns about housing, jobs, media or whatever else concerns you and your fellow 99 percenters.

[...]

The occupations have been incredibly successful. But nothing can fail like success. Z magazine founder Michael Albert, just returned from conversations with protest veterans in Greece, Turkey, London, Dublin and Spain, reports he was told that their massive assemblies and occupations at first were invigorating and uplifting. “We were creating a new community. We were making new friends. We were hearing from new people.” But as days and weeks passed, “it got too familiar. And it wasn’t obvious what more they could do.”

there's a threshold to be crossed and a higher plateau to be achieved... how we do that is going to be a significant challenge...

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Some articulate members of Occupy Reno talk about what they think it's all about

oh and, by the way, the occupy reno camp is substance (drug, alcohol, tobacco) free, putting the lie to the nonsense about "drug-crazed hippies"...

thanks to ray and occupy reno...

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Occupy Mosier, OR - pop. 430

more encouraging news about the spread of the occupy movement...

With a population of just 430, Mosier, Oregon will become the smallest U.S. town to have an active Occupy camp. Participants from Mosier and other small communities of the Columbia Gorge are working to highlight their vision for a family-friendly camp that includes music, movies and round-table discussions with the community.

[...]

“Rural communities have been hit harder than anyone by the policies the Occupy movement has formed to fight,” said Corie Lahr, Mosier resident. “If we do this right, we can attract a lot of rural people to the movement.”

Multiple speakers, workshops and movies are being planned in Mosier on a range of issues from reining in corporate control over U.S. politics and an shrinking an over-sized military budget to supporting local credit unions, fighting plans to ship coal through the Columbia Gorge to China, and addressing wage inequality and related issues.

“People have asked us if we are getting a permit,” said Lahr. “We had to laugh because we don’t have sidewalks, let alone a city park where people could gather on city property for a protest. We are doing everything we can to communicate with the City of Mosier, public safety officials and the public about what we are planning and our goals.”
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The group expects 15 or more tents to be set up with hundreds of people visiting the camp over the next week. The group has also invited local area Tea Party activists to the camp to share tea and round-table discussion about areas where the Tea Party and Occupy movements can agree.

more at occupy the gorge.org...

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