CIO HEROES!!
Edward Snowden!
Edward Snowden is an American hero who has significantly raised public awareness about the United States' government's threat to global freedom by using extreme and illegal measures of surveillance.
Massive police action cracks down on Occupy Oakland
Police Raid Occupy Oakland Camp, By MALIA WOLLAN; Re-posted from The New York Times, November 14, 2011
OAKLAND, Calif. — Hundreds of police officers in riot gear raided the Occupy Oakland encampment downtown on Monday morning, making arrests and flattening tents after city officials had issued several warnings for protesters to abandon the camp in the wake of the fatal shooting last week of a man who had been staying there.
The pre-dawn raid was the second on the encampment, one of hundreds that have sprung up around the country in which protesters are calling for a variety of reforms, many of them aimed at corporations and the financial industry.
When the police arrived at Frank Ogawa Plaza on Monday at about 4 a.m., there were far fewer demonstrators at the camp than usual because many of them were marching in a nearby intersection and others had already departed because of rumors of an impending police crackdown.
The authorities quickly set up metal barricades between the crowd and the camp and then moved into the plaza, arresting 32 people as police helicopters with spotlights circled overhead.
Unlike the first raid, on Oct. 25, when the Oakland police shot projectiles and used tear gas against demonstrators, there was no reported violence Monday, and by midmorning, there were only about two dozen protesters left in the streets around the plaza. City workers, dressed in white coveralls, had begun to clear the plaza of tents and other belongings accumulated during the more than month-long demonstration.
At a news conference, Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland said that dismantling the encampment, which toward its peak had about 200 tents, was in the best interest of the protesters.
“We had to bring the camp to an end before more people were hurt,” she said.
City officials said the plaza might reopen to the public as early as Monday evening, but that camping or sleeping there would be prohibited.
“There will be a strong police presence at the plaza 24-7,” said Howard Jordan, Oakland’s police chief.
The raid, which involved seven different law enforcement agencies, cost the city $300,000 to $500,000, officials said.
photo credit: Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Officers arrested a man at the Occupy Oakland camp. After a series of warnings over the weekend, police closed the camp early Monday morning and arrested protesters who remained.
image source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/us/police-raid-occupy-oakland-camp.html
Posted in AUSTERITY, CAPITAL, CAPITALISM, CENSORSHIP, DEFENSE DEPARTMENT, DEMOCRACY, ECONOMY, EMPIRE, FASCISM, GLOBALIZATION, GOVERNMENT, HOMELAND SECURITY, OCCUPY ALL STREETS!, OCCUPY OAKLAND!, POLICY, political, PROTESTS, RESOURCES, THE 99%
Tagged #occupyoakland, CAPITAL, capitalism, corporate capitalism, permanent underclass, sit/lie law, The Corporate State
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Makana Wears ‘Occupy With Aloha’ Shirt While Playing For Obama, Other World Leaders
By Zaid Jilani
ThinkProgress
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum is currently being held in Honolulu, Hawaii, bringing together many of the world’s leaders in both the public and private sectors. Last night, APEC held a gala attended by President Obama and his wife in addition to a number of other world leaders.
Hawaiian guitarist Makana, who had previously played at the White House in 2009, was slated to play at the gala. Rather than play his normal routine, Makana decided to make a statement. He opened his suit jacket to reveal a shirt that read “Occupy Aloha.” He then proceeded to play a protest ballad title “We Are the Many,” wherein he blasted corporate lobbyists and called on Americans to occupy “the streets.” He played this protest song for 45 minutes in a room full of the world’s elite.
He later uploaded a video where he talked about why he did what he did, including some footage of him playing for the world leaders. Watch Makana’s video:
Posted in ARTISTS/ACTIONS, CAPITALISM, OCCUPY ALOHA!, PROTESTS, SOLUTIONS
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Rags to Riches: Who Should Really Care?
Not the 99 percent. We’ve let the cheerleaders for the richest among us get away with myths about mobility for much, much too long.
By Sam Pizzigati
Too Much
Mobility, apologists for America’s grand fortunes love to argue, trumps inequality.
Our society may be deeply unequal, the argument goes, but that doesn’t really matter — because anybody in America, with a little grit, can get rich. In our “land of opportunity,” no one has any legitimate reason to grouse.
Researchers over recent years have unveiled a ton of data that demolishes this “land of opportunity” mobility mythology. Fewer and fewer Americans are getting ahead, they’ve documented, as America has become more unequal.
And the world’s most equal developed nations, researchers have also shown, have significantly more social mobility than the distinctly unequal United States.
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Posted in CAPITALISM, ECONOMY, GOVERNMENT, GREED, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES, INCOME INEQUALITY, POLICY, THE 99%
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OCCUPY Los Angeles! Robert Reich speech. November 5th, 2011
Posted in CAPITALISM, DEMOCRACY, GOVERNMENT, GREED, OCCUPY LA!, PROTESTS, SOLUTIONS
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California Refuses to Accept Obama’s Banking Sellout
By Robert Scheer
TruthDig
There is no three-strikes law for crooked bankers, not even a law for a fifth strike, as The New York Times reported in the case of Citigroup, cited last month in a $1 billion fraud case. Unlike the California third-striker I once wrote about whom a district attorney wanted banished forever to state prison for stealing a piece of pizza from the plate of a person dining outdoors, Citigroup executives get off with a fine and by offering a promise not to do it again, and again and again.
As the Times reported when Citigroup agreed to settle SEC charges last month: “Citigroup’s main brokerage subsidiary, its predecessors or its parent company agreed to not violate the very same antifraud statue in July 2010. And in May 2006. Also as far back as March 2005 and April 2000.”
Not that the bankers face prison time, since the Justice Department has refused to act in these cases, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is bringing only civil charges, which the banks find quite tolerable. This time, the fine against Citigroup was $285 million, which may sound like a lot except that the bank raked off as much as $700 million on this particular toxic securities deal. As the Bloomberg news service editorialized, “… there should be only one answer from Jed S. Rakoff, the federal judge in New York assigned to weigh the merits of the agreement: You’ve got to be kidding.”
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Naomi Klein on Delay of Keystone XL Oil Pipeline Decision Until 2013
Posted in CAPITALISM, ENVIRONMENT, POLICY, PROTESTS, SOLUTIONS
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The Big Whale Circus – A Metaphor for Capitalism
The Big Whale Circus segment from the short Cat Soup has always struck me as a great metaphor for capitalism ….
Posted in art, CAPITALISM
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