OCCUPY WALL STREET

[Corkey]

MSNBC Ed Schultz has boots on the streets in NYC.

[Ebon]

Anne Hathaway at the protests today.

[Toughy]

tens of thousands of people in the streets of NYC and elsewhere

with friday and saturday and ..... to come

I so hope '4 dead in Ohio' does not come to pass AGAIN.........

[atomiczombie]

CBS News online lied today in it's article about the NY Occupy protest. It said that turnout was low and there were only about 1000 people there.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-...nt;cbsCarousel

On Countdown tonight Keith Olbermann reported that it was more like 10-30k.

[persiphone]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

Video of OWS today via remote control helicopter. You can see the cops using flash grenades and tear gas on the crowds.

looks like a war zone and not an American city...gives me chills. did we just step back into the 60s?

[SoNotHer]

Awesome footage and responses. So beautiful after the feeling Tuesday morning after the raids.

Great posts. Yeah!!!!

Originally Posted by Ebon

Anne Hathaway at the protests today.

[VintageFemme]

I don't know if this article has been shared or not since it's dated from October, but I had just come across it from a friend and wanted to share it as well:

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/10/jp-mo...e-of-protests/

No surprises.

[SoNotHer]

"JP Morgan Chase Donates $4.6 Million To NYPD On Eve Of Protests

Wondering how much it costs to buy off the police department? JP Morgan Chase just gave the New York City Police Foundation the largest donation in its history. How the police show their gratitude will presumably determine whether they receive similar donations from companies in the future."

Originally Posted by VintageFemme

I don't know if this article has been shared or not since it's dated from October, but I had just come across it from a friend and wanted to share it as well:

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/10/jp-mo...e-of-protests/

No surprises.

[persiphone]

i'm shocked that we have a president that should have a unique perspective on the civil rights protests of our history and he's not intervening in police brutality on protesters. i've been waiting this whole time for him to say SOMEthing. some kind of words of calm or words of rationality.....SOMETHING. but he hasn't said anything to the protesters and nothing to the cops. he's mentioned the general movement a couple times in passing but that's it. i think he won't be getting my vote on the next go around. i really hope there's a decent candidate to oppose him but i'm not holding my breath.

[Toughy]

Phase 1 has been about occupying turf....parks, sidewalks, etc...with a message of social, political and economic justice. We need to keep this turf war going while doing something else....move forward.

Now it's time for Phase 2 because if there is not a Phase 2 then folks are getting gassed, beat, hospitalized and jailed for no good reason except a turf war.

So what would Phase 2 look like?
* The halls and offices of Congress should be occuppied in the form of lobbying (going in the offices and talking to them or their staff) all Senators and House members.
* Voter registration drives should be part of every protest and every encampment.
* Call a Constiitutional Convention to get money out of politics would be a good thing. There are occupy movements in (I think) all 50 states now and we should be working in our states as well as on the national scene.

The Constitutional Amendment could be only 2 lines....that's it ....short sweet and unambigious.
1. Corporations are not people and money is not speech.
2. All federal elections will be publicly financed. No private money can be spent on federal elections. (this means the president, senate and house elections....Personally I think ALL elections should be publically financed.)

Article V of the Constitution outlines how it is done. Basically there are two ways to do it. One is by Congress and the way all previous amendments have been done. The other way is if 2/3 of the states (legislatures) demand a Convention, it must be called by Congress. To ratify an amendment it must be approved by 3/4 of the states. So 34 states demand a convention, then it takes 38 to ratify the amendment.

We get money out of politics and the possibility that government would again be by and for the people exists.

I got this idea from listening to the radio.........it makes sense to me.

[UofMfan]

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by persiphone

i'm shocked that we have a president that should have a unique perspective on the civil rights protests of our history and he's not intervening in police brutality on protesters. i've been waiting this whole time for him to say SOMEthing. some kind of words of calm or words of rationality.....SOMETHING. but he hasn't said anything to the protesters and nothing to the cops. he's mentioned the general movement a couple times in passing but that's it. i think he won't be getting my vote on the next go around. i really hope there's a decent candidate to oppose him but i'm not holding my breath.

He takes so much corporate/bank campaign contributions, he is a bought and paid for president. This is who will be getting my vote:

http://www.jillstein.org/

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by Toughy

Phase 1 has been about occupying turf....parks, sidewalks, etc...with a message of social, political and economic justice. We need to keep this turf war going while doing something else....move forward.

Now it's time for Phase 2 because if there is not a Phase 2 then folks are getting gassed, beat, hospitalized and jailed for no good reason except a turf war.

So what would Phase 2 look like?
* The halls and offices of Congress should be occuppied in the form of lobbying (going in the offices and talking to them or their staff) all Senators and House members.
* Voter registration drives should be part of every protest and every encampment.
* Call a Constiitutional Convention to get money out of politics would be a good thing. There are occupy movements in (I think) all 50 states now and we should be working in our states as well as on the national scene.

The Constitutional Amendment could be only 2 lines....that's it ....short sweet and unambigious.
1. Corporations are not people and money is not speech.
2. All federal elections will be publicly financed. No private money can be spent on federal elections. (this means the president, senate and house elections....Personally I think ALL elections should be publically financed.)

Article V of the Constitution outlines how it is done. Basically there are two ways to do it. One is by Congress and the way all previous amendments have been done. The other way is if 2/3 of the states (legislatures) demand a Convention, it must be called by Congress. To ratify an amendment it must be approved by 3/4 of the states. So 34 states demand a convention, then it takes 38 to ratify the amendment.

We get money out of politics and the possibility that government would again be by and for the people exists.

I got this idea from listening to the radio.........it makes sense to me.

This is excellent, T. I totally agree. Now, how do we get this message to the general assemblies of the Occupy groups across the US?

[Cin]

Bloomberg stated that media were prevented from reporting for their own protection.

We have a kind Securitarian state going on, and I guess we have for awhile. We seem to accept this.

It is a kind of totalitarianism that needs the appearance of elective democracy in order to function but the reality is that the representatives of the government agree that security trumps all. It is a government where the pursuit of elusive and illusionary security is used as an excuse to trample rights and freedom. We can thank the Occupy Movement for illuminating this for us in case we still doubted it.

And yet many still ask what are those protestors on about anyway? What do they want?

Human Rights Group Concerned Over Journalists’ Arrests at Occupy Wall Street

NEW YORK — A human rights office for the Americas on Thursday criticized the arrest and assault of journalists during Occupy Wall Street protests in New York and other U.S. cities in recent weeks.

The Washington-based Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called for authorities to guarantee and protect the practice of journalism at public demonstrations.

The office alleged in a statement that at least three journalists have been assaulted since October by police officers, and two others by participants, in demonstrations in Nashville, Tennessee, and Oakland, California.

“In addition, at least a dozen journalists have reportedly been placed under temporary arrest while performing their professional duties,” the statement said.

The organization pointed to this week’s arrests of seven journalists during a police sweep of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York. The journalists included Julie Walker, a freelancer who does work for National Public Radio and The Associated Press; Patrick Hedlund and Paul Lomax of DNAinfo.com; Doug Higginbotham, freelance cameraman for TV New Zealand; Jared Malsin of The Local; Karen Matthews and Seth Wenig of The Associated Press, and Matthew Lysiak of the New York Daily News.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom, also criticized the treatment and detention of the journalists in New York.

“Journalists must be allowed to cover news events without fear of arrest and harassment,” said Carlos Lauria, CPJ’s senior coordinator for the Americas.

The Americas group also criticized the restrictions placed on media access when police moved in. Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters the media were kept from the site for their protection.

“The disproportionate restrictions on access to the scene of the events, the arrests, and the criminal charges resulting from the performance of professional duties by reporters violate the right to freedom of expression,” the organization said.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was created by the Organization of American States, which includes countries from North and South America.

[Cin]

Sad but certainly not surprising.

Poll shows “movement is not wearing well with voters across the country.”

http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst...t/?page=entire

[Cin]

Austerity Alternatives
George Zornick on November 17, 2011 - 1:38pm ET

Yesterday we posted a MoveOn.org-produced video of former Labor Secretary Robert Reich explaining how the supercommittee might reduce the deficit without imposing crushing austerity measures, nor damaging the social safety net relied upon by millions of Americans. It’s really excellent, and you ought to check it out.

On the eve of some decision by the supercommittee—or no decision and painful automatic cuts—this is a time to remember the other ideas out there for balancing the budget. There are plenty of credible and thoughtful plans out there. Granted, they are not politically viable at the moment, given the Republican Party’s control of the House of Representatives, and its ability to stop virtually anything in the Senate—not to mention the six votes it controls on the supercommittee.

But to listen to most media coverage of the deficit debates—and too often, the rhetoric thrown about by Republicans and some Democrats—one comes away thinking the only way to get the fiscal house in order is via “entitlement reform” and deep domestic spending cuts, along with higher taxes and fewer loopholes.

But this just isn’t so. For example, the Congressional Progressive Caucus crafted a “People’s Budget,” which eliminates the deficit within ten years while creating a $31 billion surplus—all while protecting valuable programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. You can read the entire budget here (PDF), a one-page summary here (PDF), and an outside analysis by the Economic Policy Institute here (PDF).

Here are some of the plan’s features.

On taxes:

Ends the recently passed upper-income tax cuts and lets Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of 2012

Extends tax credits for the middle class, families and students

Creates new tax brackets that range from 45 percent starting at $1 million to 49 percent for $1 billion or more

Implements a progressive estate tax

Eliminates corporate welfare for oil, gas and coal companies; closes loopholes for multinational corporations

Enacts a financial crisis responsibility fee and a financial speculation tax on derivatives and foreign exchange

On healthcare:

Enacts a healthcare public option and negotiates prescription payments with pharmaceutical companies

Prevents any cuts to Medicare physician payments for a decade

On defense:

Responsibly ends our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to leave America more secure both home and abroad

Cuts defense spending by reducing conventional forces, procurement and costly R&D programs

The key theme of this plan is to put investment and job creation up front, while protecting the programs that many Americans rely upon for their economic well-being during a recession. Even Bill Clinton, no flaming liberal, called the plan “the most comprehensive alternative to the budgets passed by the House Republicans and recommended by the Simpson-Bowles Commission.”

Meanwhile, Occupy DC met in downtown Washington to discuss alternate deficit reduction proposals that would protect the 99 percent and attempt to correct rampant income inequality. They drew on advice from a wide array of economists and policy experts during the meeting, which you can watch here. The outline of their plan is here—it’s quite detailed and provides evidence and documentation for many of its claims. They are careful not to say it’s a “demand” of the OccupyDC movement, but the next time someone says the occupiers have no goals, you can send them this.

The plan shares many broad goals of the People’s Budget, like taxing high and corporate incomes more fairly and protecting safety net programs from cuts, while investing in infrastructure spending and other projects that will increase employment while improving the country.

Again, in the near term—as in, within the next six days, when the supercommittee must act—there’s no chance these proposals become reality. But OccupyDC says they offer this plan as a solution once the supercommittee fiasco concludes:

Once again, the people of the United States will see corruption reign supreme. Despite evident solutions to the deficit and the economic collapse, the Congress will show its corruption and dysfunction and be unable to put forward real solutions.

We issue this report to alert everyone—the political system is broken. It is corrupted by the power of concentrated wealth, campaign donations and corporate power. The job of the occupations across the country is to build an independent nonviolent movement that replaces this corrupt system with one in which the people rule. The battle between concentrated wealth and participatory democracy will be heightened by the evident corruption of the Super Committee which will not challenge the unfair policies of the 1 percent while requiring austerity for the 99 percent.

The economic and political elite should expect protests to grow. We are at the beginning of what will be seen as a historic revolt against status quo elites that will transform this economy as well as how the United States is governed.

Finally, in the spirit of Occupy Wall Street’s participatory democracy—perhaps you can come up with your own deficit reduction plan. The Pew Charitable Trusts has an interactive calculator that lets you play with 100 different spending and tax policies to create reduce the debt to sustainable levels
http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_re...id=85899366327

and the New York Times offers something similar here.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...s-graphic.html

Here is the article because I don't think the PDF's work. Nor can you see Occupy DC's plan unless you click the link to the original article.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/164679...s-graphic.html

[AtLast]

The 99% will never get anywhere unless an amendment to the Constitution is made that renders the Citizens United Suptreme Court decision unconstitutional. And this takes utilizing our voting and democratic processes to happen.

Look at the amounts of money both major parties use during elections! Obscene!

We have to get corporate money out of politics and have an election system that only uses public funds that have a maximum. No more private buying of elections!

Right now, the GOP in several states is trying to suppress voting rights of students, the elderly, the poor, and people of color.

[Cin]

The Fox/NYT nexus on OWS

The New York Times‘ media critic, Brian Stelter, yesterday had a long column criticizing the local Fox affiliate for claiming throughout the day — falsely — that OWS intended to “shut down” the New York City subway system. Stelter cited the “ominous” warnings from Fox anchor Greg Kelly — the son of NYPD Commission Raymond Kelly — saying things such as: “This is a big deal . . . .So far, they’ve focused their ire at the wealthy and those who support them, but when they start to shut down the commuting system for folks who are on their way to work, that’s something else.” Except, as Stelter documents, the whole thing was a fabrication from the start: while OWS announced their intention to “shut down” Wall Street, they intended merely to “occupy” the subway system by “handing out fliers.”

Stelter asked a Fox spokesperson about the sourcing for this claim and she replied: “It’s been reported elsewhere.” Ordinarily, one might be skeptical of this excuse, except that in this case — though Stelter doesn’t mention it — there is a significant source that also reported this claim: The New York Times. Yesterday’s NYT article on the various OWS protests by reporter Katharine Seelye “reported” as follows: “There was much confusion throughout the day in New York as protesters caused disruptions at the New York Stock Exchange and at Zuccotti Park before they moved in the afternoon to shut down subway stations” (h/t sysprog).

The current version of that article does not contain that passage, and there is no editorial note or correction noting that it had been removed, nor is there anything about this error on today’s Correction page. The NYT‘s own media critic apparently thought this reporting error was significant enough to warrant a long critique — when the error was Fox’s (and indeed, he noted that “other stations in New York City briefly suggested that the protesters might try to shut down the transit system”) – but the NYT, which likely played at least some role (if not the key role) in spawning this erroneous reporting, simply deleted the passage from its article without any acknowledgment of its error, even as its media critic bashed Fox for the same error. It’s like it just never happened (a not uncommon way of dealing with significant errors at the NYT).

As Stelter correctly noted: “Much of what is said on television about the Occupy Wall Street movement is opinion. Some is factual. And sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference.” That is at least part of the reason that public opinion is souring on the movement. But as usual, the problem isn’t that people are watching falsehoods from Fox. The problem is that so much of what Fox spouts is also found — often first — in The New York Times.

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/18/the_..._nexus_on_ows/

[Soon]

[Cin]

An interesting article.

First Steps in Reforming the U.S. Financial and Tax System

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/...nd-tax-system/