Tag: Politics

Tens of Thousands Flood the Streets of Global Financial Centers, Capitol Cities and Small Towns to “Occupy Together” Against Wall Street Mid-Town Manhattan Jammed as Marches Converge in Times Square

New York, NY — After triumphing in a standoff with the city over the continued protest of Wall Street at Liberty Square in Manhattan’s financial district, the Occupy Wall Street movement has spread world wide today with demonstrations in over 1,500 cities globally and over 100 US cities from coast to coast. In New York, thousands marched in various protests by trade unions, students, environmentalists, and community groups. As occupiers flocked to Washington Square Park, two dozen participants were arrested at a nearby Citibank while attempting to withdraw their accounts from the global banking giant.

“I am occupying Wall Street because it is my future, my generations’ future, that is at stake,” said Linnea Palmer Paton, 23, a student at New York University. “Inspired by the peaceful occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo, tonight we are are coming together in Times Square to show the world that the power of the people is an unstoppable force of global change. Today, we are fighting back against the dictators of our country – the Wall Street banks – and we are winning.”

The Occupy London and Wall Street protests reflect deep anger that no one has been called to account for the financial crisis

The only surprise about Saturday’s occupation of the London Stock Exchange is that it took so long to happen. No doubt the government and banking lobby was hoping that the final report of the Vickers commission last month would draw a line under so-called banker bashing in the UK. As Basil Fawlty might have put it: “I crashed the global economy once, but I think I got away with it.”

So why won’t popular protests go away? Here’s why: there has been no public inquiry into the causes of the crash. No calling to account of those who drove the ship on to the rocks. No assertion of the public interest over financial markets. No subordination of banks to the needs of the real economy. No politician who dares face down global finance. No challenging of the defunct dogmas of neoliberal economics. No attempt to reverse the breathtaking wealth grab by the 1% at the expense of the rest.

Why should we be surprised that these protests are springing up, and why should we expect them to dissipate until these failures are addressed?

After scrapping stricter smog limit, President Barack Obama continues to throw the environment under the bus.

US regulator declines to enforce ‘death penalty’ on oil company despite environmentalists’ fury

The Obama administration has infuriated environmentalists by giving BP the green light to bid for new drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico.

The move – seen as a major step in the company’s political rehabilitation as an offshore driller following the Deepwater Horizon accident – was revealed by the head of the US safety regulator after a congressional hearing in Washington.

[]

BP declined to comment, but Friends of the Earth said it was appalled. “Governments should be administering the death penalty to all deepwater drilling rather than waiting for yet more devastating incidents like the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico or in any other part of the world,” argued Craig Bennett, director of policy and campaigns at the environmental group.

“It is not just BP operations that are deeply flawed,” he added. “There is not a single oil company that can say with a high degree of confidence that it can drill safely and how it will clear up if something goes wrong. It is clear in the context of climate change we need to develop new clean technologies, not hunt for fossil fuels in ever more remote and hard-to-reach areas.”

In May, the environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben – pondering a simmering energy issue – asked a NASA scientist to calculate what it would mean for the Earth’s climate if Canada extracted all of the petroleum in its rich Alberta oil sands region.

The answer to McKibben’s query came a month later: it would push atmospheric carbon concentrations so high that humans would be unable to avert a climate disaster. “It is essentially game over,” wrote James E. Hansen, who heads NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is one of the nation’s leading voices against fossil fuel energy.

“This project represents a collision of multiple national interests and multiple political interests,” said P.J. Crowley, who served as spokesman for the State Department during part of the review process. “Energy security and environment normally go together, but in this case they are somewhat at odds. All have come together to make this a bigger deal than it might have appeared at first blush.”

Charles K. Ebinger, a senior fellow for energy at the Brookings Institution, said the issue has “become a test case for the Democrats” with two factions within the Obama camp asking the same question: “Is he with us or against us?”

“I do think it has become a defining political issue,” Ebinger said. “I don’t think he’s going to win any friends whichever way he goes.”

We Don’t Need No Permits To March

October 15 Times Sq.

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) — Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York City today culminated with a Times Square rally that drew thousands opposed to economic inequality, echoed by protests from London to Tokyo.

Participants in the month-old movement marched past a JPMorgan Chase & Co. branch early in the day to urge clients to close accounts. Twenty-four were arrested later at a Citigroup Inc. office, the police said, and about 6,000 gathered in Times Square, the organizers estimated.

Hong Kong, Sydney, Toronto and other cities also saw protests, which turned violent in Rome, in what organizers called a “global day of action against Wall Street greed.” Backers say they represent “the 99 percent,” a nod to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s study showing the top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of U.S. wealth.

“The world will rise up as one and say, ‘We have had enough,'” Patrick Bruner, an Occupy Wall Street spokesman, said in an e-mail. A news release from the organization said there were demonstrations in 1,500 cities worldwide, including 100 in the U.S.

NYC Live Updates:

   8:50 p.m. 700 reported in Washington Square Park. Music and food there.

   8:30 p.m. Scanner says riot cops in full gear, nets out, headed to the crowd, 47th and 6th.

   8:11 p.m. White shirt just ordered #NYPD line AWAY from barricades. Crowd ROARS

   8:08 p.m. Tension escalating, police ordering protesters to step away from barricades.

   8:02 p.m. Mario: 4 paddy wagons and arrests at 46 and 6th ave.

   8:00 p.m. Police are arresting occupiers at 46th and 6th.

   7:30 p.m. Unconfirmed estimates ranging as high as 50,000 people in Times Square.

   6:45 p.m. Police have trapped people in times square with barricades.

   6:35 p.m. A horse just went down. Crowd is going wild. NYPD says anyone near barricade is going to jail. This is is inexcusable. (Source)

   6:22 p.m. Police on horseback arrive. Police pulling people out of crowd and attacking them. Protesters are rushing barricades.

   6:10 p.m. Police in riot gear retreat.

   6:05 p.m. Police are in riot gear.

   6:00 p.m. Backup has arrived. Estimated 15,000 in Times Square

   5:49 p.m. Orange nets along Broadway.

   5:45 p.m. Five thousand more on their way from Liberty Square and other locations.

   5:30 p.m. Thousands arrive in Time Square. Now livestreaming: http://www.livestream.com/occu…

Greg Mitchel at The Nation has a great running account of the event in Times Square and from around the world with links: The OccupyUSA Blog: Special Weekend Edition!

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Ms. Amanpour talks with top Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod in an exclusive.

The roundtable with George Will, ABC News senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl, economist and former Clinton economic adviser Laura Tyson and Bloomberg Television’s Margaret Brennan dissect the economic proposals from both sides of the aisle. And Republican strategist Mary Matalin and Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus join the roundtable to discuss all the week’s politics.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), and The New York Times’ David Sanger join Christiane to discuss the latest on the failed terrorist plot.

ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper tours the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and discusses King’s legacy with civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA).

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:Coming up on Face the Nation: Topic: “Fast and Furious” gunwalker case Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman, Oversight & Government Reform Committee; Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Ranking Member, Oversight & Government Reform Committee and Sharyl Attkisson, CBS News Investigative Correspondent.

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests, Nia-Malika Henderson, The Washington Post National Political Reporter, Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent, Joe Klein, TIME Columnist and Major Garrett, National Journal Congressional Correspondent, will discuss:

Is Mitt Romney perfectly positioned to take the Independent vote and beat Barack Obama?

Will the Wall Street protests become a big part of politics in ’12?

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Meet Herman Cain, contender for the Republican presidential nomination.

Two big-name supporters of two leading GOP presidential candidates square off: Gov. Tim Pawlenty for Romney and Gov. Bobby Jindal for Perry.

NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd and the BBC’s Katty Kay will discus the 2012 race and strategists Kevin Madden and Ron Klain on prepping candidates for debates and the importance of their performances.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Candy Crowley sits down with former House Speaker and Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich to discuss the 2012 GOP race, as we are just days away from CNN’s Western Republican Presidential Debate in Las Vegas.

Then, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee shares his thoughts on the U.S.’s response to Iran, the President’s jobs bill and the overall state of the economy.

Plus, DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) shares her party’s perspectives on the 2012 campaign.

Also, as part of our special coverage of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) talks about his role in the civil rights movement as we honor the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. We will have live coverage of the dedication centered on President Obama’s address.

Over 3,000 people gathered at Liberty Plaza in the pre-dawn hours this morning to defend the peaceful Occupation near Wall Street. The crowd cheered at the news that multinational real estate firm Brookfield Properties will postpone its so-called ‘cleanup’ of the park and that Mayor Bloomberg has told the NYPD to stand down on orders to remove protesters. On the eve of the October 15 global day of action against Wall Street greed, this development has emboldened the movement and sent a clear message that the power of the people has prevailed against Wall Street. …

On October 15th, Occupy Wall Street will demonstrate in concert over 951 cities in 82 countries and counting as people around the globe protest in an international day of solidarity against the greed and corruption of the 1%.

This is the Live Feed of #OWS from The Guardian: Occupy Wall Street live: protesters claim victory as clear-up called off

Follow all the developments after park owners call off a clear-up of the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park in New York

I strongly suspect the decision to call off the cleaning is but a temporary reprieve.  Emperor Mike used some pretty harsh language yesterday accusing the City Council members of “threatening” the owners of the park

Mr. Bloomberg, speaking later in the morning on his weekly radio program on WOR-AM (710), attributed the decision to postpone the cleaning to the company that owns the park, Brookfield Properties, which he said had been pressured to back off by elected officials. Mr. Bloomberg indicated that he had some misgivings about the decision, and was not sure what would happen next.

“Yesterday, as of 8 o’clock at night, they were going ahead to do it, but as of midnight they called and said they wanted to postpone the cleaning operations to see if they could work out an agreement with the protesters,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying if you don’t stop this we’ll make your life more difficult.”

That is an ugly allegation.

Bloomberg and his cronies will be back with some other reason to put an end to the protest. He must protect his fellow oligarchs from the embarrassment by the masses before the world. Right now it might create an international incident.

Solidarity hero Lech Walesa [sic] is flying to New York to show his support for the Occupy Wall Street protesters. “How could I not respond,” Walesa told a Polish newspaper Wednesday. “The thousands of people gathered near Wall Street are worried about the fate of their future, the fate of their country. This is something I understand.” []

Wałęsa says he’s coming to help protest economic “unfairness.” “Union leaders and capitalists need to figure out what to do, because otherwise they will have to contend with a worldwide revolt against capitalism,” he warned.

On October 15th people from all over the world will take to the streets and squares.

From America to Asia, from Africa to Europe, people are rising up to claim their rights and demand a true democracy. Now it is time for all of us to join in a global non violent protest.

The ruling powers work for the benefit of just a few, ignoring the will of the vast majority and the human and environmental price we all have to pay. This intolerable situation must end.

United in one voice, we will let politicians, and the financial elites they serve, know it is up to us, the people, to decide our future. We are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers who do not represent us.

On October 15th, we will meet on the streets to initiate the global change we want. We will peacefully demonstrate, talk and organize until we make it happen.

It’s time for us to unite. It’s time for them to listen.

People of the world, rise up on October 15th!

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Bernard E. Harcourt: Occupy Wall Street’s ‘Political Disobedience’

Our language has not yet caught up with the political phenomenon that is emerging in Zuccotti Park and spreading across the nation, though it is clear that a political paradigm shift is taking place before our very eyes. It’s time to begin to name and in naming, to better understand this moment. So let me propose some words: “political disobedience.”

Occupy Wall Street is best understood, I would suggest, as a new form of what could be called “political disobedience,” as opposed to civil disobedience, that fundamentally rejects the political and ideological landscape that we inherited from the Cold War.

Civil disobedience accepted the legitimacy of political institutions, but resisted the moral authority of resulting laws. Political disobedience, by contrast, resists the very way in which we are governed: it resists the structure of partisan politics, the demand for policy reforms, the call for party identification, and the very ideologies that dominated the post-War period.

Richard Reeves: Which Side Are You On!

I am all for Occupy Wall Street-and a lot of other places-but I wish I understood where this is going. And why it took so long to get going.

“When men can speak in liberty, you can bet they won’t act,” a Philadelphia lawyer named Charles Ingersoll told Alexis de Tocqueville almost 200 years ago as the French writer traveled the United States (24 of them) taking notes for what would become his great work, “Democracy in America.”

The United States has followed that line for most of its history, and it has generally worked. Because of Ingersoll’s words, I was chilled a bit by the fact that New York City has denied the Occupy people the liberty of a sound system to allow them to speak to more than just the people within earshot.

In an unprecedented spirit of bipartisan cooperation, Congress passed three jobs bills. The  only problem is the bills wont create any jobs for Americans, only for Colombians, Panamanians and South Koreans.

With nine percent unemployment and Americans desperate for job creation, it is unconscionable that President Obama and House Republicans would push through a trio of NAFTA-style job-killing trade agreements that even the government’s own studies show will increase the U.S. trade deficit.

This represents a complete flip-flop for President Obama, who won crucial swing states by pledging to overhaul our flawed trade policies. So it is no surprise that a sizeable majority of Democrats in Congress voted against these agreements, against Obama and for American jobs.

From David Dayen at FDL

They’re not a win for Colombian trade unionists, as even the weak Action Plan which has failed to protect them from murder was kept on the side and not written into the trade pact, giving it no authority. They are mainly a win for North Korean sweatshop owners and Panamanian tax haven specialists. And, I should add that the President and his entire party just got done saying that Republicans want only to sabotage the economy, and will not let anything pass that creates jobs. Now they are applauding the passage of job-creating trade agreements. Something doesn’t fit.

One of the amendments to these Free Trade Agreements that President Obama has alleged will create jobs for Americans is supplemental benefits for workers whose jobs are shipped overseas. What? But if these agreements are suppose to create American jobs, then why would this amendment be needed? Unless the American people are once again being lied to by the Democratic resident of the Oval Office.  

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Amy Goodman: A New Bush Era or a Push Era

Back when Barack Obama was still just a U.S. senator running for president, he told a group of donors in a New Jersey suburb, “Make me do it.” He was borrowing from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used the same phrase (according to Harry Belafonte, who heard the story directly from Eleanor Roosevelt) when responding to legendary union organizer A. Philip Randolph’s demand for civil rights for African-Americans.

While President Obama has made concession after concession to both the corporate-funded tea party and his Wall Street donors, now that he is again in campaign mode, his progressive critics are being warned not to attack him, as that might aid and abet the Republican bid for the White House.

Enter the 99 percenters. The Occupy Wall Street ranks continue to grow, inspiring more than 1,000 solidarity protests around the country and the globe. After weeks, and one of the largest mass arrests in U.S. history, Obama finally commented: “I think people are frustrated, and the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.” But neither he nor his advisers-or the Republicans-know what to do with this burgeoning mass movement.

Bernie Sanders: Six Demands to Make of Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous, and secretive economic and political force in America.

If this country is to break out of the horrendous recession and create the millions of jobs we desperately need, if we are going to create a modicum of financial stability for the future, there is no question but that the American people are going to have to take a very hard look at Wall Street and demand fundamental reforms.  I hope these protests are the beginning of that process.  

Let us never forget that as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country was plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.  Millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes, and life savings as the middle class underwent an unprecedented collapse.  Sadly, despite all the suffering caused by Wall Street, there is no reason to believe that the major financial institutions have changed their ways, or that future financial disasters and bailouts will not happen again.

Blogger extraordinaire, Jesse LaGreca, aka MinistryOfTruth, was interviewed by Susie Madrak of Crooks & Liars. Jesse recounted at Daily Kos about being assaulted by a man who was pitching a fit and looking for a fight and discovered that James O’Keefe was lurking in Liberty Park, as well as, some right wing trolls. He warned that the “Empire” is striking back.

The Los Angeles City Council has introduced a three page resolution in support of #OccupyLA that is expected to pass today. h/t Crooks & Liars

From Kevin Gosztola , who has been indefatigable in his coverage of #OWS at FDL:

The issue of the Democratic Party trying to co-opt the growing “Occupy” movement has become a topic of establishment media conversation. It is being discussed through the lens of whether this movement will do for Democrats what the Tea Party did for Republicans in 2010. It is also being discussed in terms of how to use the broad-based anger and energy to advance Democratic policy proposals in Congress. []

Democrats may believe “people are people” but they certainly haven’t done anything to address the issue of corporate personhood in America. The passage of the Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights is nothing to tout. As William Greider of The Nation wrote, it basically consisted of regulatory rules that had previously been adopted by the Federal Reserve. It gave the industry nine additional months to “gouge” customers before the new rules went into effect. And, Visa and MasterCard, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase were “free to raise future interest rates to the sky-without limit.” Additionally, Schultz must be lunatic if she thinks this group is going to coalesce behind the nomination of Richard Cordray, whom Obama picked because he didn’t want to upset his Wall Street donors and push for Elizabeth Warren to be nominated. []

The people’s ability to influence power has been neutralized by corporate and special interest money. It has been neutralized by bureaucracies whose existence in government is more important than the damage they do to liberty and justice in society. And, it has been neutralized by two parties who give Americans the illusion of choice and cite the other party’s most frightening and upsetting features to intimidate citizens into perpetuating and reinforcing the worst aspects of the system.

The people have woken up. They won’t go to sleep because they realize the last option they have for improving their lives and the greater society is public rebellion. Everything else is futile.

Included in Kevin’s great analysis of the Democrats’ attempts to co-opt the OWS movement was this segment of “Hardball” with Chris Matthews and Ron Reagan

   REAGAN: This is a movement that has a broad-based anger and the challenge it seems to me for the Democratic Party if they want to somehow join the movement or co-opt the movement, however you want to put it, is that these folks are just as mad at them as they are with the Republicans. The Republicans may be more egregiously in the hip pocket of Wall Street and the bankers but the Democrats are too. There are plenty of Democratic congressmen and senators who have staked their whole careers on providing tax loopholes for the richest 1%. They’re not the natural allies of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.

   MATTHEWS: And, by the way, let’s not forget the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House at numerous times in our lifetime and they didn’t fix the tax system when they had all the power in the world. []

   REAGAN:The problem is, again, that these people are angry at a system that has been rigged by both parties to serve moneyed interests. The Democrats have been complicit in that just as the Republicans have been complicit in that. Your question to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, “What are you going to offer these people?” is exactly the question. What are the Democrats going to offer these people? Are they going to throw some bankers in jail? Are they going to close the loopholes for the richest 1%? I’m not so sure that all the Democrats are on board with that.

   MATTHEWS: I wonder if both parties aren’t hoping for colder weather to come soon because then they can say what a great demonstration of unhappiness and how wonderful it’s over because then we don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Matthews is a clueless, twit. The cold didn’t stop the protests in Madison, WI.