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And, yes, I DO take it personally: 11/13/2011 - 11/20/2011
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"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
- Noam Chomsky
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And, yes, I DO take it personally

Saturday, November 19, 2011

NYPD Captain Ray Lewis joins OWS [correction]

good stuff and very interesting... an obviously very intelligent and thoughtful guy...


Police Capt Ray Lewis Joins Protest - Says Police Are Corporate Mercenaries!




[Correction]

ray lewis is a retired captain with the philadelphia police, not the nypd...

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OWS - the continual necessity for acting and thinking boldly

i regularly think back to my time in kosovo this past february, glued to the al jazeera livestream from cairo... i was thrilled beyond words to see the people in egypt rise up and insist on taking their power back from one of the world's most decidedly corrupt regimes... the fact that mubarak had been a long-time ally of my own country was not a small part of my jubilation...

when the ows movement began here two months ago, i was equally thrilled... while that thrill has dissipated somewhat, i am still of the firm belief that ows is the most exciting development in the u.s. in my lifetime...

i worry over what, if anything, the next evolution of ows will look like... as the author of this excerpt, recently returned from egypt, states, whatever evolves, it must be big and bold... we are at a time in the history of our country and of the world where only big and bold will do...

[T]he most valuable organizing nugget I carried back with me [from Egypt] is the continual necessity for acting and thinking boldly. As an organizer here in the US, I was taught to be pragmatic and practical - go for what you can win in a specific time horizon. As an organizer, we ask leaders to dream, to name the things that hold them back from being happy, free and prosperous. And then, we set limits on those dreams, or cut them into bite-sized chunks that are so small, they sometimes bear little resemblance to the massive, audacious canvas that the leaders first painted for us. We negotiate ourselves down before we even get to the real negotiation table.

Before Egypt, I was taught that politics is the art of the possible. After Egypt, I question whether we should all be reaching for the impossible and ludicrous. Who knows who else might agree? A common call for the laughable and ridiculous widens the possibility for what can and should happen.

this takes me back to what i posted earlier - i believe we should be giving serious consideration to a constitutional convention...

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Mr. Fish - Only a Coward Arms Himself Against the First Amendment

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Message to Anonymous by Anonymous

from anonymous...

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Don't co-opt OWS and the case for a Constitutional Convention

from macleod cartoons...

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i just came back from a journey of the heart where i visited with a very good friend whom i have not visited for way too many years... he is a man i would unabashedly describe as "great," a man who thinks, reads, comes to his own conclusions, and, now in his early 70s, is always unfailingly out ahead of not only his peers but also those of every age group... while the basis of our friendship is clearly based on our intellectual compatibility, his greatness is considerably enhanced by the fact that he chose to spend his working life as an aircraft mechanic and devoted his spare time to raising children, building houses and collectible race cars, and crafting a relationship with a fine and strong woman which will culminate next month in a 50-year wedding anniversary celebration...

in the extended conversations i was privileged to have with him over the few days we spent together, conversations that, as you might expect, ranged all over the map, we honed in on most of the salient political and social issues of the day... i shared with him my somewhat peripheral involvement with the occupy movement and my experiences working, traveling and living in many foreign countries, and we ended up mutually reaching for some sort of macro solution to the problems that are dogging our country...

interestingly enough, the solution he has in mind and one that i would be at great pains to disagree with, is convening a constitutional convention... he is a student of howard zinn and agrees with zinn that our system has been seriously flawed from the beginning... while my gut reaction was to immediately want to defend the u.s. constitution as the unimpeachable product of the founders, it didn't take me but a few moments of reflection to follow his reasoning...

here's glenn struggling with the current state of the occupy movement and expressing his profound hope that it doesn't get pulled in to the political/electoral morass...

I disagree with the prevailing wisdom that OWS should begin formulating specific legislative demands and working to elect specific candidates. I have no doubt that many OWS protesters will ultimately vote and even work for certain candidates — and that makes sense — but the U.S. desperately needs a citizen movement devoted to working outside of political and legal institutions and that is designed to be a place of dissent against it. Integrating it into that system is a way of narrowing its appeal and, worse, sapping it of its unique attributes and fear-generating potency. Even if you believe the U.S. has some sort of vibrant democracy — rather than a democracy-immune oligarchy — not all change needs to come exclusively from voting and electoral politics. Citizen movements can change the political culture in ways other than working within that pre-established electoral system; indeed, when that system becomes fundamentally corrupted, working outside of it is the only means of effectuating real change.

[...]

I hope OWS, at least for now, remains a movement that refuses to reduce itself into garden-variety electoral politics. What is missing from America is a healthy fear in the hearts and minds of the most powerful political and financial factions of the consequences of their continued pilfering, corporatism, and corrupt crony capitalism, and only this sort of movement — untethered from the pacifying rules of our political and media institutions — can re-impose that healthy fear.

inspiring "a healthy fear in the hearts and minds of the most powerful political and financial factions," as laudable as that goal is at this moment in time, doesn't get us to where we so desperately need to go - a re-imagined, workable, transparent, equitable system that works for all of us... to me, THAT is the desired end state and absolutely nothing else will do... now, how do we get there...?

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The CEO of my credit union spells out the banksters' creed - "The consumer is simply an income stream and exploiting that is the purpose"

i am still in the process of consolidating all of my finances under the umbrella of alliant credit union where i've maintained an account since spring 1995... last year, i closed my accounts at hsbc offshore and wells fargo and just cashed out and transferred a wells fargo cd...

from reuters
...

David Mooney, chief executive officer of Alliant Credit Union in Chicago, one of the nation's larger credit unions, used to work at one of Wall Street's top banks, JPMorgan Chase. There's a vast cultural gap between Wall Street and his new world, he says: Old friends from the Street, he says, now jokingly refer to him as a "socialist." A credit union is supposed to be run in the interests of all members, he says, while commercial bankers tend to see consumers as customers who can be "exploited" by layering on more fees.

Says Mooney: "I don't say this lightly, but the consumer is simply an income stream and exploiting that is the purpose of the banking organization."

isn't it amazing that going to work for an organization that's dedicated to working for the common good of its customers is to risk being labeled a "socialist"...? i don't consider "socialist" an epithet but, in the context of today, for a large majority of people, it's certainly meant as a slur...

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At UC Davis, police pepper spray peaceful students like they're spraying noxious weeds

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from angry black lady at balloon juice via atrios...
This is what non-violent resistance in the face of egregious police brutality looks like.

be sure to stick with the video until the end...


UC Davis Chancellor’s office (530) 752-2065

UC Davis police (530) 752-1727

The officer who pulled out the pepper spray was Lieutenant John Pike. 530-752-3989 japikeiii@ucdavis.edu


if the ptb think that this kind of over-the-top police brutality is going to make the occupy movement go away, they're got another think coming... it's horrendous, truly abominable behavior...

from firedoglake...

UC Davis Chancellor Called to Resign After Police Pepper Spray Students

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Friday, November 18, 2011

Global Revolution TV

very cool...

from democracy now...

For the past two months, a website called Global Revolution TV has become the main video hub for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Featuring live video feeds from New York and dozens of other cities hosting Occupy protests, the site has transformed how protests are covered and observed. When OWS protesters hold a general assembly in Zuccotti Park, the gathering is usually live-streamed across the world. When police raided the park early on Tuesday, it was caught on live stream, as well. We speak to one of the site’s co-founders, Vlad Teichberg. He is a former derivatives trader who gave up a life in the financial world to work on video activism. "This project started officially with the beginning of the New York occupation, although similar versions of this project have been done in the past for other actions and revolts," Teichberg says. "People think of Occupy Wall Street as like an American revolution. It has its roots, though, in the Arab Spring. Obviously it inspired a lot of things. And it has very direct roots in the Spanish revolution."

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Chomsky on Occupy - "The country desperately needs something like this and there's not a lot of time to do it""

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32,000 people

say it slowly... let it roll around in your mouth and your consciousness... savor it...

THIRTY-TWO THOUSAND...!!

Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested across the United States in confrontations with police on the two-month anniversary of the Occupy movement.

Police said they arrested 177 people who crowded intersections near the New York Stock Exchange Thursday morning, The Wall Street Journal reported. They later arrested 99 more who tried to block access to the Brooklyn Bridge.

About 32,000 people massed near Wall Street and elsewhere in New York to mark two months since the Occupy movement began.

In Los Angeles, police in riot gear faced protesters in the financial district, resulting in 72 arrests, some of people who pitched tents in the middle of a busy downtown street. Occupy LA protesters, encamped outside City Hall for nearly seven weeks, also took over a plaza outside the Bank of America Center for several hours until police arrived.

The incident prompted several local and national labor unions to call on the city to let the protesters stay, saying the bank plaza was a "more fitting target" for Occupy LA.

there's an evolution in progress for the occupy movement... i've seen it coming ever since it started when it became clear to me that that the half-life of occupying public space with tents was both short and simply not sustainable, at least not in today's police state... what the evolution is going to look like is anybody's guess but my most fervent desire is that it will continue to grow... right now, i think things could go either way... it might grow and, sad to say, it might die... speaking for myself, i can't imagine going back to a state of numbed-out, barely conscious, ever-increasing marginalization...

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Roubini - break-up of the Euro Zone

the contagion is spreading...

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Thursday, November 17, 2011

Message from Anonymous Protect IP Act

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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Our F— You System of Government

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this says it all...
Sick? Too bad.

Can’t find a job? Tough.

Broke? Can’t afford rent? We don’t give a crap.

Forget “e pluribus unum.” We need a more accurate motto.

We live under a f— you system.

Got a problem? The U.S. government has an all-purpose response to whatever ails you: f— you.

[...]

When mentally disabled people seek help from their government, they get the usual answer: f— you.

When people addicted to drugs—drugs imported into the U.S. under the watchful eyes of corrupt border enforcement officers—ask their government for help, they are turned away. F— you again.

When people who lost their homes because their government said “f— you” to them rather than help turn to the same government to look for safe shelter, again they are told: “f— you.”

And then, after days and years and decades of shirking their responsibility to provide us with such staples of human survival as places to urinate and defecate and sleep, and food, and medical care, our “f— you” government has the amazing audacity to blame us, victims of their negligence and corruption and violence, for messing things up.

Which is why we are finally, at long last, starting to say “f— you” to them.

let's keep saying it...

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Monday, November 14, 2011

The state would like us to be violent

rebecca solnit posting at common dreams...
The state would like us to be violent. Violence as cooptation tries to make us more like them, and if we’re like them they win twice—once because being unlike them is our goal and again because then we’re then easier to imprison, brutalize, marginalize, etc. We have another kind of power, though the term nonviolence only defines what it is not; some call our power people power. It works. It’s powerful. It’s changed and it’s changing the world.

[...]

The powers that be are already scared of the Occupy movement and not because of tiny acts of violence. They are scared because right now we speak pretty well for the 99%. And because we set out to change the world and it’s working. The president of Russia warmed at the G20 Summit a week or so ago, "The reward system of shareholders and managers of financial institution should be changed step by step. Otherwise the 'Occupy Wall street' slogan will become fashionable in all developed countries." That’s fear.

[...]

This movement is winning. It’s winning by being broad and inclusive, by emphasizing what we have in common and bridging differences between the homeless, the poor, those in freefall, the fiscally thriving but outraged, between generations, races and nationalities and between longtime activists and never-demonstrated-before newcomers. It’s winning by keeping its eyes on the prize, which is economic justice and direct democracy, and by living out that direct democracy through assemblies and other means right now.

i truly wish that this movement was indeed "winning"... unfortunately, i think it's got a very long way to go... it's most distressing seeing the occupy folks kicked out of oakland and portland and other cities... it's also distressing when i attend gatherings at occupy reno and see people floundering... it's been a very encouraging start, perhaps the most heartening thing i've seen in my lifetime, but right now it feels very, very fragile to me... there needs to be something really big happen to stimulate things to go beyond where they are at the moment... i'm certainly not talking about violence or anything cataclysmic but something big nonetheless...

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Sunday, November 13, 2011

Glenn eviscerates Think Progress for trumpeting Obama's bogus "successes"

god bless 'im... glenn goes where most progressives and rational thinkers fear to tread... i'm afraid i can't even capsulize this excellent post... you need to go read it for yourself...

a quick teaser [emphasis added]...

[T]he list of foreign policy “successes” compiled by Think Progress — echoed in many progressive precincts — is grounded in little more than the premise that “success” is defined as: that which Barack Obama does, even when what he does prompted years of progressive anger when done by George Bush.

god i'm glad there's someone like glenn out there...

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An elevated risk of the collapse of the Euro

a viewpoint you definitely won't see on u.s. news media...

from ireland's tv 3...

Ireland's Financial Expert Eddie Hobbs advising people to get out of the Euro as it is going to collapse.



it's time to stock up on popcorn...

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An amazing triumph...! APEC dinner gala in Hawaii last night gets occupied

how often does someone from the occupy movement get to deliver a thoughtful protest in front of a gathering of world leaders in what was, at least last night, probably one of the most highly-guarded spots on the entire planet...? what an amazing triumph...!

from the yes lab...

A change in the programmed entertainment at last night's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gala left a few world leaders slack-jawed, though most seemed not to notice that anything was amiss.

During the gala dinner, renowned Hawaiian guitarist Makana, who performed at the White House in 2009, opened his suit jacket to reveal a home-made “Occupy with Aloha” T-shirt. Then, instead of playing the expected instrumental background music, he spent almost 45 minutes repeatedly singing his protest ballad released earlier that day. The ballad, called “We Are the Many,” includes lines such as “The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw.... And until they are purged, we won't withdraw,” and ends with the refrain: “We'll occupy the streets, we'll occupy the courts, we'll occupy the offices of you, till you do the bidding of the many, not the few.”

Those who could hear Makana’s message included Presidents Barack Obama of the United States of America, Hu Jintao of China, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, and over a dozen other heads of state.

“At first, I was worried about playing ‘We Are The Many,’” said Makana. “But I found it odd that I was afraid to sing a song I’d written, especially since I'd written it with these people in mind.”

The gala was the most secure event of the summit. It was held inside the Hale Koa hotel, a 72-acre facility owned and controlled by the US Defense Department; the site was fortified with an additional three miles of fencing constructed solely for the APEC summit.

Makana was surprised that no one objected to him playing the overtly critical song. “I just kept doing different versions,” he said. “I must’ve repeated ‘the bidding of the many, not the few’ at least 50 times, like a mantra. It was surreal and sobering.”

[...]

After facing large-scale protests in South Korea, Australia, Peru, and Japan, APEC moved this year's event to Hawaii, the most isolated piece of land on earth. In preparation for the meeting, homeless families were moved out of sight and millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on security—including over $700,000 on non-lethal weapons for crowd control. In a bitter twist, the multi-million dollar security plans backfired when a local Hawaiian man was shot and killed by a 27-year-old DC-based federal agent providing security for dignitaries.

Makana’s action was assisted by the Yes Lab and Occupy the Boardroom. In recent weeks, Occupy protesters have been showing up at corporate events, headquarters and even on the doorsteps of those in power. “Makana really raised the bar by delivering the Occupy message inside what is probably the most secure place on the planet right now,” said Mike Bonanno of the Yes Lab.

here's a youtube video of the song he sang...

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