Corporations

They’re arresting the Occupy Movements for trampling grass in public squares. But the finance industry who trampled the U.S. economy in the collapse of Wall Street have yet to be punished says William Black.
Source: Prosecuting Financial Titans

Bill Black talks about the Banksters with Peter B. Collins

Bill Black, former Savings & Loan regulator talks about failure to prosecute fraudsters. Black is currently an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Black was litigation director for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board from 1984 to 1986, deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation in 1987. Black is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry. He takes on Attorney General Holder and the U.S. Attorney in Sacramento for failing to investigate and prosecute financial crimes.
Source: Straight Talk on Banksters from Prof. Bill Black

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This is probably the most important article you'll ever read if you're going to college, or thinking about it ... or know someone who is

A Review of The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History – and How We Can Fight Back by Alan Michael Collinge

By Carolyn Betts and Catherine Austin Fitts

The Preface begins:

“The truth is that I never considered student loans to be an especially interesting topic. College debt, I believed, was a necessary evil – to be repaid expeditiously and then forgotten even more quickly. However, what I once thought of as an uninteresting issue has come to dominate my life.”

This highly informative book was written by a 1998 graduate of Cal Tech with three degrees in aerospace engineering who, after a student loan nightmare that took him from an original relatively modest $38,000 Sallie Mae loan to an obligation of $80,000 by 2002 and $103,000 by mid 2005. At that point he started the website www.studentloanjustice.org in an effort to hook up with others in similar straits, share stories and become politically active in restoring consumer protections for student loans.

If you want to know why and how the right-wing gained and has maintained hold of American discourse and rhetoric ... read what follows. It's ten years old but the points are still valid

The Powell Manifesto: How A Prominent Lawyer's Attack Memo Changed America

America's Second Gilded Age has been scoured of its glitter, along with the platitudes that its town criers preached -- "too much government," "market infallibility," and "prosperity forever." The policies and ethical failures that sprang from this gospel are under intense scrutiny. After 30 years, the self-serving creed of a right-wing coalition of wealth and power -- ideologues, promoters, corporate executives, and the American aristocracy of money - is under assault, its system failures increasingly apparent. Their ideology tantalized millions with the promise of "getting the government off our backs!"

The consequences of this readily marketable guff have led us to drastically altered economic circumstances -- a ruinous drop in both stock values and ethical standards that has weakened the economy; far worse, a global loss of confidence in the American economic system, and in a pro-market administration that is squandering America's good name and credibility among allies and friends

Watch the video ... Actually it's worse, when you look at it the right way

The L-Curve graph represents income, not wealth. The distribution of wealth is even more skewed. Quoting from a recently-published book by political philosopher David Schweickart,

If we divided the income of the US into thirds, we find that the top ten percent of the population gets a third, the next thirty percent gets another third, and the bottom sixty percent get the last third. If we divide the wealth of the US into thirds, we find that the top one percent own a third, the next nine percent own another third, and the bottom ninety percent claim the rest. (Actually, these percentages, true a decade ago, are now out of date. The top one percent are now estimated to own between forty and fifty percent of the nation's wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%.)

Scott Horton Interviews Francis Boyle

Francis Boyle discusses how in 2004 the FBI and CIA tried to make him an informant to betray his Arab and Muslim legal clients. His refusal landed him on several terrorism watch lists and guaranteeing him a lifetime of harassment when traveling. He asks if we are already living in a police state, which will become a military dictatorship after one more major terrorist attacks. Currently Professor Boyle lectures on international law at the University of Illinois College of Law.
Source: Scott Horton Interviews Francis Boyle

Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader talks with Bob McChesney

Ralph Nader was named by The Atlantic as one of the 100 most influential figures in American history, and by Time and Life magazines as one of the hundred most influential Americans of the twentieth century. Nader has organized millions of citizens into more than 100 public interest groups to advocate for solutions. His efforts have helped create laws, regulatory agencies, and federal standards that have improved the quality of life for generations of Americans. Because of Ralph Nader we drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments.
Source: Ralph Nader on Media Matters with Bob McChesney

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The United States isn’t broke; we’re the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. In these and so many other ways, it just isn’t working. But rather than invest in something better, we continue to keep this ‘dinosaur economy’ on life support with hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money. The Story of Broke calls for a shift in government spending toward investments in clean, green solutions—renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste and more—that can deliver jobs AND a healthier environment. It’s time to rebuild the American Dream; but this time, let’s build it better.

There are 60 House Democrats, Blue Dogs (like Obama) and supposed “progressives” alike, who are reaching out to the SUPERCOMMITTEE to continue on with the charade that the CRISIS IN AMERICA is THE DEFICIT and the SOLUTION is FURTHER ECONOMIC RAPING OF THE CITIZENRY, not providing jobs and HELP to struggling Americans who have been paying taxes for years and deserve the rewards of that, not the "freedom" to starve and be homeless and betrayed.

My supposedly moderately “lefty” NYC Dem Congresswoman, Carolyn Maloney, is on the list and I will do all I can to get her out of office for her obtuseness and betrayal! That is a promise, Carolyn, you “knife in the backer”!

We need jobs. The crisis in America is unemployment not an economic deficit.

The challenge is unemployment for 99% of Americans. The challenge, on the other hand, for opportunistic pimped out politicians who not only enable the one percenters but ARE one percenters themselves is to keep their corporate pimps happy.

Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war mom who brought global attention to the Iraq war when she organized an encampment outside Bush's Ranch in Crawford, Texas in 2005, and 29 other Occupy Sacramento defendants appeared in the largest mass arraignment yet this this morning.

Later today, a federal judge will decide whether the City of Sacramento must stop arresting demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights. Occupy Sacramento lawyers vow to continue the lawsuit even if the TRO is turned down.

"The trial courts Wednesday refused to let additional occupiers be arraigned Thursday because it became apparently the courts can't handle the load," according to Cres Vellucci of Occupy Sacramento. "82 arrests have been made at Occupy Sacramento at Cesar Chavez Park since Oct. 6. All are expected to plead not guilty, reject any offer by the City of Sacramento and demand a jury trial.

A temporary restraining order requested of the federal court to permit "occupiers" to continue their free speech activities 24 hours a day and prevent the City from continuing arrests will be heard late Thursday afternoon, at 2 p.m. in Judge Morrison England's Courtroom, Courtroom 7, 14th Floor at the 5th & I St. Federal Courthouse.

Volunteer lawyers announced late Monday they will file a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Sacramento in federal court Tuesday on behalf of those arrested at Occupy Sacramento – and will ask for a temporary restraining to stop arrests at the Cesar Chavez Park demonstration.

"Similar federal lawsuits in other U.S. cities have resulted in an end to arrests," according to Cres Vellucci, Occupy Sacramento spokesman.

79 people have been arrested for asserting their First Amendment rights at Cesar Chavez Park since Oct. 6 when Occupy Sacramento began. So far about half of those have gone to court on misdemeanor charges (6 months in jail, $1,000 fine).

"When the District Attorney refused to file charges last week claiming no laws were broken, the City of Sacramento took over the prosecution," said Vellucci.

All were either defended by more than a dozen volunteer lawyers or the Public Defender office.

Details of the litigation will be released at a major press conference TUESDAY, 2 p.m. at the Federal Courthouse (5th & I Streets). Lawyers and plaintiffs will be available for comment.

Now this is a brilliant, fun and exciting event that I encourage everybody to attend - walk like a Zombie!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, Oct. 28, 2011
Contact: Cres Vellucci 916/996 9170

DAY 23:
Occupy Sacramento announces series of 'ZOMBIE WALK(s)' to the banks Saturday

SACRAMENTO – Occupy Sacramento announced it will hold a series of dramatic "Zombie Walk(s)" to the banks and other undisclosed locations Saturday.

The first "Zombie Walk" starts at 1 p.m. SATURDAY (Oct. 29) beginning at Cesar Chavez Park. There will be another at 8 p.m.

"Make-up" begins at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Park.

Last week, more 30 Occupy Sacramento protestors went to court for the first time – 79 arrests have been made since Oct. 6 when OS began. Those defendants were given Nov. 3 dates to make a plea on misdemeanor charges (6 months in jail, $1,000 fine).

Jacob Hacker

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class

Bob McChesney talks with Jacob Hacker, Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Jacob Hacker has made important contributions to public policy ideas in the areas of healthcare, social welfare and economic opportunity. Jacob has spent his career researching how the institutions of social protection work, practically and economically.

Paul Pierson

Paul Pierson is noted for his research on comparative public policy and political economy, the welfare state, and American political development. Pierson is Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley.

The bottom line is that lobbyists and campaign contributions by the wealthy have changed the structure of the economy for the worse.
Source: Winner-Take-All Politics: Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class

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Friday 14 October 2011
by: Robert Scheer, Truthdig | Op-Ed

If a Republican were president, there would be millions of properly coiffed middle-class Democrats and independents at those Occupy Wall Street marches, and no questions asked as to what they really want. With 25 million Americans unable to find full-time work, 50 million whose homeownership dream has turned into the nightmare of foreclosure, and an all-time high of 46.2 million -- including 22 percent of our children -- living in poverty, the call to throw the bums out would be compelling.

But the protest signs in a nation headed by a Republican, though surely gussied up a bit with ad-agency savvy, would be the same as they are now: Stop catering to the top 1 percent who get ever wealthier, and focus on helping the 99 percent who are hurting. To accomplish that, we need a moratorium on bank-ordered evictions, along with a government-funded program to aid the underemployed that is as robust as the trillions spent to save the Wall Street swindlers who caused all of this trouble.

Instead, we're left with a Democratic president who sooths our rage with promises of decent-paying jobs that in actuality are being vigorously exported from our shores by the president's top corporate backers. That absurdity was marked by Barack Obama's choice of Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric -- a company that has shifted to foreign countries two-thirds of its workforce and 82 percent of its profits -- to head the president's job creation council.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council. Kennedy was in San Francisco to promote The Last Mountain, a new film that features his efforts to end mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. Dirty fuels should be forced to cover their full costs, Kennedy says. Dirty fuels cannot compete without subsidies. Kennedy argues our democracy is broken, and the campaign finance system is a system of legalized bribery.
Source: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council

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The repression by the Sacramento Police Department continues. Late Friday night, one person was arrested standing quietly at the entrance to the park with a sign that read simply: "What about the 1st Amendment"? He was taken to jail.

* UPDATE * 8:30 p.m.

URGENT NEWS ADVISORY
Saturday, Oct. 8, 2011
Contacts: Cres Vellucci 916/996-9170; Sara Brooks 916/212-3709

http://www.facebook.com/OccupySacramento http://www.occupysac.com Twitter @OccupySacto

DAY 3 - OccupySacramento protests at Jail;
Mass arrests expected
Saturday night

SACRAMENTO, Ca. – OccupySacramento marched through the streets of Sacramento Saturday night, ending up with a rally at the County Jail, where 20 OccupySac demonstrators Thursday and one Friday were temporarily held after being arrested this week.

News10

SACRAMENTO, CA - Several hundred people showed up in downtown Sacramento morning to convey their displeasure with corporate greed and the state of the country.

The "Occupy Sacramento" assemblage listened to several speakers before marching from Cesar Chavez Park to the State Capitol.

[...]

http://www.news10.net/news/article/157822/2/Occupy-Sacramento-rally-and-march-take-place

SacBee