Oh yeah: Bradley Manning

Remember the guy who's accused of sending Wikileaks the 'treasure-trove' of information from 'the field' in Iraq and Afghanistan? Much of what the world saw is evidence of war crimes. Here's his status--first through F.A.I.R.'s report on the corporate-media-cold-treatment of the story, then from Democracy Now! (exclamation theirs!) DN! has some more recent updates, too.
http://fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/turning-their-back-on-bradley-manning/
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/30/accused_wikileaks_whistleblower_bradley_manning_testifies

(To be clear: Our editors like the "!" at DemocracyNow!)

Economic STRESS: Americans working harder and earning less--economist Richard Wolff

If you have had the feeling that Americans are stressed out, working harder and earning less, or if you disagree with these notions, you might find these links valuable:

Economist Richard Wolff talks about Americans working WAY harder, and earning the same or less since 1978. If you don't want to watch the whole video, then I suggest zooming up to about 22:00, where Wolff gets into the American economy working well (for most) from the late 1940's until 1978--but not since. He talks about what the drop in compensation has meant to people: less time away from work, more stress, more divorces, more "fast-food", poorer health, more medications, etc. (For this segment, zoom to 22:00 - 35:00.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZU3wfjtIJY

FYI: I think American capitalism needs to be heavily regulated, not abandoned; and I don't know what Wolff thinks about this, because as he goes on, he doesn't actually get to that subject, at least not specifically. His analysis of workers' reality, however, seems to me to be right on target, and has been very helpful to my thinking.

Wolff does talk about other models of business that may be preferable to the dominant American workplace model, and his ideas here are extremely interesting; but again, he's not exactly clear about how or whether these models would replace "capitalism" writ large. I find this avoidance fairly common among those who condemn capitalism generally; I also find it somewhat annoying, since key questions remain. For example: Can any companies or corporate investment practices be smart, sustainable, and fair to workers, consumers and the public? Can individuals and entities like pension funds participate--and earn money--in our economy by helping businesses grow in such a responsible manner?

--For some hard data (a reference text) on productivity vs. wages, etc, here's a page with some helpful graphs. (It also includes a few very busy, confusing graphs--you'll know 'em when you see 'em--which I suggest SKIPPING!) Mother Jones is known as a liberal-progressive enterprise, but I find them to be highly credible and responsible journalists--please let me know, and provide examples and explanations, if you find otherwise:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts

--BTW, the NY Times has reported on similar data, even before the $#!% hit the fan in 2008. Witness this report from the summer of 2006:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/business/28wages.html?pagewanted=all

Want to geek out on some Presidential Election polling?  I suggest Nate Silver's blog, FiveThirtyEight, at the NY Times site.  Silver was the one voice I remember correctly predicting the outcome of the 2008 election, among almost total agreement in the corporate press that the election was basically a toss-up. Hopefully working in the belly of the beast doesn't skew Silver's responsible, thorough, very shrewd perspective.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

Good take on Occupy Oakland from--surprise!--the SFMOMA blogosphere!

"...There is a reason Occupy Wall Street advocates nonviolence: it works... Black bloc is black bloc, not Occupy Wall Street. Two different groups... So, on one hand we have Cops Gone Wild, and on the other hand we have Black Bloc Gone Wild. Why don’t they get together and do a reality TV show and leave the Occupy movement out of it so Occupy can get some work done?"  --I couldn't agree more, although I don't like the article's title much:

http://blog.sfmoma.org/2012/02/why-is-occupy-oakland-so-crazy-2/

Example: Demands of a People's Movement

Bobby Seale explains the Ten-Point Program:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPP0hiLuxdQ&feature=related

Harvard Business School talks "RUNAWAY CAPITALISM"

Look, I'm only as brilliant and dense as the next fool, but even Harvard's Business School is talking about how American capitalism is wrecking itself:
http://hbr.org/2012/01/runaway-capitalism/ar/1

Michelle Alexander on Colbert

Michelle Alexander (author, The New Jim Crow) was on the Colbert Report May 8--she was ON-POINT, especially her final comments:
http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/tue-may-8-2012-michelle-alexander

May Day March for Dignity and Resistance!

Two strong accounts from a local online "newspaper".

With some slight 'background' discrepancies, this account is accurate from my own perspective as a participant in the march. The comments are a good read, too:
http://oaklandlocal.com/article/how-occupied-oakland-co-opted-citys-historic-immigrant-rights-march-reflection

Here's another report, mainly accentuating the positive:
http://oaklandlocal.com/posts/2012/05/oakland-may-day-march-brings-out-thousands-advocate-immigrant-rights-community-voices

PSA from the 99%

Spring is springing: If you haven't seen the Public Service Announcement from The 99%, it's worth a look: http://www.the99power.org/a-public-service-announcement-from-the-99/#post-270
 

Matt Taibbi on Democracy Now--one year ago (plus a couple months)

"Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?"http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/22/matt_taibbi_why_isnt_wall_street

MATT TAIBBI:We have two-and-a-half million people in jail this country, you know, more than a million who are in jail for nonviolent crimes. And yet, we couldn’t find a single person on Wall Street to do even a day in jail for losing 40 percent of the world’s wealth in a criminal fraud scheme? ...this goes beyond the cliché that rich people have better lawyers and they have an advantage. This is a step beyond that. This is a situation where the system is completely corrupted, and it’s true regulatory capture. The SEC and the Justice Department are essentially subsidiaries of Wall Street.

AMY GOODMAN: Matt Taibbi, his new article for Rolling Stone magazine, "Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?" And you can go to our website for our web exclusive part two of that conversation. Who else does Matt Taibbi think should be in jail? http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/2/22/matt_taibbi_why_isnt_wall_street_in_jail

***HIGHLY RECOMMENDED***
IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN VETERANS OF AMERICA--their Twitter site is a great way to get to real news on veterans issues, as well as reporting about active-duty personnel, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and foreign policy: https://twitter.com/#!/iavapressroom

IAVA is an organization for veterans, by veterans.  Please pass this link/URL along to anyone you know who is serving or has served in the U.S. military--it's a great organization: http://www.iava.org

Matt Taibbi on Bank of America--a bank that doesn't deserve people's business.

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/22/too_crooked_to_fail_matt_taibbi

Financial $ection

Matt Taibbi--Always interesting reporting on bank crimes and misdemeanors:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog

Companies That Pay Lobbyists--Not Taxes
http://www.uspirg.org/news/usp/thirty-fortune-500-companies-paid-more-lobby-congress-they-did-federal-income-taxes

Big Deals for Democracy, if you ask me.

"Fair to the truth": A clear article on the new NPR standards:

 http://pressthink.org/index.html\ 

   http://npr.org

 

A Wall Street insider quits--and tells what his firm, Goldman-Sachs, thinks of their investor clients:
nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs

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Occupy Update, March 10, 2012

Occupy protest groups and information:
Occupy Oakland:  http://www.occupyoakland.org
* This Saturday: Occupy Oakland's First Community Speak-Out and Cook-Out, Sat. March 17th:
http://occupyoakland.org/2012/03/first-bbq-community-event-march-17th
* Occupy Oakland has two General Assemblies each week: Wednesdays 6pm, at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza, in front of City Hall; and Sundays 2pm, 20th & Telegraph, in the park just 'north' of the Fox Theater

Occupy San Francisco:  http://www.occupysf.org

Occupy Wall Street:  http://www.ows.org

A national hub of organized Occupy groups:  http://www.occupytogether.org

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Recent Occupy protest-related headlines:

Banks: Women Occupy Protesters Arrested While Busting Corporate Greed & Big Bank Corruption on International Women’s Day
http://www.womenoccupy.org/

Banks: New Whistleblower Cases Allege Continued Bank Fraud; Mortgage Modifications and Appraisal Processes in Question—also posted on International Women's Day by the Center for Public Integrity
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/03/09/8359/new-whistleblower-cases-allege-continued-bank-fraud

Voting Rights: A March from Montgomery to Selma for voting rights—not 1965, but 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marian-wright-edelman/the-american-promise-the_b_1335951.html
Voting Rights: Good news for people who like the idea of eligible voters actually getting to vote!
http://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/ohio-poised-roll-back-dangerous-voter-suppression-law

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Agenda: Occupy protesters are working to:

1. stop foreclosures and help homeowners renegotiate “underwater” mortgages
2. investigate, prosecute, and punish banking criminals, and reform banking regulations
3. restore and reform public educational funding
4. reform tax laws to set rates for workers and businesses/corporations at reasonable, fair, historically precedented and socially healthy levels
5. get corporate money out of political elections and legislation, and put strong limits on campaign contributions—and overturn the “Citizens United” Supreme Court ruling
6. restore and protect voting rights from unnecessary and exclusionary voter-ID laws
7. stop excessive and ecologically threatening energy extraction—including the Keystone XL Pipeline
8. tax extraction of energy resources that belong to the people, such as oil-drilling and coal-mining
9. reform policing and the criminal justice system, including:
        punishing/stopping police brutality and harassment
        punishing/stopping racial profiling and guilt-by-association
        repealing the “three-strikes” law and other excessive minimum-sentencing requirements 
        enacting/restoring humane conditions for prisoners—and realizing the correction/rehabilitation concept
10. protect and restore* the rights of workers, including collective-bargaining, minimum wages, and safety regulations—in several states, legislation has recently stripped these and other rights
11. protect immigrants and undocumented workers—and their children—from unfair immigration laws and over-zealous enforcement
12. build social services that meet the needs of people, including employment, housing, health care, mental healthcare, and financial counseling
13. shrink military spending, and end U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
--and that's a condensed list!

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Ongoing News Coverage and Commentary on Occupy:  
DemocracyNow!: http://www.democracynow.org/
Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley's radio show, Smiley & West:  http://www.smileyandwest.com/radio.html
Indybay's coverage—the Global Justice page: http://www.indybay.org/globalization/
Common Dreams' coverage and links:  http://www.commondreams.org/category/occupy
Communication, Coverage and Commentary from within Occupy:
The Occupied Wall Street Journal: http://occupiedmedia.us/
Occupied Oakland Tribune: http://occupiedoaktrib.org/

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Essay:  More Than Enough Unproductive Violence—Mainly from Police
by Chris Weidenbach, English Dept., Laney College, Oakland CA

        One of the strongest themes of the Occupy movement—including OWS and OO—has been police overreaction, aggression, and definite instances of criminal brutality, much of which has gone unpunished and under-punished, and under-reported in corporate media.  Often the police have used a few protesters' own criminal activity, which has been extremely scarce, as an excuse to crack down more heavily than necessary.  When they do, they crack down on not just the individuals who have behaved badly, but on anyone standing or walking in the spaces between the police and those individuals, regardless of those innocent people's peaceful, non-violent, non-criminal behavior.  Such police action has worsened the public's opinion of the police, which in Oakland is already mixed at best; far worse, it has invited more volatile and sometimes truly violent responses from a few (very few) protesters.  Those responses again invite police to use whatever force they can claim they are technically allowed to use on anyone they can claim they are technically allowed to use it on—which brings yet more innocent protesters under the police web. 

        When police have had an excuse, i.e. whenever protesters are legally subject to arrest or use of force, whether or not those people are the ones causing the ruckus and the police reaction, the police have frequently responded more heavily than seems necessary from a common-sense perspective; if such overreaction goes unattended by the people's government officials, then the legitimacy of those officials' leadership comes into question—as it has.  Furthermore, police have frequently gone beyond their legally sanctioned force, and into territory that must be defined as police violence against peacefully intentioned, law-abiding people; or police brutality; criminal acts by police officers.  One would be forgiven for wondering why the police don't apply the same standards and tactics they use for protesters in response to crimes committed by their fellow criminal officers; instead, we have seen little to nothing in terms of any justice-seeking response to these police officers' infractions and crimes.

        Both peaceful protesters and law-abiding police officers can rightly claim their distinction from “a few bad apples”, but only police officers have the sworn duty to enforce the law, and only those police who properly do enforce the law against unlawful acts by their fellow police officers can truly separate themselves from those “bad apples”; any officers who knowingly disregard unlawful actions by other officers are indeed breaking their vow, breaking the law, and thus joining the ranks of the non-law-abiders, the criminals—oh my goodness!—they are joining the ranks of the Bad Apples!

        To be sure, some irresponsible actions have been taken by individual protesters and some groups of protesters numbering between a handful at two or three marches, up to maybe a hundred people on three notable occasions in Oakland: on the evening of Oct. 25, 2011, late at night on Nov. 2, 2011, and during the afternoon and evening of Jan. 28, 2012.  The most irresponsible element of actions like breaking into a building owned by someone else, or trying to; or inciting police by shouting profanity, pushing them, throwing objects at them, or vandalizing their vehicles; or using any physical force against police, including vigorously resisting arrest, in my opinion, is not the fact that they lack the purity of non-violent protest, although that element does also hurt the movement by creating a barrier between the movement and the great many people who demand that non-violent purity if they are ever going to participate; rather, the main reason any violence or vandalism or breaking-and-entering is irresponsible is that it gives the police a clear excuse to respond, and thus endangers other protesters who are trying to participate without risking their health and well-being—and their very lives.  Not only are these people's security threatened by police overreaction to illegal acts, and thus those illegal acts themselves, but the peaceful protesters are likely to think twice about future participation, and some have been outspoken about standing down until Occupy Oakland as an organization makes a commitment to non-violence. 

        To be clear, some protesters caught up in these conflicts with police have been energized and brought to a higher level of commitment. But it must be acknowledged that the movement will definitely find the greatest  success if it finds the greatest possible effective participation, and I have yet to hear of multitudes of non-participants just waiting for the movement make a commitment against non-violence.  Occupy Oakland has indeed embraced “a diversity of tactics”—phrasing many of us participants think of as mind-numbingly vague—in some of its press releases and statements on its website, but this is not any kind of resolved position declared by the ad-hoc organization that can call itself Occupy Oakland; the extent of this embrace is simply that the organization has not made a resolution-level decision to be completely non-violent.

        The best way forward for those who share my concerns about avoiding all rationalizeable police violence—as well as “collateral damage” and violence that comes from other protesters is to do the following: 1) participate only in events that are declared to be non-violent, and/or participate in such a manner as to protect ourselves from any potential violence; 2) participate at the general assemblies, and in the public discussion generally, and advocate your non-violent, non-instigating values; and 3) ultimately move a resolution forward that commits the organization to non-violent actions.  The first suggestion involves understanding police tactics and the legal limitations on their use of force and intimidation; but regardless of police and protesters abiding by law, those   committed to non-violence must be able to anticipate potentially dangerous situations, and either de-escalate them or get physically clear of them.  The second suggestion requires only a time-commitment.  The third would require steady commitment and a willingness to strike up conversations and present a non-violence proposal to the General Assembly, most likely through their Facilitation Committee.  The best chance of success will involve some advocates serving on the Facilitation Committee, or somehow putting steady pressure on the committee to give a non-violence proposal a fair hearing, serious consideration, and a vote in the GA.

        People who like the general idea of Occupy, but are dissuaded from getting involved because they are afraid of being associated with violence and property-damage by some protesters, and/or of being assaulted or detained during police reactions and overreactions—those people, people like myself, need to engage ourselves in the process of building this movement, and work to shape it.  It's time for us to occupy the movement.  It's not only possible to help steer this movement; it's one of the only impactful organizations built on the basis of including the voices of literally everyone concerned enough to participate.  The model for our proper response to any problems we see within Occupy is basically the same model the movement itself is employing in response to the problems of the 1%-friendly political and economic systems: Occupy Occupy!  If we don't, then the local, national and international Occupy movement may not get much farther—and any of us who help it stall by sitting out will have to quietly shoulder a share of the blame. 
(end)

Here's a set of links to dig into as the New Year begins!

Cenk Uygur  Host of The Young Turks says,
The Revolution Begins in 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-revolution-begins-in-_b_1178201.html
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This pro-capitalist investment-news guy speaks the language of non-partisan disgust with financial governance:
Dylan Ratigan’s “rant” that began his Get Money Out / United Republic campaign for a Constitutional amendment to get money out of politics--gets really good about one-third of the way through:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gIcqb9hHQ3E

and the website for the Get Money Out campaign:

http://www.getmoneyout.com/

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Are Journalists US 2012 campaign insiders?

Inside Story America,Al Jazeera.com

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryus2012/2011/12/2011122981121742202.html

With these polling figures in mind--:  (Source: Harvard Kennedy School study 2008)

60% distrust campaign media coverage

90% election media focuses too much on trivial matters

80% media coverage influence is too great

--What are the qualifications to be treated as a legitimate candidate, and what are the standards for coverage?

Eleanor Clift, Newsweek

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now

Rocky Anderson, Justice Party candidate for President, former mayor of Salt Lake City, NV

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Brief interview including EIGHT DEMANDS

Rev. Jesse Jackson

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/01/progressives-plan-to-challenge-obama-in-iowa/

Excerpts:

“We have so much room to fight, that we must not fight each other.

We can learn from each other how to best organize, but let’s not get carried away with our perfect strategies.

All our ideas have to find common ground for us to win.

We all want to end corporate greed

We all want to end corporations as a person with a vote

We all want to end voter suppresion

We all want to end student loan exploitation

We all want to end unnecessary, expensive war

We all want to wipe out malnutrition without wiping out the malnourished

We all want women’s rights to self-determination

We all want racial justice and gender equality

--Now y’all, that’s a lot to grill.  So for one thing, right now, let’s keep Occupy so big that it can’t be ignored!  Occupy streets, jail cells, voter booths!” 

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Rocky Anderson forms Justice Party, plans to run for president

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705395124/Rocky-Anderson-forms-Justice-Party-plans-to-run-for-president.html?pg=1
excerpt:  “[Rocky]...Anderson sees [the Justice Party] as a grassroots movement that over the long term will bring about the shift in American politics that he says citizens crave..."[The people] want to see an alternative party. They recognize that these two militarist, corporatist parties have brought us to this disastrous place to where we are today."
One of Utah's most liberal politicians, Anderson renounced his affiliation with the Democratic Party in August, saying he was fed up with it along with Congress, the Obama administration and Republicans. He reiterated that disgust during the interview.
"We've been voting as a nation against our own interests year after year," he said. "Most Americans — whether they consider themselves on the right, left, center, whatever — understand that their interests have been undermined by these folks in Washington, both in the White House and in Congress, who are acting as if they're on retainer with their largest campaign contributors rather than doing what's in the public's interest."

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