Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Lawrence O'Donnell on the police brutality directed at OWS protestors this weekend in New York City and one lone Marine's refusal to be intimidated.
I have to say that watching this young man stand up for those that were being brutalized put a sizable lump in my throat. I guess after you have seen what he has seen in Iraq, it takes more than a couple dozen police officers to scare you into standing silent while your fellow Americans are being treated with such disrespect.
On this same topic I thought I would share some photographs taken at various offshoots of the Occupy Wall Street protests that have cropped up around the country.
Occupy DC
Occupy LA
Occupy Boston
Occupy Portland
You can view many more of these wonderful pictures, and see the courage of American speaking truth to power, by clicking here.
I saw that last night also and it was a beautiful sight to behold. It needed to be said and he was righteously po'ed and would not stand down. Bet the NYC cops were a little hesitant to end his rant, I mean, seriously, this guy was right and they knew it!
It's time for all of us to let our voices be heard. It's a joke how the candidates are changing their tune about the protests, even Romney is flip flopping about it in his stylized manner.
I'm trying to keep a low profile these days in my desire to get a better underemployed status job so I can keep my house. But the rage is still there supporting all those who can take to the capitols. It is not going to go away, the people have spoken. And will continue to speak.Not sure what will be the outcome but hoping it won't get too ugly.
Loved your pic of the lone Occupy the Tundra woman. Awesome.
While I support the OWS efforts I have to agree with Barney Frank who was on Rachel Maddow's show last night and said that to really affect change these people need to VOTE. Hopefully people will wake up and undo the damage wrought by the tesbaggers in the 2010 midterms. The President needs a Congress that supports his plans or else we will continue to go nowhere.
Thank you so much for posting this G. This is incredibly powerful and I am so grateful that this young man stood up and spoke his mind. He makes me proud and hopeful and he really put this in perspective.
Sgt. Shamar Thomas USMC Veteran. I took an Oath that I live by.I am NOT anti-NYPD. I am anti- Police Brutality. I am no longer under contract with the USMC so I do NOT have to follow military uniform regulations. I DON'T affiliate myself with ANY GROUPS or POLITICAL ORG. I affiliate myself with the AMERICAN PEOPLE that's it. I REFUSE to affiliate with anything that SEPERATES. There is an obvious problem in the country and PEACEFUL PEOPLE should be allowed to PROTEST without Brutality. I was involved in a RIOT in Rutbah, Iraq 2004 and we did NOT treat the Iraqi citizens like they are treating the unarmed civilians in our OWN Country. No one was brutalized because our mission was to "WIN the hearts and minds", why should I expect anything less in my OWN Country.
New Yorkers Back Occupy Wall Street Movement, Blame Bush Administration: Poll
A new Quinnipiac University poll finds New Yorkers overwhelmingly back the Occupy Wall Street protesters, and even Republicans think they should be allowed to continue their demonstrations.
New York City voters agree with the views of the Occupy Wall Street movement by a nearly three-to-one margin; 67 percent agree with the protesters' views and 23 percent disagree, according to the Quinnipiac poll.
The Quinnipiac poll, released Monday, surveyed people living within the New York City area. Quinnipiac called both landlines and cell phones from Oct. 12 to 16.
Although a majority of Republicans don't agree with the protesters' views, at least seven out of 10 say it's fine for them to protest.
"New Yorkers, even Republicans, back the Wall Street protesters on at least two things they’re talking about, a get-tough attitude toward banks and Wall Street and continuation of the state’s 'Millionaire’s Tax,'" said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a release.
Notably, Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike supported the government imposing tougher regulations on banks and Wall Street firms, as well as imposing the so-called "Millionare's Tax."
"Critics complain that no one can figure out what the protesters are protesting," Carroll added. "But seven out of 10 New Yorkers say they understand and most agree with the anti-Wall Street views of the protesters."
The answer is: yes, many of the protesters do understand what Wall Street and more generally the nation’s economic elite have done for us. And that’s why they’re protesting.
On Saturday The Times reported what people in the financial industry are saying privately about the protests. My favorite quote came from an unnamed money manager who declared, “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it.”
This is deeply unfair to American workers, who are good at lots of things, and could be even better if we made adequate investments in education and infrastructure. But to the extent that America has lagged in everything except financial services, shouldn’t the question be why, and whether it’s a trend we want to continue?
For the financialization of America wasn’t dictated by the invisible hand of the market. What caused the financial industry to grow much faster than the rest of the economy starting around 1980 was a series of deliberate policy choices, in particular a process of deregulation that continued right up to the eve of the 2008 crisis.
Not coincidentally, the era of an ever-growing financial industry was also an era of ever-growing inequality of income and wealth. Wall Street made a large direct contribution to economic polarization, because soaring incomes in finance accounted for a significant fraction of the rising share of the top 1 percent (and the top 0.1 percent, which accounts for most of the top 1 percent’s gains) in the nation’s income. More broadly, the same political forces that promoted financial deregulation fostered overall inequality in a variety of ways, undermining organized labor, doing away with the “outrage constraint” that used to limit executive paychecks, and more.
Oh, and taxes on the wealthy were, of course, sharply reduced.
Barney Frank To Occupy Wall Street: Where Were You During The Last Midterms?
On Monday night Rachel Maddow explained how the Occupy Wall Street movement defied some traditional party lines, or in her words, protesters “aren’t exactly delighted with Democrats either.” She then introduced Rep. Barney Frank, who shared some frustrations with the protesters, saying “I’m unhappy when people didn’t vote last time blame me for the consequences of their not voting.” Frank echoed the thoughts made last week by former Gov. Ed Rendell who basically asked where were these folks during the last mid-term elections?
Frank has been himself a lightning rod for harsh criticism regarding the loosening of regulations surrounding mortgages, which some feel led to the very mortgage-backed security problems that led to a crashing of the U.S. economy back in fall of 2008. Many on the right have efforted to make him the poster-boy for Democratic ineptitude.
For his part, Frank has always maintained that his position hasn’t changed, that his efforts were to fight the very deregulated policies that led to the crash. So for him to feel ire from Occupy Wall Street protesters — most of whom appear to be of the progressive stripe — combined with two years of conservative attacks…well, it put Rep. Frank in no mood!
Maddow asked if Rep. Frank believed if he thought that the Occupy Wall Street movement has “lit a fire under the Democrats at all?” Frank answered:
Well, first, I have to say that I wish there was some of that energy two years ago when I was fighting against the people who wanted to protect derivatives from regulation and were trying to weaken the consumer bureau. Rachel, I do have to say, some of us have been trying to do this for a while, and I have to be honest and say in 2009, I wish some of these people had been energized then and were helping us fight back against this effort. Because we got a strong bill, but it should have been stronger.
After then talking about the importance of presidential politics, and how it specifically affects the very laws and regulations vis a vis Supreme Court justices appointed by elected presidents, Frank went back to the protesters (rough transcript provide by TVEyes):
Yes, I hope there will be pressure to do even more, but I, again, want to be honest, simply being in a public place and voicing your opinion in and of itself doesn’t do anything politically. It is the prerequisite, I hope, for people getting together and voting and engaging things. and I understand some of the people on occupy wall street are kind of critical of that. They think that’s conventional politics. Well, you know, the most successful organization in America in getting its views adopted is the national rifle association. they are in many cases a minority. But in addition to everything else they do, they very effectively identify who the members of the congress are, the legislatures and vote for them.
So as I said, I welcome the Wall Street energy. I don’t agree with everything some of the people say. I agree with the general thrust of it. it’s not self-executing. It has to be translated into political activity if it’s going to have the impact. you know, I would just say, the last thing, we had an election last year in which people who disagree with them, and disagree with me and with you, got elected. I want to be honest again here. I don’t know what the voting behavior is of all these people, but I’m a little bit unhappy when people didn’t vote last time blame me for the consequences of their not voting.
Frank’s candid criticism of OWS protesters sounds eerily similar, if not much more nuanced, than what many, more conservative pundits have said. The groundswell of populism is a powerful and impressive thing. But this energy does not translate to a motivated voting block, then it may be all for naught.
Judson Phillips Hops on the Smear Occupy Wall Street Bandwagon
A cosmic truth happens to be that stupidity gathers momentum – and when you see stupid people quoting stupid people to support stupid claims, then you know stupidity has achieved dominion, has become a perceived truth.
Such a case comes from Judson Philips, the Obama-hating Nashville attorney who founded the run-for-profit astroturf movement known as the Tea Party Nation. We already dismantled WND’s Ellis Washington and his claims about Occupy Wall Street. Well, Judson Phillips wants also to claim that Occupy Wall Street is anti-American and up to no good – because it has to be - he has the protesters palling around with communists and Nazis both.
In a piece titled “The Company You Keep” (something he would have better written as an autobiographical piece), Phillips says,
Many of us can remember, as we were growing up, our parents telling us we would be judged by the company we keep. There is a lot of truth to that wisdom.
What can we learn from the company Occupy Wall Street keeps?
Actually we can learn a lot.
Not only the Communist Party but also the American Nazi Party has endorsed OWS as well.
Of course, Phillips is no more interested in evidence than is Ellis Washington. Simply saying it makes it true. And his writing reads more like a grade school writing assignment than serious political reporting. He wants to make clear at the outset who are the good-guys and who are the bad-guys:
Both Communists and Nazi’s are socialists. They hate freedom and liberty and both want to see freedom and liberty replaced with tyranny.
OWS claims to be a leaderless movement, yet no one involved with the movement is willing to denounce the Nazis or the Communists. Contrast that to the Tea Party movement, which went overboard to make sure no one involved with the Tea Party movement was a racist or a Nazi.
First of all, Nazis are not socialists. Hitler was a capitalist extraordinaire and his movement was funded by Germany’s great industrialists. Secondly, OWS not only claims to be but is a leaderless movement. My third observation is that I guess old Judson has personally spoken to all the thousands of demonstrators and knows not a single one of them will denounce either the Nazis or the communists.
As for racism and Nazism in the Tea Party: Islamophobe Judson is just downright dishonest, as an NCAAP study has conclusively demonstrated, and a HuffPo look at offensive Tea Party signs, not to mention Phillips’ own association with Vision America, who’s Rick Scarborough says “If this country becomes 30 per cent Hispanic we will no longer be America.”
No, no racism there, by golly! You begin to wonder how Judson Phillips defines racism when he’s not avoiding payment on hotel reservations in Las Vegas. Maybe he never had time to look it up, what with the grifting and all.
And whatever the Nazi Party or Communist Party might think or say or do, he provides no evidence that anyone among the protesters has sought or welcomed support from those two parties.
Instead, he calls in our old friends at WND to provide “evidence” (and without a hyperlink to show you exactly where on WND he got this “informative” article):
Occupy Wall Street Marine, ‘This Is Our Time To Change The Greed in America’
After Sgt. Thomas made some great points about how the protesters aren’t violent and this really isn’t a battle, Keith Olbermann asked him about if he supported the messages behind Occupy Wall Street. Thomas answered, “I support everybody’s view. I tell people all the time that I’m not a part of any political party. I’m not a part of any group or anything like that. I’m an American citizen.”
Olbermann followed up by asking him what the movement meant to him, “What this means to me is that this is our time and our generation to change the greed that is in America. Like both of my parents are twenty plus years in America, and they have to find jobs now, and it’s like I recruited for the Marines for four months and it’s like I taught kids to come join the Marines, so it’s like come join the Marines, so it’s like come join the Marines, and then what are you going to do after you get out of the Marines? You know what I mean? So it’s like we don’t there’s no place for us to go now. You know what I’m saying?”
After Sgt. Thomas made some great points about how the protesters aren’t violent and this really isn’t a battle, Keith Olbermann asked him about if he supported the messages behind Occupy Wall Street. Thomas answered, “I support everybody’s view. I tell people all the time that I’m not a part of any political party. I’m not a part of any group or anything like that. I’m an American citizen.”
Olbermann followed up by asking him what the movement meant to him, “What this means to me is that this is our time and our generation to change the greed that is in America. Like both of my parents are twenty plus years in America, and they have to find jobs now, and it’s like I recruited for the Marines for four months and it’s like I taught kids to come join the Marines, so it’s like come join the Marines, and then what are you going to do after you get out of the Marines? You know what I mean? So it’s like we don’t there’s no place for us to go now. You know what I’m saying?”
Protesters around the world demand that something must be done
SPAIN'S Indignados have been protesting against the gloomy economic situation in which they find themselves since May. They have been joined by similar movements from New York to Sydney. The protesters' preoccupations vary from place to place, as do the economic data that underpin them. Education is the focus in Chile, frustration with bankers in Britain. But they do share a common demand: someone, somewhere, should do something to right the problems of global capitalism as currently constituted. One reason why these protests are so interesting is that their targets, those cheerleaders for globalisation, capitalism and free markets, tend to agree that the system needs fixing. This makes the 'occupy' protests, as they have come to be known in the English-speaking world, hard to argue against.
'I thought I'd write to you with our own experiences taking part in the Occupy LA protests. I'm in my early 40s, at a well-paying job as a web developer for a large hospital in Los Angeles. My wife and I have no children. We're very fortunate - we actually have a steady income and good health insurance. Yet, we live in a house that we share with her cousin because we couldn't afford our own place. The house is deep underwater, and we're drowning in debt (and shame on us for not reading the fine print when some of the credit card issuers arbitrarily raised our interest rates to 30% on cards that had never had a late payment EVER). We're barely making it check-to-check, but somehow we are still making all of our payments. It would be so much easier to walk away from it all, but we have a sense of responsibility to these debts that we voluntarily took on.
What we're demanding - what people in the Occupy movement are demanding - is the same responsibility from these large institutions, and the so-called 1%. It's really that simple.
When the financial industry came to the brink of collapse because of the reckless behavior of these "too big to fail" corporations, we saw an amazing ability for our government to come together to bail them out. In return, they've repaid the favor by working night and day to lift the already watered-down provisions of the Dodd-Frank reforms so they can continue with their same insanity, and to basically act like spoiled, entitled brats towards those of us who saved their butts in the first place.
Contrast this with any legislation in Congress that might actually help out rank-and-file Americans, and suddenly everything becomes gridlocked and impossible to achieve. From out here, it appears that when you have a lobby on your side, government works, and if you don't, well tough luck.
We march for three simple things: tighter regulation of the financial industry (a return to Glass-Steagall would be a big step), a demand for shared sacrifice amongst *100%* of this country, and to wake up those in Congress who have been listening only to the lobbyists and the media chattering classes, and losing sight of the fact that this country is a DEMOCRACY, of the people, by the people, and for the people.
These are not radical notions, and they're not even strictly left-wing (personal responsibility seems like a classic conservative belief to me). This is the no-longer silent majority in this country, across the spectrum, who have finally had enough.'
Nate Silver paints the picture of where Occupy is the strongest presence in the country:
The Geography of Occupying Wall Street (And Everywhere Else)
This exercise is meant, in part, to provide a comparison to the crowds that gathered for the first widespread Tea Party protests on April 15, 2009, for which I adopted a similar approach and came up with an estimate of at least 300,000 protesters across the country.
Saturday’s Occupy protests were probably smaller than that. Over all, I was able to find estimates of crowd sizes in about 150 American cities, ranging from the thousands of the protesters that turned out in New York to the roughly 10 who turned out in Juneau, Alaska — or the one protester who represented the movement in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Nevertheless, based on the median estimates for the cities, I arrived at an overall total of about 70,000 protesters who were documented as having been active on Saturday throughout the United States.
This is very probably an underestimate — there were some protests that were noted in news accounts but without any firm estimates of crowd size. But I’m fairly certain that I captured most of the larger protests. The true overall figure might have been somewhere on the order of 100,000 protesters. That’s pretty big, but not as big as the largest day of Tea Party protests in 2009, nor other recent protests like the pro-immigration gatherings of 2006, which accounted for about 500,000 people in Los Angeles alone.
...What we are witnessing in Zuccotti Park actually represents an improvement over the Obama campaign. That campaign was largely about faith in one man. The Occupy Wall Street movement, by contrast, represents a direct reckoning with the most powerful forces in American life, forces that are not voted in and out of office every two or four years. And it represents a belief that young Americans must force that reckoning by themselves. No politician will do it for them. Those instincts are exactly right, and we’ve never needed them more.
What do you all think about the "backlash" from some quarters about OWS??
It seems like several of my conservative friends have needed to shout "entitled" and "lazy" at the people involved...especially within just the past couple of days.
What do you think this is all about?? Projection? Envy? I mean, in one breath someone will admit "that people from both parties are out there demonstrating," and then in the next,"its costing me tax dollars to clean up after these damn liberals."
In case you've been waiting for a one-stop compendium of all the things that the conservative intellectual class can throw at the Occupy movement, and if you're tired of having to go to your drunk Uncle Fud to hear it (you've got to get him early, before he throws up during Hannity and passes out — well, we've got a column and a columnist for you. Print it out and put it on your fridge, right next to the Ayn Rand refrigerator magnets and the coupon for the $5 weekend karaoke special at the Old Hayek Grille. In fact, when you finally get that time machine built in your basement, you can take this with you as you travel back and sneer at every protest movement of the past 50 years. Amaze your friends!
Dirty hippies vs. brave soldiers?
Check.
Placards that "America" hasn't seen because the hippie-loving corporate media averts its eyes?
Check.
Paranoid speculation about public-sector unions and Obamunist puppeteers pulling the strings, including bonus points for discerning in OWS a clever ploy by the Obamunists to set up OWS as a "Potemkin" movement set up by "liberal Democrats" so that they can "triangulate to the center" next year, and this in a column that raves about "inchoate outrage"?
Check.
One class of Americans referred to as "the normals."
Check.
"Dirty faces"?
Check.
"Bongo drumming"?
Check.
Vaguely racist/misogynist sneering at "master's degrees in minority women's studies"?
Check.
Bizarre inchoate sneering at "baristas"?
Okay, that's a new one, and wouldn't have meant very much back in '68. Don't bring it up when you get back there.
Link from Professor Jubilation T. Cyborg down at the University Law School and Live Bait Shack? (Added bonus for passing along a tweet from a twit.)
I was so moved by watching LOD last night. This man spoke, not as a souldier from a family of people who've served, are serving our country, he spoke as a concerned American Citizen, defending basic human rights, speaking out against Police violence, and this is one man who "gets" what being a citizen of the world is about.
This movement is in it's early stages, and yet the world is stopping in it's tracks and taking notice. Every interview I've seen makes me proud of their knowledge, compassion, and eloquence in their responses.
I live in Philadelphia, and the city has been under tremendous budgetary strain, much like other cities, and the Police, for the most part, must be commended for how respectful they've handled themselves.
My nephew is fortunate to have the opportunity to study at Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, which came from much sweat, sacrifice and sheer determination on his family's part. And they're organizing a rally against Eric Cantor's speech this week. The man who called them "Unruly Mobs" now wants to change in midstream from the Tea Party to Occupy Protesters (only for personal political gain, of course) and they will speak truth to this hypocricy in a respectful manner.
It's difficult for me to blame these protesors for not speaking up earlier as discussed by Rachael Maddow and Barney Franks. My nephew is married with a small child, living in a modest home. He works three part time jobs, scours the city collecting and recycling metals to make extra money. His wife had to put off her own education, took the child to various relatives for day care, and continues to work at a decent paying full time job. They're at their limit time wise, and still carve out time to join their OWS brothers and sisters.
That's what chapped my butt the other day when a NEw York City snob had the moxey to diss the patchouli covered masses.
Sorry for the long post, but it just hurts my heart to see this injustice while grifters make millions spewing hate, violence, and word salad.
Excellent Post, and great comments from your readers.
Of course I don't know Sgt Thomas, but he seems like he would make a great police officer. Rather than go along with or stand and watch beatings or inappropriate taserings he would speak up and stop it. That's what it takes, one rational voice to help the others not follow a bully. Of course depending on the police department that could be dangerous. He most likely would also be good at talking to teenagers. People feel comfortable just knowing certain people are around and feel comfortable talking to them. The police do much more good as counselors than bruatalizers and in that role they prevent crimes. Unfortunately they don't pick people like him anymore.
I saw that last night also and it was a beautiful sight to behold. It needed to be said and he was righteously po'ed and would not stand down. Bet the NYC cops were a little hesitant to end his rant, I mean, seriously, this guy was right and they knew it!
ReplyDeleteIt's time for all of us to let our voices be heard. It's a joke how the candidates are changing their tune about the protests, even Romney is flip flopping about it in his stylized manner.
I'm trying to keep a low profile these days in my desire to get a better underemployed status job so I can keep my house. But the rage is still there supporting all those who can take to the capitols. It is not going to go away, the people have spoken. And will continue to speak.Not sure what will be the outcome but hoping it won't get too ugly.
Loved your pic of the lone Occupy the Tundra woman. Awesome.
While I support the OWS efforts I have to agree with Barney Frank who was on Rachel Maddow's show last night and said that to really affect change these people need to VOTE. Hopefully people will wake up and undo the damage wrought by the tesbaggers in the 2010 midterms. The President needs a Congress that supports his plans or else we will continue to go nowhere.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for posting this G. This is incredibly powerful and I am so grateful that this young man stood up and spoke his mind. He makes me proud and hopeful and he really put this in perspective.
ReplyDeleteSgt. Shamar Thomas USMC Veteran. I took an Oath that I live by.I am NOT anti-NYPD. I am anti- Police Brutality. I am no longer under contract with the USMC so I do NOT have to follow military uniform regulations. I DON'T affiliate myself with ANY GROUPS or POLITICAL ORG. I affiliate myself with the AMERICAN PEOPLE that's it. I REFUSE to affiliate with anything that SEPERATES. There is an obvious problem in the country and PEACEFUL PEOPLE should be allowed to PROTEST without Brutality. I was involved in a RIOT in Rutbah, Iraq 2004 and we did NOT treat the Iraqi citizens like they are treating the unarmed civilians in our OWN Country. No one was brutalized because our mission was to "WIN the hearts and minds", why should I expect anything less in my OWN Country.
ReplyDeleteSEMPER FI
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/16/1027151/-Marine-vet-scolds-puts-NYPD-in-their-place%28AMZNG-VID!%29Now-w-Olbermann-interview!?via=siderec
New Yorkers Back Occupy Wall Street Movement, Blame Bush Administration: Poll
ReplyDeleteA new Quinnipiac University poll finds New Yorkers overwhelmingly back the Occupy Wall Street protesters, and even Republicans think they should be allowed to continue their demonstrations.
New York City voters agree with the views of the Occupy Wall Street movement by a nearly three-to-one margin; 67 percent agree with the protesters' views and 23 percent disagree, according to the Quinnipiac poll.
The Quinnipiac poll, released Monday, surveyed people living within the New York City area. Quinnipiac called both landlines and cell phones from Oct. 12 to 16.
Although a majority of Republicans don't agree with the protesters' views, at least seven out of 10 say it's fine for them to protest.
"New Yorkers, even Republicans, back the Wall Street protesters on at least two things they’re talking about, a get-tough attitude toward banks and Wall Street and continuation of the state’s 'Millionaire’s Tax,'" said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a release.
Notably, Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike supported the government imposing tougher regulations on banks and Wall Street firms, as well as imposing the so-called "Millionare's Tax."
"Critics complain that no one can figure out what the protesters are protesting," Carroll added. "But seven out of 10 New Yorkers say they understand and most agree with the anti-Wall Street views of the protesters."
...more
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/17/poll-new-yorkers-back-occupy-wallst_n_1016234.html
The answer is: yes, many of the protesters do understand what Wall Street and more generally the nation’s economic elite have done for us. And that’s why they’re protesting.
ReplyDeleteOn Saturday The Times reported what people in the financial industry are saying privately about the protests. My favorite quote came from an unnamed money manager who declared, “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it.”
This is deeply unfair to American workers, who are good at lots of things, and could be even better if we made adequate investments in education and infrastructure. But to the extent that America has lagged in everything except financial services, shouldn’t the question be why, and whether it’s a trend we want to continue?
For the financialization of America wasn’t dictated by the invisible hand of the market. What caused the financial industry to grow much faster than the rest of the economy starting around 1980 was a series of deliberate policy choices, in particular a process of deregulation that continued right up to the eve of the 2008 crisis.
Not coincidentally, the era of an ever-growing financial industry was also an era of ever-growing inequality of income and wealth. Wall Street made a large direct contribution to economic polarization, because soaring incomes in finance accounted for a significant fraction of the rising share of the top 1 percent (and the top 0.1 percent, which accounts for most of the top 1 percent’s gains) in the nation’s income. More broadly, the same political forces that promoted financial deregulation fostered overall inequality in a variety of ways, undermining organized labor, doing away with the “outrage constraint” that used to limit executive paychecks, and more.
Oh, and taxes on the wealthy were, of course, sharply reduced.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/opinion/krugman-wall-street-loses-its-immunity.html?src=me&ref=general
THIS IS SO INSPIRING!
ReplyDeleteOccupy International
http://media.talkingpointsmemo.com/slideshow/occupy-wall-street-goes-global?ref=fpb
Barney Frank To Occupy Wall Street: Where Were You During The Last Midterms?
ReplyDeleteOn Monday night Rachel Maddow explained how the Occupy Wall Street movement defied some traditional party lines, or in her words, protesters “aren’t exactly delighted with Democrats either.” She then introduced Rep. Barney Frank, who shared some frustrations with the protesters, saying “I’m unhappy when people didn’t vote last time blame me for the consequences of their not voting.” Frank echoed the thoughts made last week by former Gov. Ed Rendell who basically asked where were these folks during the last mid-term elections?
Frank has been himself a lightning rod for harsh criticism regarding the loosening of regulations surrounding mortgages, which some feel led to the very mortgage-backed security problems that led to a crashing of the U.S. economy back in fall of 2008. Many on the right have efforted to make him the poster-boy for Democratic ineptitude.
For his part, Frank has always maintained that his position hasn’t changed, that his efforts were to fight the very deregulated policies that led to the crash. So for him to feel ire from Occupy Wall Street protesters — most of whom appear to be of the progressive stripe — combined with two years of conservative attacks…well, it put Rep. Frank in no mood!
Maddow asked if Rep. Frank believed if he thought that the Occupy Wall Street movement has “lit a fire under the Democrats at all?” Frank answered:
Well, first, I have to say that I wish there was some of that energy two years ago when I was fighting against the people who wanted to protect derivatives from regulation and were trying to weaken the consumer bureau. Rachel, I do have to say, some of us have been trying to do this for a while, and I have to be honest and say in 2009, I wish some of these people had been energized then and were helping us fight back against this effort. Because we got a strong bill, but it should have been stronger.
After then talking about the importance of presidential politics, and how it specifically affects the very laws and regulations vis a vis Supreme Court justices appointed by elected presidents, Frank went back to the protesters (rough transcript provide by TVEyes):
Yes, I hope there will be pressure to do even more, but I, again, want to be honest, simply being in a public place and voicing your opinion in and of itself doesn’t do anything politically. It is the prerequisite, I hope, for people getting together and voting and engaging things. and I understand some of the people on occupy wall street are kind of critical of that. They think that’s conventional politics. Well, you know, the most successful organization in America in getting its views adopted is the national rifle association. they are in many cases a minority. But in addition to everything else they do, they very effectively identify who the members of the congress are, the legislatures and vote for them.
So as I said, I welcome the Wall Street energy. I don’t agree with everything some of the people say. I agree with the general thrust of it. it’s not self-executing. It has to be translated into political activity if it’s going to have the impact. you know, I would just say, the last thing, we had an election last year in which people who disagree with them, and disagree with me and with you, got elected. I want to be honest again here. I don’t know what the voting behavior is of all these people, but I’m a little bit unhappy when people didn’t vote last time blame me for the consequences of their not voting.
Frank’s candid criticism of OWS protesters sounds eerily similar, if not much more nuanced, than what many, more conservative pundits have said. The groundswell of populism is a powerful and impressive thing. But this energy does not translate to a motivated voting block, then it may be all for naught.
Watch the clip below, courtesy of MSNBC:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/barney-frank-unhappy-with-occupy-wall-streeters-who-blame-me-for-consequence-of-their-not-voting/
Judson Phillips Hops on the Smear Occupy Wall Street Bandwagon
ReplyDeleteA cosmic truth happens to be that stupidity gathers momentum – and when you see stupid people quoting stupid people to support stupid claims, then you know stupidity has achieved dominion, has become a perceived truth.
Such a case comes from Judson Philips, the Obama-hating Nashville attorney who founded the run-for-profit astroturf movement known as the Tea Party Nation. We already dismantled WND’s Ellis Washington and his claims about Occupy Wall Street. Well, Judson Phillips wants also to claim that Occupy Wall Street is anti-American and up to no good – because it has to be - he has the protesters palling around with communists and Nazis both.
In a piece titled “The Company You Keep” (something he would have better written as an autobiographical piece), Phillips says,
Many of us can remember, as we were growing up, our parents telling us we would be judged by the company we keep. There is a lot of truth to that wisdom.
What can we learn from the company Occupy Wall Street keeps?
Actually we can learn a lot.
Not only the Communist Party but also the American Nazi Party has endorsed OWS as well.
Of course, Phillips is no more interested in evidence than is Ellis Washington. Simply saying it makes it true. And his writing reads more like a grade school writing assignment than serious political reporting. He wants to make clear at the outset who are the good-guys and who are the bad-guys:
Both Communists and Nazi’s are socialists. They hate freedom and liberty and both want to see freedom and liberty replaced with tyranny.
OWS claims to be a leaderless movement, yet no one involved with the movement is willing to denounce the Nazis or the Communists. Contrast that to the Tea Party movement, which went overboard to make sure no one involved with the Tea Party movement was a racist or a Nazi.
First of all, Nazis are not socialists. Hitler was a capitalist extraordinaire and his movement was funded by Germany’s great industrialists. Secondly, OWS not only claims to be but is a leaderless movement. My third observation is that I guess old Judson has personally spoken to all the thousands of demonstrators and knows not a single one of them will denounce either the Nazis or the communists.
As for racism and Nazism in the Tea Party: Islamophobe Judson is just downright dishonest, as an NCAAP study has conclusively demonstrated, and a HuffPo look at offensive Tea Party signs, not to mention Phillips’ own association with Vision America, who’s Rick Scarborough says “If this country becomes 30 per cent Hispanic we will no longer be America.”
No, no racism there, by golly! You begin to wonder how Judson Phillips defines racism when he’s not avoiding payment on hotel reservations in Las Vegas. Maybe he never had time to look it up, what with the grifting and all.
And whatever the Nazi Party or Communist Party might think or say or do, he provides no evidence that anyone among the protesters has sought or welcomed support from those two parties.
Instead, he calls in our old friends at WND to provide “evidence” (and without a hyperlink to show you exactly where on WND he got this “informative” article):
http://www.politicususa.com/en/judson-phillips-hops-on-the-smear-occupy-wall-street-bandwagon
Occupy Wall Street Marine, ‘This Is Our Time To Change The Greed in America’
ReplyDeleteAfter Sgt. Thomas made some great points about how the protesters aren’t violent and this really isn’t a battle, Keith Olbermann asked him about if he supported the messages behind Occupy Wall Street. Thomas answered, “I support everybody’s view. I tell people all the time that I’m not a part of any political party. I’m not a part of any group or anything like that. I’m an American citizen.”
Olbermann followed up by asking him what the movement meant to him, “What this means to me is that this is our time and our generation to change the greed that is in America. Like both of my parents are twenty plus years in America, and they have to find jobs now, and it’s like I recruited for the Marines for four months and it’s like I taught kids to come join the Marines, so it’s like come join the Marines, so it’s like come join the Marines, and then what are you going to do after you get out of the Marines? You know what I mean? So it’s like we don’t there’s no place for us to go now. You know what I’m saying?”
After Sgt. Thomas made some great points about how the protesters aren’t violent and this really isn’t a battle, Keith Olbermann asked him about if he supported the messages behind Occupy Wall Street. Thomas answered, “I support everybody’s view. I tell people all the time that I’m not a part of any political party. I’m not a part of any group or anything like that. I’m an American citizen.”
Olbermann followed up by asking him what the movement meant to him, “What this means to me is that this is our time and our generation to change the greed that is in America. Like both of my parents are twenty plus years in America, and they have to find jobs now, and it’s like I recruited for the Marines for four months and it’s like I taught kids to come join the Marines, so it’s like come join the Marines, and then what are you going to do after you get out of the Marines? You know what I mean? So it’s like we don’t there’s no place for us to go now. You know what I’m saying?”
video---
http://www.politicususa.com/en/occupy-wall-street-marine
5:29 AM:
ReplyDeleteExactly.
Protesters around the world demand that something must be done
ReplyDeleteSPAIN'S Indignados have been protesting against the gloomy economic situation in which they find themselves since May. They have been joined by similar movements from New York to Sydney. The protesters' preoccupations vary from place to place, as do the economic data that underpin them. Education is the focus in Chile, frustration with bankers in Britain. But they do share a common demand: someone, somewhere, should do something to right the problems of global capitalism as currently constituted. One reason why these protests are so interesting is that their targets, those cheerleaders for globalisation, capitalism and free markets, tend to agree that the system needs fixing. This makes the 'occupy' protests, as they have come to be known in the English-speaking world, hard to argue against.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/10/occupy-protests?fsrc=rss
"These Are Not Radical Notions"
ReplyDelete'I thought I'd write to you with our own experiences taking part in the Occupy LA protests. I'm in my early 40s, at a well-paying job as a web developer for a large hospital in Los Angeles. My wife and I have no children. We're very fortunate - we actually have a steady income and good health insurance. Yet, we live in a house that we share with her cousin because we couldn't afford our own place. The house is deep underwater, and we're drowning in debt (and shame on us for not reading the fine print when some of the credit card issuers arbitrarily raised our interest rates to 30% on cards that had never had a late payment EVER). We're barely making it check-to-check, but somehow we are still making all of our payments. It would be so much easier to walk away from it all, but we have a sense of responsibility to these debts that we voluntarily took on.
What we're demanding - what people in the Occupy movement are demanding - is the same responsibility from these large institutions, and the so-called 1%. It's really that simple.
When the financial industry came to the brink of collapse because of the reckless behavior of these "too big to fail" corporations, we saw an amazing ability for our government to come together to bail them out. In return, they've repaid the favor by working night and day to lift the already watered-down provisions of the Dodd-Frank reforms so they can continue with their same insanity, and to basically act like spoiled, entitled brats towards those of us who saved their butts in the first place.
Contrast this with any legislation in Congress that might actually help out rank-and-file Americans, and suddenly everything becomes gridlocked and impossible to achieve. From out here, it appears that when you have a lobby on your side, government works, and if you don't, well tough luck.
We march for three simple things: tighter regulation of the financial industry (a return to Glass-Steagall would be a big step), a demand for shared sacrifice amongst *100%* of this country, and to wake up those in Congress who have been listening only to the lobbyists and the media chattering classes, and losing sight of the fact that this country is a DEMOCRACY, of the people, by the people, and for the people.
These are not radical notions, and they're not even strictly left-wing (personal responsibility seems like a classic conservative belief to me). This is the no-longer silent majority in this country, across the spectrum, who have finally had enough.'
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/10/these-are-not-radical-notions.html
Nate Silver paints the picture of where Occupy is the strongest presence in the country:
ReplyDeleteThe Geography of Occupying Wall Street (And Everywhere Else)
This exercise is meant, in part, to provide a comparison to the crowds that gathered for the first widespread Tea Party protests on April 15, 2009, for which I adopted a similar approach and came up with an estimate of at least 300,000 protesters across the country.
Saturday’s Occupy protests were probably smaller than that. Over all, I was able to find estimates of crowd sizes in about 150 American cities, ranging from the thousands of the protesters that turned out in New York to the roughly 10 who turned out in Juneau, Alaska — or the one protester who represented the movement in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Nevertheless, based on the median estimates for the cities, I arrived at an overall total of about 70,000 protesters who were documented as having been active on Saturday throughout the United States.
This is very probably an underestimate — there were some protests that were noted in news accounts but without any firm estimates of crowd size. But I’m fairly certain that I captured most of the larger protests. The true overall figure might have been somewhere on the order of 100,000 protesters. That’s pretty big, but not as big as the largest day of Tea Party protests in 2009, nor other recent protests like the pro-immigration gatherings of 2006, which accounted for about 500,000 people in Los Angeles alone.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/the-geography-of-occupying-wall-street-and-everywhere-else/
...and the crowd loved it!
ReplyDeletehttp://vimeo.com/30649196
Sign can be read here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/how-occupy-wall-street-is-like-the-internet/246759/
Occupy Protests’ Seismic Effect
ReplyDelete...What we are witnessing in Zuccotti Park actually represents an improvement over the Obama campaign. That campaign was largely about faith in one man. The Occupy Wall Street movement, by contrast, represents a direct reckoning with the most powerful forces in American life, forces that are not voted in and out of office every two or four years. And it represents a belief that young Americans must force that reckoning by themselves. No politician will do it for them. Those instincts are exactly right, and we’ve never needed them more.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/17/occupy-wall-street-will-have-seismic-effect-marks-split-with-obama-dems.html
Video interview with charming young woman who came to OWS in New York from Vermont, planning to camp out over the winter:
ReplyDeletehttp://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2011/10/you-are-all-lost-generation.html
Does anyone know if the picture labelled "Portland" is Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon?
ReplyDeleteStellaGuadalupe
What do you all think about the "backlash" from some quarters about OWS??
ReplyDeleteIt seems like several of my conservative friends have needed to shout "entitled" and "lazy" at the people involved...especially within just the past couple of days.
What do you think this is all about??
Projection? Envy? I mean, in one breath someone will admit "that people from both parties are out there demonstrating," and then in the next,"its costing me tax dollars to clean up after these damn liberals."
OK. Vent over. What do you all think?? Thanks !
Sgt. Shamar Thomas, that was beautiful, poetic, heartfelt and amazing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for speaking what was right.
Never mind. Clicking on the link, I find it is Portland, Oregon.
ReplyDeleteStellaGuadalupe
In case you've been waiting for a one-stop compendium of all the things that the conservative intellectual class can throw at the Occupy movement, and if you're tired of having to go to your drunk Uncle Fud to hear it (you've got to get him early, before he throws up during Hannity and passes out — well, we've got a column and a columnist for you. Print it out and put it on your fridge, right next to the Ayn Rand refrigerator magnets and the coupon for the $5 weekend karaoke special at the Old Hayek Grille. In fact, when you finally get that time machine built in your basement, you can take this with you as you travel back and sneer at every protest movement of the past 50 years. Amaze your friends!
ReplyDeleteDirty hippies vs. brave soldiers?
Check.
Placards that "America" hasn't seen because the hippie-loving corporate media averts its eyes?
Check.
Paranoid speculation about public-sector unions and Obamunist puppeteers pulling the strings, including bonus points for discerning in OWS a clever ploy by the Obamunists to set up OWS as a "Potemkin" movement set up by "liberal Democrats" so that they can "triangulate to the center" next year, and this in a column that raves about "inchoate outrage"?
Check.
One class of Americans referred to as "the normals."
Check.
"Dirty faces"?
Check.
"Bongo drumming"?
Check.
Vaguely racist/misogynist sneering at "master's degrees in minority women's studies"?
Check.
Bizarre inchoate sneering at "baristas"?
Okay, that's a new one, and wouldn't have meant very much back in '68. Don't bring it up when you get back there.
Link from Professor Jubilation T. Cyborg down at the University Law School and Live Bait Shack? (Added bonus for passing along a tweet from a twit.)
You betcha.
Party of ideas, people. Party of ideas.
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/occupy-conservative-columnists-6517281#ixzz1b9CWPwAd
i'd love to invite that man to my house and give him the best meal -- yes, lump in throat, beginning NOW!
ReplyDelete--The Right Alice
I was so moved by watching LOD last night. This man spoke, not as a souldier from a family of people who've served, are serving our country, he spoke as a concerned American Citizen, defending basic human rights, speaking out against Police violence, and this is one man who "gets" what being a citizen of the world is about.
ReplyDeleteThis movement is in it's early stages, and yet the world is stopping in it's tracks and taking notice. Every interview I've seen makes me proud of their knowledge, compassion, and eloquence in their responses.
I live in Philadelphia, and the city has been under tremendous budgetary strain, much like other cities, and the Police, for the most part, must be commended for how respectful they've handled themselves.
My nephew is fortunate to have the opportunity to study at Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, which came from much sweat, sacrifice and sheer determination on his family's part. And they're organizing a rally against Eric Cantor's speech this week. The man who called them "Unruly Mobs" now wants to change in midstream from the Tea Party to Occupy Protesters (only for personal political gain, of course) and they will speak truth to this hypocricy in a respectful manner.
It's difficult for me to blame these protesors for not speaking up earlier as discussed by Rachael Maddow and Barney Franks. My nephew is married with a small child, living in a modest home. He works three part time jobs, scours the city collecting and recycling metals to make extra money. His wife had to put off her own education, took the child to various relatives for day care, and continues to work at a decent paying full time job. They're at their limit time wise, and still carve out time to join their OWS brothers and sisters.
That's what chapped my butt the other day when a NEw York City snob had the moxey to diss the patchouli covered masses.
Sorry for the long post, but it just hurts my heart to see this injustice while grifters make millions spewing hate, violence, and word salad.
Excellent Post, and great comments from your readers.
The Dream will never die.
That Marine's words brought tears to my eyes. Looks like those shame-faced cops had plenty to think about too.
ReplyDeleteOf course I don't know Sgt Thomas, but he seems like he would make a great police officer. Rather than go along with or stand and watch beatings or inappropriate taserings he would speak up and stop it. That's what it takes, one rational voice to help the others not follow a bully. Of course depending on the police department that could be dangerous. He most likely would also be good at talking to teenagers. People feel comfortable just knowing certain people are around and feel comfortable talking to them. The police do much more good as counselors than bruatalizers and in that role they prevent crimes. Unfortunately they don't pick people like him anymore.
ReplyDeleteSgt. Shamar Thomas Discusses His Experience Confronting the NYPD in Times Square
ReplyDeletehttp://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/sgt-shamar-thomas-discusses-his-experience