How to handle the Right — "join" them

I'm going to make a fun point and a serious point with this one.

The fun point

The story — a couple of dozen "Tea Party" activists held a rally in Manhattan on Thursday to "stand up to Occupy Wall Street extremists".

(I put "Tea Party" in quotes because the rally was organized by Americans for Prosperity, the operative arm of the Koch Bros. God knows who believes what in that outfit.)

The rally was foiled by Occupyers, however — who playfully joined in. The Guardian:

A conservative rally billed as an opportunity to "stand up to Occupy Wall Street extremists" fell flat on Thursday when it was co-opted by members of Occupy Wall Street.

Supporters of Americans for Prosperity, a Tea Party-esque group [-esque indeed] funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, gathered at the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan to demonstrate against both Occupy Wall Street and President Obama.

But almost half of the sparse crowd were Occupy Wall Street protesters, smartly dressed and bearing signs parodying Americans for Prosperity's ultra-conservative message.

"My sign says: 'I'm dreaming of a white president, just like the ones we used to have,'" said Stan Williams, a labour organiser and member of the Occupy movement.

It must have been a lot of fun putting that together. Other signs included "I hate libraries" and "'Every man for himself.' –Jesus".

There are also several interesting videos in the article; it's worth a visit.

The serious point

Now my serious point. This is so under-appreciated as a technique. Not only is it non-violent, it's effective.

I'll give you three examples — one that should have happened, and two that still could.

■ Should have happened — When all those rightwingers open-carried guns to Democratic events, the only effective response was to do the same at their events. Mirror mirror.

But not dressed as leftwing counter-narrative gun-types. To do this right, you go as a rightwing gun-job — read your NRA bible, bone up on all your rightwing rights, and profess exactly what the guys at the Dem rallies profess.

Just be them, like in the story above. Be a Second-Amendment American to the bone. Chew tobacco if you think that helps. Spit.

Instantly two things will happen: (1) You'll strip all the political context from the act, and everyone who sees you will see how stupid (and dangerous) the act itself is. That will happen on camera, by the way, since you've timed this to get the same news coverage everyone like you is getting.

And (2) the rightwing Blackwater cop-jobs will jump you like nobody's business. You'll spout off about your rightwing rights, and your rightwing bro's and sisters will shuck those rights right out of you — also on camera. (Be sure to cover your face, and don't forget your lines.)

How perfect is that? The right doesn't stand by that stuff; they just pretend to. Here's a perfect chance to make them show it. Believe me, they will, eagerly. You might even get a lawsuit out of it.

So that's one perfect opportunity that we missed. But file it, folks. This can be done anytime the time is ripe.

■ Still can happen — We're drowning in conscience objections from the right, challenges in court, the whole nine yards. Even my alma mater is soiling itself.

To respond, don't use words; use deeds. You have a conscience too, right? Sure you do; what real American doesn't? So use it.

Go get a job at ... oh, Chic-fil-A would be nice ... then start using your conscience to object. You don't have to object to gays. Object to ... chicken. You'll serve anything on the menu, but not the chicken, because your religion worships birds.

You'll serve anything else — fries are good, and anyone who likes the tasty sides can have all of them they want. You'll serve the breakfast sausage with both hands. Just not the bird. Make sure there's a camera handy when the boss objects to your objections.

I'm making this up, and you can probably do better. Opportunities for this kind of fun are endless.

Your model is the pharmacist who won't dole out birth control and Plan B.

Your advantage? Anyplace that honors one conscience objection honors all conscience objection — it's the dirty secret of conscience objection. All conscience is individual. Again, just strip politics from the act, and go with it. Be sure someone with a camera is handy.

Honors class project — Get a job at a pharmacy that has already supported someone who conscience-objects to vagina products (BC, Plan B, IUDs), and turn the tables. Refuse to dole out ... Viagra would make sense. Or asthma drugs. Or corn plasters, if there's a prescription version. You pick.

Then when the boss comes to see what the fuss is about, stand by your conscience and demand he defend it as well. After all, he defended the other guy's.

Put him on the spot and make sure there's a camera around. Just remember to play your role completely — be sincere, have a conscience, and object on that basis. If there's follow-up (and if you're good, there will be), stay in character.

You're not making a point; the point is making itself through you.

■ Your November dissertation — Want a real one you can do in two months? If you live in a state where wingers are challenging black and brown voters, you can Mirror-Mirror them at white polling places.

Don't go outside the script. Just find out what they're doing — word for word if need be — and do that. Make sure that the cameras covering the dust-up at black and brown polling places are covering yours.

This works if you mirror them and don't push further. Do that, get the press, and your diploma awaits. You've arrived. If this RW stuff is happening your state, and ten groups (say) on our side play the Mirror Game, I guarantee you a solid 15 minutes of fame. If not more.

Bottom line

The point of all of this is to strip the Right of its ability to make the ridiculous make sense — but only in the context of their presumed specialness. You do it by playing Mirror-Mirror without the context, then let the world play "who's the fool?".

A Hindu refusing to serve beef at a restaurant would be fired and laughed out of town. But a vagina-cop drug dispenser at a pharmacy makes sense?

Not after you're done doing the same. This is how you tar their act with your own (kind of the way the right tarred impeachment using Clinton; there will never be another one).

And to go back to my first point — this really is fun. There are plenty of worse ways to make a point. Effective tactics can also be a blast.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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Pepper-spray cop John Pike still on payroll at UC Davis

Remember him?

UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike

Wow. From Conor Friedersdort at the Atlantic we learn that the UC Davis cop who pepper-sprayed the peacefully protesting students last fall, at point blank range while they were simply sitting down, is still on the university payroll.

Late Monday, I called UC Davis to follow up on the case. To my chagrin, though not to my surprise, Lt. Pike remains on paid leave. The internal affairs process is "a lot more inexorable than anyone realized at the time," a university spokesman told me. "I don't know when that's going to get resolved."

Think about that for a minute.

This incident happened 8 months ago! In five months time, two independent bodies managed to complete an exhaustive investigation into every aspect of the incident. Yet even after an additional three months, the internal affairs process - the investigation, the hearings, and perhaps the appeals - is still not completed for one single individual, whose actions are on videotape.

Nor is there any word about when they'll be complete.

Someone, whether it's the university or its police department, needs to explain why this review isn't over and why this man is still on the university payroll. Two independent studies had enough time to reach a conclusion, but the Mayberry cops at UC Davis couldn't?

This is why cops get a bad rap, at least in part.  When one of their own do something wrong, it sure seems to take hell and high water to get anything done about it - and I know that personally, from a lot of work I did in DC on these issues. Read the rest of this post...

Five Questions: Frances Causey, director of the documentary "Heist"

One more interview in our series, Five Questions, about American history, progressives, Democrats and the future.

Today's interviewee is Frances Causey, producer–director of the new, highly acclaimed documentary Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?

Heist tells the story of the theft of America, starting with the Powell memo; strong stuff, and a story every progressive should be aware of.

Five questions, Frances Causey with Gaius Publius, recorded at Netroots Nation 2012. Enjoy:



About the movie: The trailer tag line says: "This is the story of the biggest heist in American history." You can play that trailer here.

The longer version of the trailer is below, and watching it would be an excellent use of time. It tells a well-told tale and provides a valuable look back. Knowing how we got into this mess shows the way out.



The full list of "Five Questions" interviews includes the following. Links to names will take you to previously-published interviews.

• Alan Grayson, former (and perhaps future) U.S. Congressman
• Marcy Wheeler, of emptywheel.net
• Cliff Schecter, who comments regularly with Sam Seder at Majority.fm among many other places
• Tom Tomorrow, cartoonist with DailyKos and This Modern World
• Alex Lawson of StrengthenSocialSecurity.org
• Josh Orton, with Russ Feingold's Progressives United
• Frances Causey, producer–director of Heist, the documentary
• Chris Pearson, a Progressive Party Vermont state legislator
• Susan Smith, Progressive Caucus chair of the Florida Democratic Party
• Sarah Burris, labor activist and progressive youth organizer

These interviews will be concluded this week. Thanks for listening to them.

(If you have trouble with this audio, please let me know in the comments and I'll address it as quickly as I can. Thanks.)

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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Excerpt of Anya Stiglitz's new book about the worldwide protest movement, from Occupy to Egypt

I met Anya and Joe Stiglitz a few years back when we were all three attending a small conference in Greece, organized by the soon-to-be, and now former, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou.  I didn't really know anyone at the conference, and Anya was kind enough to invite me to join Joe and her for lunch one day (I had no idea who Joe even was!), and we've been friends ever since.

Anya has a new book out that I think folks here might find interesting.  It's a collection of essays from various writers about the recently re-energized worldwide protest movement, from Occupy Wall Street to the Egyptian revolution.  The book is called, From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices from the Global Spring(you can buy the Kindle edition here.)

I asked Anya (who goes by Anya Schiffrin, and teaches at Columbia) to write a few words about the book, and for an excerpt that we could publish - which you'll find at the bottom of this post.  The excerpt is about a woman taking on the fraudulent mortgage foreclosure industry when they tried to come after her home.

First, here's a blurb from Anya about the book:

My new book “From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices from the Global Spring” is a compilation of essays and interviews from the Occupy and protest movement around the world that I edited with journalist Eamon Kircher-Allen. It includes an introduction by Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz who puts the movements in a global context.

“From Cairo to Wall Street” tells the stories of the brave young people in New York, Wisconsin, Cairo, Tunis, Greece, Spain, Syria and other countries who took to the streets in 2011 and made history.

The protestors’ inspiring and heartfelt accounts describe how they became radicalized and what it was like in Tahrir Square and the other squares of protest around the world. We found that these very different protests have many points in common: frustration with the lack of jobs, foreclosures (which took place in Spain as well as across the US) and anger because so many of the protestors worked hard at school and were caught in systems where finding meaningful work was impossible. They took to the streets and found that many people felt the way they did.

Through this personal voyage they discovered they are not alone, that their desire for change is shared by millions of others.

One essay from our book From Cairo to Wall Street that sticks with me is the story of Egyptian protestor Jawad Nabulsi, 29, who talked about how reading The Tipping Point and From Good to Great affected his thinking about social change. Nabulsi worked for charities in Upper Egypt that raised money in order to connect poor households to water and electricity.

“I had gone to villages and slums, saw the depth of problems in these places and assumed they could not be fixed. I’d tell myself, “They are too humungous, it’s like throwing something in the sea.” Then I read the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and understood you don’t need to change the whole population. You just need a few people. I realized I needed to bring together a circle of key players who could have an influence. I also read from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins. It reinforced the idea that it’s not about the people in the company; it’s about the right people in the company. I didn’t need to change everything, I just needed to focus on the leaders in the community and work with them.”

Having realized this, Nabulsi began setting up facebook groups in order to connect like-minded people to each other. These groups took on a life of their own; seeing that there were others who felt the same frustrations people began to feel powerful and so were willing to go down to Tahrir Square and make their voices heard in the street. Across the globe, protestors used new technology to connect to each other and to learn from each other.

Their first-hand accounts evoke the excitement and passion of 2011 and show how these movements came about and why they will continue.

And here's the excerpt Anya shared about Lisa Epstein, and how she took on mortgage foreclosure fraud.
Lisa Epstein From Cairo to Wall Street Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING: Victory for Minneapolis mom over Citibank's foreclosure effort

John wrote the other day about Nick Espinosa's mom.  She was behind on her mortgage, finally was able to get the money together, but Citibank said "no" - they refused to accept her mortgage payment, and instead were going to sell her house tomorrow.  That is, until Nick and a lot of his friends stepped up and saved the day.

Nick Espinosa is an organizer with Occupy Homes MN, where he's helped people facing foreclosure and eviction fight off the bank and keep their homes for the last eight-plus months. Nick is also well-known in activist circles for being the creator of the Glitter Bomb as a tactic in support of LGBT rights. In short, he's a great activist who's putting his full being into helping others.

Unfortunately while Nick had been helping other families in his community, his mother, Colleen McKee Espinosa, received a foreclosure notice.

After briefly falling behind on her payments, Colleen had repeatedly asked Citibank to let her become current on her mortgage, but they wouldn't let her pay. Instead the bank moved to take the home, with a Sheriff's Sale set for Wednesday, June 13th.

Thanks to organizing by Nick and other Occupy Homes MN activists, OccupyOurHomes.org (which I help run), and countless supporters around the country, Citibank has come to the table and found a solution for Colleen and Nick, stopping the sale.

An official with CitiMortgage’s Executive Response Unit contacted the Espinosa family with news that Citibank had approved a loan modification that would keep the family in their home and reduce their payments by one-third on a 7.5 year payment plan. The dramatic news came less than 24 hours before the house was to be sold at auction on Wednesday, June 13.

“I’m so relieved that my family’s home of 16 years will not be on the auction block tomorrow,” said Colleen McKee Espinosa, a nurse and single mother who received widespread support after she pledged not to leave her home without a good faith negotiation. “We are grateful that Citibank has decided to accept my payments, and we look forward to signing the final paperwork.”
...
“I am deeply grateful to everyone from across the country who stood with our family as we fought our foreclosure,” said Nick Espinosa, Colleen’s son, and an organizer with Occupy Homes MN. “I’m inspired by the outpouring of community support, and it renews my commitment to stand with other families who are struggling to stay in their homes.”

This is a tremendous victory for Nick and Colleen and their community, as well as the entire Occupy Our Homes movement. But how did it happen and what should we take away from it?

Colleen's choice to fight back was critical to victory. She decided to share her story and talk to her neighbors, Occupiers, and community organizers about how she could put pressure on Citibank to make a deal. Banks aren't showing themselves willing to magically reduce homeowners' principal out of the goodness of their hearts (let alone for the financial benefit of their investors). But homeowners who are standing up and saying that they are not ashamed to be fighting back are finding that they are can get solutions from the banks.

The banks want homeowners to be ashamed about being in foreclosure. They want us to keep our mouths shut, except to open wide while we take the bitter medicine of losing our homes. But Colleen's story shows, as is so often the case, it's not the homeowners fault for being in foreclosure.

When the bank refuses to take your money, it's obvious that it's not your fault.

When the bank defrauds you and sells you something other than what you were told you were getting, it's not your fault.

When the business you work for goes under and you lose your job in an economy that Wall Street broke, it's not your fault for coming to foreclosure.

When your government job is eliminated as part of austerity pushed by financial elites to, again, try to repair the economy that they broke, it's not your fault when you get a foreclosure notice. Banks demand that homeowners feel shame for situations created entirely from bank behavior.

As McKee Espinosa says, "If anyone should be ashamed, it’s the banks for tearing apart our communities after we bailed them out with our tax dollars. When we stand together we can win, and I believe thousands more will.”

People like Colleen are showing us all that when homeowners fight back against the banks, they can win. While servicers aren't rushing to make deals to keep families in their homes and keep chasing profits through foreclosures, when communities organize to help a family stay in their home, the banks are coming to the negotiating table.

The banks have destroyed so much of our economy. Over 7 millions homes have been foreclosed on and at least that many more are likely to happen over the next three to four years. A new study by the Federal Reserve (pdf link) says that median net worth fell 38.8% between 2007-2010, largely driven by a losses in housing.

Policy makers, regulators, and politicians have failed to either pursue legal accountability for bank crimes relating to the housing crisis, or put in place programs to aid homeowners in crisis. In the absence of meaningful law enforcement and aid solutions, it is up to communities to rally together to fight off foreclosures, as Minneapolis rallied around Colleen and Nick.

Community pressure around brave homeowners like Colleen is producing solutions that are keeping families in their homes. It is forcing banks to behave with a shred of decency and humility. Indeed, it is the hope of the Occupy Our Homes movement that by forcing banks to change what their doing with foreclosures one case at a time, we can build up enough pressure to force banks to change their foreclosure mitigation policies nationally, so all homeowners can benefit.

This is going to be a long fight, but Colleen and Nick are proof that homeowners can beat big Wall Street banks, if they stand up and organize in their communities and wield their power for change. Find out more at OccupyOurHomes.org or OccupyHomesMN.org. Read the rest of this post...

Infiltration, violence and media framing—an example for Occupy

As if by magic comes this Rick Perlstein piece on cop infiltration. Occupy, take note. It touches three bases I touched on earlier — infiltration, violence and media framing. (This post also concludes my thoughts on Occupy and violence; it makes the rest of my case.)

Perlstein's intro (my emphasis and the usual reparagraphing for our narrow columns):

This past October, at an Occupy encampment in Cleveland, Ohio, "suspicious males with walkie-talkies around their necks" and "scarves or towels around their heads" were heard grumbling at the protesters' unwillingness to act violently.

At meetings a few months later, one of them, a 26-year-old with a black Mohawk known as "Cyco," explained to his anarchist colleagues how "you can make plastic explosives with bleach," and the group of five men fantasized about what they might blow up. Cyco suggested a small bridge. One of the others thought they’d have a better chance of not hurting people if they blew up a cargo ship.

A third, however, argued for a big bridge – "Gotta slow the traffic that's going to make them money" – and won. He then led them to a connection who sold them C-4 explosives for $450.

Then, the night before the May Day Occupy protests, they allegedly put the plan into motion – and just as the would-be terrorists fiddled with the detonator they hoped would blow to smithereens a scenic bridge in Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park traversed by 13,610 vehicles every day, the FBI swooped in to arrest them.

Right in the nick of time, just like in the movies.

Can you smell the setup?

The authorities couldn’t have more effectively made the Occupy movement look like a danger to the republic if they had scripted it. Maybe that's because, more or less, they did.

Note the goal — to make the "Occupy movement look like a danger to the republic." In the battle for hearts and minds of the well-washed undecided middle, violence sways the undecided to the well-washed cops.

First the mechanics, then the why. The mechanics:

The guy who convinced the plotters to blow up a big bridge, led them to the arms merchant, and drove the team to the bomb site was an FBI informant.

The merchant was an FBI agent.

The bomb, of course, was a dud.

And the arrest was part of a pattern of entrapment by federal law enforcement since September 11, 2001, not of terrorist suspects, but of young men [whom] federal agents have had to talk into embracing violence in the first place.

One of the Cleveland arrestees, Connor Stevens, complained to his sister of feeling "very pressured" by the guy who turned out to be an informant and was recorded in 2011 rejecting property destruction: "We're in it for the long haul and those kind of tactics just don't cut it," he said. "And it's actually harder to be non-violent than it is to do stuff like that."

Though when Cleveland's NEWS Channel 5 broadcast that footage, they headlined it "Accused Bomb Plot Suspect Caught on Camera Talking Violence."

And there's your trifecta. The FBI (or NYPD or LAPD or ATF or LSMFT) infiltrates a group; they pressure the group toward violence; and the media frames the bust as "Violent Anarchist Foiled". (The rest of that headline is often: "And Accidently Breaks His Head During Kid-Gloves Arrest".)

By the way, are you noting the press emergence of the term "anarchist"? "Terrorist" is losing its sting.

Perlstein's sums up this part of the story (and his emphasis):

[The feds] are arrogating to themselves a downright Orwellian power – the power to deploy the might of the State to shape a fundamental narrative about which ideas Americans must be most scared of, and which ones they should not fear much at all, independent of the relative objective dangerousness of the people who hold those ideas.

Nice to see someone else capitalize "the State" — it's a dominant player in the drama all by itself, isn't it? After all, who needs national leaders when you have all the money you'll ever need, a hard-baked infrastructure, and institutional momentum? It moves by itself.

There are many more stories in Perlstein's nice piece. Please do read.

Now the why. Why does this matter for Occupy?

I'm looking at the Antiwar Movement of the 1960s and 1970s as a model. That movement reached critical mass — a momentum that could not be stopped or ignored — by absorbing into it masses of the middle-class middle.

Movements like Occupy see the world differently than the apolitical middle-class. The middle class sees the Matrix, the Republican and Democratic self-presentation, the Ozian manipulation, and miss completely the man behind the curtain.

Movements don't reach critical mass until large numbers of those in the see-what-they're-shown center start looking past the curtain, past the Matrix, to what's really going on.

That only happens in a couple of ways. A great national crisis of pain will do it (example, the Great Depression, which radicalized a whole bunch of people against their rulers and manipulators). We didn't get that last time round, the crisis we could have been handed in 2008.

In the 1960s, the compulsory national draft got the attention of a whole generation, in a deeply personal way. Everyone was affected or knew someone who was. And the price of losing that lotto was potential death in a rice paddy. Hard not to care.

In both of the examples above, the movement for change reached critical mass, its members educated themselves, and the nation had no choice but to respond. (Read here about the importance of movement self-education.)

What does Occupy have to do to reach critical mass? It's not certain they will.

But what they must not do, in my humble opinion, is alienate the convincible middle before the middle can be recruited. Allowing the State — through its agents and media partners — to turn people off before Occupy can turn them on could be a death sentence for Occupy.

And with this, I'll rest my case. Occupy. Effectively. Reach critical mass.

GP

To follow or to send links: @Gaius_Publius Read the rest of this post...

Occupy: This is how you know you have their attention

You still have it, Occupy. They're still looking at you.

A lot happened in Chicago over the weekend at events related to the demonstrations against NATO. Depending on where you go or who you ask, you get a different picture. It's a real kaleidoscope of images and viewing angles.

I want to look at some of the kaleidoscope, then add things up.

■ First this image (click to big):

as referenced in this tweet:

United front of bike-cops and long-baton riot troopers protecting Chicago from vegans with flags twitpic.com/9nhnhy

— Kenneth Lipp (@kennethlipp) May 21, 2012

Remind you of this? It should — they're back. Per Sam Seder, there were also anecdotal reports of LRAD deployments.

■ Next this taste from the Chicago Sun-Times:

Chicago Police in riot gear battled with [...] protesters at Michigan and Cermak on Sunday, with officers raining down baton blows, pushing taunting protesters back and leaving some bloody.

I've left this report brief (and edited) because I've read many non-mainstream accounts that conflict with those from mainstream media, whom I strongly suspect of "framing" rather than reporting.

I suggest you do likewise — strongly suspect the mainstream media of "framing," not just reporting.

■ But this really got my attention. Via David Swanson (my emphasis and some reparagraphing):

A huge crowd gathered for several hours and marched for over two miles in the hot sun to oppose NATO and U.S. wars on Sunday in Chicago. Finishing the march outside the NATO meeting, numerous U.S. veterans of current wars denounced their previous "service" and threw their medals over the fence, a scene not witnessed since the U.S. war on Vietnam.

This event, with massive turnout and tremendous energy, saw the participation of numerous groups from Chicago and the surrounding area, including students, teachers, and activists on a variety of issues ... No one can have been disappointed with the turnout, but it might have been bigger if not for the fear that was spread prior to Sunday. In the face of that fear, Sunday's action was remarkable.

The fear was the result of a massive militarized police build up, rumors of evacuations, the boarding up of windows, brutal police assaults on activists, preemptive arrests, disappearances, and charges of terrorism.

A segment of the activist world plays into these police tactics, wearing bandanas, shouting curses, antagonizing police, and eroding credibility for claims that violence is all police-initiated. Yet the vast majority of the crowd was disciplined, nonviolent, and effective.

Swanson adds editorially:

It is critical that the people of Afghanistan know the people of the U.S. oppose what NATO is doing to them.

Agree or disagree, that was the message.

Veterans demonstrate against war in Chicago, May 21, 2012.
(Photo: peoplesworld)

UPDATE: More images of the soldiers' protest here.

■ About those "disappearances" you might start here. There are many more reports like that. It paints yet another picture, this time of covert police intel ops, likely infiltration, and "preventive" uncharged detentions.

Were there also agents provocateurs sprinkled among the boys in black? You guess.

What does this add to?

These images sum to an establishment that's frightened and feeling under siege. They are afraid that Occupy will have an effect and are determined to stamp it out.

This is excellent news, in my opinion. It means:

• Occupy still has their attention (thank you, spirit in the sky).
  
  
• The Masters of the State are determined — stupidly in my opinion — to make themselves and their cops the news; to send a message, as it were.

Message sent. I was worried during the winter hiatus that Occupy would become ho-hum, last week's newspaper. The State's preoccupation (heh) means Occupy might still build critical mass.

What to do next

It seems clear that Occupy leaders (you know you exist) should be certain to embrace non-violence. You don't have to police your ranks (the cops will do that for you — by infiltration and by beating). But define violent attack (yes, even against property) as outside the Occupy Movement circle.

I've expressed that argument here. The additional reason is infiltration.

You know you will be infiltrated, Occupy. You've certainly been infiltrated already. The first mark you should put on someone espousing violence is "cop candidate". You'll be right at least part of the time, and you can't afford to be wrong, to assume the sincerity of the violent.

If you divide around violence, you will shrink and ultimately fail. If you unite against violence, you retain the best PR advantage you have — "We're not the 1%. We're not Them."

In my opinion, this is your most promising growth path.

And your success matters. As I wrote earlier, the whole rest of the resistance, of which Occupy is just a part, needs you to grow. Critical mass.

GP

To follow or send links: @Gaius_Publius
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Virtually Speaking: GP and Jay Ackroyd tonight 9pm EST

Tonight at 9pm EST Virtually Speaking's Jay Ackroyd and I will chat for an hour. The conversation will be available live (see information below) and for later listening at the Virtually Speaking site.

In addition, Virtually Speaking programs are available as iTunes broadcasts (which is how I often listen).

Tune in if you can. There's a call-in number at the site. From the announcement:

Virtually Speaking Thursday May 17 – 6pm PT / 9pm ET
Gaius Publius with Jay Ackroyd

Gaius Publius is a Contributing Editor to AmericaBlog. He and Jay Ackroyd expect to talk about "Hugging the Monster" (climate catastrophe), the developing Grand Bargain on "entitlements" and the importance of non-violence in the Occupy movement.

Listen Live & Later on BlogTalkRadio

Please tune in (or download) if these subjects interest you. Thanks!

GP

To follow or to send links: @Gaius_Publius
Jay Ackroyd's Twitter feed: @jayackroyd Read the rest of this post...

Twitter supports Occupy Wall Street, refuses court order violating user's privacy

A round of applause for Twitter today. Users own their own content, according to the company.

Twitter has moved to quash a court order issued by the Manhattan district attorney that would require it to hand over the tweets of a writer and Occupy Wall Street protester arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge last October.

In a motion filed in the criminal court in New York on Monday Twitter argued that it should not be forced to give the prosecutor three months worth of tweets by Malcolm Harris, who was arrested on the bridge along with 700 other activists.

Harris had issued his own motion in a bid to quash the subpoena in February, contending that there was "no justification" for New York prosecutors to seek "such a broad swath of electronic data". The motion was rejected by Judge Matthew A Sciarrino Jr on 20 April, in an order ruling that Harris did not have the legal standing to challenge the subpoena because Twitter owned the rights to his tweets.

NOTE FROM JOHN: It's really scary that judges, who probably understand the Internet as well as my parents, are making law governing the Internet.

First, someone doesn't have automatic rights in their own written content that's posted online? Really? So I guess I don't have rights to my own blog then.

Second, the NY prosecutors wants Twitter to turn over user information, including the user's email address. That's a pretty hefty privacy violation without a court order, or just cause.

Harris was arrested in October and charged with disorderly conduct for his participation in an Occupy Wall Street march that ended with some 700 arrests after protesters walked onto the road section of the Brooklyn Bridge. New York prosecutors issued a subpoena to Twitter on 26 January, requesting three months worth of tweets from Harris's twitter account as well as "user information, including email address".

Do you know anyone who has any kind of account, online or off, that doesn't publicly state their real name? Do you think the true identity of the account holder should be publicly available without a court order? And, again, how the judge claim that the account holder has no interest in their identity being released?

Next, check out the fishing expedition the NY prosecutor is on:

The New York Times has reported that prosecutors want to see three months of Harris's tweetsin the belief they may contradict his potential defence that police allowed protesters to walk in the road.

"The defendant may have used the account to make statements while on the bridge that were inconsistent with his anticipated trial defense," the Times quoted assistant district attorney Lee Langston as saying.

May?  Is there any evidence he did?  And why stop there. The defendant "may" have used his account to conspire with the newest underwear bomber. He "may" have used his account to plan the assassination of the President. Heck, any of us "may" have. So let's open up every electronic communication to the NYPD so they can make sure that none of us "may" be up to no good.

(To follow me on Twitter: @ChrisInParis) Read the rest of this post...

Kent State, 1970, new tape evidence: "They heard someone shout 'prepare to fire' then give an order"

As you know, this week is the anniversary of the Kent State Killings.

On May 4, l970, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine. One of the wounded was paralyzed permanently.

This post is a fast three-parter.

■ First, the new evidence. Via Digby we learn, after all these years, there was indeed an order to "Fire" (my emphasis and paragraphing):

Inevitably, National Guard leaders insisted that the Guardsmen had not been ordered to fire; either they shot in self-defense or, at worst, acted on their own. Three hundred FBI investigators found no proof of a plan to shoot students; the Department of Justice closed the case three times in as many years. It took until 1979 for a civil suit to be resolved, with the state of Ohio issuing a mild statement of regret and paying $675,000 to the victims and their families.

And yet there is no resolution of this tragedy. Just before the May 4th demonstration began, a Kent State communications major who lived in a dorm overlooking the Commons decided to record it. Setting the microphone of his tape deck in his window, he created the only real-time account of the shooting.

The original was destroyed by the Department of Justice in 1979, but a copy of the tape surfaced in a collection of evidence given to the Yale University Library.

In 2010, at the request of two Ohio newspapers, forensic experts used technology not available in the 1970s to evaluate a digital CD of the tape.

They heard someone shout "prepare to fire" and then give an order. Two seconds later, the gunshots begin.

■ Kinda reminds you of this, doesn't it?

It does me. Welcome to the State, protecting itself.

■ Finally, another version of the music Chris featured. (Sorry, this one may come pre-ad-dled; it's from the copyright owners themselves, WMG. Our Betters; gotta love their love of property rights.)

Neil Young in concert, 1971, acoustic only:



Occupy, folks — and be sure to do it non-violently, or you will fail to grow. We do need you to grow.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius) Read the rest of this post...

Occupy Wall Street should explicitly reject violence

This is an editorial, not a news item.

There has been a lively (but not too loud) debate within the Occupy movement about the issue of violence. Prior to the winter hiatus, almost all Occupy-related violence has come from the police — the muscle arm of the State in these matters, the designated suppressors of the "outside" resistance to the Rule of the .01 Percent.

• Side note: "Outside resistance" is sometimes called the "outside game" — the populist protests, the action in the streets — as opposed to more institutional responses like lobbying, law-making, and awareness writing. I'll be using the term "outside game" a lot in this context.
  
  Tahrir Square, for example, is an outside game. The Berkeley Free Speech movement is an outside game. Every rebellion needs one to complement its inside — institutional — game. It's the way this stuff works.

This one-sided violence has started to change, however. Police are no longer the only violent element at the protests. There are groups "within" the vaguely-structured Occupy movement that not only advocate violence, they seem to relish it (as a form of art perhaps, or frustration release). And so far, Occupy has not stepped up to reject violent solutions.

One of the aftermaths of the May Day demonstrations earlier this week are stories of violence.

• Here's what that looks like in the corporate press.
• Here's what that looks like in the Foxified press.
• Here's what the response looks like at the mayoral-police planning level.

I get that Occupy doesn't want to be a top-down movement. Outside games are always a mix of multi-headed leadership–organizing and broad bottom-up participation.

But by fetishizing "leaderlessness" the Occupy movement is doing two things wrong, in my view.

And if Occupy leaders (organizers) don't take on and reject violence, they will do lasting damage both to Occupy and to the broader movement of which Occupy is just one part.

What Occupy is doing wrong

In early stages, movements like Occupy are naturally amorphous; by definition they must spring up on their own. This bottom-up energy is what feeds and waters them; it's what allows them to reach "critical mass" if indeed they ever do.

But leaders always emerge, and leadership doesn't have to be all or nothing — absent or totally controlling. Mario Savio, for example, was clearly a leader (along with a number of others) in the Free Speech Movement. He didn't control it, but he guided it, and through his voice and mind the movement had focus.

There's a necessary symbiotic relationship between leaders and non-leaders in a truly populist movement. Dr. King (and others) had that relationship with the Civil Rights Movement of his era. There are many more examples.

By rejecting the place of leadership, Occupy risks rejecting two critical resources that leaders provide: education and guidance.

Education — Leaders don't just lead, they organize education. As I wrote just recently:

One of the most valuable and beneficial activities of the Vietnam War era were the teach-ins, where the Movement educated itself about what it was facing.

With that education, people understood how the U.S. replaced France in the fight against Ho Chi Minh, their former WWII ally, to whom they promised a free Southeast Asia after Japan, and later France, were defeated — that the "anti-Communist" frame, in other words, was a lie. Unity around a common understanding is both powerful and necessary.

I'll say that again — Unity around a common understanding is powerful and necessary.

Want a thought experiment to test that? Independent of strategy ideas (about which there can be differences), progressives who don't get that Obama is a corporatist cannot add positively to the Progressive Coalition for change and return to Rule of Law. Want to see the coalition that contains that confusion? Watch the Democratic Party.

This isn't a statement about how best to implement Progressive reform (Under Obama or Romney? Let's think about scenarios). It's a statement about how to understand what you see in front of your face.

Resistance movements that don't take self-teaching seriously are doomed to dilution. A cadre of leaders in a movement like Occupy (or in the Progressive movement of which Occupy is a part) is essential to guarantee that education. That's just a fact.

Moral and tactical guidance — I'll split these two in a minute. But it almost goes without saying, Not everyone with an idea has a good idea. Some ideas won't ever work, and some are immoral. For a great many of us, violence is immoral.

Seems obvious, right? Apparently not to Occupy. Care to split yourself into the OK-with-violence people and those who hate it? Go for it; those who hate violence will leave. From a morals standpoint, leaderlessness doesn't grow a movement; it reduces it to its least moral component.

As for tactical guidance, you need that to get good outcomes. In a resistance, it's not just about process. In a government, democratic process is critical, since running a nation or a city is all about the process. Think about that; the whole point of having a democracy as your government is the process.

But only part of the point of an outside game is the process; by definition an outside game also seeks an outcome. By fetishizing leaderlessness, Occupy could (perhaps very soon) surrender all ability to influence the outcome of its actions. All of your enemies are waiting for you to turn violent; I think they know what's good for them.

What happens if Occupy does not reject violence

Occupy is the tip the outside game resisting the Rule of the .01%. Police violence is the response.

You don't stop police violence with non-violence; but you justify it by violent acts of your own. Your violence guarantees escalation of violence on both sides, and guarantees that their violence (police beatings; pepper-swabbed eyeballs and throats; multiple strip searches; extended stays in urine-soaked solitary cells) will be sold as "necessary" by the entire troop of millionaire news-blond(e)s.

Dear Occupy — Is that the outcome you want?

Because if you don't develop leaders — and respect for leaders — who will teach and guide, that's the outcome you will get.

And not only you, friends in Occupy — the rest of us as well. Occupy is not the whole resistance movement, only a part. Does Occupy bear a responsibility to the resistance movement as a whole?

If it does not care about outcomes, it abandons all responsibility to achieve what it says it cares about, and it risks being seen by the ungenerous as indulgent — much the way "drum circles" are seen within Occupy itself.

What am I asking?

I'm asking for one thing — that leaders within the Occupy movement, as a group, publicly reject violence and promote non-violent resistance.

That's the whole of my request. I'm not asking you to control the violence; I'm asking you to make sure that Occupy embraces non-violence as a non-negotiable core value.

I'm not asking on moral grounds (though those exist). I'm asking because I care about outcomes, and we need you to succeed.

Don't let Occupy become the "drum circle" within the broader resistance movement. You not only risk yourselves; you risk the rest of us. Right now, you're a big part of the solution. We need you to stay that way; the battle will be even harder without you.

• Side note: "We don't condone" and "We condemn" have two separate meanings. This is not the time for baby steps, in my estimation. Things could go very south very quickly.

Thanks for your ear; I appreciate it.

Singing in the key of Please Condemn,

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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The Occupy Handbook, coming next week

Via Paul Krugman, we learn about what promises to be an excellent new book of essays, background, and analysis — The Occupy Handbook.

The work has 66 contributors include, including these luminaries:

• Paul Krugman
• Robin Wells
• Michael Lewis
• Robert Reich
• David Graeber
• Nouriel Roubini
• Matt Taibbi
• David Cay Johnston
• Martin Wolf
• Robert Shiller
• Peter Diamond
• Emmanuel Saez
• Amy Goodman
• Barbara Ehrenreich

Plus a great many others.

From the editorial description:

The Occupy Handbook is a source for understanding why 1% of the people in America take almost a quarter of the nation's income and the long-term effects of a protest movement that even the objects of its attack can find little fault with [sic].

Roger Lowenstein blurbs:

"More than a scrapbook of the recent Occupy Wall Street movement, The Occupy Handbook, a compilation by our best journalists, thinkers and economists, puts the story of America's revolt against inequality in welcome historical perspective.

From the barricades of 1848, to the barrios of modern Chile, to the improbable campgrounds thrown together in the shadows of New York skyscrapers, the Handbook examines the budding question of whether democracy can foster a more equal, and also a more prosperous, society.

Insightful pieces by Gillian Tett, John Cassidy, Bethany McLean and many more prepare you to think about the next outbreak of outrage and activism-which is only a matter of time."

The book will be available just in time for tax-deadline-day, April 17. You can pick it up at a local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.

Occupationally yours,

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius) Read the rest of this post...

Maddow on Mortgage Fraud—NC County Recorder sues big banks for dozens of instances of "fraud"

"The banks could start losing these cases," says Maddow. Yes, there's hope — the real kind.

This is an excellent primer on the mortgage mess (it's actually a crime scene, as you'll see). Very watchable, easily grasped. Please take time, if you have it, to view. This is ground-zero for the greatest challenge to our legal system in modern times. As Jeff Thigpen says in the clip, this is a "rule of law" story — writ large, in my view.

(Our primer is here, if you want a fuller explanation.)

Note especially that, despite the apparent impossibility of going through the Bush II–Obama I bank-fraud indemnification firewall, you (and your county clerk) can do it. As Maddow says (at 4:22):

Going after the banks by going through their paperwork turns out to be not that hard to do; regular people can do it, with a little training. ... It's looking more and more like they may be onto something.

Change "may be" to "are" and you have it.

It helps to have a Jeff Thigpen (4:50 in the clip; that's his face below), but there are lots of counties in the country. It won't take many of them to bust this wide. Watch:



This is about property rights (yes, good old libertarian property rights) versus hiding and indemnifying the massive criminal banking fraud that led to the 2008 crisis — and making sure that prosecuting said fraud doesn't bring down the entire U.S. banking system.

That's a really tough place to be, isn't it — caught between systemic banking collapse and protection of property rights. What's a money-hungry political ad campaign to do?

I'll have more on this — David Dayen and Digby have aired this issue in a recent Virtually Speaking episode that's a textbook explanation of this Scylla–Carybdis dilemma.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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Police make arrests in Occupy protest

Here we go again. Is it possible for the NYPD to show any restraint or is being a bunch of hooligans simply what they do?

Police arrested dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters on Saturday night during a protest marking the movement's six-month anniversary at its birthplace in New York's Zuccotti Park. The sweep of the park by police just before midnight capped a day of demonstrations and marching in lower Manhattan. There was no official word on the number of arrests but dozens of people were handcuffed and led out of the park. Earlier in the day, 15 people were arrested and three officers suffered injuries, police said.

Read the rest of this post...

Court evicts OccupyLSX in London

The High Court in London has ruled that the Occupy Camp at St Pauls Cathedral has to go. The camp is one of three in London and was the first to be established. It is the site of the Tent City University.

It seems that a compromise proposal that would have had tents present during the day but removed at night has also been rejected. The judge, Mr Justice Lindblom, refused permission to appeal which means that the protestors now have to persuade the Court of Appeal to hear their appeal. We have not yet had sight of the judgment but reports from the hearing suggest that the loss was comprehensive.

The protestors were represented by John Cooper QC (@John_Cooper_QC on twitter - well worth following for insight and updates).

The streets have not been filled with angry members of the public mustering in support of the protestors. Active support for the camp seems to have dwindled as the progress of the protest meandered towards simply finding ways to sustain its presence. For some, the camp has achieved its aim: establishing a debate. Others were more ambitious in terms of aims and are more disappointed as a result.

Elsewhere, a permanent protest encampment in Parliament Square has been removed, again with nothing more than a shrug from the British public. Read the rest of this post...

Portland Oregon City Council says corporations not people

The opposition to Citizens United, the corp-friendly Supreme Court decision, is building.

On the heels of this and this, the City Council of Portland, Oregon, has stepped up. The Oregonian online (h/t Dylan Ratigan; my emphasis and some reparagraphing):

Portland City Council approves anti-war and corporate-personhood resolutions

Portland City Council chambers overflowed this afternoon with supporters of two resolutions that grew out of the Occupy Wall Street and anti-war movements. Both are largely symbolic.

The first measure takes aim at military spending and responds to a call from local peace activists in October. ...

A second resolution, piggybacking on efforts in Los Angeles and elsewhere, establishes "that corporations should not receive the same legal rights as natural persons do, that money is not speech and that independent expenditures should be regulated" in political campaigns. It takes aim at the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which allows unlimited corporate spending in elections.

As the article noted, both measures are "largely symbolic."

(Keep an eye on that Montana decision though; the Montana Supreme Court, which in many people's estimations is about to be slapped down, has actual power.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

"Why won’t progressives fight for federal judges?"

In the wake of this discussion of progressives and their non-existent (or dysfunctional) relationship with the federal court system, I'm pointed via email to this article discussing the same issue.

In it, University of Georgia law professor Sonja West asks: "Why won’t progressives fight for federal judges?" and launches into an interesting examination.

First, the problem (my emphasis):

The lack of concern about or willingness to fight for judicial nominees by one party is a serious weakness in our current political system. If one side cares intensely about the courts and the other side doesn’t, what you get is a long-term bias in one direction. This growing imbalance shouldn’t just worry progressives. It should alarm anyone who believes a range of voices on the courts is essential.

Yet Democrats have a nagging blind spot for fully comprehending that when it comes to advancing the issues they care about, judges aren’t just important but indispensible. If disillusioned Democrats are wondering whether it matters whether President Obama gets a second term, they should look no further than the aging faces of the nine justices at the Supreme Court. And the thousands of demonstrators at Occupy Wall Street need to understand that many of the very things they’re protesting against are the direct consequences of decades spent by progressives deprioritzing judicial appointments.

That last statement is both powerful and true. To paraphrase:

OWS protesters need to understand that much of what they're protesting against are caused by several decades [at least 30 years] of progressives not caring enough about judicial appointments.

We're doing it to ourselves. Progressives are getting the country we're getting because of our choices — not as individuals, for the most part, but certainly as a group, a "coalition." When the Right builds a media outlet to get its message out (Fox News, say), it allows that outlet to operate at a loss for as long as it takes. Why? Because the Right is on a mission.

When the Left builds a media outlet (Air America, say), it forces that outlet to turn a profit or go under. Why? Because the Left is out to lunch.

And that's especially true when the subject is the courts. As I wrote earlier:

While the Federalist Society Right, with its corp-first ideology, has been fighting a 30-year battle to pack the U.S. court system with cronies and fellow radicals (my phrase again), the left has been going on long champagne lunches, enjoying the fruits of our national postwar wealth, and assuming this will always be their daddy's USA. It won't.

Where would we be today if Air America were allowed to run free? And where would we be if we fought for good judges and against bad ones with the same fervor (and skill) as our opponents?

Back to West's article. Where I see complacency, West sees a lack of good prioritization:

What modern Democrats crave instead are legislative victories—health care, immigration reform, social support systems, and environmental protections. And that leaves little left over in the political capital checking account to spend on judges. Democrats, of course, aren’t going to kick a liberal court out of bed for eating crackers, but they don’t want to push for one at the expense of other matters. In the first two years of the Obama Administration alone, the President and Congress could have appointed a slew of new federal judges, but they chose to work on other things. These other things, while important, came at the expense of judges.

Could well be true. The article is good — it reads well and makes the case. It also details some of the (many) losses caused by only caring about Supreme Court nominations. Please check it out.

I'll just add that this is not a problem that defies solution. Unlike electoral politics and the problem of taking over the Senate or the House (or the Democratic party), controlling the courts can be achieved by controlling a very small number of pressure points (I count three).

I'll offer more detail shortly; it's not rocket science to design this as an "op" or a project. This is incredibly important, and one side of the solution (playing on defense) requires just one determined person.

Playing to win; wouldn't it be nice to move the ball the other way for a change? We might even score some points of our own. Stay tuned.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Our ten most-read posts of 2011 on AMERICAblog

As the new year rings in, it's ten-best time the world over. And here at AMERICAblog we have a pretty good list of our own. These are the posts that have garnered the most interest in the previous 12 months.

In a very real sense, these posts are your favorites, chosen by your clicks. In some cases, you considered the topic important; in others, it was the news itself.

Either way, here they are. AMERICAblog's top ten posts, selected by your clicks. Thanks for each of those!  Here's the list, starting with the most-read post of 2011.

1. Did Romney adopt KKK slogan: "Keep America American"?

By far our most-read post in 2011. This sparked quite a controversy, with follow-ups here — after Chris Matthews apologized to Romney for MSNBC simply mentioning the controversy. And here — where the New York Times weighs in.

There were others as well; amazing the convulsions this caused. Good catch by John.

2. Mubarak ordered Tiananmen-style massacre of demonstrators, Army refused

One of my favorites, not for what it did, but for what it didn't do.  It got over 1000 retweets and nearly 4000 Facebook likes. It's sourced to respected, long-time Middle East reporter Robert Fisk. And yet the underlying story failed utterly to attract any mainstream media coverage at all. As near as I could find, not one big-media outlet picked up Fisk's explosive discovery.

And the underlying story is explosive. It was Mubarak's Tiananmen Square moment, the hour that Mubarak lost control of his army at the enlisted-man level. (For a discussion of aspects of the Egyptian army, try this, "A portrait of the Egyptian military"; my best shot at teasing out those layers.)

For my money, this was the biggest non-story story of the year, and a complete surprise to me how it played out.

3. OMG Cops pepper-spray UC Davis students, point blank in face, who are just sitting there doing nothing

Another very big deal, this time domestic, with many follow-ups. But I think one reminder is all you need; perhaps this one:


There's more at the link, including video, but that image is iconic and pretty much tells the tale. Occupy indeed.

4. Deaf, disabled senior citizen on bicycle deemed threat by police, tased to death for not hearing cop

This is one of many "I can't believe they did that; I can't believe America allows this" stories that got sprinkled through the year. Maybe the UC Davis pepper-spray story (above) made us more aware of gratuitous police violence. Hope so.

And this post allowed me space for one of my favorite rants — on rule of America by Rightwing Nation, and rule of Rightwing Nation by "Where's my daddy?"

I've never met a country more in need of Daddy's protection than Right Wing Nation, the country that writes the rules for how America is governed.

There's more of that at the link, if you care, along with a simply amazing story. Rest in peace, Mr. Anthony.

5. Att Gen asks Americans to report IP violations on their neighbors but not 1 prosecution of Wall Street

A beautiful catch by Chris in Paris:

Not a single prosecution against Wall Street for the collapse of 2008 but [Attorney General Holder] wants people to give a damn about IP violations for Hollywood and the recording industry

This is a prelude to all the PIPA and SOPA stories you're going to be reading as the billionaire-begging season resumes. Stay seriously tuned.

6. Law firm, that held Halloween party mocking people who lost their homes, to close

Myrddin wrote this one, but it comes straight from Karma Central. Kind of like if the guy who invented "Bumvertising" ended up drinking with the Sterno crowd. Great catch.

7. Next time...

This is a Scott Olsen OWS story, one of many. It's short; I'll let you click and read Daily Kos' David Waldman's immortal tweet. Heart-breaking.

8. Iceland arrests failed bank CEO and top trader; America arrests those who protest bank CEOs, traders

Another great catch by Chris in Paris.

Iceland's special prosecutor has taken Larus Welding, the former head of the failed Glitnir Bank, into custody, Reuters reports.

Glitnir Bank was the first of the top three Icelandic commercial banks to fail in 2008.

As Chris points out, only in not-America.

9. BREAKING: Obama to address nation soon. Rumors that Bin Laden is dead

Without question, one of the top stories of the year. Lots of updates, and quite a few questions.

10. US cable providers eye 'usage-based' billing

Another great find from Chris in Paris. Lots of good info in this post. For example:

Here's another industry that is bloated and worthless, thanks to the political class. As expensive as things can be here in Europe, people choke when they hear how much Americans pay for internet/cable/phone services. At home in Paris, our fiber optic 100MB connection also includes free phone calls to 100 countries around the world, plus 140 TV channels for €33.90 per month (around US$45). No limits. Other countries in Europe have faster speeds and better prices.

And more. As John says, "Fleecing the customers." Indeed.

All in all, a rough year for news, and not likely to get better. But interesting, very interesting.

We learned a lot last year. If nothing else, we learned how to Occupy, and for me, that made the year very sweet indeed.

More of that please?

GP Read the rest of this post...

After creating a dysfunctional Wall Street, Clinton now supports OWS

Here's the classic Bill Clinton that we've seen for years.

Let's not kid ourselves and think that he had nothing to do with the abuses on Wall Street that brought down the economy. Maybe the GOP was leading the charge for scrapping the protections that kept America safe from Wall Street for decades, but Bill Clinton embraced the "reforms" and his team - Wall Streeters themselves - implemented the plans.

It was Clinton who signed the Gramm Leach Bliley Act back in 1999. The Clinton team at the center of the changes - Larry Summers and Robert Rubin - later went on to cash in themselves (Rubin was already a Wall Street giant) on the reforms and made millions more on Wall Street. Bill Clinton himself was no stranger to Wall Street gigs. Sorry if I'm not buying into the new and improved Bill Clinton who supposedly supports OWS, but I'd much rather hear him explain how bad his decisions were and how those terrible decisions left Americans with the worst economy since the Great Depression. It wasn't that long ago that Bill Clinton was defending Wall Street ("time to lower the rhetoric and talk about the facts") and telling Americans to shut up since Wall Street did nothing illegal. It wasn't illegal because people like Bill Clinton helped legalize the abuse of the system, which left Americans holding the bag while Wall Street continued the celebration with fat checks.

As long as people like Bill Clinton remain involved in the political process, there's really no hope for reform. He cashed in on his public service and takes money from the highest bidder. He's clever enough to tell which way the wind is blowing, but it doesn't make him any less cynical and opportunistic. It may not be polite to say in Democratic circles, but that's the way it is with our party elder. Forbes:

“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. Without once looking around, but completely engaging me, the statesman continued. “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.”

Read the rest of this post...

Taibbi: Where most of us have shame, the rich have an "extra set of balls"

Much has been made of this Max Ableson article in Business Week detailing the Song of the Whiny Rich.

Here's a taste:

[JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie] Dimon, 55, whose 2010 compensation was $23 million, joined billionaires including hedge-fund manager John Paulson and Home Depot Inc. co-founder Bernard Marcus in using speeches, open letters and television appearances to defend themselves and the richest 1 percent of the population targeted by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators.

If successful businesspeople don’t go public to share their stories and talk about their troubles, “they deserve what they’re going to get,” said Marcus, 82, a founding member of Job Creators Alliance, a Dallas-based nonprofit that develops talking points and op-ed pieces aimed at “shaping the national agenda,”[.]

The 0.1% are striking back, using, among other venues, the pages of Business Week. About those protesters, the aforementioned Home Depot magnate Marcus said:

“Who gives a crap about some imbecile?” Marcus said. “Are you kidding me?”

Other pleasantries from the article include:

“If I hear a politician use the term ‘paying your fair share’ one more time, I’m going to vomit,” said [billionaire founder of payroll processer Paychex Inc. Tom] Golisano, who turned 70 last month, celebrating the birthday with girlfriend Monica Seles, the former tennis star who won nine Grand Slam singles titles

Monica Seles? Tom Golisano must be "still in the game" (insert aging-male weight-loss link here).

And then there's this delight, which forms the center of a Matt Taibbi reaction (my emphasis throughout):

“You have to have skin in the game,” said [Blackstone Group LP CEO Stephen] Schwarzman, 64. “I’m not saying how much people should do. But we should all be part of the system.”

If you haven't figured it out, that reflects his thought that those who are so poor they don't pay taxes have no "skin in the game."

In my mind, that's a great example of the 180 Tell (my phrasing), a statement that's exactly opposite to what's actually true. Not just opposite — 180° opposite. In fact, the poor have nothing but skin in the game, and Schwartzman has exactly none.

Here's Matt Taibbi to explain. In one of his best blog posts ever, he skillfully exposes this for what it is.

First, about Schwartzman:

The real issue has to do with the context of Schwarzman’s quote. The Blackstone billionaire, remember, is one of the more uniquely abhorrent, self-congratulating jerks in the entire world – a man who famously symbolized the excesses of the crisis era when, just as the rest of America was heading into a recession, he threw himself a $5 million birthday party, featuring private performances by Rod Stewart and Patti Labelle, to celebrate an IPO that made him $677 million in a matter of days (within a year, incidentally, the investors who bought that stock would lose three-fourths of their investments).

As Taibbi has pointed out elsewhere, people like Schwartzman win by stealing. Why? Because they can.

Next, about those who are too poor to have "skin in the game":

[I]f you’re broke enough that you’re not paying any income tax, you’ve got nothing but skin in the game. You've got it all riding on how well America works.

You can’t afford private security: you need to depend on the police. You can’t afford private health care: Medicare is all you have. You get arrested, you’re not hiring Davis, Polk to get you out of jail: you rely on a public defender to negotiate a court system you'd better pray deals with everyone from the same deck. And you can’t hire landscapers to manicure your lawn and trim your trees: you need the garbage man to come on time and you need the city to patch the potholes in your street.

Finally, about those super-rich — they have no skin in the game at all:

The very rich on today’s Wall Street are now so rich that they buy their own social infrastructure. They hire private security, they live on gated mansions on islands and other tax havens, and most notably, they buy their own justice and their own government. ... [C]itizens of the stateless archipelago where people like Schwarzman live spend millions a year lobbying and donating to political campaigns so that they can jump the line. They don’t need to make sure the government is fulfilling its customer-service obligations, because they buy special access to the government[.] ... Want to lower the capital reserve requirements for investment banks? Then-Goldman CEO Hank Paulson takes a meeting with SEC chief Bill Donaldson, and gets it done. Want to kill an attempt to erase the carried interest tax break? Guys like Schwarzman, and Apollo’s Leon Black, and Carlyle’s David Rubenstein, they just show up in Washington at Max Baucus’s doorstep, and they get it killed.

As I've written elsewhere, the air is perfumed before them, their feet never touch the ground, and their wives and daughters never face porno-scans at the airport.

If they stub their toe, they call their senator, who sends their congressman to bandage it.

This great piece ends with a long story about Jamie Dimon (see first quote in this article) and his incestuous relationship with the New York Fed — a revelation worthy of its own blog post. Please do read if you have a few minutes.

Taibbi closes with one of his great lines:

[T]hese people don’t have shame. What they have, in the place where most of us have shame, are extra sets of balls.

Or maybe just a lot of skin.

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