OCCUPY WALL STREET

[SoNotHer]

Great articles, posts and videos - thank you all.

I heard an interview this morning on WBEZ Chicago with author Richard Wilkinson. It feels like there's a growing groundswell of people calling for a more just and equitable society. Wilkinson offers some good reasons why in Spirit Level: Why more equal societies almost always do better.



The way we live now

A hard-hitting study of the social effects of inequality has profound implications, says Lynsey Hanley

We are rich enough. Economic growth has done as much as it can to improve material conditions in the developed countries, and in some cases appears to be damaging health. If Britain were instead to concentrate on making its citizens' incomes as equal as those of people in Japan and Scandinavia, we could each have seven extra weeks' holiday a year, we would be thinner, we would each live a year or so longer, and we'd trust each other more.

Epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett don't soft-soap their message. It is brave to write a book arguing that economies should stop growing when millions of jobs are being lost, though they may be pushing at an open door in public consciousness. We know there is something wrong, and this book goes a long way towards explaining what and why.

The authors point out that the life-diminishing results of valuing growth above equality in rich societies can be seen all around us. Inequality causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; it increases the rate of teenage pregnancy, violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction; it destroys relationships between individuals born in the same society but into different classes; and its function as a driver of consumption depletes the planet's resources.

Wilkinson, a public health researcher of 30 years' standing, has written numerous books and articles on the physical and mental effects of social differentiation. He and Pickett have compiled information from around 200 different sets of data, using reputable sources such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Health Organisation and the US Census, to form a bank of evidence against inequality that is impossible to deny.

They use the information to create a series of scatter-graphs whose patterns look nearly identical, yet which document the prevalence of a vast range of social ills. On almost every index of quality of life, or wellness, or deprivation, there is a gradient showing a strong correlation between a country's level of economic inequality and its social outcomes. Almost always, Japan and the Scandinavian countries are at the favourable "low" end, and almost always, the UK, the US and Portugal are at the unfavourable "high" end, with Canada, Australasia and continental European countries in between.

This has nothing to do with total wealth or even the average per-capita income. America is one of the world's richest nations, with among the highest figures for income per person, but has the lowest longevity of the developed nations, and a level of violence - murder, in particular - that is off the scale. Of all crimes, those involving violence are most closely related to high levels of inequality - within a country, within states and even within cities. For some, mainly young, men with no economic or educational route to achieving the high status and earnings required for full citizenship, the experience of daily life at the bottom of a steep social hierarchy is enraging.

The graphs also reveal that it is not just the poor, but whole societies, from top to bottom, that are adversely affected by inequality. Although the UK fares badly when compared with most other OECD countries (and is the worst developed nation in which to be a child according to both Unicef and the Good Childhood Inquiry), its social problems are not as pronounced as in the US.

Rates of illness are lower for English people of all classes than for Americans, but working-age Swedish men fare better still. Diabetes affects twice as many American as English people, whether they have a high or a low level of education. Wherever you look, evidence favouring greater equality piles up. As the authors write, "the relationships between inequality and poor health and social problems are too strong to be attributable to chance".

But perhaps the most troubling aspect of reading this book is the revelation that the way we live in Britain is a serious danger to our mental health. Around a quarter of British people, and more than a quarter of Americans, experience mental problems in any given year, compared with fewer than 10 per cent in Japan, Germany, Sweden and Italy.

Wilkinson and Pickett's description of unequal societies as "dysfunctional" suggests implicit criticism of the approach taken by Britain's "happiness tsar" Richard Layard, who recommended that the poor mental health of many Britons be "fixed" or improved by making cognitive behavioural therapy more easily available. Consumerism, isolation, alienation, social estrangement and anxiety all follow from inequality, they argue, and so cannot rightly be made a matter of individual management.

There's an almost pleading quality to some of Wilkinson and Pickett's assertions, as though they feel they've spent their careers banging their heads against a brick wall. It's impossible to overstate the implications of their thesis: that the societies of Britain and the US have institutionalised economic and social inequality to the extent that, at any one time, a quarter of their respective populations are mentally ill. What kind of "growth" is that, other than a malignant one?

One question that comes to mind is whether the world's most equal developed nations, Japan and Sweden, make sufficient allowance for individuals to express themselves without being regarded as a threat to the health of the collective. Critics of the two societies would argue that both make it intensely difficult for individual citizens to protest against the conformity both produced by, and required to sustain, equality. The inclination to dismiss or neuter individuals' complaints may, Wilkinson and Pickett suggest, go some way towards explaining the higher suicide rates in both countries compared with their more unequal counterparts. Those who feel wrong, or whose lives go wrong, may feel as though they really do have no one to blame but themselves.

What Japan and Sweden do show is that equality is a matter of political will. There are belated signs - shown in the recent establishment of a National Equalities Panel and in Trevor Phil lips's public pronouncements on the central place of class in the landscape of British inequality - that Labour recognises that its relaxed attitude to people "getting filthy rich" has come back to bite it on the rear.

Twelve years in power is long enough to reverse all the trends towards greater social and economic stratification that have occurred since 1970; instead they have continued on their merry way towards segregation. Teenage pregnancy rates have begun to rise after a period of decline; there is a 30-year gap in male life expectancy between central Glasgow and parts of southern England; and child poverty won't be halved by next year after all (though it wouldn't make as much difference as making their parents more equal).

There are times when the book feels rather too overwhelmingly grim. Even if you allow for the fact that it was written before Barack Obama won the US presidency on a premise of trust and optimism, its opening pages are depressing enough to make you want to shut it fast: "We find ourselves anxiety-ridden, prone to depression, driven to consume and with little or no community life." Taking the statistics broadly, they may be correct, but many readers simply won't feel like that.

However, the book does end on an optimistic note, with a transformative, rather than revolutionary, programme for making sick societies more healthy. A society in which all citizens feel free to look each other in the eye can only come into being once those in the lower echelons feel more valued than at present. The authors argue that removal of economic impediments to feeling valued - such as low wages, low benefits and low public spending on education, for instance - will allow a flourishing of human potential.

There is a growing inventory of serious, compellingly argued books detailing the social destruction wrought by inequality. Wilkinson and Pickett have produced a companion to recent bestsellers such as Oliver James's Affluenza and Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety . But The Spirit Level also contributes to a longer view, sitting alongside Richard Sennett's 2003 book Respect: The Formation of Character in an Age of Inequality , and the epidemiologist Michael Marmot's Status Syndrome , from 2005.

Anyone who believes that society is the result of what we do, rather than who we are, should read these books; they should start with The Spirit Level because of its inarguable battery of evidence, and because its conclusion is simple: we do better when we're equal.

[AtLast]

Well wishes can be sent to Scott Olsen via this website-

http://www.scottolsen.org/thanks-and...-your-recovery

[*Anya*]

From Long Beach, CA

9:15pm | In the largest show of civil disobedience in Occupy Long Beach's one-month existence, about 40 group members disrupted Tuesday night's city council meeting in an attempt to force the council to address OLB's request that Lincoln Park be fashioned temporarily into a 24-hour-per-day "free-speech zone" that allows for the use of tents.

Interspersed between speakers during an open public comment period near the beginning that included requests that the City entice the Rainforest Cafe to set up shop downtown and ratify the Constitution for the Federation of Earth, three members of OLB spoke before a fourth, Tammara Phillips, asked the council whether it was "prepared to hear the 40 or so speakers that we have [here] this evening to discuss a free-speech zone."

When informed by Vice-Mayor Suja Lowenthal (presiding over the meeting in the absence of Mayor Bob Foster) that the issue was not on the evening's agenda, Phillips addressed the gallery.

"Occupy Long Beach," she began, "do you request a resolution establishing free-speech zone . . ." — at which point Lowenthal cut her off.

Phillips then led the group in a sort of pledge, over which Lowenthal admonished her that "this is no way to have your item agendized. You are out of order." When the pledge continued, Lowethnal called for the police officers present to escort Phillips away from the microphone. Chants of "The whole world is watching!" followed, and when Lowenthal's attempts to restore order were unsuccessful, the vice-mayor recessed the meeting.

As most of the council members vacated their seats (only council members Robert Garcia, Gerrie Schipske and Rae Gabelich remained in the room), roughly a dozen police officers streamed into the room as OLBers chanted "We are the 99%!" and "Your silence will not protect you!"

One officer could been holding dozens of zip ties, indicating that the police were prepared to make arrests if need be, but no protestors were detained at any time, and most of the officers present seemed relatively relaxed, one of them even engaging in cordial conversation with the protestor nearest the front of the chamber. At one point the protestors even broke into a chant of "Cops need a raise!" which elicited smiles from several officers.

But it was the chant of "Put us on the agenda!" that spoke specifically to why the OLBers were there, and when the councilmembers returned to the chamber roughly 15 minutes later, Councilmember Rae Gabelich defused the situation by offering to agendize the issue for the November 15 council meeting. Satisfied, the protestors filed out of the chamber.

Apparently what was the last straw in making the OLBers mad as hell and not willing to take this anymore stemmed from what may have been a misunderstanding involving Gabelich, as OLBers say they had understood her to have promised to agendize the "free-speech zone" issue for Tuesday's meeting. However, Gabelich claims this was a misunderstanding; and various city staffers have stated that some members of the council received OLB's "resolution" only Monday, while others had not received it at all.

While the matter is to be agendized for next week, Gabelich stated unequivocally that "the ordinance [prohibiting camping in the park] is not going to change," and that OLB should "look for an alternative site. … I believe in the Occupy movement. I think the message is a good one. But we have to find creative alternatives."

Even as OLBers succeeded in getting themselves on next week's city council agenda, some outside the group feel they did not do themselves any favors. One person in attendance was overheard to say that OLB could have gotten its resolution on the council agenda via means that would not have been as alienating to the city council, while another complained, "These leeches who don't work and offer nothing to society are going to destroy everyone's rights. … They only care about their own free speech."

What is clear is that the 40 OLBers in attendance were quite prepared to face arrest if they had not gotten what they wanted — even if exactly how the evening's events transpired was not completely scripted. "We had talked about what we were going to do beforehand," Demos told me after the meeting, "but once these things get going, they sort of go their own way."

Call it the joys and perils of a leaderless movement. And at least as far as the Long Beach goes, says Demos, it's a movement comprised mostly of persons with little experience in political protests.

Perhaps that's fitting, considering that Long Beach is not exactly the most experienced city when it comes to this sort of thing.

[dykeumentary]

I'm glad to see this for myself. ! Go OWS !

[dykeumentary]

Queer table at OWS in NYC!
The pink sign says "Trans-form the Occupation"

[SoNotHer]

Missoula Voters Say Corporations Are Not People, Demand Constitutional Amendment


November 8, 2011

By: Keila Szpaller

The Missoulian

Corporations aren't people, an overwhelming 75 percent of Missoula voters said Tuesday, and they don't want corporations treated like people either.

"I'm over the moon about it," said Councilwoman Cynthia Wolken, who brought the referendum to the Missoula City Council to place on the ballot.
The measure - similar to others across the country - calls on the U.S. Congress and state leaders to amend the U.S. Constitution to say that "corporations are not human beings." It earned 10,729 votes in favor and 3,605 against.

The resolution isn't binding, but it does send a message that's gaining momentum nationwide. Wolken said she planned on being satisfied to capture more than 50 percent of the vote, "really happy" with more than 60 percent, and "over the moon" with anything more.

"Basically, it affirmed what we were all seeing on the streets, which is the average Missoulian wanted to have their voice heard ... and they want their elected officials to fix the problem of corporate personhood," Wolken said. "So I hope this message is heard and we get started on fixing the problem."

As she sees it, corporations have been given too much power, and as stated in the Missoula resolution, their "profits and survival are often in direct conflict with the essential needs and rights of human beings." The movement to amend the U.S. Constitution launched in earnest in January 2010 after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision on Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, overruling two precedents. It stated the government can't ban campaign spending on elections by corporations because that would be unduly regulating speech.

According to the local resolution, the ruling on Citizens United corrupts one foundation of democracy by "rolling back legal limits on corporate spending in the electoral process."

"(The decision) ... allows unlimited corporate spending to influence elections, candidate selection, policy decisions and sway votes," reads the Missoula resolution. Councilwoman Wolken said the Missoula city clerk likely will prepare a letter to send to state and national leaders urging the amendment once the office has finished work on a more pressing priority, replacing the Municipal Court judge. She also said she expects action from state legislators as well.

"I have no doubt that when the legislative session starts back up, that this will be on the top of the list," Wolken said.

Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/local/mis...#ixzz1dBmlCZqE

or at-
http://movetoamend.org/news/missoula...onal-amendment

[Cin]

Rep. Joe Walsh yells at constituents: Don’t blame the banks

Republican Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois became noticeably upset during a meeting with his constituents in Gurnee over the weekend after it was suggested that financial regulatory reform would be beneficial.

One person in the UNO Bar & Grill pointed out that people in the banking industry often occupied positions at federal agencies charged with regulating the financial sector.

“I agree with you about that,” he yelled. “That’s not the problem!”

“The problem is you’ve got to be consistent,” Walsh said. “And I don’t want government meddling in the marketplace. Yeah, they move from Goldman Sachs to the White House, I understand all of that. But you gotta’ be consistent. And it’s not the private marketplace that created this mess. What created mess this mess is your government, which has demanded for years that everybody be in a home. And we’ve made it easy as possible for people to be in homes. All the marketplace does is respond to what the government does. The government sets the rules.”

“Don’t blame banks, and don’t blame the marketplace for the mess we’re in right now,” he continued. “I am tired of hearing that crap!”



The problem is you've got to be consistent he says. Well he certainly is that as is the republican party in general. They are still spouting the same old bull shit about people buying homes they can't afford being the cause of the financial crisis being heard around the world. I'm sure pressed he would explain about it being the fault of minorities buying those houses they couldn't afford.

I wonder what he means buy saying "your government". Is it no longer his government? He's washing his hands of it I guess.