Occupy is Here to Stay

“Elections are something that Occupy needs to continue to avoid, the Obama-Romney debate is not a discussion of the concerns of the American people." Kevin Zeese

About the utter futility of the American election, I couldn't agree more Mr. Zeese and I know how that infuriates my liberal friends. Those same friends who justify every election by pointing out the reactionary evil of the "other" choice: Romney, McCain, Bush, Dole, Bush, Reagan, Ford, Nixon and on and on. I have been arguing for nearly forty years that the two party system is the death knell of authentic reform. Well finally there is an alternative.

For my few loyal conservative readers: Obama, Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, Mondale, Carter. It really does work both ways.

I want to recommend a truly inspired article by Chris Hedges Occupy Will Be Back. He not only makes the historical point about the power elite's attempts to suppress true reform movements but he also speaks to the "Enforcement Structure" - the real roadblock to the country you have yearned for in your progressive dreams. 

I will say it again - we must abandon the system that shackles justice, integrity and freedom. The democrat (republican) party is not the answer. Occupy Is!

The Many Sides of Occupy

Yes your voice needs to be heard. We should all speak up. There does come a point, however, when everyone is talking and no one is listening. Occupy seems to have been overwhelmed with a multitude of issues and a cacophony of voices.

Adbusters were the folks who started the Occupy movement, you remember a couple of tents in Zuccotti Park and the single phrase - Occupy Wall Street. They put out an excellent article titled the Battle for the Soul of Occupy. Now their fight is with the "remnants of the old left" as they state it but the dilution of the Occupy message is at the heart of the issue no matter who is putting yet another noun after "Occupy _______."

I spent time in the Occupy Oakland camp and Occupy Berkeley as well, here the problem was a multiplicity of causes and the tactics being employed. An article the Cancer in Occupy speaks to the local issues.

"Occupy Oakland anarchists, economic homeless, psychologically homeless and dangerous, street kids without cause or purpose, foreclosure occupy, education, occupy, native american occupy complete with their separate teepees and cloaked secret rituals whitey can't participate in."

Silence is complicity with evil but noise for the sake of noise is just that - noise.

Occupy Wall Street was attempting to address the income inequality and the greed and government sanctioned theft that Wall Street has become. But Is It (Still) Occupy is a question worth asking. I am not advocating for message purity but remember early on the media tried to dismiss the entire Occupy movement by asking: "but what is your message?" Now it appears they are too many causes, needs and special interest groups. All the while Wall Street lumbers on pillaging pension funds, draining homeowner equity and lining their pockets; all blissfully unregulated by the talking heads in Washington.

Open Letter to Barack Obama

I have had this Open Letter in one version or another queued up several times this year but never pulled the trigger. First, it was a idealistic suggestion that the president consider getting his heart and soul into line with his political actions.

But that will never happen. As the saying goes - 'anyone who aspires to be president, should be automatically disqualified from holding the office.' Politicians are politicians, which means they have embraced a profession which by it's very definition demands they lie and distort.

Somehow over the many decades we have accepted a system that turns good, wise, compassionate people into liars, spinners, garble-mouthed politicians and then we expect them to act honestly and fairly once they are in office. What the system does well is to dissuade anyone with a conscience from running for public office.

So no exhortation to Barack to be more than he can be. No three point plan to turn the country around "if only we had the vision and heart to . . ." The sad truth is we all suffer, the 99% both here and around the world because we have indeed let our system of governance be turned over to politicians and they have sold it to the highest bidders.

So whether Obama's team knits together a win in November or Romney gets his shot. Nothing is really going to change. We the people dropped the ball and Washington D.C. is so far removed from us now that they are not even listening anymore. Why should they, we aren't the ones paying the tab.

Occupy Oakland

Oakland has once again become the center of the Occupy movement on the West Coast. Last night was the largest confrontation with the most extreme violations of law and civil rights by both sides. Again I got close enough to the action to report but not so close that I am in jail. Over four hundred protesters and bystanders were arrested. Lots of tear gas and bean bag projectiles were fired by the renegade Oakland police and their support troops. Yes, rocks and bottles were thrown by protesters; I have already said their were violations on both sides.

But I wonder just how Yahoo News justifies this type of reporting, when all over the internet were onsite commentaries like this one. In fairness, it looks like the NYTimes basically rewrote the main stream media's press release as well. "Three police officers injured and one protester." I was three blocks away and saw over two dozen battered protesters receiving medical attention.

By the way if you want to feel the moment of conversion from a peaceful protester into a radical police hating revolutionary, read this post.

Another Year End Pause

"I must say lately I've been feeling a bit consumed 
by all this writing." 

For the past several months my blog has been dominated by the Occupy Movement. Elsewhere I have had myself on a very strict writing routine on another project. I have not been using the blog as a creative outlet as much as I have in the past. It would seem that my relationship with this blog is changing.

Last year I took a year end break from blogging, I am going to do somewhat the same this year. So for those who have not been fans of the political writing, there is some good news - I really hate to discard content I've had on hold the last few months, so I have half a dozen visual posts queued up for your viewing pleasure between now and the new year.

Enjoy!

---

As I look back the number of blog posts per year has risen steadily since I began here nearly five years ago.

In 2007 I wrote 40 blog posts, mostly about poker.
In 2008, I was up to 56, still mostly poker
In 2009 there were 160 posts and I made the shift away from poker.
I was up to 186 posts in 2010.
2011 will reach over 240  daily offerings before we hear Auld Lang Syne .

While I take the remainder of '11 off from actively writing the blog, I am also going to reconsider how I want to engage in this exercise with myself and with all of you going into 2012. My first post of the new year will address whatever plans I hatch over the holidays. I have been tempted to start a second all political blog but again that would take away from my other writing for which I might actually get paid.

I know I have been single minded and a bit harsh over the last several months, I literally have been Occupied. So no more politics (here) until 2012.

Peace,

Tim

Some Personally Occupied Perspective

Call this my penultimate post of the year, check back Sunday for more on that.

I want to look at the four major points I have discovered in the past two months that are driving the Occupy Movement, the Tea Party and me personally.

I. Income Inequality, which for me is better expressed as Opportunity Inequality. The land of the free and the home of the brave has become a rigged game. Wall Street and Washington DC have conspired to put the American Dream so far in debt that none of us will ever have the opportunities our national government was originally formed to preserve and defend. We must tear down those institutions that are too big to fail, because only the nation deserves that label and if we do nothing - the nation will fall.

II. Money in Politics. This one has surprised me. I really had no sense of just how angry the overwhelming majority of citizens are that the government has been bought. Everybody knows it. Everyone is mad as hell about it, except those doing the buying. Once again we see the coalition of greed between Wall Street and elected officials. It has got to stop or we will get the same result - the nation will fall.

III. The Main Stream Media. No one trusts them anymore. No one. Several of my conservative friends gave up on Fox News because they just knew the news would be slanted every single day on every single story. CNN may actually be worse with Wolf Blitzer's breathless excitement over the endless stale parade of republican debates and new polling results. The good news is that the internet provides so many avenues of excellent on-site sources for news and commentary from the thoughtful to the extremely paranoid. Everyone can tune in the ultimate in Free Speech.

IV. The Department of Defense. For me, defense spending has been at the heart of our budget problems for decades. Do you realize the United States still maintains a force of nearly 30,000 troops in South Korea nearly 60 years after the military conflict ended. Not to mention huge bases in Germany and Italy staffed and maintained since WWII. Just last week Barack Obama agreed to huge new military expenditures for a U.S. presence in Australia.

To put it simply. We are not the police force for the world. We should not be. The U.S. Constitution is not a blueprint for the world. There actually are other cultures different from the one we know and they are not for lack of a huge military inferior to ours.

Cutting the U.S. Defense Department by 25%* would fully fund programs in health, education and research; including government seed monies for research and development to reassert the U.S. economy on the world stage. But we can do none of these things if we keep dumping billions of dollars into foreign wars that drain our resources not to mention maiming and wounding our military.

*By the way, none of the DoD cuts should come out of veteran's benefits for medical services or counseling.

V. Other issues. Yes, there are more. You probably don't agree with my top four. The Occupy Movement is about facilitating all voices; the needs and demands of those voices. Occupy is a call for deep change—not temporary fixes and single-issue reforms—this is the movement’s sustaining power. Here are some things you can do to get involved.

-and here is an analysis of Occupy from Mother Jones that is worth considering even if you haven't been in a tent in twenty years:

"The occupations provided a catalyst, but the most interesting conversations haven't taken place in the camps via the human mic. They've happened among the millions of people who found that kids in tents were quite effectively articulating their own sense of abandonment. What comes next is the question that should occupy us in 2012, and beyond."

Us vs. Them

Even using non-violent tactics against the establishment does not mean that thoughtful, liberal politicians will not respond with violence. Mayor Quan of Oakland admitted in an interview with the BBC that she had participated in "a conference call with 18 other cities" on how to end the Occupy encampments.

If you think these local city mayors are not taking orders from higher up the political machine chain, you just don't follow American politics closely enough. But here's the point - all these attacks do is give fuel to those small number in the protests who want to be violent. Throw one of us to the lions and three more step forward and one of those is not a non-violence player.

This is going to get more and more ugly. More arrests, more injuries and eventually there will be deaths. The police will resort to murder in defense of America's parks. But, of course, this has nothing to do with tents or parks or any physical aspect of Occupy. "They" are afraid we might succeed and their rape of the American and World economies will be stopped. It is all about money, power and greed. Those with all the stolen riches are scared and they are sending their minions to stop us.

They will not.

Occupy & Baby Boomers

Email President Obama.

Today's Read

"Those who think that the cold weather will end the protests should think again. A new generation of leaders is just getting started. The new progressive age has begun."

Yes, today's must read comes from the New York Times, so my conservative readers will know it must be left wing propaganda. But give it a read anyway, you might find as others have that we share a lot more in common these days than ever before in our lifetimes. The article has a historical bent about how we got into economic troubles in the past and how we dug ourselves out.

The article is called The New Progressive Movement

Remember I read all of the articles you send me, so you owe yourself this one.

Questions for a Conservative Friend

OK, I really don't understand. I've tried, I've listened; but I just don't get it. Perhaps my friends and readers on the right will explain this to me. Rather than write yet another "left wing" litany of the evils of the corporate takeover of American; here is a letter to a good, very conservative friend asking him some specific questions about his life. All responses, comments and chortles are welcomed.

Dear Alex,

Please help me understand your position, I really do want to understand. I enjoy our back and forth politically charged emails. But if you don't mind,  I would like to get serious for a moment and ask you to explain to me why you still hold the economic beliefs you do.

Four years ago when you activated your retirement plan you bought that great place in Arizona and put your St. Paul house on the market. I know that had been your retirement plan since early in the 90s when you refinanced the Minnesota home, consolidated your debt and started your business. I understand that was a 15 plan you had that was both well thought out and financially viable. You didn't take some crazy negative amortization refinance loan, you got a solid 30 yr. fixed rate and took the extra cash out of your house to start your business. The plan was to sell that house and put the equity into the Arizona place so you could retire without a mortgage.

Now, however, you have two houses, two mortgages and thankfully a long-term tenant in the St. Paul place. But both properties are underwater, even that beautiful St. Paul house is worth less than the mortgage you refinanced nearly 18 years ago. You didn't take a loan you weren't qualified for, you always paid on time and I know you would never walk away from either property. As you have said many times - a mortgage is a contract and you honor your debts.

Someone(s) clearly screwed with the real estate market.

Then there is your retirement. You sold your business for a nice chunk of cash and a ten year payout based on the profitability of the business. But the economic collapse means that business has done poorly under new ownership. I know you have been advising the young guy who bought it and I know he is working his butt off to stay in business, but as a consequence of the double down economy your retirement nest egg is producing almost no income for you. You started taking social security even though your well thought out retirement plan was to wait to do that until you were 70.

Someone(s), perhaps the same someone(s), screwed with the economy.

So here are my questions. You worked hard, made a solid financial plan and the bottom fell out. But you are a smart guy, you know why this happened, you know who got rich, yet you still support them.

Alex, you are not one of the 0.1% who got richer in the financial collapse. You aren't one of the 1% or even the 10%; you are a middle class guy who did everything right and then got screwed by a system rigged to make other people rich at your expense. So why do you still support them?

Why do you oppose taxing the uber-wealthy? You aren't one of them and never will be. You know they stole your retirement and everything you worked years for. You have kids, you know how they are suffering because of the greed of Wall Street, yet you still act like corporate America is honest, straight forward and has your best interest at heart. You are too damn smart to actually believe that, so why not start acting and thinking in your own best interest?

To get your retirement plan, your life plan, back on track the financial corporations, banks and yes, Wall Street have to be brought under control. The unregulated free market screwed you and you are not the type of guy to just take something like that lying down. So, yes your dyed in the wool republican ethic got you where you were three or four years ago, but those ideas no longer serve you. So my question is:

Why not change?

Vote Obama? Hell no! That's just a different sleeping pill.

Support Occupy. Join the millions of Americans who have been screwed over my a non-responsive government that has clearly been bought and paid for my corporate America. Get this country and your retirement plan back on track. Stand Up! Speak Up! Don't let the olde right vs. left noize get in your way. Keeping us quiet is what the rich need. Making those Occupy camps go away is exactly what the rich want and they are paying their politicians to do exactly that. So I ask again:

Why not change? Why not act in your own self interest? You worked for your piece of the American Dream, why aren't you pissed at the people who stole it?

Penn State vs. Cal

Getting a college education should be about expanding your view of the world; about obtaining facts and opinions different from your own and thinking critically on those new ideas. So I have a reading and writing assignment for students at Penn State University and the University of California at Berkeley.

First for those Penn State students who participated in the riot Wednesday night in College Station. Here is a link to the Grand Jury Report on Jerry Sandusky, your former Penn football coach. Your assignment is to read it, all of it and then write a letter of apology to the Penn State Board of Trustees. Last night you lashed out with anger and the destruction of property in support of a rapist, a pedophile and those who kept silent when they knew of this monster's crimes against children. 

You should be ashamed.

Next, for the students are UC Berkeley who were peacefully protesting at that same hour and were attacked by elements of the UCB police force and the Alameda County Sheriffs Department. Your reading assignment is this report on the May 4th (1970) Shootings at Kent State University. Part of your university education should be history in context, what you did yesterday, what you will continue to do today and tomorrow is going to bring a response from the establishment. The response is likely to be violent and therefore not under anyone's control on-campus or off.

I applaud your zeal, I stand with you. I was there yesterday and will be back today, but I do not intend to sacrifice my health or my life to the armed minions of the 1%. I want you to be informed of exactly what it is you may face during the Occupy protests. Please read the Kent State report and be prepared.

For everyone else - Remember Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Sandy Schreuer and Jeffrey Miller.

Four Dead in Ohio - May 4th, 1970.

Teach Your Children Well

Parents are you feeling more and more like part of the 99%? Well, here is something else you need to think about, if you have kids away at college. Might I strongly suggest you contact the University administration and make it clear to them what your opinions are on the Occupy Movement. I was on the University of California at Berkeley campus yesterday afternoon when the riot thugs from Alameda County attacked peacefully demonstrating students. The riot gang then went away only to return around 9:30 PM and started instigating all over again.

Read one student's ordeal.

Up until now I have not even used the word "cops" when referring to the local police but those riot geared pigs were there today only to inflict pain and beat heads. I don't know what the Cal Regents were thinking or not thinking but calling out the same armed forces who attacked the demonstrators in Oakland last week was clearly not one of their more thoughtful moments.

Need we remind UCB officials and any other college or university administrators of the consequences of mixing armed militia with the student body.

False Words, False Hopes

"Last month protesters took to the streets across the country to demand their universal rights, a government that is accountable to them and responsive to their aspirations." - Barack Obama

To all my liberal and moderate friends out there. Before you even consider voting for Barack Obama again - watch this video. Listen to his words. Is this really the person you want leading your country? Perhaps a better question might be: Is this really the person who is leading anything at all?

Video

Don't look away - Watch the video.

Another Must Read

"It is vital that the occupation movements direct attention away from their encampments and tent cities, beset with the usual problems of hastily formed open societies where no one is turned away. Attention must be directed through street protests, civil disobedience and occupations toward the institutions that are carrying out the assaults against the 99 percent. Banks, insurance companies, courts where families are being foreclosed from their homes, city offices that put these homes up for auction, schools, libraries and firehouses that are being closed, and corporations such as General Electric that funnel taxpayer dollars into useless weapons systems and do not pay taxes, as well as propaganda outlets such as the New York Post and its evil twin, Fox News, which have unleashed a vicious propaganda war against us, all need to be targeted, shut down and occupied. Goldman Sachs is the poster child of all that is wrong with global capitalism, but there are many other companies whose degradation and destruction of human life are no less egregious." Chris Hedges TruthDig.com

There are several 'must read' articles every day that I would point out to you or are sent to me by my readers and friends. Yesterday's piece by Chris Hedges is one of the "must, must reads."

It will particular appeal to those who you know are part of Occupy but haven't quite had the light turned on yet. Circulate it to everyone who needs to engage in this protest against the greed and lack of humanity that threatens us all.

To Encamp or Not to Encamp

One of the major obstacles to the Occupy Movement is going to be - winter. There may have been a reason that the cultural upheaval in the Middle East is called the Arab Spring. But we're here and winter is coming. So let's say it flat out:

"Basing a once in a lifetime protest on fragile tent encampments, in February, in the Northern Hemisphere, might not be the best laid strategy to topple wall street and reform the world's financial institutions."

Which does not mean I don't support you and I will continue to march with you and donate supplies to the encampment. But at my age I am simply unable and unwilling to spend this winter in a tent. 

Yes, I know we are all "one lost job away from being on the street" but that is simply revolutionary rhetoric for most of the 99%. We are mostly two or three or more steps away from being homeless. We're older and yes perhaps softer or simply less adventuresome. Fine, not everyone will be in a tent come the new year.

But might it not make sense, where possible, to move Occupy indoors for the winter. Yes, that raises a lot of problems. Yes, that makes it easier for the reigning government to control and even raid the encampments. But there are abandoned buildings in most of the encampment cities. Buildings that can provide shelter and even utilities for the Occupy encampments.

Surely in some, if not many cities the local politicians would dearly desire to trade a city public space for an abandoned building. Teach-ins become easier with heat, media coverage does as well. Yes, there are logistical issues; not to mention negotiating with "the man." But this is all new ground for all of us - flexibility seems to be one of the natural characteristics of the Occupy Movement. So, shall we explore the reality of a tent city in winter before it's actually upon us?

Class Warfare

"It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn't be." -Warren Buffett

We hear a lot of sound bytes about class warfare these days. Yes, most of it comes from conservative politicians. This is what politicians do, they craft a message in ten seconds or less and then pass it off as thoughtful insight into the American psyche. Conservatives are no more guilty of this than Liberals, the right wing is simply better at it.

On the matter of class warfare there are really two rather obvious positions. First from the left: "Are you nuts? You think the Occupy Movement is a call to begin class warfare? Hell the rich have been at war with the poor for centuries, it's only recently that they have taken on the middle class as well." There really isn't a lot more to that argument, either you think the rich prosper at the expense of the rest of us or you don't. I have seen very little movement on the right in response to the arguments, facts and/or figures that have come out time and time again in the last six weeks.

The other argument is a bit more nuanced. It begins by suggesting that the essential democratic economic premise is simply that anyone can become wealthy in America. This endeavor requires some set of character traits that involve hard work, a great business plan and leadership skills. The argument further says that things like tax breaks, low corporate taxes and government subsidies are available to every business and that taking advantage of what the market offers is what the free enterprise system is all about. 

What both arguments fail to address, of course, are the people involved. There certainly are many wealthy Americans who use their capital for good through charities and other philanthropic deeds. A primary example would be Warren Buffett quoted above. But Mr. Buffett also knows that if the economy were thriving, if the middle class was not burdened with foreclosures, joblessness and shrinking retirement funds; if those things had not happened, he would be making even more money with his investments.

But back to class warfare. Is it getting worse? Yes. Does Occupy suggest it will get even more so, Yes. The facts are that much of the newly created wealth in America is stolen money. The simple facts behind the mortgage crisis that pushed the entire globe off this economic escarpment is that banks in the U.S.A. made horrible loans to unqualified borrowers. Then they packaged these loans to sell to pension funds and other financial institutions while, wait for it, paying off credit rating companies to grossly overrate the potential value of these hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans. Finally, after selling the loans, the banks bet on the predictable foreclosures and sold the debits short. They lied about the creditworthiness of the loans they sold and then turned around and bet those loans would go bad.

Criminal fraud pure and simple. And people suffered in all segments of the community but those are the bottom with the least ability to recover got hit the hardest. But truth be told, there would be no Occupy if the pain hadn't climbed so high and hurt so many. 

We are the 99% and we all got hurt by the greed of Wall Street. Otherwise there would be no encampments, no protests, no 99%.

So is there real class warfare happening in the United States today. Yes and it's going to get a lot worse if the political demagogs of both parties don't start listening soon.

For a somewhat different slant on class warfare, stuffed cabbage and Jimi Hendrix you might want to read my friend Arlene Goldbard.

Just a Question

Strike! - November 2, 2011

 4 PM Peaceful

6 PM Unified

 10 PM Unfortunately with a few fools.

2 AM and then the cops became the fools

Political Rorschach Test

This test has a 99.4% accuracy rate in predicting your deepest feelings regarding your innermost political positions on social and economic issues.

Ready?

Look for a moment at the five individuals in the foreground of the photograph above. Look at each face for five seconds, take in the emotional and cognitive meaning of those expressions.

Now, does the composite mental imagery you have remind you more of:

A) the Occupy protesters

or

B) the United States Congress

If you answered "A" you really need to get out more into the real world.
If you answered "B" you are correct, move to the head of the class; crowded up there isn't it?

If you answer "both" you are far too cynical, eat some chocolate.
If you answer "neither" you are just the sweetest lil pumpkin on the planet, stay the hell away from me.

Holiday High Hopes

Yesterday I took down the Halloween cartoon I had in the blog queue, it just didn't seem like the time for frivolity; then I found this.