OCCUPY WALL STREET

[Martina]

Wow. The coverage on Rachel Maddow is awesome. Proud of the East Bay.

[SoNotHer]

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908...42018#45142018



From - http://www.occupyoakland.org/

[MissItalianDiva]

Police are now forming. Not in gear but in hoards and making themselves very visible

[MissItalianDiva]

Inside source has told me cops are coming in groves down West Grand towards the port with lights and sirens...hopefully they stay back

[Ebon]

Originally Posted by MissItalianDiva

Inside source has told me cops are coming in groves down West Grand towards the port with lights and sirens...hopefully they stay back

I hope so too.

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by SoNotHer

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908...42018#45142018



From - http://www.occupyoakland.org/

i was a bit taken aback by the Exxon ad at the beginning of the vid link promoting oil sands processing. whoa. really? is nothing sacred? lol

[SoNotHer]

I thought the same thing, P. In fact, it feels like reading a Kindle version of 1984 only to interrupted by micro-marketing and given a list of suggested reading. Exxon, BP and the likes have infiltrated Maddow, YouTube and some of my other places.

Originally Posted by persiphone

i was a bit taken aback by the Exxon ad at the beginning of the vid link promoting oil sands processing. whoa. really? is nothing sacred? lol

[atomiczombie]

Hey folks sorry I didn't get to posting yesterday. I was really tired when I finally got to my computer after a busy day. Some thoughts about the Oakland strike:

I was really psyched that there were so many protestors who peacefully shut down several banks. Many businesses closed their doors in solidarity with the general strike and that was heartening to see. That they shut down the port of Oakland was beyond amazing and a great victory! Yay!

It is frustrating, however, to see the local anarchist group come into the protest and break windows and throw rocks/bottles, things like that. Those people wearing black and hiding their faces weren't part of Occupy. They were there just to cause trouble. What is even more frustrating is that some of the media called them "protestors" when reporting on those incidents of violence and destruction. They didn't make a distinction, and that gives a totally wrong impression of Occupy. Violence and destruction of property is usually the first and biggest stories that the media seizes on, so that tends to overshadow the message and victories of the general strike. I don't know how Occupy can keep these anarchist hoodlums away from the protests, however. I don't think they can. That fact frustrates me.

Thank you everyone who is keeping us up to date on all the latest details of the protests and political actions, and sharing your ideas. I am going out of town this weekend so I probably won't be able to post, but I will be keeping up as best I can and will be back next week to participate more.

[Greyson]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

It is frustrating, however, to see the local anarchist group come into the protest and break windows and throw rocks/bottles, things like that. Those people wearing black and hiding their faces weren't part of Occupy. They were there just to cause trouble. What is even more frustrating is that some of the media called them "protestors" when reporting on those incidents of violence and destruction. They didn't make a distinction, and that gives a totally wrong impression of Occupy. Violence and destruction of property is usually the first and biggest stories that the media seizes on, so that tends to overshadow the message and victories of the general strike.

Drew, thanks for your thoughts and actions you are taking for the 99%. I watched the ABC, CBS, and KRON news shows early this morning before coming into work and I thought the coverage of Occupy Oakland was balanced. I understood clearly by their reports that the anarchist were not part of Occupy Oakland. I also saw video of the the Occupy people assisting in the clean up of some of the anarchist vandalism.

I work in downtown Oakland and me and most of my coworkers are real people with responsibilities to our families and community. I do understand peaceful civil protest but I will never understand the violence. Much of the property and people that get destroyed are not the Fat Cats with no sense of humanity beyond their next take over, buy out, financial scam.

[atomiczombie]

By Jessica Firger

Police arrested at least 16 people, including journalist Chris Hedges and performance artist Reverend Billy Talen, during a rally Thursday outside the headquarters of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in lower Manhattan.

The rally was held after a mock trial at the nearby Occupy Wall Street encampment, in which Goldman’s alleged misdeeds were weighed in a “people’s hearing.” The event, led by author and activist Cornell West, was broadcast live on a radio station and drew hundreds of protesters and spectators, many of whom then marched down Trinity Place towards Goldman’s skyscraper.

“The banking system has been shot through with greed,” said West, a professor at Princeton University. He marched arm in arm with several protesters, whom he referred to as his “brothers and sisters.” Some protesters held signs that read “Out of Your Ivory Tower” and “Don’t Feed the Bull.”

Reverend Billy, dressed in his signature white suit, called the Occupy movement “real, physical, actual hope,” and he blamed President Barack Obama for “drain[ing] all meaning from the word ‘hope.’” Talen added: “He’s no less corrupt than George Bush. He’s been unable to regulate these people,” referring to financial institutions.

At the entrance to Goldman’s headquarters on West Street, protesters read their verdict aloud: “Guilty of felony fraud, violating security laws, perjury before a Senate commission and the theft of $78 billion in taxpayer money.”

Several people then sat down in front with the building with their arms linked. As police handcuffed each person one at a time, some used nonviolent resistance tactics such curling up on the ground. The final protester to be arrested made her body limp and was carried away by several police officers.

Ann Shirazi, 66 years old, attended the rally with her husband Ahamad as a member of the Granny Peace Brigade, an activist group. “We’ve lost money and our children have trouble finding work,” she said. “But the personal issues are not what’s important — everyone’s been affected.”

–Tamer El-Ghobashy contributed to this report.

Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011...ogle_news_blog

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by Greyson

Drew, thanks for your thoughts and actions you are taking for the 99%. I watched the ABC, CBS, and KRON news shows early this morning before coming into work and I thought the coverage of Occupy Oakland was balanced. I understood clearly by their reports that the anarchist were not part of Occupy Oakland. I also saw video of the the Occupy people assisting in the clean up of some of the anarchist vandalism.

I work in downtown Oakland and me and most of my coworkers are real people with responsibilities to our families and community. I do understand peaceful civil protest but I will never understand the violence. Much of the property and people that get destroyed are not the Fat Cats with no sense of humanity beyond their next take over, buy out, financial scam.

Thats great to hear, Greyson. I guess the news sources I was watching on the internet weren't reporting on it the same way. I am glad local news is getting it right.

[atomiczombie]

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery
Public Citizen 40th Gala
Washington, DC
October 20, 2011

I am honored to share this occasion with you. No one beyond your collegial inner circle appreciates more than I do what you have stood for over these 40 years, or is more aware of the battles you have fought, the victories you have won, and the passion for democracy that still courses through your veins. The great progressive of a century ago, Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin – a Republican, by the way – believed that “Democracy is a life; and involves constant struggle.” Democracy has been your life for four decades now, and would have been even more imperiled today if you had not stayed the course.

I began my public journalism the same year you began your public advocacy, in 1971. Our paths often paralleled and sometimes crossed. Over these 40 years journalism for me has been a continuing course in adult education, and I came early on to consider the work you do as part of the curriculum – an open seminar on how government works – and for whom. Your muckraking investigations – into money and politics, corporate behavior, lobbying, regulatory oversight, public health and safety, openness in government, and consumer protection, among others – are models of accuracy and integrity. They drive home to journalists that while it is important to cover the news, it is more important to uncover the news. As one of my mentors said, “News is what people want to keep hidden; everything else is publicity.” And when a student asked the journalist and historian Richard Reeves for his definition of “real news”, he answered: “The news you and I need to keep our freedoms.” You keep reminding us how crucial that news is to democracy. And when the watchdogs of the press have fallen silent, your vigilant growls have told us something’s up.

So I’m here as both citizen and journalist to thank you for all you have done, to salute you for keeping the faith, and to implore you to fight on during the crisis of hope that now grips our country. The great American experience in creating a different future together – this “voluntary union for the common good” – has been flummoxed by a growing sense of political impotence – what the historian Lawrence Goodwyn has described as a mass resignation of people who believe “the dogma of democracy” on a superficial public level but who no longer believe it privately. There has been, he says, a decline in what people think they have a political right to aspire to – a decline of individual self-respect on the part of millions of Americans.

You can understand why. We hold elections, knowing they are unlikely to produce the policies favored by the majority of Americans. We speak, we write, we advocate – and those in power turn deaf ears and blind eyes to our deepest aspirations. We petition, plead, and even pray – yet the earth that is our commons, which should be passed on in good condition to coming generations, continues to be despoiled. We invoke the strain in our national DNA that attests to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as the produce of political equality – yet private wealth multiplies as public goods are beggared. And the property qualifications for federal office that the framers of the Constitution expressly feared as an unseemly “veneration for wealth” are now openly in force; the common denominator of public office, even for our judges, is a common deference to cash.

So if belief in the “the dogma of democracy” seems only skin deep, there are reasons for it. During the prairie revolt that swept the Great Plains a century after the Constitution was ratified, the populist orator Mary Elizabeth Lease exclaimed: “Wall Street owns the country…Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us…Money rules.”

That was 1890. Those agrarian populists boiled over with anger that corporations, banks, and government were ganging up to deprive every day people of their livelihood.

She should see us now.

John Boehner calls on the bankers, holds out his cup, and offers them total obeisance from the House majority if only they fill it.

That’s now the norm, and they get away with it. GOP once again means Guardians of Privilege.

Barack Obama criticizes bankers as “fat cats”, then invites them to dine at a pricey New York restaurant where the tasting menu runs to $195 a person.

That’s now the norm, and they get away with it. The President has raised more money from banks, hedge funds, and private equity managers than any Republican candidate, including Mitt Romney. Inch by inch he has conceded ground to them while espousing populist rhetoric that his very actions betray.

Let’s name this for what it is: hypocrisy made worse, the further perversion of democracy.
Democratic deviancy defined further downward. Our politicians are little more than money launderers in the trafficking of power and policy – fewer than six degrees of separation from the spirit and tactics of Tony Soprano.

Why New York’s Zuccotti Park is filled with people is no mystery. Reporters keep scratching their heads and asking: “Why are you here?” But it’s clear they are occupying Wall Street because Wall Street has occupied the country. And that’s why in public places across the country workaday Americans are standing up in solidarity. Did you see the sign a woman was carrying at a fraternal march in Iowa the other day? It read: “I can’t afford to buy a politician so I bought this sign.”

We know what all this money buys. Americans have learned the hard way that when rich organizations and wealthy individuals shower Washington with millions in campaign contributions, they get what they want. They know that if you don’t contribute to their campaigns or spend generously on lobbying,

…you pick up a disproportionate share of America’s tax bill. You pay higher prices for a broad range of products from peanuts to prescriptions. You pay taxes that others in a similar situation have been excused from paying. You’re compelled to abide by laws while others are granted immunity from them. You must pay debts that you incur while others do not. You’re barred from writing off on your tax returns some of the money spent on necessities while others deduct the cost of their entertainment. You must run your business by one set of rules, while the government creates another set for your competitors… In contrast the fortunate few who contribute to the right politicians and hire the right lobbyists enjoy all the benefits of their special status. Make a bad business deal; the government bails them out. If they want to hire workers at below market wages, the government provides the means to do so. If they want more time to pay their debts, the government gives them an extension. If they want immunity from certain laws, the government gives it. If they want to ignore rules their competition must comply with, the government gives it approval. If they want to kill legislation that is intended for the public, it gets killed. . .

The article is much longer, but it won't all fit here lol. You can read the rest here:

http://www.truth-out.org/how-did-happen/1320278111

Here's the keynote speech itself: