#OCCUPYWALLSTREET campaign - September 17

[Free]

free wrote:
This board has a long history of sexism and woman-bashing.

Brain panhandler wrote:

Setting aside the trolls and idiots (very few), no it doesn't or at least much less so than society at large.

I would say that there's more sexism than in the society at large, because here posters hide behind screen names. The main reason I haven't been posting for a long time is because I couldn't stomach the (mostly sexist) attacks. BTW Sexism may be close to invisible to someone who isn't being targeted by it.

free wrote:
but I don't understand your dismissive and condescending tone to C-w when she was just stating her views.

Maybe when she writes things like:

C_w wrote:
this place is a fucking joke.

and

C_w wrote:
we're gender blind here and we think that's a good thing.


that might help explain Bruce's tone, which could only very uncharitably be described as condescending and dismissive.

As far as I know, C-W is a longtime poster, who is both respected and respectful.

I just watched that video clip and was cringing when the marine kept telling the cops to go overseas if they wanted to abuse and kill people. I'm glad he stood up for us, but he was basically a bully bullying bullies. There is room for some discussion about this. Do we all have to agree and cheer? This is a discussion forum.

Please. Please. Please. Can we try to focus on the things we agree upon to the extent that we recognize our solidarity and common cause first and foremost? Please. Just once?

It's not a common cause for me if people like C-W are being belittled and swept aside.

[American Dream]

This thread is too important to be derailed.

[seemslikeadream]

This thread is too important to be derailed.

This thread is too important to be derailed.

[norton ash]

Who are the Occupy Wall Street protesters?
Washington Post Opinion
By Jennifer Rubin

Jennifer Rubin should've joined the ranks of the unemployed when she wrote that 'Islamic Jihadists' were behind the Oslo massacre.

I guess right-wingers are entitled to their ongoing bullshit and race-baiting, though.

[Bruce Dazzling]

I just watched that video clip and was cringing when the marine kept telling the cops to go overseas if they wanted to abuse and kill people. I'm glad he stood up for us, but he was basically a bully bullying bullies. There is room for some discussion about this. Do we all have to agree and cheer? This is a discussion forum.

We discussed this aspect briefly on page 71 of the thread, and then it got derailed...

It's not a common cause for me if people like C-W are being belittled and swept aside.

You're not being swept aside.

You've both expressed your opinions multiple times.

I've simply asked that we keep the conversation on topic and moving forward.

[American Dream]

This thread is too important to be derailed.

Perhaps a thread dedicated to hashing out those specific concerns would be helpful- with a link from here so that readers would easily know where to find it...

[Jeff]

We can disagree, so long as we disagree on topic and within the guidelines.

So, please, no personal attacks, generalized accusations or caustic quips. More of that here will be considered disruption, and subject to deletion and membership suspension.

[Free]

This is all quite disappointing, and I guess I'm just one of "them" to many of you, so I guess I will focus on dedicating my time to other things.

[seemslikeadream]

This is all quite disappointing, and I guess I'm just one of "them" to many of you, so I guess I will focus on dedicating my time to other things.

There is history here that you seem to know nothing about....and I am not here to discuss it... this most important thread was not in need of silly ego distraction...I am here in this thread to learn all I can about what's happening at OWS as fast as possible..It's very disrespectful to everyone here to disrupt this OP

Why Rush Limbaugh Is Freaking Out About Occupy Wall Street

POSTED: October 18, 10:54 AM ET
Comment 18

Got a flurry of emails yesterday after the inimitable Rush Limbaugh lumped me and Dylan Ratigan in with the behind-the-scenes power structure. Apparently Rush got hold of Breitbart’s story about the email list and decided to run with it:

Journalists have been advising the protesters – emails have been found. Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC and some guy named Matt Taibbi… Dylan Ratigan and Matt Taibbi are sending emails back and forth with organizers , telling them how to position their demands, how they can improve their coverage.

Here Rush paused before making his Sherlock Holmesian deduction from these facts:

This whole thing is a construct of the media-Democrat complex, industrial complex…

I nearly fell over laughing when I heard this. What the fuck is the Media-Democrat-Industrial Complex? Has Rush been reading Noam Chomsky books on the side? Calling any group that includes me and Glenn Greenwald an “industrial complex” is extremely high-concept comedy. We should have t-shirts made...

(Also, I love the phrase “emails have been found.” Actually, it was more like “a sleazy cyber-provocateur and amateur FBI informant stole the emails.” But who’s quibbling?)

Anyway, if you listen to the whole Rush segment, you can hear frustration and croaking, bullfroggish anxiety in his voice at the fact of so many different politicians capitulating, at least verbally, to OWS. He’s sensing that politicians are seeing danger in the “99%” concept, and he's expressing dismay that everyone from Mitt Romney to Barack Obama is now trying hard to position himself as not being in the 1%.

This isn't evidence that mainstream politicians are caving to the movement, of course, but what it does show is that those same politicians are endorsing OWS rhetoric, and by extension tacitly admitting the basic truth of the great-many-versus-very-few protest narrative.

Rush chalks this up to a media deception, a mirage of TV images and “media-Democrat-industrial complex” manipulations designed to con the country into believing in the existence of a mass movement.

The reality, of course, is that people like Rush, Romney and Obama are all becoming cognizant of the deep frustrations that exist across the political spectrum and are growing desperate to prevent the powder keg from blowing completely – hence the intense effort to describe OWS as a top-down manipulation.

Of course the notion that this is all a media fabrication is ludicrous. Dylan Ratigan didn’t invent four million people in foreclosure, he didn’t invent ten trillion dollars in bailouts, and he didn’t invent Wall Street’s $160 billion bonus pool the year after the crash of its own creation.

People out there do not need media figures to tell them how fucked things are, or how pissed they should be that the same bankers who caused the crash are now enjoying state-supported bonuses in the billions, while everyone else gets squeezed. As someone who has been covering this stuff for three years, I can say with confidence that people across the country don’t need a push to be angry. They’re already there, and have been there for years. Rush should go hang out outside a foreclosure court in his home state of Florida for a few hours, if he wants to see where the rising heat under these protests is coming from.

Anyway, the hysterical responses from the Rushes of the world are just more signs that these protests are working. I never thought I’d see it, but some of the dukes and earls high up in America’s Great Tower of Bullshit are starting to blink a little bit. They seem genuinely freaked out that OWS doesn’t have leaders or a single set of demands, which in addition to being very encouraging is quite funny.

[ninakat]

Maybe it's time for some dry data to get back on topic. I'm assuming this is accurate, but perhaps someone with better knowledge (or hours to do the research) can verify? I thought the donors to Bush vs. those to Obama was interesting (especially the amounts).

Who Are The One Percent in America?

By Press TV

October 17, 2011 "Press TV" -- The following are the largest full-service global investment banks which usually provides both advisory and financing banking services, as well as the sales, market making, and research on a broad array of financial products including equities, credit, rates, currency, commodities, and their derivatives.

1. Bank of America
2. Barclays Capital
3. Citigroup
4. Credit Suisse
5. Deutsche Bank
6. Goldman Sachs
7. JPMorgan Chase
8. Morgan Stanley
9. Nomura Securities
10. UBS
11. Wells Fargo Securities

Diversified Financials

The following are the top eight diversified financials in the U.S. in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. Fannie Mae .......... $153.82 billion
2. General Electric .......... $151.62 billion
3. Freddie Mac .......... $98.36 billion
4. INTL FCStone ........... $46.94 billion
5. Marsh & McLennan ........... $10.93 billion
6. Ameriprise Financial .......... $10.04 billion
7. Aon .......... $8.51 billion
8. SLM .......... $6.77 billion

Commercial Banks

The following are the top ten commercial banks in the U.S. in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. Bank of America Corp. .......... $134.19 billion
2. JP Morgan Chase & Co. .......... $115.47 billion
3. Citigroup .......... $111.05 billion
4. Well Fargo .......... $93.24 billion
5. Goldman Sachs Group .......... $45.96 billion
6. Morgan Stanley .......... $39.32 billion
7. American Express .......... $30.24 billion
8. US Bancorp .......... $20.51 billion
9. Capital One Financial .......... $19.06 billion
10. Ally Financial .......... $17.37 billion

Petroleum Refining

The following are the top ten U.S. petroleum refining firms in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. Exxon Mobil .......... $354.67 billion
2. Chevron .......... $196.33 billion
3. Conoco Philips .......... $184.96 billion
4. Valero Energy .......... $86.03 billion
5. Marathon Oil .......... $68.41billion
6. Sunoco .......... $35.54 billion
7. Hess .......... $34.61 billion
8. Murphy Oil .......... $23.34 billion
9. Tesoro .......... $20.25 billion
10. Holly .......... $8.32 billion

Oil & Gas Equipment, Services

The following are the top U.S. firms active in oil and gas equipment and services in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. Halliburton .......... $17.97 million
2. Baker Hughes .......... $14.41 million
3. National Oilwell Varco .......... $12.15 million
4. Cameron International .......... $6.13 million

Aerospace & Defense

The following are the top ten U.S. corporations in aerospace and defense in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. Boeing ........... $64.30 billion
2. United Technologies .......... $54.32 billion
3. Lockheed Martin ........... $46.89 billion
4. Northrop Grumman .......... $34.75 billion
5. Honeywell International ........... $33.37 billion
6. General Dynamics .......... $32.46 billion
7. Raytheon .......... $25.18 billion
8. L-3 Communications .......... $15.68 billion
9. ITT .......... $11.15 billion
10. Textron .......... $10.52 billion

Motor Vehicles & Parts

The following are the top ten U.S. manufacturing companies of motor vehicles and parts in terms of revenue in 2010. Fortune 500

1. General Motors .......... $135.59 billion
2. Ford Motor .......... $128.95 billion
3. Chrysler Group .......... $41.94 billion
4. Johnson Controls .......... $34.30 billion
5. Goodyear Tire & Rubber .......... $18.83 billion
6. TRW Automotive Holdings .......... $14.38 billion
7. Navistar International .......... $12.14 billion
8. Lear .......... $11.95 billion
9. Paccar .......... $10.29 billion
10. Oshkosh .......... $9.84 billion

American Millionaires

The number of Americans who are millionaires is about one percent of the population. NPR

Of the 435 members of the House, 244 current members of Congress are millionaires - that's about 46 percent and that includes 138 Republicans and 106 Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks money in politics. In fact, there are probably many more millionaires in Congress, since lawmakers don't have to include the value of their family home and other details. NPR

In 2010, the average winner of a House race spent $1.5 million for his/her campaigns. The average Senate winner spent close to $10 million. Closely contested races are much more expensive. And about half of that money, on average, comes from an elite group of very wealthy donors. NPR

Wealthy Americans have more access to lawmakers than most regular voters and constituents do, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. NPR

The median net worth for a current member of the U.S. House of Representatives was $725,000 in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and the media net worth of a U.S. Senator was $2.4 million. Open Secrets

The richest member of Congress is Darrel Issa, whose net worth was valued between $156 million and $451 million. Open Secrets

Here is a list of the 20 wealthiest current members of Congress and their average net worth, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, based on their financial reports covering calendar year 2009. (The Center plans to unveil its analysis of lawmakers' 2010 financial disclosures later this fall.) Open Secrets

1. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) .......... $303 million
2. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) .......... $238 million
3. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) .......... $174 million
4. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) .......... $160 million
5. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) .......... $160 million
6. Rep. Vernon Buchanan (R-Fla.) .......... $148 million
7. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) .......... $137 million
8. Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) .......... $109 million
9. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) .......... $98 million
10. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) .......... $94 million
11. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) .......... $77 million
12. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) .......... $76 million
13. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) .......... $58 million
14. Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.) .......... $51 million
15. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) .......... $50 million
16. Rep. Diane Lynn Black (R-Tenn.) .......... $49 million
17. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) .......... $43 million
18. Rep. Richard Berg (R-N.D.) .......... $39 million
19. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) .......... $39 million
20. Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas) .......... $38 million

Top Donors to Obama in 2008

The following table lists the top donors to Barack Obama in the 2008 election cycle. Open Secrets

1. University of California .......... $1.6 million
2. Goldman Sachs .......... $1 million
3. Harvard University .......... $0.85 million
4. Microsoft Corp. .......... $0.83 million
5. Google Inc. .......... $0.80 million
6. Citigroup Inc. ........... $0.70 million
7. JPMorgan Chase & Co. .......... $0.69 million
8. Time Warner .......... $0.59 million
9. Sidley Austin LLP .......... $0.58 million
10. Stanford University .......... $0.58 million
11. National Amusements Inc. .......... $0.55 million
12. UBS AG .......... $0.54 million
13. Wilmerhale Llp .......... $0.54 million
14. Skadden, Arps et al .......... $0.53 million
15. IBM Corp .......... $0.52 million
16. Columbia University .......... $0.52 million
17. Morgan Stanley .......... $0.51 million
18. General Electric .......... $0.49 million
19. U.S. Government .......... $0.49 million
20.Latham & Watkins .......... $0.49 million

Top Donors to Bush in 2004

1. Morgan Stanley .......... $603,480
2. Merrill Lynch .......... $586,254
3. PricewaterhouseCoopers .......... $514,250
4. UBS AG .......... $474,325
5. Goldman Sachs .......... $394,600
6. Lehman Brothers .......... $361,525
7. MBNA Corp .......... $350,350
8. Credit Suisse Group .......... $326,040
9. Citigroup Inc. .......... $320,820
10. Bear Stearns .......... $313,150
11. Ernst & Young .......... $305,140
12. US Government .......... $295,786
13. Deloitte LLP .......... $292,250
14. Wachovia Corp. .......... $279,310
15. US Dept of Defense .......... $279,157
16. Ameriquest Capital .......... $253,130
17. US Dept of State .......... $225,330
18. Blank Rome LLP .......... $225,150
19. Bank of America .......... $218,261
20.AT&T Inc. .......... $214,920

American Billionaires

The following is a list of top 20 American billionaires issued by the Forbes 400 in 2011. Forbes

1. Bill Gates from Microsoft .......... $59 billion
2. Warren Buffet from Berkshire Hathaway .......... $39 billion
3. Larry Ellison from Oracle .......... $33 billion
4. Charles Koch from diversified .......... $25 billion
5. David Koch from diversified .......... $25 billion
6. Christy Walton from Wal-Mart .......... $24.5 billion
7. George Soros from hedge funds .......... $22 billion
8. Sheldon Adelson from casinos .......... $21.5 billion
9. Jim Walton from Wal-Mart .......... $21.1 billion
10. Alice Walton from Wal-Mart .......... $20.9 billion
11. S. Robson Walton from Wal-Mart .......... $20.5 billion
12. Michael Bloomberg from Bloomberg LP .......... $19.5 billion
13. Jeff Bezos from Amazon.com .......... $19.1 billion
14. Mark Zuckergerg from Facebook ........... $17.5 billion
15. Surgey Brin from Google .......... $16.7 billion
16. Larry Page from Google .......... $16.7 billion
17. John Paulson from hedge funds ........... $15.5 billion
18. Michael Dell from Dell .......... $15 billion
19. Steve Ballmer from Microsoft .......... $13.9 billion
20.Forrest Mars from candy .......... $13.8 billion

[2012 Countdown]

I cannot fucking believe with all that is going on, and with the monumental enemy we face, from EVERY source of power (who are feverishly working to CRUSH us), this thread is suddenly derailed into this. What the FUCK? Fucking priorities. Start your own fucking thread if you can't stop talking about it.

I'm posting this again, as some have watched it and commented on it. THIS is the focus, fuck.


Chris Hedges: "This one could take them all down." Hedges on OWS w/ OccupyTVNY


Uploaded by munderlarkst on Oct 17, 2011
Chris Hedges: "What happens is in all of these movements ... the foot soldiers of the elite -- the blue uniformed police, the mechanisms of control -- finally don't want to impede the movement and at that point the power elite is left defenseless ... the only thing I can say having been in the middle of similar movements is that this one is real, and this one could take them all down ... I can guarantee you that huge segments of those blue uniformed police sympathize with everything that you're doing." Hedges bring his 20 years of experience as a war correspondent having covered movements and revolutions throughout the the world to his discussion.

[ninakat]

^^^ that Hedges video is worth watching, especially the end. Sure got me choked up.

[ninakat]

I just watched that video clip and was cringing when the marine kept telling the cops to go overseas if they wanted to abuse and kill people. I'm glad he stood up for us, but he was basically a bully bullying bullies. There is room for some discussion about this. Do we all have to agree and cheer? This is a discussion forum.

FWIW, I didn't even watch it because I don't like military types. I did read about it though, and that was enough for me.... a "bully bullying bullies" sounds like how I would interpret it, if I'd watched it. I appreciate your perspective, and hope you'll stick around. This is an inspiring thread and I've learned a tremendous amount from everybody. Let's keep it going, my friends. You don't want to see me start crying.

[seemslikeadream]

This was not bullying...this was truth to power...this was well placed anger...he spoke for me...he gave me a voice

The Occupy Wall Street image that marks the end of the global consensus

Even the word 'capitalism' once seemed corny. Here, amid Times Square's corporate citadels, a monster is exposed


Occupy Wall Street participants in Times Square in New York. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

A New York police officer leans forward and yells as if attempting, with the sheer force of his anger, to hold back time. His rage is understandable for, in this photograph, you can actually see the world turn upside down and all that was solid melt into air. This truly is a picture of a turning point in the history of the world.

It shows the moment when Occupy Wall Street campaigners reached Times Square, whose giant hoardings glow brightly in broad daylight even as furious protesters confront mounted police. When this photograph was taken, movements were simultaneously starting up around the world in emulation of Occupy Wall Street and its attempt to hold finance capitalists to account. In London and Vancouver, Brussels and – with a violent twist – in Rome, the call went out and the people came. But of all the weekend's photographs of global protest against capitalist excess, this, surely, is the image that will endure.

That is because it captures the surrealism of a moment when the stabilities and certainties of an era suddenly became yesterday's distant memory. Times Square makes a powerful setting for this picture. Shiny walls of towing glass, the citadels of corporate entertainment, dazzle among the giant screens – is that Apu from The Simpsons? – in the bright autumn air.

But no one is entertained. The faces in the crowd are genuinely angry and determined. A man in the foreground has a red star on his T-shirt. Sixty years ago they hunted reds in Times Square, metaphorically at least, as America fought the cold war. Today that red star says it all. These people have not come to protest just against a bad law or a single issue, but the system itself. They are putting capitalism in the dock. The photograph powerfully captures this moment because it so vividly shows the symbols of the order of things that inhabitants of western economies have up to now accepted.

There were "anti-capitalist" protests in the boom years but these were self-evidently marginal to a society lapping up the joys of credit. Today, the world is ready to listen to Occupy Wall Street and its claim to speak for the 99% against the profiteering 1%. Everyone knows what they are talking about and everyone can see some truth in it.

This deserves to be the remembered image of a moment when history assumed a new basic structure, but if you wanted to gauge the significance of these events a cartoon in the Times was also telling: a fat cat capitalist looks down on the marchers from a lofty skyscraper office. He comments that the people down there look small enough to crush with one finger. We've already done it, says his cigar-smoking colleague. When such a cartoon appears in the Times, hardly a Marxist publication, the world has changed.

This is a photograph of a turning point in history, not because the Occupy movement will necessarily succeed (whatever success might be) but because it has revealed the profoundly new possibilities of debate in a world that so recently seemed to agree about economic fundamentals. Occupy Wall Street and the global movement it is inspiring may yet prove to be an effective call for change, or a flash in the pan. That is not the point. Nor does it even matter if the protest is right or wrong. What matters is that unfettered capitalism, a force for economic dynamism that seemed unassailable, beyond reproach or reform, a monster we learned to be grateful for, suddenly finds its ugliness widely commented on, exposed among the lights of Times Square. The emperor of economics has no clothes.

This is an unbelievable moment. Pinch yourself. The global market economy triumphed two decades ago. In the 1980s, it was possible to dispute the Thatcherite cult of "wealth creation", but by the next decade most agreed she seemed to have been right. After the Soviet bloc disintegrated in 1989 the market ruled universally, the communist alternative turned out to have been a grotesque sham, and Bill Clinton and Tony Blair led the left to embrace free finance. This was the way the world worked. The old volumes of Das Kapital might as well go to the secondhand bookshop.

In this photograph we see the end of that consensual age, which turns out to have lasted just 20 years, when the free market was essentially beyond criticism. The very use of the word "capitalism" seemed corny a decade ago. What was the point of applying such a term to a way of life that seemed to have no outside to it? Now it is once again a word to hurl as abuse, as it was in the era of RH Tawney, or for that matter Lenin. Capitalism is in trouble because of the very fact that people are once again widely calling it "capitalism" – with the implication that we can dissent from it.

Socialist parties first got traction in the 1880s in the economic contraction that Victorians called their "Great Depression". In the capitalist crisis of the 1930s, western intellectuals admired Stalin, Welsh miners fought for the Republican cause in Spain, but many more in western Europe turned to the right. What collapsed was the liberal centre ground.

What we see collapse in this photograph is the post-1989 global consensus that unfettered market economies provide the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The slump is making people notice that another way to describe the free market is as Karl Marx's ruthless, tempestuous, darkly creative, but divisive and crisis-creating "capitalism". To say the word is to break a spell.

[Bruce Dazzling]

Full disclosure:

I just suspended Canadian Watcher for one week.

The reason for the ban is her refusal to refrain from disrupting this thread, and for her outright defiance of Jeff's warning:

We can disagree, so long as we disagree on topic and within the guidelines.

So, please, no personal attacks, generalized accusations or caustic quips. More of that here will be considered disruption, and subject to deletion and membership suspension.

Here's CW's reply (which I've deleted from the thread):

me too, free. why ruin their party?

have fun greasing each others' poles, dudes.

As I've said multiple times, let's please keep this thread moving forward with information on the Occupy Wall Street protests. It's become a tremendous resource for information and analysis on what might end up being the most important movement of our lifetimes.

It's too important to be derailed.

Carry on.