Keeping you up-to-date with the #Occupy movement.

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Members of Congress bow to public pressure, backpedal on SOPA

Posted at 11:32 , January 14 2012

The Stop Online Piracy Act would effectively kill the free Internet. It has enjoyed near-universal support in Congress, but the American people are not nearly as keen—and now, their voices are being heard.

The public outcry over the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act seems to have gotten so loud that even members of Congress can hear it. On Thursday we covered the news that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was expressing second thoughts about SOPA’s DNS provisions. He said he changed his mind after he “heard from a number of Vermonters” on the issue.

On Friday, several Republicans started backpedaling as well.

SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith (R-TX) announced that he would be pulling the DNS-blocking provisions from his own bill. “After consultation with industry groups across the country, I feel we should remove Domain Name System blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision,” Smith said in a Friday statement.

Meanwhile, six GOP senators who served on the Senate Judiciary Committee (which unanimously approved the legislation last year) wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking him to postpone a vote on PIPA to give them more time to study the legislation.

“We strongly believe that the theft of American intellectual property is a significant problem that must be addressed,” they wrote. But since the Judiciary Committee last considered the legislation, “we have increasingly heard from a large number of constituents and other stakeholders with vocal concerns about possible unintended consequences of the proposed legislation, including breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity of the Internet, costly and burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights.”

[...] Another member of Congress that has been feeling the heat from voters is Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). After reddit members raised $15,000 in 48 hours for his anti-SOPA challenger, Ryan came out with a clear statement of opposition to the legislation.

“It appears that lawmakers are beginning to realize how much damage their anti-’piracy’ bills could cause to the Internet and to Internet-related businesses,” said Public Knowledge’s Sherwin Siy in a statement. “While we are pleased that some progress is being made, we are also firm in our opposition to both bills because some very bad provisions remain.”

Emphasis copyeditor’s. Read more at Ars Technica.

(Not specifically Occupy-related, but this pushback is very much in the spirit of the protests. —Ed.)

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[Op-Ed] GOP Candidates’ “Weird Obsession” With Taxing the Poor

Posted at 2:32 , January 11 2012

Here’s a fresh quote from the latest non-Romney front-runner in the GOP presidential race. “This dividing of America [between] 99-1,” Rick Santorum said this morning in New Hampshire, “It’s anybody that makes money and pays taxes and everybody who doesn’t. That’s the 99-1.”

Normally we would start by telling you who wrote this and where it came from, but let that above quote sink in. I know it’s from Rick Santorum, who’s particularly notorious for shooting from the lip, but let it roll around in your head nonetheless.

GOP primary candidates have been howling about the so-called “47%”, the number of households they estimate do not pay income tax due to their salaries being so low that credits and deductions outweighed the amount they owed. Now, normally you can stop right there. Anyone who’s ever filed a 1040 knows that the income-to-deduction ratio has to be disturbingly low to get a pass on income taxes. Therefore, most of the households involved are poor. That’s why they’re exempt. It’s an act of mercy for those struggling to get by on meager wages. If that number has risen to 47% or higher, we already have a pandemic in America.

But the nasty label of the “47%” is still somehow persisting through the Republican primary, and Derek Thompson of the Atlantic is willing to tackle it head on.

Continue reading [Op-Ed] GOP Candidates’ “Weird Obsession” With Taxing the Poor

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New York Times: America’s Economic Mobility Already Small and Shrinking Further

Posted at 11:43 , January 11 2012

Jason DeParle has an article in the New York Times which blasts holes in the theory of bootstrapping your way to success:

[M]any researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage.

[...] One reason for the mobility gap may be the depth of American poverty, which leaves poor children starting especially far behind. Another may be the unusually large premiums that American employers pay for college degrees. Since children generally follow their parents’ educational trajectory, that premium increases the importance of family background and stymies people with less schooling.

[...] Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.“

All emphases editor’s. The article lays out the facts quite well; this is a journalistic piece, not an op-ed. The full text can be read here.

(Any of this starting to sound familiar? We can repeat the refrain as many times as it takes our leaders to finally starting listening to it. —ed.)

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Occupy Everywhere: News Roundup for the New Year

Posted at 2:04 , January 7 2012

You can tell Monopoly is an old game because there's a luxury tax and rich people can go to jail.

Happy new year, everyone. Let’s take a look at what’s going on around the nation:

  • New York: Two protestors were arrested in Grand Central Station during a demonstration against the NDAA. The video is available on YouTube here.
  • Los Angeles: Protestors arrested for expressing their right to free speech are now being allowed to avoid court if they… take “classes” on free speech. If this doesn’t make your blood boil, you may want to check your pulse.
  • Iowa: Matt Taibbi, he of the “vampire squid sucking on the face of America” fame, has a new article out about the recent Iowa primaries. Taibbi blasts both the 2012 primaries and the presidential race as a “limp” farce. The money quote: “[T]he ugly reality [...] is that the candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time in America.” All emphasis Taibbi’s.
  • On that note, in New Hampshire, Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney got a rather chilly response from his home state. Huffington Post notes that, “[T]hree of the first four questioners were openly hostile to Romney, although one of them was an Occupy Manchester activist. And even the endorsement and appearance of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) failed to arouse much of a reaction from the Granite Staters in attendance.” (Not really sure what “although one of them was an Occupy Manchester activist” was supposed to quantify there. I guess it’s supposed to explain away the hostility as an outlier? Very poor wording. —ed.)
  • And finally, in New York again, city council members, state senators, the New York City Civil Liberties Group, and a host of others are planning a rally for NYPD accountability. The rally is take place Jan. 7th at Grand Army Plaza, 1:00 PM. (That’s today, folks! Spread the word! —ed.)
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Former President Clinton on Occupy: “I think what they’re doing is great”

Posted at 12:48 , January 7 2012

A contributor to Forbes visited the President at a book signing in Florida, and this is what happened.

His handshake was not quick, it was purposeful. And as we were smiling at each other, I asked, “Mr. Clinton, may I ask you a question Sir?” He signed the book, handed it to me and immediately said, “Yes, of course.”

[...]I asked, “What do you think about the Occupy Wall Street movement, personally, and what do you think it says about America?”

He looked at me and with as much sincerity as I’ve ever encountered, he said, “I’m glad you asked me that, that’s a great question.”

[...]“I think what they’re doing is great,” he said. “Occupy Wall Street has done more in the short time they’ve been out there than I’ve been able to do in more than the last eleven years trying to draw attention to some of the same problems we have to address,” he said.

[...]“There are a lot of young people out there, I see a lot of unemployed students and they are upset, he said. They don’t know where the jobs and opportunities are for them, and they are worried about how they’re going to pay off their student loans without going broke.”

[...]He went on to say that student loan reforms were absolutely necessary and that limiting annual loan payments to small percentages of income made sense to not impoverish students as they struggle up the ladder in pursuit of the American Dream.

I asked if the Occupy Wall Street movement should have a platform. I was getting into another area he is passionate about, delivering messages on point. “Yes,” he said, “But it doesn’t have to be a platform; it doesn’t have to be twenty pages. They should start with three or four points to generate a political movement to get heard more clearly.”

Read more at Forbes.

(Whatever else you might say about Bill Clinton, he is a powerful ally. —ed.)

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“Occupy the Dream” Takes Action

Posted at 9:29 , January 6 2012

Remember a month or so back when we mentioned Dr. Benjamin Chavis Jr. and Reverend Dr. Jamal Bryant were starting “Occupy the Dream” to give African Americans a voice in Occupy Wall Street? Well, it appears they’re ready to make their first move, and it’s a doozy:

BALTIMORE, December 28, 2011: Dr. Benjamin Chavis and Reverend Dr. Jamal Bryant released the names of the Occupy the Dream National Steering Committee and the local community organizers who will lead the demonstrations on January 16, 2012 at all 13 Federal Reserve Banks. The effort will be led by prominent members of the African American Clergy, Occupy Wall Street participants, students and others concerned about income inequality and economic justice in America.”

Important bits bolded by the editor. This is a great and welcome action. Remember the date—Jan. 16—and check out Occupy the Dream’s main site for all the latest details.

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President Obama Appoints CFPB Head During Recess; Still Signs NDAA into Law

Posted at 6:32 , January 5 2012

One step forward, two steps back. During a recess appointment today, President Obama elevated Richard Cordray to the much-needed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Cordray’s bona fides are pretty darn good, he’s served for both Republican and Democratic presidents, but congressional Republicans were blocking his nomination and refusing to cooperate with the idea of the CFPB in general—to the point of threatening a Constitutional lawsuit over the timing on the appointment.

Of course, none of this changes the fact that NDAA has already been signed into law, including the provision on indefinite military detention of American citizens that Obama double-pinkie swears he, personally, won’t use, but after that you’re kinda on your own.

And on that timely note, here is Thomas Drake’s acceptance speech from the 2011 Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award that he won. Drake turned whistleblower on the NSA, exposing (to quote The Real News) “massive NSA mismanagement and the agency’s use of a data collection program that was more costly, more threatening to American citizens’ privacy rights, and less effective than a readily-available alternative. For his actions, Drake’s house was raided, and he was subsequently charged under the Espionage Act, facing 35 years in prison.” His speech, titled “Is This the Country We Want to Keep?”, is a passionate plea against the pit of oligarchy and authoritarianism our country seems to be sliding into.

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American Police Becoming Increasingly Militarized

Posted at 10:43 , December 26 2011

Via Reader Supported News and the Center for Investigative Reporting, Andrew Becker and G.W. Schultz document an increasing and disturbing trend of militarization in American police forces:

Fargo, like thousands of other communities in every state, has been on a gear-buying spree with the aid of more than $34 billion in federal government grants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

The federal grant spending, awarded with little oversight from Washington, has fueled a rapid, broad transformation of police operations in Fargo and in departments across the country. More than ever before, police rely on quasi-military tactics and equipment, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

No one can say exactly what has been purchased in total across the country or how it’s being used, because the federal government doesn’t keep close track. State and local governments don’t maintain uniform records. But a review of records from 41 states obtained through open-government requests, and interviews with more than two-dozen current and former police officials and terrorism experts, shows police departments around the U.S. have transformed into small army-like forces.

[...] Many police, including beat cops, now routinely carry assault rifles. Combined with body armor and other apparel, many officers look more and more like combat troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The list of equipment bought with the federal grants reads like a defense contractor catalog. High-tech gear fills the garages, locker rooms and patrol cars in departments across the country.

Emphasis editor’s. The full article is available here.

(No wonder the police are blasting pepper spray first and asking questions later… One of the things that got me started with the Occupy movement was horror over how perverted the rule of law has become. If the police, the very apparatus trusted with maintaining daily law and order over the public, have become corrupted and oppressive, how can freedom possibly exist? —ed.)

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Senator Creates Online Petition to End Corporate Personhood

Posted at 10:41 , December 26 2011

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) now has an online petition supporting his “Saving American Democracy Movement.” According to the senator’s website, the proposed amendment states that:

  • Corporations are not persons with constitutional rights equal to real people.
  • Corporations are subject to regulation by the people.
  • Corporations may not make campaign contributions or any election expenditures.
  • Congress and states have the power to regulate campaign finances.”

The petition is available here (on the right of the page), and at the time of this writing has nearly 110,000 signatures. We highly encourage you to add yours as soon as possible!

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[Op-Ed] Michael Thomas and Wall Street’s “Big Lie”

Posted at 10:40 , December 26 2011

Michael Thomas has an interesting article available at the Daily Beast on Wall Street’s role in the economy and how they’ve seemingly gotten away scott-free. A brief excerpt:

But there was one aspect of Wall Street that I found morally confusing if not distasteful: “[... O]n the one hand the New York Stock Exchange has sent its president, the estimable G. Keith Funston, out into the countryside, supported by an expensive, extensive advertising campaign, to exhort the proletariat to Own your share of America! As if buying 50 shares of IBM or GM in 1961 is as much of a civic duty as buying a $100 war bond in 1943.”

I then added, “But here’s the thing. At the same time as Funston’s out there doing his thing, if you ask any veteran Wall Street pro how the Street works, the first thing he’ll tell you is: The public is always wrong. Always.” I paused to let that sink in, then confessed, “I have to tell you, I have trouble squaring that circle.”

And that was back when Wall Street was basically honest, brought into line thanks in part to Ferdinand Pecora’s 1933 humiliation of the great bankers of the Jazz Age and even more so because of the communitarian exigencies forced on the nation by war. From Pearl Harbor to V-J Day, greed was definitely not good, and that proscriptive spirit lingered on right up to 1970, when everything started to change, and the traders began their long march through our great houses of finance, with the inevitable consequence that the Street’s moral bookkeeping grew more and more contorted, its corruptions more elaborate, its self-interest less and less governable. What someone has called the “Greed Wars” began.”

The full article is available here and is definitely a recommended read.

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Occupy Everywhere: Holiday News Roundup

Posted at 10:39 , December 26 2011

Things are a little slow due to the holidays, but here’s some items to tide you over for the new year!

  • South Bend: Occupy South Bend is officially rolling. Welcome them into the movement by checking out their website here.
  • Berkley: As of Thursday, Occupy Berkley’s camp is no more. Read the details from an eyewitness here. Mercifully, the removal seems to be free of the brutality other camps have faced.
  • Montana: Courtesy of Daily Kos, Montana citizens have decided to reward Sens. Max Baucus and Jonathan Tester for their vote for the NDAA “indefinite detention” bill by organizing a recall for both senators. The money quote? “[I]n a New York Times op-ed piece by two retired four-star U.S. Marine generals, Charles Krulak and Joseph Hoar, Krulak and Hoar said that ‘Due process would be a thing of the past.’” Yikes. If you’re similarly outraged, the article has a great place to start to force a recall of your own senator(s).
  • Belgium: Finally, Business Insider reports that, after a huge bailout that left Belgium’s entire economy reeling, the parties responsible are finally facing legal action, albeit of the tort variety. Both Dexia SA and former CEO of Dexia, Pierre Mariani, are accused of “‘spreading false and misleading information’ and ‘market manipulation.’”
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BreakThru Radio’s “The Radio Dispatch” with John and Molly Knefel

Posted at 3:20 , December 16 2011

DJ John Knefel of BreakThru Radio shares his experience in the belly of the beast that is the NYC jail:

BreakThru Radio’s very own DJ John Knefel, stand up comedian and co-host of our news show Radio Dispatch, was arrested on Dec 12 during a peaceful Occupy Wall Street protest. John was taking video of the protesters and live-tweeting the scene, when he was subsequently arrested (with 17 others) for observing the scene and held in jail for an astounding 37 hours. His sister and co-host, Molly, questioned the arrest, and wrote about her experience on Salon.com and also appeared on Keith Olbermann to talk about the arrests.

There’s a transcript of Molly’s talk with Olbermann here, and the Salon article is here. All of this is worth a read!

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Occupy New York: NYPD Saves Mayor From Children’s Dastardly Paper Hearts

Posted at 3:45 , December 13 2011

So, pretend for a moment you’re an NYPD officer. A group of small children have made thousands of decorated paper hearts to present to Mayor Bloomberg in support of OWS. Do you:

  1. Cheer in support of the children’s creations, whether or not you agree with the movement
  2. Remain steadfast and stoic, waiting patiently until the protest is over before cleaning up
  3. Rip the hearts to shreds like a rage-fueled maniac in front of the very children that created them

Yeah, you can probably guess which one the NYPD chose.

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ACLU Sues Gov. Walker Over Wisconsin’s Voter ID Laws

Posted at 3:43 , December 13 2011

You may remember, way back before all this started, the original protests in Wisconsin against Gov. Scott Walker’s naked union busting. Well, he and his remaining Republican supporters have since followed it up with a law making it illegal to vote without a Wisconsin license. You can’t use a license from any other state, mind—just Wisconsin. From Talking Points Memo:

Wisconsin’s voter ID law imposes the equivalent of a poll tax on individuals with out-of-state drivers licenses and discriminates against the poor, students and the elderly, according to a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday.

ACLU lawyers argue in a 54-page lawsuit that the law “imposes a severe and undue burden on the fundamental right to vote under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution; violates the Twenty-Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution as an unconstitutional poll tax; and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in arbitrarily refusing to accept certain identification documents.”

The suit argues that the law would force individuals to “choose between surrendering their driving privileges to obtain a free Wisconsin state ID card, paying a fee for a Wisconsin driver’s license, or losing their right to vote.” They argue that the requirement to surrender an out-of-state driver’s license “constitutes a material requirement imposed on an eligible voter who refuses to forfeit his/her right to vote without paying an unconstitutional poll tax.”

(Emphasis editor’s.)

TPM goes on to note that Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to give a speech on protecting access to polls at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Libary and Museum in Texas. Full article is available here.

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Black Friday Sales Massively Underperform

Posted at 3:42 , December 13 2011

Via ZeroHedge, the economic slowdown is far from over:

Earlier we just got confirmation out of Best Buy that one can not, as expected, offset negative margins with near-infinite volume (as the stock tumbles). Now we get advance retail sales proving that all speculation about a record Black Friday was just that. Oh, and a lie. In short – everything missed. Advance retails sales in November (including Thanksgiving) came at 0.2%, on expectations of 0.6%, and down from a revised 0.6%. Retail sales less autos was 0.2%, half of the expected 0.4%, while ex Auto and Gas also printed at 0.2%, also missing big. So… where did all the money go, aside from generating even more negative profits for retailers, who now have to eat a huge cash hole in addition to everything? Or were speculations that Black Friday was a bust, spot on? Expect lower Q4 GDP revisions based on this data.”

Emphasis editor’s. Full article text is here.

(As it turns out, when people don’t have jobs, they can’t afford goods—and if they can’t afford goods, they don’t buy any of yours. —ed.)

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SOPA Staffers Rewarded with Cushy Jobs as Entertainment Industry Lobbyists

Posted at 3:41 , December 13 2011

It’s sad that things like this are no longer surprising, but the reward for writing up SOPA is… You guessed it, a paid job helping to get SOPA passed!

Allison Halataei (former deputy chief of staff for House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas)) and Lauren Pastarnack (former senior aide on the Senate Judiciary Committee) have cool new jobs. Having written the Internet-destroying Stop Online Piracy Act for their bosses while drawing a salary at public expense, they’ve now accepted massive raises to go work for the entertainment companies who stand to benefit from the law they wrote. Their new job? Helping to run the campaign to push their law through.”

Information courtesy of BoingBoing.

(If you haven’t been following it closely, the Stop Online Piracy Act and its Senate partner, the PROTECT IP bill, are attempting to grant large and unchecked swaths of power to copyright holders, essentially allowing them to shut down any site they vaguely suspect of infringement with very little due process or recourse. We mention it here not only because it deeply affects the Daily Occupation—without the ability to repost content, we’re more or less crippled—but also OWS as a whole. Once you start shutting down sites with content you don’t like, it’s not that hard to start shutting down sites with opinions you don’t like. —ed.)

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Alternative Banking Group: Occupy Wall Street’s Inside Agents

Posted at 3:39 , December 13 2011

Mother Jones has an article about the Alternative Banking Group, an arm of the Occupy Wall Street protests that has received support from the New York GA. In addition to helping OWS propose meaningful reforms and navigate the ins and outs of financial agencies, they also provide education and outreach. The article follows Cathy O’Neil of the group in particular, giving a look into her mindset and what led her to join OWS:

After studying number theory at Harvard and completing a mathematics post-doc at MIT, [O'Neil] joined D.E. Shaw in 2007, where her job was to use mathematical reasoning and statistical modeling to predict movements in the market. Three months into her job, the stock market dipped, a hedge fund failed, and her firm lost a ton of money. She started to question many of the assumptions underpinning her work.

[...] O’Neil’s bosses liked to describe their work as a public service—a way to make sure that investors’ money was spent in the best way possible. But she began to think of it more as a cynical exercise in outsmarting “stupid people”—getting in front of the herd and then selling back to them. “I never heard anybody say, ‘I am going to invest in this because it is a good idea,’” she recalls. She felt like on some level she was part of the same herd that she was supposed to be hunting.

In May 2009 she quit and went to work for Risk Metrics, a risk management consultancy for banks and hedge funds, where she hoped to use her skills more constructively, perhaps to help keep the financial system from running off another cliff. Pretty soon she was in charge of evaluating credit default swap models, but she felt that most firms that hired her to run their numbers didn’t listen to her warnings. “They just don’t care,” she says. “They want the rubber stamp. And it just ultimately made me realize that this isn’t where I want to be.”

By this summer, O’Neil was working at an internet advertising company in SoHo when she heard about Occupy Wall Street. She was inspired that regular people desperately wanted to reform the financial system. But she was also perturbed by some things that she read, such as a newspaper quote from an occupier who wanted to ban short selling, the practice of betting that a company’s stock will lose value. “If there’s anything about the financial system that you should take a stand on, it’s not that,” she thought to herself. Her next thought was, “What am I going to do about it?”

(Emphasis editor’s.)

The article goes on to note a number of things the ABG is doing, such as creating apps to locate credit unions, hosting an online forum for answering financial questions, and spinning up Occupy the SEC, which seeks to strengthen the Volcker rule to prevent the kind of speculation that initially crashed the markets in 2008. The full article is here and is a fascinating intersection between OWS and the financial world they often concern themselves with.

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Occupy Everywhere: Events Around the Nation

Posted at 3:31 , December 13 2011

Here at the Daily Occupation, we’ve reached the point where keeping you up to date on all national events would end up flooding our feed, pushing articles that deserve singular attention out of the way. To counteract this, we’ve switched to a “news roundup” format for when our queue gets particularly dense. We’d hate for these items to have less attention than they deserve, though, so make sure to check them out!

  • New York: Occupiers “squidded” outside of Goldman Sachs yesterday. Essentially a combination of protest and parody of Goldman-Sachs, the name refers to Matt Taibbi’s quote from Rolling Stones that Goldman-Sachs was “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Gothamist has the full roundup.
  • Orlando: A “People’s Convention” was held to discuss resolutions on a variety of state issues, including health care, labor laws, and education funding. The proposals will be sent back to individual Occupy groups for ground-testing before they are presented to Florida Governor Rick Scott in January. According to the Orlando Sentinel, “more than half the crowd was from out of town,” and the convention was extremely well received by both protestors and local union leaders. Read the original articles here and here.
  • Palm Beach: Occupiers seem to be getting on well with the city after it offered up its old city hall. The protestors were bizarrely evicted when a trapeze artist rented the space they were occupying to give classes. They (the protestors, just so we’re clear) expected the eviction for weeks and are fairly pleased with the new space, so everything seems to be going along smoothly so far. The full article is available here.
  • Finally, Occupy D.C. picked up the support of Rev. Jamal Bryant and Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., who will join with clergy and civil rights leaders to start up “Occupy the Dream.” Both Bryan and Chavis have excellent bonafides—Bryant has past experience with the NAACP and Baltimore’s Empowerment Temple, and Chavis previously worked under no less than Martin Luther King, Jr. The original article is available at the Washington Post.

(The last article’s claim that OWS is a mostly white movement makes me a little uneasy, but if it does have merit, “Occupy the Dream” can only be a good thing. As the article says, African-Americans are most definitely part of the 99%. —ed.)

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[Op-Ed] Occupy The Ports: An Open Letter from America’s Port Truck Drivers

Posted at 12:59 , December 13 2011

The media narrative holds that dockworkers opposed the Occupy The Ports action. However, the action was intended to show support and solidarity with West Coast port truck drivers, whose attempts at unionization and securing safe working conditions have been continually stymied. Here’s a statement from representatives of the port truck drivers:

We are the front-line workers who haul container rigs full of imported and exported goods to and from the docks and warehouses every day.

We have been elected by committees of our co-workers at the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle, Tacoma, New York and New Jersey to tell our collective story. We have accepted the honor to speak up for our brothers and sisters about our working conditions despite the risk of retaliation we face. One of us is a mother, the rest of us fathers. Between the five of us we have 11 children and one more baby on the way. We have a combined 46 years of experience driving cargo from our shores for America’s stores.

We are inspired that a non-violent democratic movement that insists on basic economic fairness is capturing the hearts and minds of so many working people. Thank you “99 Percenters” for hearing our call for justice. We are humbled and overwhelmed by recent attention. Normally we are invisible.

Today’s demonstrations will impact us. While we cannot officially speak for every worker who shares our occupation, we can use this opportunity to reveal what it’s like to walk a day in our shoes for the 110,000 of us in America whose job it is to be a port truck driver. It may be tempting for media to ask questions about whether we support a shutdown, but there are no easy answers. Instead, we ask you, are you willing to listen and learn why a one-word response is impossible?”

Read more at cleanandsafeports.org

(This is another instance where I wish I could quote the whole piece. Stirring and compelling. —ed.)

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The People’s Library, Hoping to Rebuild

Posted at 11:05 , December 12 2011

Further proving you can’t keep a good idea down, OWS librarians are set to petition the New York GA for funds to restart the People’s Library. Their previous efforts were confiscated in the Zucotti Park raid and the vast majority of their equipment was destroyed by police. Here’s their full petition:

The People’s Library would like $800 to purchase tarps, dollies, and plastic bins, and to provide transportation from SIS to the occupation of Duarte Square on December 17. All of our supplies, our computers, our bins and 80% of our collection was destroyed in the raid on Liberty Park on November 14. Since then we have received donations of books from around the world. We want to bring them to the people!”

Full article available at Galleycat, via Media Bistro.

(It’s heartening to see them rebuilding in the wake of senseless destruction. Can you hear that, NYGA? We’re waggling our fingers as hard as we possibly can in support. —ed.)

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The People’s Skype: Technology and OWS

Posted at 11:00 , December 12 2011

Photo Courtesy Venturebeat

Photo Courtesy Venturebeat

Venturebeat has a nifty article up highlighting the resourcefulness of Occupy Wall Street. The People’s Mic is now backed by the People’s Skype!

The People’s Skype was created by Jonathan Baldwin to aid in “mic check.” [...] In order to make sure voices are heard, Occupiers use “The People’s Mic,” where one person yells out a sentence, and others repeat the sentence in concentric circles out to the back of the crowd.

[...] The People’s Skype tries to put speed and clarity in this process by having anyone with a mobile device – smart and feature phone agnostic – call into a Skype line. The crowd is, in essence, on a one-way conference call. People in the area can gather around a phone and listen in individual groups, or perform the out loud repetition depending on the size of the crowd. Conference holders can post polls through Skype, which users can participate in by entering a passcode and a 1 or 2 for yes and no responses.”

The full article text is available here.

(Once again, it’s fascinating to watch OWS organically fold the latest technological advances into their movement. —ed.)

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[Op-Ed] The View From the 1%: A Priest’s Look at OWS

Posted at 10:44 , December 12 2011

Another op-ed from an OWS supporter, and this one comes with a little extra moral authority on it. Father Tom Ehrich takes a look at Black Friday fallout and the economical and society implications thereof:

Now that the financial industry and major corporations have successfully lobbied Congress to make more people poor and to keep them that way, they are discovering the downside of unbridled greed: people are too broke to buy their products.

Heavy discounts were necessary to stimulate sales on Black Friday — a stimulus that lost steam as the big shopping weekend proceeded. Now further discounts will be required. That bodes ill for retailers, as well as for their suppliers.

It’s one thing to own Congress, but it’s something else when consumers refuse to buy. They’re staying home, maybe shopping online; they’re not investing, not saving, not selling their houses, not feeling confident about their own jobs.

[...] What did they think would happen? If no one wins except a very few, the economy stalls. With all the incremental wealth in a few pockets, who is left to buy $200,000 houses or $20,000 Chevrolets or even $200 lawn mowers?“

(Emphasis editor’s.)

It’s a short, punchy, and extremely well-written piece that deserves more attention. Take a look at the whole article here.

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Occupy Cleveland: City Council Officially Expresses Support for OWS

Posted at 10:38 , December 12 2011

Via Care2, it appears the city of Cleveland has passed Resolution 1720-11, on a vote of 19-1, expressing support for the Occupy Wall Street movement:

WHEREAS, Cleveland community members, like others across the United States, are frustrated by the continuing economic crisis that threatens individual, family, small local business and City finances, and our community’s quality of life, and are participating in Occupy protests to make their voices heard; and

WHEREAS, the economic roots of these protests are varied, including sustained unemployment, growing income disparity, banking system failures, stalled earning power, and unjust tax systems, that all contribute to ongoing wealth disparities; and

[...] WHEREAS, over the past 30 years, gains in our economy have accrued largely to the top1% of Americans, who now control 43% of the total net wealth, and to the next 19% on the top that control 50% of the wealth in the United States (top 20% controls 93% of wealth with the bottom 80% controlling only 7%) due in part to public policies that can be changed…

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CLEVELAND:

[...] That this Council recognizes and supports the principles of the Occupy Movement and the peaceful and lawful exercise of the First Amendment as a cherished and fundamental right in the effort to seek solutions for economically distressed Americans at the federal, state and local levels.”

Care2 notes that Cleveland joins Seattle, Chicago, and Los Angeles in support of the movement.

This just in: Apparently Pittsburg joins Cleveland in expressing support for OWS. Keen!

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Occupy the Ports, All of Them, All the Ports

Posted at 10:31 , December 12 2011

For those of you who have been living in a cave—or listening solely to mainstream media—today was a day of action for Occupy Wall Street. Occupy the Ports officially kicked off, inspired by (among other things) the eviction and police brutality in Oakland. Since there’s a lot going on out there in a bunch of different places, we’ll round up the news as best we can here:

In addition to all of this, you can get ongoing updates at the official site.

(Stay as safe as possible out there, folks, and keep up the good fight. Solidarity! —ed.)

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House Debating Indefinite Military Detention of Citizens—Behind Closed Doors

Posted at 10:36 , December 9 2011

Voting 406-17, the House has closed off meetings about the Defense Bill reconciliation from public scrutiny. The big problem with this, as OpenCongress.org points out:

As you can read for yourself here, Section 1031, affirming the “authority of the armed forces of the United States to detain covered persons…” does not contain an exemption for U.S. citizens. Section 1032, mandating the military detention authority be used for terrorism suspects, does[.]“

Still, at least the Obama Administration has pledged opposition and threatened veto because of those provisions—right? Not so fast:

Contrary to popular perception, the Obama Administration is not strongly opposed to the provisions in the bills that would authorize indefinite military detentions for U.S. citizens. [...] [T]hey’ll take it and recommend that Congress passes clarifying legislation in the future, which, of course, will never happen. What they oppose is the provision that would mandate that power be used for all terrorism suspects besides U.S. citizens.

Section 1032, mandating the military detention authority be used for terrorism suspects [...] is the section that the Obama Administration says must be removed or else he will veto. The Administration has been stressing the need for flexibility in their powers to collect information and incapacitate terrorists, which likely means that they want to retain the power to detain suspects outside the context of war and the Geneva Convention protections that would apply. The secretive conference committee may still be able to overcome Obama’s veto threat while also codifying the power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without having to charge them or give them a trial.”

This bears repeating—President Obama is not expressing strong opposition to indefinite military suspension.

Emphasis editor’s. Full text available here. In addition, we must mention how impressed with are with OpenCongress.Org, and how much we highly recommend them.

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