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November 17, 2011

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HOW CONSERVATIVES EXPLOIT THE MYTH OF “WEALTHY ELDERLY” TO JUSTIFY GUTTING SOCIAL SECURITY

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Right-wingers somehow think that seniors with incomes under $30,000 a year must sacrifice to balance the budget

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The austerity gang seeking cuts to Social Security and Medicare has been vigorously promoting the myth that the elderly are an especially affluent and privileged group. Their argument is that because of their relative affluence, cuts to the programs upon which they depend is a simple matter of fairness. There were two reports released last week that call this view into question.

The first was a report from the Census Bureau that used a new experimental poverty index. This index differed from the official measure in several ways; most importantly it includes the value of government non-cash benefits, like food stamps. It also adjusts for differences in costs by area and takes account of differences in health spending by age.

While this new measures showed a slightly higher overall poverty rate the most striking difference between the new measure and the official measure was the rise in the poverty rate among the elderly. Using the official measure, the poverty rate for the elderly is somewhat lower than for the adult population as a whole, 9 percent for the elderly compared with 14 percent for the non-elderly adult population. However with the new measure, the poverty rate for the elderly jumps to 14 percent, compared with 13 percent for non-elderly adults.

By this higher measure, we have not been nearly as successful in reducing poverty among the elderly as we had believed. While Social Security has done much to ensure retirees an income above the poverty line, the rising cost of health care expenses not covered by Medicare has been an important force operating in the opposite direction.

The other report suggests that this situation could get worse in the years ahead. The Pew Research Center released a study on wealth by age cohort. While many observers (including me) focused on the change in wealth over the last 25 years, what is perhaps more striking about this study are the levels of wealth it reported.

The report showed that the median wealth for a household over age 65 is $170,500. This measure includes everything that they own, including equity in their home. With the median house selling for roughly $170,000, this study implies that the typical household over age 65 would essentially have enough money to pay off their mortgage. They would then have nothing else to live on except their Social Security.

The situation looks even worse for the near elderly: the cohorts between the ages of 55 to 64. (Wealth typically peaks in these years, so these people are unlikely to have more wealth when they cross age 65.) The median wealth for this group was reported as $162,000. Using the Pew findings, the typical household in the 55 to 64 year old cohort would fall 5 percent short of the money needed to pay off the mortgage on the median home.

Alternatively, if they were to use this wealth to buy an annuity at age 65, it would be sufficient to get them an annuity of roughly $10,000 a year or just over $800 a month. This would supplement Social Security income that comes to less than $1,200 a month for a typical worker. The monthly premium for Medicare Part B is $100, which would leave $1,100 from a monthly Social Security check for a typical retiree.

Note that this calculation assumes that they have no equity in their home so they would either being paying rent or still paying off a mortgage out of this money. It is also worth remembering that the Medicare premium is projected to rise considerably more than the cost of living each year. This means that as retirees age, rising Medicare premiums will be reducing the buying power of their Social Security check each year. And this is the median; half of all seniors will have less income than this to support themselves.

This is the group that the Very Serious People in Washington want to target for their deficit reduction. While the Very Serious People debate whether people who earn $250,000 a year are actually rich when it comes to restoring the tax rates of the 1990s, they somehow think that seniors with incomes under $30,000 a year must sacrifice to balance the budget. There is a logic here, but it ain’t pretty.

 

Source: https://www.alternet.org/story/153079/how_conservatives_exploit_the_myth_of_%22wealthy_elderly%22_to_justify_gutting_social_security/?page=entire

 

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Democracy, Economy, Health, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Taxes, Welfare Benefits

CRACKDOWNS REACH EPICENTER OF WALL STREET PROTESTS

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

JUDGE RULED THAT THEIR FREE SPEECH RIGHTS DO NOT EXTEND TO PITCHING A TENT AND SETTING UP CAMP FOR MONTHS AT A TIME

NEW YORK (AP) — Crackdowns against the Occupy Wall Street encampments across the country reached the epicenter of the movement Tuesday, when police rousted protesters from a Manhattan park and a judge ruled that their free speech rights do not extend to pitching a tent and setting up camp for months at a time.

It was a potentially devastating setback. If crowds of demonstrators return to Zuccotti Park, they will not be allowed to bring tents, sleeping bags and other equipment that turned the area into a makeshift city of dissent.

But demonstrators pledged to carry on with their message protesting corporate greed and economic inequality, either inZuccotti or a yet-to-be chosen new home.

“This is much bigger than a square plaza in downtown Manhattan,” said Hans Shan, an organizer who was working with churches to find places for protesters to sleep. “You can’t evict an idea whose time has come.”

State Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman upheld the city’s eviction of the protesters after an emergency appeal by the National Lawyers Guild.

The protesters have been camped out in the privately owned park since mid-September. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he ordered the sweep because health and safety conditions had become “intolerable” in the crowded plaza. The raid was conducted in the middle of the night “to reduce the risk of confrontation” and “to minimize disruption to the surrounding neighborhood,” he said.

By early Tuesday evening, some protesters were being allowed back into the park two by two. But they could each take only a small bag.

Still, some protesters believed the loss of Zuccotti Park may be an opportunity to broaden and decentralize the protest to give it staying power.

“People are really recognizing that we need to build a movement here,” Shan said. “What we’re dedicated to is not just about occupying space. That’s a tactic.”

But without a place to congregate, protesters will have a harder time communicating with each other en masse. The leaders of the movement spent most of Tuesday gathering in small groups throughout the city — in church basements and on street corners — and relaying plans in scattered text messages and email.

Robert Harrington, owner of a small importing business in New York, stood outside the barricade with a sign calling for tighter banking regulations.

“To be effective it almost has to move out of the park,” Harrington said. “It’s like the antiwar movement in the ’60s, which started as street theater and grew into something else.”

“The issues,” he added, “are larger than just this camp.”

Protesters milling around Zuccotti Park said they were dismayed by the court ruling.

Chris Habib, a New York artist, said he hoped the group could settle on a new protest site during a meeting later Tuesday evening. He was confident the movement would continue even if its flagship camp was dismantled.

“A judge can’t erase a movement from the public mind,” he said. “The government is going to have to spend a lot of time in court to defend this.”

Pete Dutro, head of the group’s finances, said the loss of the movement’s original encampment will open up a dialogue with other cities.

“We all knew this was coming,” Dutro said. “Now it’s time for us to not be tucked away in Zuccotti Park, and have different areas of occupation throughout the city.”

The aggressive raid seemed to mark a shift in the city’s dealings with the Wall Street protests. Only a week ago, Bloomberg privately told a group of executives and journalists that he thought reports of problems at the park had been exaggerated and didn’t require any immediate intervention.

The New York raid was the third in three days for a major American city. Police broke up camps Sunday in Portland, Ore., and Monday in Oakland, Calif.

The timing did not appear to be coincidence. On Tuesday, authorities acknowledged that police departments across the nation consulted with each other about nonviolent ways to clear encampments. Officers in as many as 40 cities participated in the conference calls.

When New York police began their crackdown at 1 a.m., most of the Occupy Wall Street protesters were sleeping.

Officers arrived by the hundreds and set up powerful klieg lights to illuminate the block. They handed out notices from Brookfield Office Properties, the park’s owner, and the city saying that the plaza had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous.

Many people left, carrying their belongings with them. Others tried to make a stand, locking arms or even chaining themselves together with bicycle locks.

Dennis Iturrralde was fast asleep on a cot when the shouting woke him up. Dark figures were running through the tents in the dim orange light of streetlamps. Something slammed into the cot, flipping him to the ground.

“They came in from both sides, yelling, ‘You have 20 minutes to vacate the premises!’” said Iturralde, a Manhattan cook.

Within minutes, police in riot gear had swarmed the park, ripping down tents and tarps. The air was filled with the sound of rustling tarps, rumbling garbage trucks, shouts and equipment crashing to the ground.

“They were tearing everything apart,” Iturralde said. “They were hitting people, spraying people if they didn’t move fast enough.”

Around 200 people were arrested, including a member of the City Council and at least a half-dozen journalists. The arrested journalists included a reporter and photographer from The Associated Press who were held for four hours before being released.

Earlier in the day, another judge had issued a temporary restraining order that appeared to bar the city from preventing protesters from re-entering the park, but it was unilaterally ignored by the police and city officials.

In contrast to the scene weeks ago in Oakland, where a similar eviction turned chaotic and violent, the police action was comparatively orderly. But some protesters complained of being hit by police batons and shoved to the ground.

City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who has been supportive of the Occupy movement, was among those arrested outside of the park. Police Commission Ray Kelly said Rodriguez was trying to get through police lines to reach the protesters.

“The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day,” Bloomberg said. “Ever since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with, as the park has been taken over by protesters, making it unavailable to anyone else.”

The police commissioner said officers gave the crowd 45 minutes to retrieve their belongings before starting to dismantle tents, and let people leave voluntarily until around 3:30 a.m., when they moved in to make mass arrests.

“Arresting people is not easy,” he said, adding that he thought the officers “showed an awful lot of restraint in the face of “an awful lot of taunting, people getting in police officers’ faces, calling them names.”

The ouster at Zuccotti Park came as a rift within the movement had been widening between the park’s full-time residents and the movement’s power players, most of whom no longer lived in the park.

Some residents of the park have been grumbling about the recent formation of a “spokescouncil,” an upper echelon of organizers who held meetings at a high school near police headquarters. Some protesters felt that the selection of any leaders whatsoever wasn’t true to Occupy Wall Street’s original anti-government spirit: That no single person is more important or more powerful than another person.

 

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/crackdowns-reach-epicenter-wall-street-protests-235327049.html

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, Economy, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Media, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, Taxes

AT LAST, THE SUPER RICH GET THEIR OWN BANK

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Because the economic divide in this country can never get big enough, Wells Fargo is starting a new bank just for those 10,000 U.S. households with over $50 million in “investable assets” - total: $1 trillion - to spare.

Launching in about 15 cities, the Abbot Downing brand “goes beyond traditional wealth planning analysis by focusing on clients’ values, goals and vision” - including, presumably, never again having to mingle with the likes of you or me.

 

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/11/14-0

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Economy, Income Inequality, Law, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Telecommunication

FOR US BISHOPS, ECONOMIC JUSTICE ISN’T ON THE AGENDA

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Catholic leaders, meeting in Baltimore this week, fail to put society’s main problems front and centre

At a time of staggering poverty, rampant unemployment and growing income inequality, Catholic bishops will gather for a national meeting in Baltimore today and remain largely silent about these profound moral issues. A recent Catholic News Service headline about the meeting — “Bishops’ agenda more devoted to internal matters than societal ills” — is a disappointing snapshot for a church that has long been a powerful voice for economic justice.

The U.S. bishops’ relative silence contrasts with a recent Vatican document that urges stronger regulation of the financial sector and a more just distribution of wealth. Urging reforms to the left of even the most liberal Democrat in Congress, the Vatican spoke in stark terms about a global financial system that is unhinged from moral values. It’s a thoughtful critique of free-market fundamentalism, in keeping with centuries of Catholic teaching as articulated by several popes. A Vatican cardinal even acknowledged that the “basic sentiment” behind the Occupy Wall Street movement aligns with Catholic values on the need for ethical corporate practices and humane financial systems.

Twenty-five years ago this month, Catholic bishops were anything but quiet. They helped drive attention to poor and working families with a landmark pastoral letter, “Economic Justice for All,” that offered a subtle but sober critique of the Reagan administration’s embrace of tax cuts for the rich and draconian cuts to government protections for the poor. The bishops spoke not as policymakers but as moral leaders in touch with the needs of the unemployed and concerned about conservative political leaders’ efforts to strip workers of basic union rights. As a longtime staff member at the U.S. bishops’ conference, I was so proud of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago and his colleagues, who insisted that a Catholic vision for human dignity did not stop with concern for the unborn but must include a commitment to economic fairness, peace, care for the environment and opposition to the death penalty.

Where are the bishops’ priorities today? In recent years, church leaders have opposed historic health care reform, lashed out at the University of Notre Dame for inviting President Barack Obama to give a commencement address, and publicly chastised pro-choice Catholic politicians even as they give a pass to Catholic lawmakers who push economic policies antithetical to Catholic teaching about the common good. The bishops’ decades of advocacy for comprehensive health care took a detour last year when they opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because of concerns it would provide taxpayer funding of abortion — a flawed policy analysis, according to independent experts, some pro-life lawmakers and even the Catholic Health Association.
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In recent weeks, the bishops have augmented their campaign against same-sex marriage, appointing a “defense of marriage specialist” to a top position at the U.S. bishops’ conference, and challenged the Obama administration to create a stronger exemption for Catholic organizations that oppose insurance coverage of contraception.

These are important issues, properly addressed by the bishops. However, at a time of economic crisis and growing anti-government ideology embodied by the tea party, Catholic bishops would do well to once again offer a compelling moral response to radical individualism and unbridled capitalism.

Most Americans probably don’t know that Catholic bishops helped lay the groundwork for the New Deal as far back as 1919, when they advocated for a minimum wage and insurance for the elderly, disabled and unemployed. Much of this proud legacy is under threat today from lawmakers, including prominent Catholics like House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Paul Ryan, who think tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are more important than funding nutrition programs for low-income women and children.

The U.S. bishops deserve credit for their participation in an interfaith coalition defending government safety-net programs that save lives and provide a measure of dignity to the most vulnerable. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the bishops’ conference, was right to recently urge pastors to address poverty from the pulpit. And the bishops’ national anti-poverty initiative, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, is a vital resource that helps community-based organizations empower those living on the margins of society. But I fear the church’s revered social justice witness is being crowded out by divisive culture-war battles at a time when Americans need a stronger moral message about the dignity of work and economic justice for all.

A new generation of bishops must find their voice.

 

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/15-5

Filed Under: Banks, Catholic, Censorship, Corporations, Corruption, Economy, Income Inequality, Lobbying, Money, New World Order, Paedophile, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Religion, Rights, The Hidden Empire, Wealthy Elite

OCCUPY WALL STREET: POLICE VIOLENCE REVEALS A CORRUPT SYSTEM

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Better-off Occupy Wall Street protesters are learning something about the relationship between citizen and state

At four in the morning in lower Manhattan, as what remains of the Occupy Wall Street encampment is loaded into trash compacters, some protesters have still not given up on the police. Kevin Sheneberger tries to engage one NYPD officer in a serious debate about the role of law enforcement in public protest. Then he sees them loading his friend’s tent into the back of a rubbish truck. Behind him, a teenage girl holds a hastily written sign saying: “NYPD, we trusted you – you were supposed to protect us!”

The sentiment is a familiar one. Across Europe, over a year of demonstrations, occupations and civil disobedience, anti-austerity protesters have largely shifted from declaring solidarity with the police – as fellow workers whose jobs and pensions are also under threat – to outrage and anger at state violence against unarmed protesters. Following last month’s police brutality in Oakland, and today’s summary eviction of the Occupy Wall Street camp, American activists too are reaching the conclusion that “police protect the 1%”.

The notion that law enforcement is there to protect a wealthy elite from the rest of the population is not news to those protesters from deprived and ethnic minority backgrounds, many of whom have been subject to intimidation in their communities for years, but for those from more privileged backgrounds, the first spurt of pepper spray to the face is an important education in the nature of the relationship between state and citizen in the west. “Who do you guys work for?” Shouts one Manhattan protester, as police load arrestees into a van. “You work for JP Morgan Bank!”

In times of economic and democratic crisis, it makes sense for faltering governments to use police violence and the threat of arrest to bully citizens into compliance. In the context of protest, however, police harassment has three other, important effects. The first and most important of these is consciousness-raising.

The spectacle of police beating and brutalizing unarmed civilians for the crime of sitting on the pavement and demanding a fairer world brings home the point of the struggle to public and protesters alike. The second is galvanizing: attacks on peaceful protesters rarely make the police or government look anything but weak and cowardly, and have tended only to increase public support for civil disobedience. “This is going to explode now,” 26-year-old Katie tells me, as we watch demonstrators marched out of Zuccotti Park one by one. “They don’t realize what they’ve done.”

Fighting the police can focus the energy of a movement – but it can also drain that energy. In Britain, a year of arrests and vicious crackdowns have left anti-cuts protesters debilitated and depleted, and the challenge for the American movement will be to remember its purpose in the face of police brutality. “That’s the whole point of violent resistance,” says Sheneberger. “It exposes the corruption of the power that’s resisting you.”

 

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/15-1

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Democracy, Education, Employment, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Martial Law, Medical Industry, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Psychology, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, Taxes, Wealthy Elite

THE 1% ARE THE VERY BEST DESTROYERS OF WEALTH THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Our common treasury in the last 30 years has been captured by industrial psychopaths. That’s why we’re nearly bankrupt

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren’t responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.

The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. For example, he studied the results achieved by 25 wealth advisers across eight years. He found that the consistency of their performance was zero. “The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill.” Those who received the biggest bonuses had simply got lucky.

Such results have been widely replicated. They show that traders and fund managers throughout Wall Street receive their massive remuneration for doing no better than would a chimpanzee flipping a coin. When Kahneman tried to point this out, they blanked him. “The illusion of skill … is deeply ingrained in their culture.”

So much for the financial sector and its super-educated analysts. As for other kinds of business, you tell me. Is your boss possessed of judgment, vision and management skills superior to those of anyone else in the firm, or did he or she get there through bluff, bullshit and bullying?

In a study published by the journal Psychology, Crime and Law, Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon tested 39 senior managers and chief executives from leading British businesses. They compared the results to the same tests on patients at Broadmoor special hospital, where people who have been convicted of serious crimes are incarcerated. On certain indicators of psychopathy, the bosses’s scores either matched or exceeded those of the patients. In fact, on these criteria, they beat even the subset of patients who had been diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders.

The psychopathic traits on which the bosses scored so highly, Board and Fritzon point out, closely resemble the characteristics that companies look for. Those who have these traits often possess great skill in flattering and manipulating powerful people. Egocentricity, a strong sense of entitlement, a readiness to exploit others and a lack of empathy and conscience are also unlikely to damage their prospects in many corporations.

In their book Snakes in Suits, Paul Babiak and Robert Hare point out that as the old corporate bureaucracies have been replaced by flexible, ever-changing structures, and as team players are deemed less valuable than competitive risk-takers, psychopathic traits are more likely to be selected and rewarded. Reading their work, it seems to me that if you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a poor family, you’re likely to go to prison. If you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a rich family, you’re likely to go to business school.

This is not to suggest that all executives are psychopaths. It is to suggest that the economy has been rewarding the wrong skills. As the bosses have shaken off the trade unions and captured both regulators and tax authorities, the distinction between the productive and rentier upper classes has broken down. Chief executives now behave like dukes, extracting from their financial estates sums out of all proportion to the work they do or the value they generate, sums that sometimes exhaust the businesses they parasitise. They are no more deserving of the share of wealth they’ve captured than oil sheikhs.

The rest of us are invited, by governments and by fawning interviews in the press, to subscribe to their myth of election: the belief that they are possessed of superhuman talents. The very rich are often described as wealth creators. But they have preyed on the earth’s natural wealth and their workers’ labour and creativity, impoverishing both people and planet. Now they have almost bankrupted us. The wealth creators of neoliberal mythology are some of the most effective wealth destroyers the world has ever seen.

What has happened over the past 30 years is the capture of the world’s common treasury by a handful of people, assisted by neoliberal policies which were first imposed on rich nations by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. I am now going to bombard you with figures. I’m sorry about that, but these numbers need to be tattooed on our minds. Between 1947 and 1979, productivity in the US rose by 119%, while the income of the bottom fifth of the population rose by 122%. But from 1979 to 2009, productivity rose by 80%, while the income of the bottom fifth fell by 4%. In roughly the same period, the income of the top 1% rose by 270%.

In the UK, the money earned by the poorest tenth fell by 12% between 1999 and 2009, while the money made by the richest 10th rose by 37%. The Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, climbed in this country from 26 in 1979 to 40 in 2009.

In his book The Haves and the Have Nots, Branko Milanovic tries to discover who was the richest person who has ever lived. Beginning with the loaded Roman triumvir Marcus Crassus, he measures wealth according to the quantity of his compatriots’ labour a rich man could buy. It appears that the richest man to have lived in the past 2,000 years is alive today. Carlos Slim could buy the labour of 440,000 average Mexicans. This makes him 14 times as rich as Crassus, nine times as rich as Carnegie and four times as rich as Rockefeller.

Until recently, we were mesmerised by the bosses’ self-attribution. Their acolytes, in academia, the media, thinktanks and government, created an extensive infrastructure of junk economics and flattery to justify their seizure of other people’s wealth. So immersed in this nonsense did we become that we seldom challenged its veracity.

This is now changing. On Sunday evening I witnessed a remarkable thing: a debate on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral between Stuart Fraser, chairman of the Corporation of the City of London, another official from the corporation, the turbulent priest Father William Taylor, John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network and the people of Occupy London. It had something of the flavour of the Putney debates of 1647. For the first time in decades – and all credit to the corporation officials for turning up – financial power was obliged to answer directly to the people.

It felt like history being made. The undeserving rich are now in the frame, and the rest of us want our money back.

 

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/08-7

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Democracy, Economy, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Surveillance, Taxes, Telecommunication, The Hidden Empire, Truth, War

THE POLICE STATE MAKES ITS MOVE: RETAINING ONE’S HUMANITY IN THE FACE OF TYRANNY

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

For days now, we have endured demonstrably false propaganda that the fallen soldiers of U.S. wars sacrificed their lives for “our freedoms.” Yet, as that noxious nonsense still lingers in the air, militarized police have invaded OWS sites in numerous cities, including Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, and, in the boilerplate description of the witless courtesans of the corporate media, with the mission to “evict the occupiers”.

Hundreds of NYC riot police forcibly evicted Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park early on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011.U.S soldiers died protecting what and who again? These actions should make this much clear: The U.S. military and the police exist to protect the 1%. At this point, the ideal of freedom will be carried by those willing to resist cops and soldiers. There have been many who have struggled and often died for freedom-but scant few were clad in uniforms issued by governments.

Freedom rises despite cops and soldiers not because of them. And that is exactly why those who despise freedom propagate military hagiography and fetishize those wearing uniforms-so they can give the idea of liberty lip service as all the while they order it crushed.

When anyone tells you that dead soldiers and veterans died for your freedom, it is your duty to occupy reality and inform them of just how mistaken they are. And if you truly cherish the concepts of freedom and liberty, you just might be called on to face mindless arrays of fascist cops and lose your freedom, for a time, going to jail, so others might, at some point, gain their freedom.

I was born in Birmingham Alabama, at slightly past the mid-point of the decade of the 1950s. Many of my earliest memories involve the struggle for civil rights that was transpiring on the streets of my hometown.

My father was employed at a scrap metal yard but also worked as a freelance photojournalist who hawked his work to media photo syndicates such as Black Star who then sold his wares to the major newsmagazines of the day. A number of the iconic photographs of the era were captured by his Nikon camera e.g., of vicious police dogs unleashed on peaceful demonstrators; of demonstrators cartwheeled down city streets by the force of fire hoses; of Dr. King and other civil rights marchers kneeled in prayer before arrays of Police Chief Bull Connor’s thuggish ranks of racist cops.

In Birmingham, racist laws and racial and economic inequality were the progenitors of acts of official viciousness. The social structure in place was indefensible. Reason and common decency held no dominion in the justifications for the established order that was posited by the system’s apologists and enforcers; therefore, brutality filled the void created by the absence of their humanity.

And the same situation is extant in the growing suppression of the OWS movement in various cities, nationwide, including Liberty Park in Lower Manhattan. The 1% and their paid operatives-local city officials-are striving to protect an unjust, inherently dishonest status quo. Lacking a moral mandate, they are prone to the use of police state forms of repression.

Dr. King et al faced their oppressors on the streets of my hometown. Civil Rights activists knew that they had to hold their ground to retain their dignity…that it was imperative to sit down in those Jim Crow-tyrannized streets when necessary in order to stand up against the forces of oppression.

At present, we have arrived at a similar moment. If justice is to prevail, it seems, the air of U.S. cities will hold the acrid sting of tear gas, the jails will again be filled, the brave will endure brutality-yet the corrupt system will crumble. Because the system’s protectors themselves will bring it down by revealing its empty nature, and the corrupt structure will collapse from within.

Yet, when riot police attack unarmed, peacefully resisting protesters, the mainstream media often describes the events with standard boilerplate such as “police clash with demonstrators.”

This is inaccurate (at best) reportage. It suggest that both parties are equal aggressors in the situation, and the motive of the police is to restore order and maintain the peace, as opposed to, inflicting pain and creating an aura of intimidation.

This is analogous to describing a mugging as simply: two parties engaging in a financial transaction.

Although mainstream media demurred from limning the upwelling of mob violence at Penn. State as involving any criteria deeper than the mindless rage of a few football-besotted students unloosed by the dismissal of beloved sport figure.

Yet there exists an element that the Penn. State belligerents and OWS activists have in common: a sense of alienation.

Penn. State students rioted because life in the corporate state is so devoid of meaning…that identification with a sports team gives an empty existence said meaning…These are young people, coming of age in a time of debt-slavery and diminished job prospects, who were born and raised in, and know of no existence other than, life as lived in U.S. nothingvilles i.e., a public realm devoid of just that-a public realm-an atomizing center-bereft culture of strip malls, office parks, fast food eateries and the electronic ghosts wafting the air of social media.

Contrived sport spectacles provisionally give an empty life meaning…Take that away, and a mindless rampage might ensue…Anything but face the emptiness and acknowledge one’s complicity therein, and then direct one’s fury at the creators of the stultified conditions of this culture.

It is a given, the cameras of corporate media swivel towards reckless actions not mindful commitment…are attuned to verbal contretemps not thoughtful conviction-and then move on. And we will click our TV remotes and scan the Internet…restless, hollowed out…eating empty memes…skimming the surface of the electronic sheen…

These are the areas we are induced to direct our attention-as the oceans of the earth are dying…these massive life-sustaining bodies of water have less then 50 years before they will be dead. This fact alone should knock us to our knees in lamentation…should sent us reeling into the streets in displays of public grief…

Accordingly, we should not only occupy-but inhabit our rage. No more tittering at celebrity/political class contretemps-it is time for focused fury. The machinery of the corporate/police state must be dismantled.

If the corporate boardrooms have to be emptied-for the oceans to be replenished with abundant life-then so be it. If one must go to jail for committing acts of civil disobedience to free one’s heart-then it must be done.

Yet why does the act of challenging the degraded status quo provoke such a high decree of misapprehension, anxiety, and outright hostility from many, both in positions of authority and among so many of the exploited and dispossessed of the corporate/consumer state.

For example, why did the fatal shooting incident in Oakland, California, Nov. 1, that occurred near the Occupy Oakland Encampment-but, apparently, was wholly unrelated to OWS activity cause a firestorm of reckless speculation and false associations.

Because any exercise in freedom makes people in our habitually authoritarian nation damn uneasy…a sense of uncertainty brings on dread-the feeling that something terrible is to come from challenging a prevailing order, even as degraded as it is.

Tyrants always promise safety; their apologist warn of chaos if and when the soul-numbing order is challenged.

Granted, it is a given that there exists a sense of certainty in a prison routine: high walls and guards and gun mounts ensure continuity; an uncertainty-banishing schedule is enforced. Moreover, solitary confinement offers an even more orderly situation…uncertainty is circumscribed as freedom is banished.

The corporate/national security state, by its very nature is anti-liberty and anti-freedom. Of course, its defenders give lip service to the concept of freedom…much in the manner a pick-pocket working a subway train is very much in favor of the virtues of public transportation.

A heavy police presence has ringed Zuccotti Park from the get-go, and whose ranks have now staged a military style raid upon it, a defacto search and destroy mission-because the ruling elite want to suppress the very impulse of freedom. These authoritarian bullies don’t want the concept to escape the collective prison of the mind erected and maintained by the corrupt jailers comprising the 1% who claim they offer us protection as, all the while, they hold our chains…all for our own good, they insist…for our safety and the safety of others.

Although, from studying on these prison walls, the thought occurs to me…that what we might need is protection from all this safety.

 

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/15

Filed Under: America, An Alternative World, Banks, Campaigning, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Democracy, Earth, Economy, Education, Environment, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Martial Law, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Surveillance, Taxes, The Hidden Empire, Truth, Wealthy Elite

INCRIMINATING - ZUCCOTTI PARK: ITS OWNER; MAYOR BLOOMBERG & WALL ST

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

INCRIMINATING INFORMATION ON “MAYOR BLOOMBERG” AND ZUCOTTI PARK

Gives a new meaning to the term “Public-Private-Partnership”:

  • -MAYOR BLOOMBERG’s longtime, live-in GIRLFRIEND, Diana Taylor, sits on the BOARD OF BROOKFIELD
  • -BLOOMBERG’S GIRLFRIEND, Taylor is ALSO an investment BANKER & prominent New York City fundraiser. Interesting ‘connections’. Wall Street…Banks…anyone?
  • -BROOKFIELD was given a dispensation from ZONING PERMISSION in relation to another *property*, on condition that Zuccotti Park was created.
  • -The connection should confirm, in case there was any question, that Bloomberg & the owner of the park, Brookfield, are in CONSTANT COMMUNICATION

The Public-Private Partnership Behind Zuccotti Park

There are growing signs that the powers that be feel threatened by #OccupyWallStreet and the movement it has inspired. Yesterday, Andrew Ross Sorkin’s assignment editor at the New York Times big bank CEO friend asked him to check out the protests to see if they were a threat.

Last week, Mayor Bloomberg was asked if he would let the protesters stay in the park, and he responded with an ambiguous “We’ll see” before absurdly taking the protesters to task for protesting “people who make $40,000 and $50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet.” And today, WNYC reported that NYPD sources are saying that an “INDEFINATE” occupation of the Zuccotti Park is not an option, based on their talks with the park’s owner.

If the city moves to squash the revolt by evicting the protesters, Mayor Bloomberg and the owner of Zuccotti Park, Brookfield Properties, will be inviting a lot more attention from the occupiers, the press, and the public. The public-private partnership that controls the park has not received much scrutiny so far. An eviction would change that dramatically.

It has not been reported, for instance, that Bloomberg’s longtime, live-in girlfriend, Diana Taylor, sits on the board of Brookfield. The relationship gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “public-private partnership.” Numerous articles have noted that Brookfield owns the park and is in close contact with the city about the situation there, but oddly enough no one seems to have looked at its board (not hard to do). The connection should confirm, in case there was any question, that Bloomberg and the owner of the park are in constant communication.

Taylor is an investment banker and prominent New York City fundraiser. She joined the board of Brookfield in 2007 following a stint as New York State’s Superintendent of Banks. She currently works at Wolfensohn, an investment firm run by former World Bank head James Wolfensohn, and also sits on the board of Citigroup.

Taylor and Bloomberg met, fittingly enough, at a Citizens Budget Commission luncheon in 2001. The Citizens Budget Commission is a committee of elites committed to financial austerity, i.e. tax cuts for the 1%, service and job cuts for everyone else. A group of bankers founded it during the Depression to fight for this brand of fiscal seriousness in New York City.

Coincidentally, Taylor has been the subject of a spate of puff pieces in recent weeks, including a New York Times article, a Talk of the Town piece in the New Yorker, and a New York Observer feature. None have mentioned her ties to the owner of Zuccotti Park (though the Observer piece mentions that she sits on the board of Brookfield).

Taylor has taken some flack for criticizing Obama in the Observer piece, at one point invoking Sarah Palin by saying that he hasn’t come through on his “hopey-changey stuff.” According to Crain’s, her comments “surprised insiders” given her partner’s more neutral position and the protocol that typically governs high-powered fundraisers for charity. One lobbyist speculated that her comments positioned her for a role in a Republican administration, which may explain all the press. She also sounded off about the Dodd Frank financial reform legislation, speaking from the neutral standpoint of someone who made $286,250 last year as a director Citigroup.

The cozy, overlooked relationship between Bloomberg and Brookfield, and Brookfield’s ownership of Zuccotti Park, highlights the very dynamic #OccupyWallStreet is protesting: the control of public resources, and government itself, by the wealthy and powerful – the 1%.

The occupiers have taken an important first step towards correcting this imbalance. The message is resonating and the movement is growing.

If Bloomberg & Brookfield (LLP) move to re-assert 1% control of the park, it could really backfire on them. If they attempt to shut down the protesters by cutting off supplies, or implementing restrictions designed to make life in the park impossible in cold weather, it could really backfire on them.

And Andrew Ross Sorkin’s assignment editor would not like that.

Source: https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?8739-The-Public-Private-Partnership-Behind-Zuccotti-Park

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Economy, Environment, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Martial Law, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Politics, Pollution, Population, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Wealthy Elite

RISE UP AND SUPPORT THE REAL REVOLUTION

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“Promise, promise, lie (making money, making money, making money), lie, lie, lie, lie, promise.”

Sound familiar? It should — that’s the sound of your elected politicians. Between all the false promises there is nothing more than lies and profit. It’s a truth and its verification only requires the fundamental ability to read and the problem-solving skills of a 3rd grader. Let me explain.

The system that your politicians work for is no longer your system. It is their system. It is planned, modified, and controlled by them. It benefits their own interests and their own interests only. To realize this truth is very simple — all you have to do is look at the legislation. They create it, present it, pass it, and it’s written on paper for all to decipher.

So, let’s look at this legislation. What does it do?

Well, for the people, it creates restrictions. It decides what you as an individual cannot do. It decides what is considered to be wrong. It decides what you can be reprimanded, penalized, fined or incarcerated for. To the people, legislation is nothing more than the continual loss of our freedoms.

Now, let’s take a look at the corporate side of legislation. What does it do? It creates “regulations”, not restrictions. Regulations enable corporations instead of restrict them. Regulation is nothing more than a cute word that allows corporate entities to be exempt from the very same laws that apply to the individual. Basically, regulations set standards on how much crime can be committed by corporations.

It requires a very limited amount of thinking to understand almost immediately that this situation alone is a recipe for disaster. I need not delve any further for one to realize that restrictions for consumers, but freedom for profiteers, equals a fascist system. You don’t have to look into the specifics of the laws, or any law specifically to see that we lose freedom as corporations gain it. Nearly every piece of legislation that is created by the federal government serves to directly benefit either big business or the government itself.

Meanwhile, they use our tax monies to run rampant across the global landscape as they leverage their political powers to maximize the profits for corporations (which in turn reward them with commissions). They rape, rob, pillage, destroy, corrupt, and pollute in the name of profits. They deface the earth while simultaneously committing genocides which they then contort and present to us as either an act of liberation for oppressed peoples, or the elimination of a terror threat.

I’m not sure about you, but I want absolutely nothing to do with a system that operates in this fashion. It’s 110% absolutely and completely ludicrous for anyone to obey the laws of murderous dictators who repeatedly commit high-crime against humanity on a global level.

If you knew that somebody was going to rape a 12-year-old girl before blowing her brains out and lighting her body on fire in front of her family, would you give them 20% of your paycheck to do so? I don’t think you would, and it’s for that same reason that I don’t believe you should pay income tax.

Our system is completely defunct, both financially and morally. It’s not only insufficient for our best interests as a society, it’s downright destructive. It suffers an absolute lack of reasoning and has no room whatsoever for even an ounce of human compassion.

The flags, the fake debates, the false promises, the “god bless our nation” — it’s nothing more than pure deception. It’s proven to be so convincing that although its creators don’t deserve the title of Human, one could easily say it’s a masterpiece worthy of the title of genius. This picture of America — a magical fairyland with freedom and prosperity for all — is painted with blood on the dead flesh of freedom.

Do not stand up for it. Do not represent your government, just as they don’t represent you. Denounce your association with them. Refuse to participate in a system that wreaks havoc on innocent human life. Refuse to play their game any longer. Refuse to believe their lies and refuse to let anyone else tell you otherwise. We are humans, living beings, individuals with souls who are born free. Refuse to be tied down by authority.

Do not be dumb. Do not be like the battered woman with broken arms who says she’s in love. Do not remain loyal to a hand that doesn’t feed you. Do not believe that you have to do what everyone else does, or that it’s right simply because they do it. Rise above the scum who run this system, let them know that you know the truth, that you’re not afraid and that you refuse to participate. Do it with your family, your friends, whoever you care about.

Rise above this oppressive regime of global control freaks. They are nothing. They are mental, physical and spiritual slumlords. They have nothing to hide behind except an illusion. They are weak, insecure and miserable. As the days pass by, their time to remain in charge grows shorter. It’s happening around the world — people are revolting. There is a knowledge being consumed and it is empowering the people.

The biggest myth that they ever created is that “freedom isn’t free”.

It is free, take it. Participate. Occupy. Denounce support for politics and corruption once and for all.

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/10/rise-up-and-support-real-revolution.html

Filed Under: America, An Alternative World, Banks, Capitalism, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, CYBER WARFARE, Democracy, Earth, Economy, Education, Education, Energy, Environment, Federal Reserve, Food, Health, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Monsanto, New World Order, Occupy, Police, Politicians, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Survival, Taxes, Truth, War

JOBCENTRE STAFF ‘SENT GUIDELINES ON HOW TO DEAL WITH CLAIMANTS’ SUICIDE THREATS’

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Employees ‘receive six-point plan telling them to take each threat seriously’ as clamp on benefits takes effect

Staff working for jobcentres and other Department for Work and Pensions contractors have been given guidelines on how to deal with suicide threats from claimants as the squeeze on benefits takes hold.

A document sent to jobcentre staff in April details what it calls a “new policy for all DWP businesses to help them manage suicide and self-harm declarations from customers”.

The guidelines include a “six-point plan” for staff to follow which says: “Some customers may say they intend to self-harm or kill themselves as a threat or a tactic to ‘persuade’, others will mean it. It is very hard to distinguish between the two … For this reason, all declarations must be taken seriously.”

The internal document was sent to the Guardian by a senior jobcentre employee who has worked for the DWP for more than 20 years. It was accompanied by a letter from the source that said: “Absolutely nobody has ever seen this guidance before, leading staff to believe it has been put together ahead of the incapacity benefit and disability living allowance cuts.”

The employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “We were a bit shocked. Are we preparing ourselves to be like the Samaritans? The fact that we’ve dealt with the public for so many years without such guidance has made people feel a bit fearful about what’s coming.”

The DWP said that the new guidelines were not related to any recent policy changes and had been in development since 2009. “This guidance is about supporting our staff and ensuring we can help our customers.

“It is right that a customer-facing organisation that serves over 20 million, including the most vulnerable in our society, has guidance such as this in place.”

The team leader said the guidance had alarmed people in their team: “We’ve suddenly got this new aspect to our job. The bigger picture is people here are wondering how savage these cuts are going to be. And we’re the frontline staff having to deal with the fallout from these changes. ”

Julie Tipping, an appeals officer for Disability Solutions, represents claimants who try to overturn decisions made following work capability assessment tests that they are fit for work.

She says that in the last year, two of her clients have made “real attempts” at suicide after a decision was made that they were fit for work. Both were taken to hospital and subsequently sectioned.

“It’s real and true. A lot of people think these people are crying wolf to get their money, but that’s not the case. They are suffering from real problems and can’t face it any more.”

Tipping said the pressure on vulnerable clients was “the cumulative effect of all these welfare changes. The test is simply not fit for purpose for assessing mental health problems. That’s on top of moving people on to jobseeker’s allowance, and all of the conditionality and risk of sanctions that goes with that.”

The Guardian revealed last month that some jobcentres were setting targets for advisers to stop people’s benefits for not meeting conditions attached to their jobseeker’s allowance.

A whistleblower said that the pressure on staff was leading to vulnerable claimants being targeted for sanctions. The targets have since been removed. But thousands of claimants of incapacity benefit and employment support allowance are being reassessed to see if they should be considered fit for work and moved on to jobseeker’s allowance.

Another jobcentre adviser said: “People have been coming off sickness benefits and thrown onto jobseeker’s allowance. It’s problematic because some customers are clearly not fit to work, and they are clearly very distressed. When you sense this you feel really upset because the system is allowing them to get like this and you feel part of the processing machine.”Eleanor Lisney, of Disabled People Against Cuts, said that the thought of being moved on to jobseeker’s allowance was like a sword hanging over the heads of disabled groups and she feared an increase in related suicides.

 

Source: https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/society/2011/may/08/jobcentre-staff-guidelines-suicide-threats

Filed Under: Banks, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Economy, Health, Income Inequality, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Protests, Psychology, Rights, Survival, Wealthy Elite, Welfare Benefits
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