The US does not have a spending problem, we have a distribution problem "Forty years from now, America will be twice as rich on average as we are today. But most of that wealth will go to the very richest households. We only have a budget crisis if they refuse to pay higher taxes... So the real point isn't that we can't afford Social Security and Medicare. It's that some people don't want to pay the higher taxes necessary to maintain Social Security and Medicare. This is a question of distribution, pure and simple."
posted by bookman117
on Nov 20, 2012 -
53 comments
Gideon Oliver spoke to me of the devastating effect this kind of surveillance has had on activists. “People fear that detectives are following them around. They panic. It’s a movement-dismantling tactic.” Most Occupy protesters are new to activism and are emotionally unprepared to deal with this kind of intimidation. Nor, so far as I have seen, are they inclined to seek the advice of older activists who were under surveillance in the 1960s and 1970s, before the protections of the original Handschu Decree, which prohibited political spying, were put in place. Those activists nevertheless found ways to continue their political work.
From
an article on the NYPD's Intel Division.
[more inside]
posted by eviemath
on Oct 23, 2012 -
34 comments
Noam Chomsky has released a new book --
Occupy -- through
Zuccotti Park Press. In
Occupy, Chomsky discusses how a real democracy would work, how we can separate money from politics, and why everyday Americans are deciding to protest.
AlterNet recently posted an
extensive interview with Chomsky, who claims America and Europe are committing economic suicide. Chomsky's focus on the OWS movement comes at the same time as coverage on the alleged Cleveland bridge bombing conspirators'
close association with Occupy Cleveland.
posted by GnomeChompsky
on May 7, 2012 -
245 comments
Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs. New York Time Op-Ed. March 14th 2012:
TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.
[more inside]
posted by Skygazer
on Mar 14, 2012 -
150 comments
We Will Survive Capitalism! flash mob with
US Uncut [previously] and the
Brass Liberation Orchestra
Previous BLO flash mobs include Bad Hotel [previously], Operation Hey Mackey [previously], and "PAY UP!" (demanding Bank of America pay their taxes). Speaking of BofA, in San Francisco on Thursday activists turned every Bank of America ATM in the city into an Automated Truth Machine, using special non-adhesive stickers designed to look exactly like BoA’s ATM interface. But instead of checking and savings accounts, these new menus offered a list of everything BoA customers’ money is being used for, including investment in coal-fired power plants, foreclosure on Americans’ homes, bankrolling of climate change, and paying for fat executive bonuses. [more inside]
posted by finite
on Jan 15, 2012 -
42 comments
Scott Walker,
Michele Bachmann,
Robin Vos,
Karl Rove,
Joe Moore,
Ron Paul,
Scott Serota,
Newt Gingrich,
Rahm Emanuel,
Eric Cantor, and, today,
Barack Obama
posted by finite
on Nov 22, 2011 -
195 comments
Frank Miller is a giant among comic book creators. He gave us
The Dark Knight Returns, which rewrote the book on Batman and comics in general. He also gave us seminal versions of Daredevil, Batman, and Wolverine. His
Sin City and
300 books are a triumph of design, if not subtlety.
Lately, though, he's taken a different path. He recently released
Holy Terror, which
in 2005 was to have featured Batman, but now features a renamed stand-in fighting Al-Qaeda. It has been nearly
universally panned as a piece of ugly, anti-Muslim propaganda.
Last week, Miller blasted the "Occupy" movement
on his blog, describing the participants as, "louts, thieves, and rapists," who, "can do nothing but harm America" and pointing to the looming threat of Al-Qaeda.
posted by Legomancer
on Nov 14, 2011 -
227 comments
In December 1946, 100,000 union members participated in a 54-hour general strike that effectively shut down Oakland, California. Since November,
425 non-union retail clerks at Kahn’s and Hastings department stores had been picketing for several weeks, attempting to organize as the Retail Clerks (Local 1265). On December 1, after Teamsters refused to deliver merchandise to the stores in solidarity, the Retail Merchants Association,
sent in 12 trucks driven by non-union strikebreakers, supported by a 300-member police escort [PDF]. The next day, "the bus drivers," remembers Secretary of the Alameda County Central Labor Council Robert Ash, "
told the police that the carmen had never crossed a picket line, and so long as that cop picket line was across the street, they were not going to take the streetcars or the buses through."
[more inside]
posted by liketitanic
on Oct 27, 2011 -
92 comments
As the protests begun by
Occupy Wall Street begin to spread and gain a foothold in the public consciousness, many question the movement's apparent unwillingness to focus its outrage into a coherent platform of demands. Meanwhile, others question whether the demographics of the protesters themselves are truly representative of the so-called
99 percent (previously). Why the lack of focus, and what is to be done to keep the movement growing and moving forward?
[more inside]
posted by Scientist
on Oct 9, 2011 -
545 comments
The Best of #OccupySesameStreet. Since its launched two weeks ago, the #OccupyWallStreet movement has gone national, spawning copy-cat demonstrations in far-flung locales like Tulsa and Boise. Its members have serious concerns--about income inequality, the influence of large corporations in our political system, and their own financial futures. The #OccupySesameStreet movement? Not so much.
posted by sweetkid
on Oct 4, 2011 -
30 comments
BBC News asks independent trader Alessio Rastani "
what would keep investors happy, make them feel more confident?" and gets a surprisingly honest answer:
"Personally, it doesn't matter. See, I'm a trader. I don't really care about that kind of stuff. If I see an opportunity to make money, I go with that. So, for most traders, we don't really care that much about how they're going to fix the economy, about how they're going to fix the whole situation; our job is to make money from it. And, personally, I've been dreaming of this moment for three years. I have a confession which is I go to bed every night and dream of another recession, I dream of another moment like this." [SLYT]
posted by finite
on Sep 26, 2011 -
235 comments
Occupy Wall Street is an event comprised of anti-corporate non-violent protests that are being promoted by a range of groups including the AdbustersMedia Foundation and a New York City group called General Assembly. Months ago
a plea was put out to diverse political and activist groups urging them to descend on Wall Street on September 17th and take part in long-term occupation of the area in the spirit of the
Arab Spring rebellions.
[more inside]
posted by stagewhisper
on Sep 20, 2011 -
251 comments
