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January 5, 2012

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Foreclosed Homeowners Re-Occupy Their Homes

December 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

San Francisco – Carolyn Gage was evicted from her foreclosed home in January. Earlier this month, she moved back in.

“I’ve been in here for 50 years. I know no other place but here. I left and it was just time for me to come back home,” said Gage, who is in her mid-50s.

Gage’s monthly payments spiked after her adjustable rate mortgage kicked in, and she could no longer afford the payments on her three-bedroom house in the city’s Bayview Hunters Point district. She says she tried to modify her loan with her lender, Florida-based IB Properties, but to no avail.

When Gage initially left about 10 months ago, she took some personal items with her, but left most of the furniture and continued paying for some utilities.

“It didn’t feel right for me to move. I just left my things because I knew I was going to return to them eventually,” she said.

She had to re-activate a few utilities when she returned, like the water, but found the process fairly easy.

Walking back into the house was an emotional moment for Gage, but a joyous one.

“I was like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz; there’s no place like home,” Gage said. “It’s a family home; I plan to stay there.”

Gage was one of about two dozen homeowners who gathered Tuesday for a community potluck on Quesada Avenue for residents facing foreclosure and are refusing to leave their homes.

Homeowners expressed outrage at the way predatory lenders have targeted their community.

Residents of the Bayview are starting to see how the African-American community was especially victimized in the foreclosure crisis.

Gage believes that single women and elders in the black community were targeted for predatory loans. At the peak of the housing boom she was solicited for an adjustable rate loan to do some home improvements, even though she told the loan agent that she was on disability and did not have a steady income.

According to a report released last week by the Center for Responsible Lending, African Americans and Latinos were consistently more likely than whites to receive high-risk loan products. About a quarter of all Latino and African-American borrowers have lost their homes to foreclosure or are seriously delinquent, compared to under 12 percent for white borrowers.

Bayview residents Reverend Archbishop Franz King and Reverend Mother Marina King, who are founders of the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church, are also facing foreclosure. Their eviction date is set for Dec. 22.

King expressed deep anger and sorrow at the situation facing the black community in the Bayview.

“First redevelopment moved us out of the Fillmore and now we’re losing our properties too? It’s like there’s nowhere for us to go,” he said.

Grace Martinez, an organizer with Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) who helped to arrange the event, commented that banks have become increasingly hostile to their efforts. “They call the police on us; they laugh at us.”

Vivian Richardson, a homeowner on Quesada Avenue whose house was also foreclosed on, also has no intention of leaving. Her current eviction date is set for Dec. 31, but she, like many of her neighbors, is asking her lender to reduce the principal on her loan in order to make the monthly payments more affordable.

Richardson has been attempting to modify her home loan for the past two years. Earlier this month, tired of the lack of communication from the lender, Aurora Loan Services based in Delaware, she worked with ACCE to coordinate an e-mail blast to Aurora’s chairman.

On Nov. 3, over the span of one to two hours, approximately 1,400 emails were sent and more than 100 phone calls made, imploring Chairman Theodore P. Janulis to stop Richardson’s eviction. A spokesperson from the bank called her an hour after the blast and asked her to send an updated set of financial information so that they could review her case.

Two weeks have passed and she has yet to hear anything further. The bank spokesperson commented that Richardson’s case is still being reviewed internally and they hope to get back to her by the end of next week.

However, Richardson has lived in her house for 13 years and plans to stay regardless of the bank’s decision.

“I will defend the home,” she said.

On Dec. 6, there will be a national day of action, “Occupy Our Homes,” where people across the country facing predicaments similar to Gage and Richardson may follow their lead.

Partly inspired by the Occupy movement, the day of action is supported by various community organizations like Take Back the Land and ACCE. The call to action is for people to move back into their foreclosed properties and to defend the properties of families facing eviction.

Martinez commented on the growing anger people are feeling. “The idea is, ‘I want what’s mine.’” She said many homeowners had trusted the banks and ultimately, “People were buying into a lie.”

Source: https://www.truth-out.org/foreclosed-homeowners-re-occupy-their-homes/1322246348

Filed Under: America, Debt, Housing, Occupy Tagged With: ,

Senator Bob Casey says the NDAA will NOT be used against the American people

December 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The following is a copy of an email from Bob Casey with the correspondents name blanked out:

Dear Mr. *****:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about the detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. I appreciate hearing from you about this issue.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorizes policy and annual expenditures for the Department of Defense. The House of Representatives and the Senate recently passed the final version of the 2012 NDAA with broad bipartisan support. It is currently awaiting the President’s signature before it becomes law.

The Department of Defense is responsible for overseeing the United States Armed Forces and ensuring that our Nation is able to effectively respond to threats. It is critical that Congress provides the Department of Defense with sufficient funding to protect American lives, defend our Nation and support our servicemembers and their families. While our overseas military engagements continue, it is particularly important to provide the resources our servicemembers need to successfully conduct operations and ensure their own safety.

As your United States Senator, I am committed to ensuring the safety and security of all Americans. Since 2001, United States counterterrorism efforts have helped to ensure our national security. Our brave servicemembers and intelligence personnel work tirelessly to protect our nation against the threat of terrorism. However, it is essential that the executive branch operate with transparency and ensure that our counterterrorism efforts do not infringe on the civil liberties of American citizens. We must not sacrifice our fundamental values and ideals in the face of this critical threat.

The custody and detention provisions in the NDAA are the result of thorough consideration and bipartisan agreement. These provisions, including Sections 1021 and 1022, will allow the United States to deal effectively with the threat posed by al Qaeda, a terrorist group that has inflicted devastating harm on our Nation and continues to seek to attack our citizens, our allies, and our interests both here at home and around the world.

Section 1021 of the NDAA does not expand the executive branch’s authority to detain suspected terrorists. This section states explicitly that it is not intended to limit or expand the authority that Congress granted the President in the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The definition of a ‘covered person’ in this section is ‘a person who was a part of or substantially supported al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.’ This is the position that has been adopted by the Obama Administration and upheld in U.S. courts since 2001. In addition, it requires the executive branch to brief Congress regularly on the individuals and groups to whom this authority is being applied.

It is important to note that Section 1021 does not create any ‘new’ or ‘unprecedented’ presidential power, nor does it create any ‘permanent’ detention power. The legislation explicitly states that Section 1021 shall not ‘affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.’

Section 1022 of the NDAA requires that persons who are members of al Qaeda and have participated in planning or carrying out an attack against the United States or its allies be held in military custody. However, the executive branch can exercise a waiver of this requirement if the President certifies to Congress that holding a particular suspect in civilian custody will better serve U.S. national security interests. In addition, this provision applies only to non-US citizens and non-lawful resident aliens who are al Qaeda operatives and who plan or carry out attacks against the United States. It explicitly does not apply to American citizens and those who reside here lawfully.

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California proposed an amendment which would have limited the requirement of military custody in Section 1022 to suspected terrorists captured abroad. This proposal was rejected in the Senate by a vote of 55 to 45. I voted against this amendment because the waiver provision provides flexibility to the executive branch to determine whether a suspected al Qaeda operative captured on U.S. soil should be transferred to civilian custody.

Senator Mark Udall of Colorado offered an amendment to remove the detention provisions in Section 1021 from the bill altogether. This amendment would have essentially allowed the executive branch to continue to engage in existing detention practices without codification in law. By codifying the detention practices already in use, Congress is exercising its critical responsibility to oversee and create a legal framework for executive branch action. For this reason, I joined a majority of Senators in voting against this amendment.

Senator Feinstein also offered an amendment to explicitly prohibit the indefinite detention of American citizens. I voted in favor of this amendment out of concern that authorizing the government to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens was at odds with fundamental American values. Unfortunately, this amendment was rejected by a vote of 55 to 45. Finally, Senator Feinstein proposed an amendment to clarify that nothing in the bill ‘shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities, relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.’ I also voted for this measure, which passed the Senate by a vote of 99 to 1 and was included in the final version of the bill.

On December 15, 2011, Senator Feinstein introduced S. 2003, the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011. This legislation would clarify that an authorization to use military force, a declaration of war or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States. S. 2003 would also require Congress to make a ‘clear statement’ about the limitations on authority to detain U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. This legislation has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, of which I am not a member. Please be assured that I will examine this legislation closely.

Nothing in the NDAA authorizes the U.S. military to patrol our streets, detain ordinary Americans in their homes or conduct any law enforcement functions inside the United States. Section 1022 says only that a specific group of persons, narrowly defined as those who are ‘a part of or substantially supported al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners’ should be subject to military custody, unless the executive branch determines that civilian custody is more appropriate in a particular case. The NDAA does not address when or where a person may be captured, and does not authorize the military to exercise unprecedented powers on U.S. soil.

In addition, the NDAA will not disrupt ongoing interrogations, intelligence gathering functions and surveillance activities, and it does not require military commissions in terrorist prosecutions. The administration raised concerns that certain provisions would limit its ability to collect vital information and limit its prosecutorial options. In response, the Senate Armed Services Committee clarified that no such limitations would be placed on the President?s authority.

The NDAA absolutely does not authorize torture of detainees, irrespective of citizenship. Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire proposed S. Amdt. 1068 to the NDAA to authorize certain enhanced interrogation techniques. However, the U.S. Constitution prohibits ‘cruel and unusual punishments,’ and we must not tolerate the use of torture under any circumstances. I believe strongly that the United States has a moral obligation to uphold its commitments under the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of prisoners. We must, therefore, hold all executive branch officials accountable for alleged violations of these commitments. I am pleased that S. Amdt. 1068 was not included the final version of the NDAA that passed the Senate. Please be assured that I support efforts to prohibit the use of ‘enhanced interrogation’ practices, and that no such practices have been endorsed in this bill.

The NDAA also does not change the fundamental, constitutional right of habeas corpus review. The writ of habeas corpus is a legal doctrine that allows individuals to challenge their detention in a court of law. The U.S. Constitution explicitly provides this right to American citizens, and the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld its applicability, even with respect to suspected terrorists. Any American citizen or lawful permanent resident held in U.S. custody will have the right to habeas corpus review. Similarly, the courts have established that persons detained under the Authorization of the Use of Military Force, including those held at Guantanamo Bay, have the right to such review. Nothing in the NDAA undermines this critical right.

Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future about this or any other matter of importance to you.

If you have access to the Internet, I encourage you to visit my web site, https://casey.senate.gov. I invite you to use this online office as a comprehensive resource to stay up-to-date on my work in Washington, request assistance from my office, or share with me your thoughts on the issues that matter most to you and to Pennsylvania.

Sincerely,
Bob Casey
United States Senator

Filed Under: America, Featured, Martial Law, Military, Police, Politics

Female protesters brutally beaten with metal poles as vicious soldiers drag girls through streets by their hair in day of shame

December 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Inderdeep Bains on December 18, 2011

After being viciously beaten by a 10-strong mob of Egyptian male soldiers, this woman lies helplessly on the ground as her shirt is ripped from her body and a man kicks her with full force in her exposed chest.

Moments earlier she had been struck countless times in the head and body with metal batons, not content with the brutal beating delivered by his fellow soldier, one man stamped on her head repeatedly.

She feebly tried to shield her head from the relentless blows with her hands.


Brutal: This shocking image shows Egyptian army soldiers dragging this helpless woman on the ground and kicking her hard in the chest after ripping her clothes from her body.


Outnumbered: This woman screams in pain as she is surrounded by five male soldiers during protests in the Egyptian capital and beaten with poles.

But she was knocked unconscious in the shameful attack and left lying motionless as the military men mindlessly continued to beat her limp and half-naked body.

Before she was set upon by the guards, three men appeared to carry her as they tried to flee the approaching military.

But they were too slow and the soldiers caught up with them, capturing the women and knocking one of the men to the ground.

The two other men were forced to abandoned their fellow protestors and continued running, looking helplessly back at the two they left behind being relentlessly attacked as they lay on the ground.

This is just one of the hundreds of shameful injustices seen in Cairo’s Tahrir Square where Egypt’s military took a dramatically heavy hand on Saturday to crush protests against its rule.

Aya Emad told the AP that troops dragged her by her headscarf and hair into the Cabinet headquarters. The 24-year-old said soldiers kicked her on the ground, an officer shocked her with an electrical prod and another slapped her on the face, leaving her nose broken and her arm in a sling.

Mona Seif, an activist who was briefly detained Friday, said she saw an officer repeatedly slapping a detained old woman in the face.

‘It was a humiliating scene,’ Seif told the private TV network Al-Nahar. ‘I have never seen this in my life.’


Brutally injured: This woman is left barely conscious and splattered in blood after being beaten the military in violent clashes between rock-throwing protesters and military police


Shameless: Egyptian army soldiers use brutal force to arrest this female protester and drag her by her hair during clashes with military police near Cairo’s Tahrir Square


Violent: The heavy handed Egyptian army soldiers drag the arrested a woman protester off by her hair

In Bahrain a similar pictured was emerging with a video clip showing a female human rights activist being hit by a policewoman during clashes between police and anti-government protestors.

Police fired teargas to break up a demonstration by several hundred people on the outskirts of the capital, Manama where several women staged a sit-in protest trying to block a main road.

After nearly 48 hours of continuous fighting in Egypt’s capital more than 300 were left injured and nine dead, many of them shot dead.The most sustained crackdown yet is likely a sign that the generals who took power after the February ouster of Hosni Mubarak are confident that the Egyptian public is on its side after two rounds of widely acclaimed parliament elections, that Islamist parties winning the vote will stay out of the fight while pro-democracy protesters become more isolated.Still, the generals risk turning more Egyptians against them, especially from outrage over the abuse of women.

‘Do they think this is manly?’ Toqa Nosseir, a 19-year old student, said of the attacks on women. ‘Where is the dignity?’


Man-handled: Egyptian soldiers clash with this female protester and two male protestors near Cairo’s Tahrir Square


Protection: A female and two male Egyptian protester use a metal sheet as a shield as they throw rocks at military police, unseen, behind the gates and inside the Parliament building near Cairo’s Tahrir Square

Brave: Two women join protesters as they shout anti-military council slogans near the cabinet in Cairo

Nosseir joined the protest over her parents’ objections because she couldn’t tolerate the clashes she had seen.’No one can approve or accept what is happening here,’ she said.’The military council wants to silence all criticism. They want to hold on power … I will not accept this humiliation just for the sake of stability.’Nearby in Tahrir, protesters held up newspapers with the image of the half-stripped woman on the front page to passing cars, shouting sarcastically, ‘This is the army that is protecting us!”No one can approve or accept what is happening here,’ she said.’The military council wants to silence all criticism. They want to hold on power … I will not accept this humiliation just for the sake of stability.’Nearby in Tahrir, protesters held up newspapers with the image of the half-stripped woman on the front page to passing cars, shouting sarcastically, ‘This is the army that is protecting us!’


Grief: A woman mourns slain Egyptian protesters who were killed during the latest clashes with Egyptian soldiers, while they wait to receive their bodies in front of the morgue in Cairo


Under-fire: Pro-reform female protesters run for cover as heavy-handed police try to disperse them with tear-gas, in Abu Seba village, north of Manama, Bahrain

‘Are you not ashamed?’ leading reform figure and Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei posted on Twitter in an address to the ruling military council.

Egypt’s new, military-appointed interim prime minister defended the military, denying it shot protesters. He said gunshot deaths were caused by other attackers he didn’t identify.

He accused the protesters of being ‘anti-revolution.’

The main street between Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the anti-Mubarak protests, and the parliament and Cabinet buildings where the clashes began early the previous morning looked like a war zone on Saturday.

Military police on rooftops pelting protesters below with stones and firebombs and launched truncheon-swinging assaults to drive the crowds back.

Young activists put helmets or buckets on their heads or grabbed sheets of concrete and even satellite dishes as protection against the stones hailing down from the roofs.

The streets were strewn with chunks of concrete, stones ,broken glass, burned furniture and peddlers’ carts as clashes continued to rage after nightfall Saturday.


Detained: Activist Zainab al-Khawaja (Right) screams while being arrested during a protest in Abu Seba village, north of Manama


Heavy-handed: A Bahraini policewoman drags activist Zainab al-Khawaja across the floor after arresting her fo taking part in sit-in protest

The clashes began early on Friday with a military assault on a 3-week-old sit-in outside the Cabinet building by protesters demanding the military hand over power immediately to civilians.

More than a week of heavy fighting erupted in November, leaving more than 40 dead – but that was largely between police and protesters, with the military keeping a low profile.

In the afternoon, military police charged into Tahrir, swinging truncheons and long sticks, briefly chasing out protesters and setting fire to their tents.

They trashed a field hospital set up by protesters, swept into buildings where television crews were filming and briefly detained journalists. They tossed the camera and equipment of an Al-Jazeera TV crew off the balcony of a building.

A journalist who was briefly detained told The Associated Press that he was beaten up with sticks and fists while being led to into the parliament building. Inside, he saw a group of detained young men and one woman.

Each was surrounded by six or seven soldiers beating him or her with sticks or steel bars or giving electrical shocks with prods.

‘Blood covered the floor, and an officer was telling the soldiers to wipe the blood,’ said the journalist


Defiant: A brave woman shouts anti-government slogans as she stands amidst tear gas fired by riot police to disperse a sit-in at a roundabout on Budaiya Highway, west of Manama

As night fell in Tahrir, clashes continued around a concrete wall that the military erected to block the avenue from Tahrir to parliament.

In Bahrain, Zainab al-Khawaja, 27, was arrested and dragged across the floor by her handcuffs after police fired teargas to break up a demonstration by several hundred people on the outskirts of the capital, Manama.

Ms al-Khawaja and several other women staged a sit-in protest trying to block a main road. The other women fled the scene but Ms al-Khawaja refused.

Riot police fired tear-gas at the women, with dozens requiring hospital treatment after the incident.

A report by a panel of human rights experts in November found that Bahraini security forces had used excessive forces and carried out the systematic abuse of prisoners, including torture, when the regime sent in troops to crush the uprising in March.

Watch Video here: WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2075683/The-brave-women-Middle-East-Female-protesters-brutally-beaten-metal-poles-vicious-soldiers-drag-girls-streets-hair-day-shame.html

Filed Under: Featured, Human Rights, Martial Law, Protests

Newt Gingrich Attacked by Protestors

December 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

Newt Gingrich begins his speech about medical research when suddenly chaos erupts.

Reporting from Iowa City, Iowa:


In a forerunner of what some Republicans expected to be a recurring event over the next 20 days, about a dozen protesters from the Occupy movement disrupted the start of a campaign appearance by Newt Gingrich at the University of Iowa on Wednesday.

The candidate had just begun to speak, at an event designed to highlight his support for additional research on Alzheimer’s and brain science, when the protesters began chanting in unison.

The group, who said they were part of the Occupy movement in Iowa City and nearby Cedar Rapids, continued as several members were escorted from the room by plainsclothed security officers.

There were no arrests.

Iowa Republicans are preparing for possible interruptions in the Jan. 3 caucuses by Occupy protesters. At a recent mock-caucus training session in Ames, the county Republican chairman advised local party officials that the caucuses are private party events, even though many will be taking place in public buildings.

If demonstrators become unruly and attempt to disrupt a caucus, then police should be summoned, party officials were advised.

At the same time, if a member of an Occupy group signs in as a Republican voter, he or she should be allowed to participate, the advice went, including during a portion of the caucuses in which issues are discussed.

However, the party officials were reminded that it takes at least two people to make a proposal—one to propose a motion and another to second it. By that calculation, it would take more than 3,500 protesters to have an impact at all 1,774 caucuses.

Party leaders expect any disruptions to be limited to Des Moines and other heavily populated areas, if they occur at all.

Gingrich, who allowed the protest to continue for about two minutes before starting to speak, said he believes in participatory democracy “sometimes by people who are rowdy. That’s part of the price of freedom.”

The protesters delivered a laundry list of anti-Gingrich lines, accusing him of “disregard for the poor,” criticized his role in crafting the 1990s welfare reform, his “vilification of people as shiftless and unwilling to work” and “your disgusting suggestions that we bring back child labor.”

Gingrich supporters began trying to shout down the protesters, whom Gingrich described as one percent of the crowd. There were about 300 people attending the event at the university’s medical complex.

“I was glad to come to the University of Iowa,” Gingrich interjected, as the protest continued, because of “your tradition of intellectual discourse.”

The anti-Gingrich demonstration was apparently the first by Occupy followers in Iowa. A Gingrich appearance last month at Harvard was also disrupted by Occupy protesters.

LYRICS:


Mic check! Mic Check!

Mr. Gingrich, we are here to protest your speech today, because we object to your callous and arrogant attitude towards poverty and poor people.
We are insulted by your disregard for the poor and the conditions and lead to poverty in this country. We cannot forget your 1990s proposition that welfare benefits to children of unwed mothers be denied.

 

 

 

Filed Under: America, Occupy, Protests Tagged With:

Occupy The Food System

December 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Jim Goodman

The world can feed itself, without corporate America’s science-experiment crops and expensive chemicals.

Farmers have been through this before — our lives and livelihoods falling under corporate control. It has been an ongoing process: consolidation of markets; consolidation of seed companies; an ever-widening gap between our costs of production and the prices we receive. Some of us are catching on, getting the picture of the real enemy.

The “99 percent” are awakening to the realization that their lives have fallen under corporate control as well. Add up the jobs lost, the health benefits whittled away, and the unions busted, and the bill for Wall Street’s self-centered greed is taking a toll.It may be the Wall Street banks that are controlling our lives, or it may be Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont, Kraft, or Tyson’s. The system isn’t working.

It’s not the immigrants, the homeless, the unions, or the farmers that have looted the economy and driven us to the brink of another Great Depression. The public is catching on.

When Occupy Wall Street (OWS) welcomed the Farmers March to Zuccotti Park in New York on December 4, a natural rural-urban alliance — the Food Justice Movement, gardeners, farmers, seed growers, health care workers, and union members — was formed at Wall Street’s back door.

Change can come only when you confront your oppressors directly on their turf. That makes them uncomfortable, it gets attention, and it wakes up the distracted public.

The Occupy movement is doing exactly what the prominent student activist Mario Savio spoke of in 1964, when he declared: “There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop — and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from running at all.”

The people who are now forming a movement to occupy the food system agree with this sentiment too.

The food system isn’t working. People eat too many calories, or too few. There’s too much processed food on our plates. Too many Americans lack access to food that is fresh, nutritious, and locally grown. This is the food system that corporate America has given us. It’s the food system it’s selling to the rest of the world.

Clearly, this system doesn’t have the best interests of the public at heart. Nor does it consider the interests of farmers or farm workers or animals or the environment. It has one interest: profit.

We all have to wake up.

Farmers need access to farm credit, a fair mortgage on their land, fair prices for the food they produce, and seeds that aren’t patented by Monsanto or other big corporations. Consumers need to be able to purchase healthy and local food, and to earn a living wage.

The parallels are pointedly exact. It may be the Wall Street banks that are controlling our lives, or it may be Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont, Kraft, or Tyson’s. The system isn’t working.

Why do agribusiness profits continue to grow while farmers struggle to pay their costs of production and more Americans go hungry? We can’t feed our people if we are forced to feed the bank accounts of the 1 percent.

Agribusinesses insist that we have the responsibility of feeding the world. Growing more genetically engineered corn and soy isn’t going to feed the world, nor will it correct the flaws in our food system; clearly it has created many of them.

The world can feed itself, without corporate America’s science-experiment crops and expensive chemicals. The world’s people can feed themselves if we let them — if we stop the corporate land grabs and let them develop their own economies for their own benefit.

The message from the Occupy movement needn’t and shouldn’t be a specific set of demands. It should be about asking the right questions.

Wall Street, the government, and corporate America need to answer one basic question: Why did you sell us down the river?

 

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/12-0

Filed Under: America, Food, Occupy, Protests Tagged With:

December 14th: National Day of Action Against the Use of the Military Within the United States

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Kevin Zeese

The military’s role in the United States has been growing. In 2002 President Bush established NorthCom, a military command inside the United States based in Colorado with additional bases in Alaska, Florida, Texas, Virginia and the DC area. On October 1, 2008, the 3rd Infantry Division (United States)’s 1st Brigade Combat Team was assigned to U.S. Northern Command, marking the first time an active unit had been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. In 2008, the Pentagon announced plans to deploy 20,000 troops inside the United States, set to be trained by 2011. The change in law in the new Defense Authorization comes at a time of rapidly creeping domestic military expansion.

***

One of the gravest grievances described in the Declaration of Independence was the misuse of standing armies against the colonialists. Numerous state constitutions declared standing armies a threat to liberty and the U.S. Constitution showed antipathy to militarism. Now, the Congress and President Obama are prepared to turn the military against Americans and allow indefinite military detention without any finding of guilt.

And former high-level military officers say that the new bill authorizing indefinite detention of Americans will hand the terrorists a big win … and is a big step towards tyranny at home (no … Obama will not veto it – he’s the one who asked for it).

What can we do? Zeese writes:

If the elites think military force against Americans will quell the revolt of the people they are wrong; it will have the opposite effect and fuel the revolt against the elites.

***

Wednesday, December 14th is a national day of action against the use of the military in the United States.

 

Source: https://www.washingtonsblog.com/

Filed Under: America, Military, Occupy, Protests

NYPD And NYC City Hall Break Kids Hearts

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Added by theGIC.org on December 13, 2011 at 10:50am

Brought to you by Dana Glazer, Parents for Occupy Wall St. March against police brutality. Children created 5,000 paper hearts one for every peaceful protestor arrested on behalf of the Occupy Wall Street movement in the three month period leading up to the march. The children delivered them to New York City Hall for Mayor Bloomberg only for the NYPD to aggressively tear them down and apart in front of the children. Children cried and the NYPD did yet another action against peaceful protestors. We as a country should not stand for this, get involved, speak up, do something for our children’s futures.

For more information: https://www.parentsforoccupywallst.com

 

Source: https://www.thegic.org/video/nypd-and-nyc-city-hall-break-kids-hearts#ixzz1gQme5LGd

Filed Under: America, Children, Occupy, Protests

Occupy Protesters Target US, Canadian Ports

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By https://www.voanews.com on December 12, 2011

Hundreds of anti-Wall Street protesters blocked gates Monday at some of the West Coast’s busiest ports in the U.S. and Canada, as part of a nearly three-month-old movement against what they say is corporate greed.

The protests caused a partial shut down of operations at some of the terminals in Oakland, California, and Portland, Oregon.

In Portland, hundreds of protesters blocked entrances at two terminals preventing trucks from entering. Employees of the terminals were told to stay home from work. In Oakland, unions representing dock workers and longshoremen sent workers home after hundreds of protesters blocked an entrance to the port.

Similar demonstrations are taking place in Anchorage, Alaska, Los Angeles, California, San Diego, California, and Seattle, Washington, as well as in the Canadian city of Vancouver.

The demonstrations are called “Wall Street on the Waterfront” and are targeting SSA Marine, a shipping company that is partially owned by investment bank Goldman Sachs. Protesters accuse the company of unfair labor practices and union busting.

Goldman Sachs has been a regular target of the anti-Wall Street campaign.

The Occupy Wall Street movement began in New York in September. It says it represents the “99 percent” - those outside the top 1 percent of wealth holders.

Last week, Occupy protesters in Washington joined thousands of people, including jobless and underemployed Americans, for three days of demonstrations to press an agenda of jobs and economic equality.

 

Source: https://www.voanews.com/english/news/Occupy-Protestors-Target-US-Canadian-Ports-135448253.html

Filed Under: America, Occupy, Protests

Million Man March - Occupy Congress January 17th, 2012

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

December 2, 2011 (WASHINGTON, D.C.) - A growing movement of government dissent, disapproval and discontent has culminated into an Occupy Congress protest to be held on January 17th, 2012. Social media networks are labeling this protest as “the largest Occupy protest, ever” with expectations of more than one million people in attendance.

On a reddit blurb, “Sgt—Hulka” posted, “Congress starts their 2012 legislative session on January 17th. We should occupy OUR city and insist that they start doing their f*cking jobs. OccupyCongress”.

A Facebook page has been created to promote the event as well, entitled, “Occupy Congress January 17th, 2012”.

The objective behind this Facebook page is stated as the following: “It’s time for the American People to send a message to Congress”.

Tweets can be found at #occupycongress.

 

Source: https://www.in5d.com/million-man-march-occupy-congress-january-17-2012.html

Filed Under: America, Occupy, Politicians, Protests Tagged With:

The Spirit of Revolution

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

17-year-old Andrew Barrows invokes the spirit of the Founding Fathers to question America’s current direction.

I want to start with some quotes from past presidents of the United States Of America, as well as important activists who discussed freedom and oppression.

Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves. - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. - Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free. - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. - George Washington (1732-1799)

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

I think to myself, all these people — historical leaders who will be talked about for as long as American history exists, had such wonderful views on freedom, and great ideas about how the country should be run. In fact, they are so wonderful we still talk about them hundreds of years later.

Now I think to myself, all these people — historical leaders who will be talked about for as long as American history exists, had such wonderful views on freedom, and great ideas about how the country should be run. In fact, they are so wonderful we still talk about them hundreds of years later.

I think about the American Revolution, and how many people have fought and died to make America, and what the American Revolution was all about. I constantly ponder the thought of, “I really wonder how past presidents would react to the way America is now.” I can imagine Abraham Lincoln or George Washington being brought back to life to experience modern America for just a day. But I can’t begin to imagine his facial expression when I would tell him:

Yeah, since all of your wonderful truth speaking, caring about the people, and doing what is right and fair to give people extraordinary documents dedicated to freedom…America has really gone down hill…and I mean…really down hill.

Being a president today actually means who’s the best liar on the stage. It is like a highschool talent show. Each person goes on stage and tries to convince the audience to like them, and whoever lies the most wins. They are just puppets who can’t really do anything. Congressional approval is 8% and WE the people don’t actually get a say in what happens. The mega rich call the shots and huge companies actually control what the government does while the middle class and poor get robbed blind.

After I would study his confusion…I would continue…

The Patriot Act

(After explaining what a phone and the Internet is). Gives the government the power to read my emails, my text messages, track my phone, follow me, tap my phone calls, install a tracking device under my car to know my exact location. In short…violate my privacy completely.

Then I would discuss the SOPA/PROTECT IP ACT.

A bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the Net, in the name of protecting “creativity”. The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites — they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”

Next of course, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The bill grants power to the military to arrest U.S. citizens on American soil and detain them in military prisons forever without offering them the right to legal counsel or even a trial. This isn’t a totally new thing: “dirty bomb” plotter Jose Padilla spent three-and-a-half years as an “enemy combatant” until he was finally charged. But Padilla’s detention was unusual and sparked a huge outcry; the new provisions would standardize his treatment and enable us all to become Jose Padillas.

Than I would probably make him watch this video on YouTube: “A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945″ by Isao Hashimoto

 

 

Than I would explain having a gun, missing fingers, or 7 days of food at your house = YOU ARE A TERRORIST

You know, at this point he would probably be on his knees with a huge headache.

I’m sure eventually he would say something like “Why are the people allowing this to happen? And what happened to people fighting for what is right?”

Than I would explain the Anonymous Internet group and the Occupy movement and protests. I think he would be pretty happy and would get up off his knees.

BUT than I would show him videos of what is happening when people are trying to protest and spread truth. I would start probably with this video:

or this video:

 

It’s really hard to choose which video of police attacking innocent protesters expressing their Constitutional rights I would show because, honestly, YouTube is filled with them. So I would probably just let him browse around for a while.

Now at this point I would imagine he would pretty much scream or yell that everything that past Americans had fought for to create has been literally bashed by the people who are supposed to enforce it, and has been turned around and used against the people instead of protecting them.

Than I would get Paul Revere out of my time machine/life regeneration thing and Paul Revere would jump on his horse and ride through the city streets of Boston yelling “The British aren’t coming; they are already here!

“Would our Founding Fathers be disgraced at what America has become? Is everything they fought for now becoming useless?

Would they call for a revolution?

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/spirit-of-revolution.html#more

Filed Under: America, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, Crime, Culture, Dissenters, Financial Crisis, Imperialism, Military, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Nuclear, Occupy, Politicians, Protests, Radiation, Revolution, Rights, Science, Social Unrest, Surveillance, Technology, War Tagged With:
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