The Oakland Police Chief flatly denies his officers used rubber bullets. He says they are not in the inventory. He says it must have been police from other jurisdictions that used them, in spite of the agreement that no rubber bullets would be allowed........

snort..........

Just saw info on the person in the wheelchair- WTH?? I agree about the police being able to protect themselves against rocks and paint- they wear shields.

Good luck with the Mayor of Oakland answering for this! The Chief of Police just quit in Oakland last week due to poor relations with City Hall in Oakland.

What a mess.

you would think by now that all law enforcement would be prepped to handle this in a non-violent way.

So they are rebuilding...

Tension remains at Occupy Oakland even as action abates


OAKLAND -- The volatile Occupy Oakland movement experienced something of a detente Thursday as protesters, police and city officials retrenched under the world's increasingly critical eyes.

Protesters started rebuilding a tent city that had been removed by police Tuesday night at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, in front of City Hall. Mayor Jean Quan, whose approval of the raid brought condemnation from pundits and protesters, was quiet Thursday amid questions over whether the camp would be allowed to remain on the plaza.

Meanwhile, an Iraq War veteran who was critically injured by a projectile believed to be fired or thrown by police Tuesday prepared for surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old former Marine, had improved slightly Thursday at Highland Hospital and was able to breathe on his own for the first time since the injury, said his roommate, Keith Shannon of Daly City.

Several tents were back up in the plaza by Thursday afternoon and occupiers were expanding a shrine to Olsen built around the base of a memorial to military veterans.

Vita McDonnell, 24, who was arrested in Tuesday morning's raid of the encampment, brought a box of candles and notebook in which she is asking people to write notes of encouragement to Olsen and reflections of events of the past several days.

"He was protesting our arrests," said McDonnell, a health-care assistant. "I felt very touched by it. This is really something I had to
Advertisement
do."

Tuesday morning's police raid "felt like we were under attack. It was like a war zone," she said. After 13 hours in custody, mostly at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, she was released with a citation of unlawful assembly, she said.

As protesters held vigils and expressed anger over Olsen's injury, police were tight-lipped Thursday about the incident. Oakland's interim police chief, Howard Jordan, said investigators were still piecing together accounts from more than a dozen police
departments that sent officers to Oakland for the raid on the encampment.

Olsen's injury prompted vehement anger toward police during protesters' march around the city Wednesday night, but Jordan would not speculate whether the Daly City man had been hit by a police projectile such as a tear-gas canister, rubber bullet, wooden dowel or something else. At least one police department suggested officers may not be to blame for the incident.

"I haven't seen much, but given the nature of that individual's injuries, I'm wondering if he wasn't struck by something thrown by a demonstrator," said Chief Dennis Burns, of the Palo Alto Police Department.

Oakland police violated their own crowd-control rules, which call for medical services to be available when tear gas and other control measures are used, said Jim Chanin, a civil-rights attorney who has fought for police reform.

Thursday's lull left more questions than answers about the future of Occupy Oakland, which has leapt to the forefront of the nationwide Occupy movement targeting banks, big business and a slate of other social and economic issues. The East Bay protests have captivated talk-show hosts such as Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann, and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore announced Thursday on Twitter that he would arrive at the Oakland site Friday.

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/liv...~3_GALLERY.JPG

Wednesday evening, Occupy Oakland protesters returned to Frank Ogawa Plaza for a relatively peaceful rally and march. Most of the anticipated action was in San Francisco, where a clash with police never materialized.

On Thursday morning, two tents were pitched on the square in from of City Hall at 14th Street and Broadway

9:20 a.m.: Two tents and fence `sculpture' on Oakland plaza

Two tents remain on the plaza after the previous night's rally. About a dozen people camped overnight, it appears without city intervention.

What's really attracting attention is a stack of cyclone fence, the remnants of a barrier that had been erected around the lawn area but was torn down by protesters. The stack of fencing resembles a sculpture and many people are walking up to take pictures of it. A police officer just went over to snap a shot as well.

I have actually had a visceral reaction to what has happened to Scott Olsen.. This young man is a hero and a leader.

"Olsen was dedicated to the Occupy movement, working at his job during the day and joining the protest at night, Shannon said...He became active in the antiwar movement when he returned [from Iraq]. In the last three weeks, he's only been home a couple of nights," Shannon said. "He's been dedicated to this even though he has a good job, just trying to support the movement even though he's not directly affected."

Dottie Guy, also a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, has been at the hospital since Tuesday night. She'd met Olsen only a few months ago but said he is always smiling, always positive."

From -

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/loc...#ixzz1c2bCxEcO

Thanks for sharing your sources Aj.

The article from your first link is really the first I have read about OWS mentioning any words such as petty bourgeoisie and socialism. Well, I have seen the word socialism bandied about but that is from right-wing critics and not from the protestors themselves. I found that whole article quite disturbing. Firstly, I am not sure how people are getting these statistics on the populations who are protesting.

"Since this movement is currently dominated by a class of people who make up, perhaps, the top 20% of the ninety-nine in the US and Canada––and probably only four or five per cent of the global ninety-nine––the fact that it is speaking, in very broad brushstrokes, in language vaguely akin to the language of communists is extremely interesting."

This sentence itself bugs me. How did the writer come up with these percentages? This is a fluid and growing movement and I can't imagine that anyone has collected enough data to do an accurate statistical analysis. It seems like the writer just pulled these numbers right out of her/his ass. Also, what specifically does the writer mean by "language akin to the language of communists" specifically? If you go to the 99delegation website or the OWS nyc working group site that I previously linked, you won't find much of any language resembling that of communists that I can see. No one is calling for an overthrow of the government or an end to capitalism in any of the working groups or general assemblies from what I have read.

And then there is this little gem:

"Even the fact that the movement has been resisting the need to place key demands on its agenda, falling back into some sort of “strength in directionless” ideology promoted by AdBusters (one of the key magazines for the activist, “culture-jamming” petty bourgeoisie), demonstrates the consciousness of a petty bourgeoisie in crisis––directionlessness, confusion, the realization that its class position is, and has always been, unstable."

First of all, Adbusters is a Vancouver based anti-consumerist magazine and yes they were the ones to propose a Sept. 17th occupation of Wall Street. But they don't claim any control over the protests and won't even comment about them when news organizations (such as NPR) ask them to. What the movement has become, has become so organically and not by the orchestration of Adbusters. Secondly, this ridiculous notion that the movement is directionless and that people don't know what they are protesting for is garbage. That's the kind of thing Faux news keeps saying. This sums it up better than any words can:

http://i813.photobucket.com/albums/z...ombie/OWS1.jpg

People know why they are protesting and what it is they want. The OWS working groups are working day and night to come up with a list of demands to put to Washington. This process takes so much time BECAUSE they are trying to include as many voices as possible and come to consensus. They are working towards a national General Assembly for next summer in Philadelphia. They are working on ways to make it possible for people who can't make it to the assembly to vote online. They are putting up as much of the process on the web as they can. This movement is very new and the process is slow, but that is good. It means they are being careful.

There's a lot more of that article that I really shake my head at, but here is a real zinger:

"When this movement peters out, as it surely will, and the majority of its most vocal supporters decide they want “to join the victors when the fight is over,” then we must ask ourselves what victories could be claimed by the left in the aftermath?"

This is just stupidity. It seems like the author is just wanting this whole thing to fail so that he or she can say, 'I was right! Ha ha!!' The truth is no one knows how this will turn out. 80 years ago during the Great Depression this country didn't have a revolution; it had a reformation. The economic situation today is in some ways very different, but in others very similar. The income inequality is almost the same as it was back then. We have corporate monopolies today that are just as powerful as the ones back then. The reforms we enacted back then have been eroded over the decades by all the deregulation done in the name of making America "more competitive". We can change this. We CAN achieve significant and needed reforms. The writer of this article seems to assume it will fail. Well, he/she can kiss 99% of my ass. I am going to stay positive and believe.

Ok so I could go on taking that article apart, but I am tired tonight lol. I do want to come back and talk about your other 2 links. The second one I found interesting, the third one seemed to be some fringe movement that really isn't tied to OWS in any concrete way. I haven't seen anything from them on the 99delegation site or in the minutes from the GA meetings. Ah, but it is late now and I need sleep, so I will sign off and continue this discussion tomorrow.

Thanks for participating!

Drew

http://c0014014.r32.cf1.rackcdn.com/x2_8fc3c4e

The picture in my original post changed. It was the "when they give you fences make sculpture" pic when I went to bed and it is "Iraq Veterans Against The War joined Occupy Oakland supporters to hold a vigil for Scott Olsen in front of city hall yesterday"pic when I woke up. I guess the picture will change frequently. That should prove interesting albeit puzzling as time passes.

Anyway here's a pic of fence sculpture.

Pennsylvanians, have you heard from Senator Toomey?
 

OCTOBER 17, 2011 Borrowed from the City Paper
Occupy Pittsburgh and other activists come calling at Toomey's office


BY LAUREN DALEY


Share this article:

Participants in the Occupy Pittsburgh movement ventured out from their Mellon Green encampment and to protest outside Sen. Pat Toomey's office today, demanding he "[s]top working for Wall Street and start working for us."


The Occupy campers joined One Pittsburgh and its offshoot action, the People's Lobby, in front of Toomey's Station Square office building at noon today. There, they denounced the Republican Senator's vote against the American Jobs Act. The action was among those that Occupy participants consented to supporting this week. They also plan to picket BNY Mellon -- which owns the Mellon Green site they are camping on -- this Wednesday.
The roughly three dozen activists on hand were joined by county councilor Amanda Green. "A lot of people think of me as an elected official, but that's just a part-time job," she said into the bullhorn. "I've got a full-time job. I've got bills to pay. I've got student loans. I understand what it's like to not be able to make ends meet."
Green made an impassioned speech from below Toomey's office window. "You need to be able to explain how, at almost 9 percent unemployment rate in this county, you vote 'no' on the [American Jobs Act]," she said. "It's unacceptable and ridiculous to me."
Toomey, protesters say, hasn't offered much of a response to their concerns. "At every meeting, his staff leads us nowhere," says Corey Buckner, a 24-year-old Garfield resident and member of One Pittsburgh.
Toomey has issued this statement on the ACA vote:
President Obama's latest stimulus bill contains hundreds of billions of dollars in increased spending and more tax hikes, which won't create jobs any more than his last stimulus bill did. With the unemployment rate at 9.1 percent, we do not have time to waste on political games and big tax increases that will only make our economy weaker for all Americans
Instead, I support a real jobs plan, which will reduce burdensome regulations that are preventing businesses from hiring; ratify three pending free trade agreements that will increase Pennsylvania's exports; simplify and reduce business and individual tax rates to encourage job-creating business expansions; and get our federal deficits under control, among other pro-growth measures. This plan will actually create jobs.
The protesters, meanwhile, called for Toomey's impeachment for his allegiance to corporations and big banks. And while One Pittsburgh and the People's Lobby aren't directly part of the Occupy Pittsburgh movement, or vice versa, activists like Buckner say the movements go hand-in-hand. "We're all here for the same thing," he said. "We want what Americans have been promised people forever: freedom and the ability to work."
After protesting for about 45 minutes, the group headed back across the Smithfield Bridge and into Downtown, shouting rants against Toomey and singing: "Everywhere we go, people want to know who we are," one lyric went. "So we tell them: We are the 99!"
Onlookers seemed mostly amused or inquisitive. One man yelled, as he flicked his cigarette in the trash, "This is what you get for voting against Arlen Specter, you dumbasses!" Another man, walking behind the protest, asked, "Are they shouting against Toomey?"
Told they were, he smiled. "I can agree with that."
Meanwhile, Downtown workers have been scoping out the Mellon Green encampment that has suddenly appeared amidst the city's skyscrapers. Some workers milled around the encampment during the morning rush and lunch hour, reading signs posted on the fence around the parklet's fountain.
"Keep up the good work!" one woman in a business suit yelled as she passed by on Grant. Another man sidled up to protestor Steve Cooper and said, "Ok, what do I need to know?"
Not everyone was receptive to the message: Occupiers have been keeping a tally of how many times a passerby instructs them to "get a job!" -- and that number is now in the dozens.
But as camper Doug Placais, 27, of the city's Allentown neighborhood puts it: "For every one person who walks by and yells 'get a job' there's been a positive honk or someone yelling in support."

there are antibiotic resistant genes in GMOs as well. what i find interesting is that there was DNA specifically engineered to be antibiotic resistant in a lab in America and then it was pumped into the food supply all nice and quiet. meanwhile, the media is all about telling us that OVERuse of antibiotics is the real problem...not that that ISN'T a problem...but i suspect it's not THE problem. same with the use of antibiotics in meat. is it a good practice? no. is it bad for you to eat meat that has been grown with antibiotics? probably. but what we're NOT talking about is the specifically engineered DNA that was specifically made to be antibiotic resistant floating around in GMO foods that are neither labeled on products nor regulated.

to understand this, one would have to look at how foreign or new DNA is taken up by an organism, lets say for example e.coli. there are a couple ways this happens naturally. one way is called horizontal gene transfer where different strains of bacteria are capable of uptaking each other's DNA. some organisms release their DNA upon death and leave what we call DNA litter. so let's say you ingest an e.coil organism that is carrying antibiotic resistant DNA (cuz e.coli is what they use in agrotech to introduce new DNA into plant cells) and that antibiotic resistant DNA litter is now in your digestive tract and your natural e.coli that is swarming around your intestines picks up the DNA via horizontal transfer. and voila! a superbug is born. i believe that we've actually become human farms for these superbugs unwittingly via GMOs. and i suspect i'm not the only one. there seems to be a timeline correlation between the emergence of superbugs and GMOs that i find unsettling.

i've not found books on this stuff. but i do read a lot and i've taken enough microbiology classes to be sufficiently scared to death of our food. you won't find anything in the news either. i would say google some science journals on the matter and possibly news sources that are not in America. Europe is vehemently antiGMO. protestors even went as far as to invade and cut down GMO crops while the police just stood and watched. i think those vids are floating around youtube. if we did that here we would be arrested and sued. on a side note....GMOs aren't only in the food supply. there are acres upon acres of GMO trees growing in our forests, in the amazon, and gawd only knows where else. veggies will pollinate once. trees, however, will pollinate many times in their lifetime. and the location of many of these GMO tree palntings are a secret. why?

Occupy Oakland: Officials shift into damage control

OAKLAND -- Oakland Mayor Jean Quan shifted into damage control Thursday, asking hospitalized protester Scott Olsen and other Occupy Oakland demonstrators to cooperate with police investigating Olsen's head injury.

Quan visited Olsen, a former Marine and Iraq War veteran, on Thursday morning at Highland Hospital. She shook his hand, and apologized for what happened to him. She also encouraged him and fellow demonstrators to speak with police, a hospital spokesman said. Olsen was knocked down -- apparently by a tear-gas canister or other police projectile -- Tuesday night as authorities tried to keep protesters away from Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, in front of Oakland City Hall.

The protest group had been dislodged from their tents on the plaza by police earlier in the day.

Oakland police have promised a thorough investigation of the incident, which left Olsen with a brain injury that has impeded his speech. Alameda County prosecutors and federal investigators also planned to look into the violent clash.

The city has tried this week to recover from the confrontation, which attracted an avalanche of criticism from pundits, politicians and protesters. Television host Keith Olbermann called for Quan's resignation, and White House press secretary Jay Carney called on U.S. cities to preserve "a long and noble tradition in the United States of free expression and free speech."

Protesters started rebuilding their tent city Thursday, with at least a dozen tents erected on the plaza lawn by the evening. Quan had planned to speak to a large crowd that had gathered in front of City Hall on Thursday night, but she left without speaking because she would have had to wait in line, said her attorney, Dan Siegel.

She would have had to wait in line? I wonder what that implies.
For the whole article:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/top-stories/ci_19205555

Thinking about Scott Olsen
 

My reactions today are more emotional than logical. There is no logic or good explanation for what has happened. I was reading one of the articles posted here -

http://www.occupytogether.org/2011/1.../#comment-9248

and discovered this comment which has garnered many comments, rightly so. It says a lot.
__________________________________________________ ____________

22 Responses to “Tonight: Vigils Across America for Scott Olsen”

Concerned American on October 27th, 2011 at 1:13 pm #

To the Mothers and Fathers of America:

This may not be clear to you yet, but those protestors out in the streets are your bravest children. They now hold the front for all of us in the centuries-old battle against tyranny. Many are fighting the corrupting influence of money in American politics, others against a system no longer functional for a majority that will only grow.

Some do not know exactly what they want–only that something has gone terribly wrong in a country in which they would like to believe.

They have not articulated one focused message, or one set of demands–and they do not need to. This is not a battle of right against left, red against blue, or liberal against conservative. It is not made-for-TV politics. It is a battle of right against wrong. America has lost, in its political discourse and behavior, the ability to distinguish between the two. Many of its practitioners seem not to care.

Those who support this movement in all its myriad shapes, sizes, sexes, colors, ideologies, income levels, and nationalities–have no sound bite. They get the problem, in general, and are massing to change it. Like the old thinker, they would rather be approximately correct than precisely wrong.

They give their nights, their sleep, their weekends, and their comfort to fight an uncertain battle for you, for all your children. They face police lines and mainstream scorn. They face the indifference of the vast armies of complacency and distraction, who keep waiting for the channel to change, the web page to update, and this movement to end. They face cynics who believe nothing will change, they face the often well-intentioned defeatists who believe nothing can change. They face politicians who patronize, tell them they don’t understand–that they, the politicians, support the movement, even as they make plans with their police forces to clear them.

On Tuesday, October 25th in Oakland, California, Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine and Iraq veteran, standing beside another veteran, a naval officer in dress, was critically injured by a weapon used against him by a police officer from one of 17 jurisdictions in the San Francisco Bay Area. A group of occupiers running away from the scene, amidst police flash grenades, tear gas, and rubber bullets, rushed back when they saw Scott Olsen lying still on the ground. As they rushed in to pick him up–a dozen of your bravest, America–an unidentified officer tossed, from behind police ranks, another flash grenade at their feet. A handful of these unarmed protestors persisted, carrying Scott Olsen, dazed with a fractured skull, away from the police line, shouting for medics as the explosions and smoke recalled the nightmare of American battlefields.

Like this, the guns have again been turned back on your bravest children, most fighting only for the core values they were taught as children: people in need should be helped; democracy should be uncorrupted; citizens must gather in peace; and this country belongs to all of us, not a political elite increasingly indistinguishable from a financial and industrial corporate elite. Like all of us, they see clearly and abhor this crony capitalism now ascendent. They are doing something about it.

These are not trouble-making hippies, America–you mistake them as such at your peril. These are your better angels, trying to save you from yourself. They are your child that cannot help tell the truth, the sometimes inconvenient one that thinks of safety last and justice first. They are fighting the war that rages inside you when you see the circus on TV, in print, or online and can only shake your head. You ignore them, laugh at them, demean them, or discount them at your peril. They may be our last hope of transformation for this country reeling from war, from a crisis of confidence, from scandal, division, corruption, and poverty. Let no demagogue–especially talkers at the service of money and power–convince you, a thinking American, that these are not patriots of the truest kind.

So go out and support your children, America, and with them the fundamental ideas upon which this country was founded. Take a walk by the protest in your town at night, in the morning–drive by or bike past. Stop and talk to someone for a minute. Listen and watch. Gather your friends and neighbors. Everyone has their own place and their own role.

For every Scott Olsen, now lying in a hospital bed in critical condition, there should be 100,000 witnesses, who by their presence lend this movement strength and legitimacy.

As long as they occupy the centers of our cities, big and small, we–who wish to create a more perfect union–have an opening to change something vital, such as removing money from politics once and for all. It is possible. It has been done elsewhere. These children have brought the season of democracy, the days and especially nights of renewing democracy, and they need your protection.

Even your bravest children need to feel your strong hands on their back.

This is reportedly a flyer dropped on Occupy protesters in Chicago.
 

http://i813.photobucket.com/albums/z...mbie/Flyer.jpg

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/2...reet-leaflets/

that is hilarious. i would love to punch those bullying better than thou smirks right off their arrogant faces along with a good amount of their capped teeth.

So we have been on their backs? Really. And they will take over teaching America's kids for 40,000 a year and toss a ball around with them for another 5k in the summer. Well, I say good onya. And landscape their own land. Maybe people shouldn't own so much land they need landscapers anyway. and no longer leave 35% tips after their business lunches. Well, perhaps we need to look at the how the food industry works anyway.

You arrogant son of a bitches. You think you work hard? And we are just a bunch of lazy good for nothings looking for a hand out. I don't think you would recognize hard work if it hit you in the teeth.

Apparently we have come to place where something like Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is not a bit of satire that gives one pause but an acceptable course of action. It is threat to the 99% by the 1%. They really will eat our young and develop a popular meme explaining how we deserved it.

I guess something is scaring them because here they come again trying to terrorize us with version number 22 of the same old song. If you try to get the 1% to pay their fair share, they try to convince you that no matter what you do their fair share always comes out of the hide of the 99%. And it can be done the easy way with anesthetic or they can just tear it off you. So be nice and shut up. Signed the financial mafia.

You know it concerns me that our elected officials, elected by the people and supposedly working for the people, can continue to spout this rhetoric. I am sure they have an understanding of how the economy works and how it could be fixed, they know what they are saying are lies, yet they continue to spread these untruths.

How will continued and increased tax breaks for corporations, who if not stopped will continue to bring jobs out of the country where there is cheaper labor, ever, ever create jobs for Americans? How can our elected officials not know this? They do know it. Yet they continue to tell us different because they believe the majority of people are too stupid to figure it out. So there is no harm for them in lying to us.

Free trade agreements aren’t very helpful for creating jobs when we continue to import so much more than we export. No jobs there. It would be helpful if, at least, we could tax imports from. U.S. corporations that are U.S. in ownership only. Meaning they provide no U.S. jobs, no goods are produced in U.S., no raw materials are purchased in the U.S. These corporations should be treated like foreign corporations and should pay to import their products to the U.S. So why don’t our elected officials understand this simple reality. Free trade agreements won’t get us jobs. Are they stupid or do they believe we are stupid?

I shudder to imagine what could define burdensome regulations. We don’t even have enough regulations in place to stop the financial sector from destroying the economy of the world. How much less regulations could we possibly survive with? How can any official, given the jam that a lack of regulation just got us into, say with a straight face that we need less of these burdensome regulations? It’s like the mayor of Oakland saying that Oakland needs a more aggressive police department. She would never say that because it would be political suicide. But politicians feel no such qualms about telling us we need to deregulate. Why? Do they think we are so stupid they can get away with that? They seem to be getting away with it.

The federal deficit would get in control much easier if we hadn’t had to bailout those poor over-regulated financial terrorists. But I doubt curtailing handouts to the wealthy is what the 1% has in mind when they speak of getting the deficits under control. They mean austerity measures (social genocide).

So let me see if I can get this straight. The deficit is so bad because the financial sector engaged in actions that [purposely (hard to believe that they could ignore all the warnings and still plead ignorance) or accidentally because of greed and disinterest in consequences – you choose which you believe] are destroying the world’s economy (which destruction, if they place their bets correctly, could even make them money –so really what is in it for them if we have economic recovery) and we the 99% had to bail them out. And we had to bail them out despite the reality that of all the people hurt by their actions they suffered least, if at all, and that the 1% has plenty of money, the banks have plenty of money, everyone who is anyone in finance is still making money hand over fist, but just they don’t have money they wish to share. Then to add injury to insult we have to be squeezed and nickel and dimed to death. The 1% continues to insist on tax breaks and deregulation and bailouts and bonuses and whatnot that benefit them and that will inevitably erase the middle class, crush the working class and leave the poor hopeless. Rather than raise taxes for the rich they would rather subject the rest of us to untold pain and suffering.

They talk like the things they are saying make perfect sense and deserve to be taken seriously as an answer to our economic woes. It’s as though we should take seriously the idea that perhaps the sun does indeed revolve around the earth after all.

Does anyone remember this? How profound George was. RIP

Also, the rest of the council members are speaking out about the mayor not bringing the coucil together to discuss approaches to the demonstrations. Frankly, I agree with these members as this could have been avoided with looking at more ideas and safety concerns. One member said she would never have backed any kind of police action in which unarmed citizens of Oakland would be subjected to "riot squad" mentality.

After a fair amount of time in which it was clear not only in Oakland, but all across the US, that people are going to continue airing their complaints about these issues (that affect every part of their lives), city governments should have sat down with appointed reps from the protests and worked out how to have a safe and peaceful way for our rights to assemble and take our dissent to our public officials. There have been many, many supporters with the means offering financial help for things like porta-potties, food and food distribution as well as park cleaning and sanitation in order to take the financial burden of of city budgets that have been cut to shreads.

What bothers me the most about this is that this has become just another layer of the blockade the 99% feel is at the core of why our complaints are not heard. And there are solutions out there that can stop these kinds of things from happening.

News I have heard today about Olsen is that the surgery (for the brain swelling) planned has been postponed for today and he still is unable to speak. He is stable and his family is here from WS. There was a candle light vigil last night and more planned. he has support from other vets that stand up against war and want our troops out of Afghanistan.

Let's all throw out a "best wishes" for his full recovery from all corners of the Planet.

There is a lot of passing of the buck going on with Mayor Qwan that is just discusting. She needs to take responsibility, especially since she acted quite unilaterally- which to me, puts another layer of discust concerning the fact that we send troops off to wars under the guise of fighting for freedom and democratic (action bt consensus) ideals.

Sorr- not spell checking or getting typos- tired today.

this makes me laugh. paper pushers and mathematical engineers don't strike me as the kind of people to run around mowing lawns for a living or working in the farm fields for minimum wages or less.

i think it's really funny considering the currency is actually backed by human labor and not gold. i'd LOVE, absolutely LOVE, to see a wall street "trader", work on the farms that i have doing the kind of labor that i do and pull up in their 80 thousand dollar sports car. hell, i'd pay to see that.

Well, actually it works just fine for the 1%. And they don't need any other answers. People are still buying this crap by the bushel. Truthfully these financial terrorists scare everyone with there doom economics. If they don't get what they want the economy will collapse, if they fail we will all shrivel up and die. The 99% needs to protect the 1% because they are our ticket to prosperity. Well we've all been riding that train for awhile and I don't know about you but I don't seem to be prospering so much at all. But they threaten us with if you think it's bad now wait and see if any of the shit storm we've created ever gets spattered on us there will be hell to pay. They threaten us saying if anything happens to move us toward a more equitable distribution of the wealth we will take your jobs and eat you alive. Hell I got news for them they've already done that.

Oh, I'm sure they have plenty of ammo in their arsenal. I bet we get a first hand look at it real soon.

I am certainly not counting on SS, money, retirement programs or anything administrated by our government. My retirement plan is owning a big chunk of land free and clear, stock piles of non-gmo organic seeds, lots of hens, more fruit and nut trees and the knowledge to sustain no matter how fucked up it gets.

I do depend on money but could also do without it. Now that, to me, is the ultimate freedom

Urban dweller here. Never owned any land, never even a house. Came from a long line of no land no home people. Although I will say my grandparents raised chickens in the backyard of 3 story tenement building when i was kid. They also slaughtered pigs and god knows what else down in the basement. I remember roosters crowing up and down the neighborhood so they weren't the only people to do that. Lots of veggies and everybody grew grapes and made wine. However, nobody does that much anymore. I guess there are laws against it. Not the vegetables, the chickens i mean. I guess us land deprived lack of money to buy any urbanites are pretty screwed. Although I think my survival skills are quite honed.

I really do hope the panic button is broke though.

That's been my belief and plan. ;-)

They haven't got enough money they are hoarding. Let's find ways for them to get more. I mean the most we can expect from them is that they will have more business lunches with their 35% tips and maybe some extra landscaping and car washing...


Just Say No to Corporate Greed

Repatriation. It's a word many schoolchildren probably haven't yet learned to define or even seen very often outside of spelling bees. But when it comes to corporate taxes, repatriation is the cornerstone of an idea that has the potential to severely hurt millions of children and parents and widen the already historic and unconscionable gap between the rich and the poor.

In its simplest definition, repatriation is bringing something back to its country of origin—returning it back home. One of the solutions to the jobs crisis being proposed by some of our Congressional leaders and lobbied for aggressively by some of the country's richest corporations is a rehash of an old experiment: enacting a repatriation tax holiday that would temporarily allow U.S.-based multinational companies to bring home profits they currently hold overseas at a 5.25 percent tax rate, instead of the usual 35 percent corporate tax rate. Under current tax law, multinational companies generally pay no U.S. corporate taxes on foreign income until those profits are brought back to the U.S. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) explains, “This effectively allows such firms to defer payment of the U.S. corporate income tax on their overseas profits indefinitely, even though they may obtain an immediate tax deduction for many expenses incurred in supporting the same overseas investments. This can produce a negative U.S. corporate income tax—that is, a net government subsidy—for overseas operations. In addition to causing the federal government to lose tax revenue, this structure gives multinationals a significant incentive to shift economic activity—as well as their reported profits—overseas.”

The argument for the repatriation holiday is that giving corporations a huge incentive to bring profits back right now—in the form of an enormous tax break—would bring billions of dollars back to the U.S. economy that would be reinvested and provide a big stimulus to our economy. Corporate proponents and their Congressional bullies argue this will create desperately needed jobs.

But the last time this was tried, under a 2004 Bush Administration plan, it didn't work out that way. Instead, as CBPP points out, “The evidence shows that firms mostly used the repatriated earnings not to invest in U.S. jobs or growth but for purposes that Congress sought to prohibit, such as repurchasing their own stock and paying bigger dividends to their shareholders. Moreover, many firms actually laid off large numbers of U.S. workers even as they reaped multi-billion-dollar benefits from the tax holiday and passed them on to shareholders.” Many economists and scholars believe that if corporations get their way and get another repatriation holiday, history will repeat itself—and once again the corporations and their shareholders, not American workers, families, and children, will be the only winners.

The nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated the holiday would cost the federal government about $80 billion over ten years in lost revenue. The Economic Policy Institute's Andrew Fieldhouse puts it this way: “While there are numerous job creation proposals that would meaningfully lower unemployment, some lawmakers are pushing counterproductive policies disguised as job creation packages. The proposed repeat of the corporate tax repatriation holiday is one such wolf in sheep's clothing.” When the nation is already facing a jobs crisis and many Congressional leaders are threatening to slash nutrition, child care, and other safety net programs children and families rely on as a means of balancing the budget, revisiting a failed idea instead of coming up with real solutions and real jobs is a threat children and families and our country cannot afford. As the Occupy Wall Street protestors are shouting, let's “just say no to corporate greed” and to Congresspeople who continue to raid from the poor and children to curry favor and campaign contributions from the rich.

Oh I should have said I already own my chunk of land free and clear. I refinanced and took 25 acres off my mortgage in the event my mortgage company got freaky. I also put my greenhouse on the free and clear land. I already have the seeds but continue to get things. I have hens but want 100 going all the times.

I need help :(

Smart. Smart. Smart. I've been doing the same and trying to pick up a few skills in the process. ;-)

I tell anyone, my students included, to invest in land, and preferably land with good soil and water.

more slight derailing/

ever thought of a commune?

/more slight derailing

yes and would

don't quote me, but i *think* there are groups that will help you start a CSA farm. look into it :) there might even be funding available to help you get started.

Yes, and you can find folks who want to work in exchange for room, board and experience through -

http://www.wwoof.org/

That was my plan with my farm, but life presented a personal derail (nice term P.). In the wake of the divorce, I'm looking at the next step.

Intentional communities, permacultual and others, are happening.

been there, done most of this already. In theory it sounds great but the reality another story.

the farm is available to anyone who wants to live on it, grow on it and start csa or anything else. I just don't have housing. In the spring I'll have a bathroom and shower built off the barn. A few people talked about getting rent to own sheds and converting them so all they need is a shower and potty. Or build a treehouse, cobb house, tent. I have plenty of woods and a big creek all along one whole side.

I'm sure I started a thread some time ago. I'm always open to anything that has to do with sustainable living

Ah, this made me laugh out loud. Thank you.

Oh, yeah, already have about the CSA. You're preaching to the choir, P. ;-)
But I do the same, so rock on.

Still laughing..... great sentiment to take the gym with me. Have a good one my OWS kindred spirits!

Can you explain what you mean by "DNA specifically engineered to be antibiotic resistant" and "pumped into the food supply"? I ask for a couple of reasons:

1) Antibiotics do not, strictly speaking, affect 'naked' DNA. (Here I mean DNA that isn't in some living thing.) Antibiotics affect, well, bacterials but not viruses (RNA) and DNA is RNA with an extra strand, some sugar and one different base (T in DNA is U in RNA). So what doesn't effect RNA also doesn't effect DNA.

2) What do you mean by "pumped into the food supply" in the context of DNA? This seems to violate the central dogma of molecular biology. Put simply, DNA codes for proteins. So DNA that isn't coding for something in the context of being in the presence of a living thing isn't' doing anything. So how can DNA, absent a body in which to express itself, be *doing* anything? Are you saying that it is making antibiotic resistant proteins? That doesn't really make sense unless you are talking about it being inside a living thing.

3) Are you saying that someone cooked up DNA as a bacteriophage (a virus that infects bacteria)? If so, why on Earth would they have it code for resistance to antibiotics since the whole purpose of a bacteriophage would be to try to kill a bacteria not make it more resistant to antibiotics. What's more, there's a far less expensive way they could get the same effect. Simply have people take too many antibiotics, not use them correctly, use a lot of antibacterial soaps so that we're constantly turning the selective volume on bacteria up to eleven. Wait, that's what we're doing now.

I will admit that I do not read all of the literature but I do try to keep up with what is happening in molecular genetics particularly as it relates to our ongoing battle against pathogens. I'm not aware of the work you're talking about and really am not sure that I understand what you're saying. I don't want to derail the thread so if you want to write me privately or put it on its own thread, I really would like to understand what it is you're saying. Thanks.

Actually, the explanation that it's because of the overuse of antibacterials is actually the most simple and the most likely. Since bacteria are living things and since all living things are subject to variation, Darwinian selection operates on bacteria just as it does everything else. Since antibiotics literally kill bacteria and do so by making various chemical tricks happen, any variation that made a bacteria more resistant to that chemical attack would cause it to leave around more descendants than others. What has been going on since we first started using antibiotics is we have been selecting for antibacterial resistance in TB, staph, e. coli, and every other bacterial pathogen we care about. We've been using antibacterials since 1940 so just over 70 years. Given the very fast generation times of most bacteria (every 24 minutes for e. coli, under ideal conditions) and the fact that bacteria are gregarious with their genes and will just share and pick them up from any old bacterial colony we should expect resistance to naturally evolve in a population. It would be remarkable if it didn't happen.

So here I have to ask which is more likely? That bacteria are subject to Darwinian selection and that introducing antibiotics into the ecology of bacteria would inevitably (and rather quickly) lead to strains of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics OR someone for no good reason introduced antibiotic resistance into the ecology of mammal infecting bacteria *knowing* that resistance was already evolving? (It's been known that it was happening all of my adult life, I first encountered this in 1991.)


Cheers
Aj

I don't want to derail the the thread either, but I do want to understand this as well. From what I can gather, and believe me gathering hurts my head, DNA used as markers in genetic engineering are somehow or other antibiotic resistant. I don't think it is a purposeful thing, it is a by product of using markers. At least that is what it sounded like to me. Then there is something about it being able to possibly do some kind of horizontal gene transfer thing, especially surrounding e-coli, which seems to be useful for genetic modification and we all have some so when we eat gmos that have this antibiotic resistant dna we might be developing it also. Or something like that anyway. Not sure how proven it is. Europe seems more disturbed by it than we are in the U.S. But even there some study decided it wasn't much of a threat to humans but two scientists disagreed and wanted an addendum added to the study. Or something like that. I can't find the study anymore. Read about it awhile ago. Anyway it doesn't sound like a great idea to me. And it seems like a more direct way to find oneself resistant to antibiotics. I think they have been doing this since 1970 or so. Does this make any sense?

when creating GMO food, a gene selected for antibiotic resistance is spliced into DNA of plant cells. i'm gonna copy and paste a couple things for you:

Antibiotic Resistance Marker Genes in Genetically Engineered Foods
2002-06-19

Executive Summary



No federal laws have ever been passed to govern the regulation of genetically engineered foods and crops. The regulations in place, cobbled together under existing statutes, require no mandatory pre-market or post-market health testing. When the regulations were legally challenged in the 1980s, the court found they were flawed but did not set them aside, reasoning that they were only an initial effort to set policy. Instead, the regulations remain largely in place, although weakened over time. One result of this lax oversight is that potentially unsafe practices, such as the inclusion of antibiotic resistance marker genes, have gone forward with far too little scientific and public debate and scrutiny.

Many genetically engineered crops on the market currently contain antibiotic resistance marker genes because of the imprecision of the gene insertion process. Scientists use these genes to determine whether a gene has inserted itself into a target organism. As a result of incorporating these antibiotic resistance genes, these crops threaten the already growing problem of antibiotic resistance, which the world medical community acknowledges as a serious public health concern. Infectious diseases are responsible for one-quarter of all the deaths in the world, second only to cardiovascular diseases. As new strains of bacteria and viruses emerge that are resistant to drugs and antibiotics, infections become more difficult to treat.

The market for genetically engineered crops hinges in large part upon their acceptance by food processors. Food companies such as Kraft Foods, the largest food company in the United States and the second largest in the world, can join the call for an end to antibiotic resistance marker genes and tell biotechnology companies they do not want to put their customers at risk. Corporations have set a precedent for this type of action: McDonald's and other large corporate consumers of chicken have played a significant role in reducing in the use of antibiotics fed to chickens for non-therapeutic purposes. If food processors, as potential customers, clearly articulate that antibiotic resistance marker genes are unacceptable, manufacturers will have no incentive to continue their use.

Antibiotic resistance marker genes are just one example of how genetically engineered crops should be better regulated, so products that should never make it to market do not, and health concerns are addressed before, not after, products are commercialized. In order to accomplish this goal with regards to antibiotic resistance marker genes, products on the market with them should be removed, and no new products should be approved that contain antibiotic resistance marker genes. In addition, the state Public Interest Research Groups, along with our coalition partners in Genetically Engineered Food Alert, have issued the following call to action:

Genetically engineered food ingredients or crops should not be allowed on the market unless:

1) Independent safety testing demonstrates they have no harmful effects on human health or the environment,
2) They are labeled to ensure the consumer's right to know, and
3) The biotechnology corporations that manufacture them are held responsible for any harm.



~and to answer the technical questions (and thanks i know what a phage is lol!)


Horizontal gene transfer

Horizontal gene transfer has been reported between distantly related bacteria, and from bacteria to
yeast, mammalian cells and plant cells.
The few examples of transfer from plants to bacteria indicated by DNA sequence comparisons and
the lack of experimental confirmation suggest that the frequency of evolutionary successful gene
transfer from plants to bacteria is extremely low. However this inference is based on a small number
of experimental studies and indications in the scientific literature.
Detection of horizontal gene transfer events is difficult due to the limitations of the techniques
available. Unequivocal proof requires isolation of the putative transformed bacteria for thorough
genetic characterisation.
The rate of gene transfer from plants to bacteria is insignificant compared to gene transfer between
micro-organisms. Almost any type of bacterium has the potential to transfer DNA to any other type
of bacterium if it contains a broad host range gene transfer element.

Antibiotic resistance genes and human health

The presence of the antibiotic resistance gene by itself is not associated with any adverse health
effects.
There is in vitro evidence that free DNA in human saliva is capable of transforming a naturally
competent human oral bacterium (Mercer et al, 1999). Since the regions preceding the stomach are
likely to have the highest concentrations of intact DNA entering with the diet further research is
needed to establish whether transformation of oral bacteria occurs at significant frequencies in vivo.
Although most ingested DNA is likely to be degraded and diluted in the human gastro-intestinal
tract, natural transformation of gut epithelial cells or micro-organisms cannot be completely ruled
out.
Research in mice indicates that DNA can survive digestion and uptake by gut epithelial cells occurs,
however at levels of DNA intake unlikely to be encountered in a normal diet (Schubbert et al, 1997).
The mechanism of DNA uptake by gut epithelial cells is unknown and its significance is unclear.
If DNA uptake does occur in humans critical factors are the presence of regulatory sequences that
allow gene expression and the presence of selective pressure. Without selective pressure it is highly.......

......blahblahblah.....i can attach that entire pdf to your email if you like. :)


i understand that by the act of processing foods...let's take a box of Cheez-Its for example (a common GMO containing food)....clearly bacterias and therefore their DNA would not survive the process of the making of a Cheez-It. so the bacteria itself dies, but where does the DNA litter go? also, GMO food products are being fed to our meat supply, while simultaneously being fed antibiotics or being injected. (actually i think it's strictly in the feed now cuz injections are too expensive) we then, eat that meat, and not always overly well done. to me, it seems like the bacteria or even the DNA litter of said bacteria were to survive it would be here. however, stranger things have happened.