#OCCUPYWALLSTREET campaign - September 17

[StarmanSkye]

"Hypocrisy has its own elegant symmetry."

[Elvis]

Is it true that the credit unions bank with bigger banks like Wells Fargo? (someone mentioned that earlier in the thread) If so is the transfer of money to credit unions really hurting the big banks?

It it true, credit unions deposit a lot of money with banks. According to the NCUA's 2008 report, around half of US credit unions' cash is deposited in commercial banks.

http://www.ncua.gov/Resources/Reports/s ... nd2008.pdf
(This link now seems dead for me, but I saved a copy of the report if anyone wants it.)

The CUs negotiate favorable rates for their large deposits, but there must be alternatives.

The thing about this is, that as a member of a credit union, you have a voice. I'm going to bring this up at my credit union. (That's my credit union---as a depositor, I'm an owner---a wholly different meaning from "my bank"). Try that at BoA as a stockholder with a few shares; they'd probably call the cops.

-----------------


I was back in Seattle yesterday, packing up the Halloween store across the street from Westlake Park. All is quiet there, kind of sad. But the locals have their space back (the park is a hangout place for local kids & others).

I didn't get a chance to go by the new 'Occupation' at the CSCC but it can't be as effective a location as was downtown.

Carrying a box to the truck in the middle of the night, I noticed a down-and-out grey-haired fellow checking the cigarette butts on the sidewalk. He picked up one---too far gone---and tossed it back. I asked him if he needed tobacco (DUH), and he was most grateful for the little ziplock stash w/papers I gave him. He locked eyes with mine and smiled as he said thanks and goodbye. A moment later he returned, poked his head in the door of the store, and handed me a "We Are the 99%" sticker.

I retrieved my Boycott Banks sign from the shop and brought it home. When my present job insanity is over (worked 22 hours straight Friday & Saturday), I'll be out there waving it, somewhere.

[Gouda]

Re: moving money - which is what money does anyway - this from Doug Henwood (Left Business Observer) is submitted for your consideration:

Move your money…and it's still money

Few pieces in the 23-year history of LBO have attracted as much hostile correspondence as “Web of nonsense” in #119. It was a critique of the mode of thought, almost foundational to a brand of populism on both the left and the right, “that sees the problems of capitalism—like the polarization of rich and poor and the system’s vulnerability to periodic crises—as primarily financial in origin.” While this tendency has a long history, and pervades a lot of the pseudo-radical tradition in the U.S., it always achieves special prominence at the time of financial crises.

To reprise for a moment before taking on a fresh eruption of the syndrome: capitalism is a system organized around money. Almost nothing is undertaken in the realm of production for reasons other than the accumulation of money. As the money accumulates, something must be done with it, which is why financial wealth expands over time. But even though that financial wealth often seems to inhabit a world of its own, it is ultimately connected to what Wall Street calls the “real” sector. For example, all the mortgage securities that caused the recent mischief were ultimately connected to one of the most basic needs of all, shelter. There is no way to separate neatly the monetary from the real. The social problem emanating from the securitization of mortgages isn’t only the increasingly baroque development of financial assets but also the commodification of the house and its transformation into a speculative asset. Which is why populist financial reforms can’t take you very far: they address symptoms, not pathogens.
Bust a move

But that never stops people from trying. The latest populist spasm is Arianna Huffington’s “Move Your Money” campaign, which would have those of us with money in large banks move it to small ones. This touches on another foundational populist fantasy: that virtue and size are inversely related. Her website, which thrives on the unpaid labor of hundreds of eager contributors, even provides a helpful list of convenient local banks if you enter your zip code.

What’s wrong with this scheme? Several things. First, many small banks have more money than they can profitably invest locally. As Barbara Garson shows in her wonderful book, Money Makes the World Go Around, the portion of her book advance she deposited in tiny upstate New York bank was probably lent via the fed funds market to Chase, where it entered the global circuit of capital. This is not at all uncommon. Money is fungible, protean, and highly mobile even when it looks locally rooted. That very mutability is part of what makes money so valuable: it’s the ideal form of general wealth that can instantly be turned into caviar, lodging, Swedish massage, or shares of Google.

The point can be further developed by looking at some of the banks that Huffington’s site recommends. Entering LBO’s zipcode, 11238, into their helpful little machine yields several suggested receptacles for one’s savings. One, the black-owned Carver Federal Savings Bank, is a major financer of the gentrification of predominantly black neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. As those neighborhoods get richer, Carver boasts, it’s partnering with Merrill Lynch (a subsidiary of the Bank of America) to offer wealth management services to the flusher new residents. Another suggestion, Apple Savings Bank, has about three-quarters of its assets in securities like U.S. Treasury bonds, not local loans. They don’t come much bigger than the U.S. Treasury. And a third, New York Community Bank, which even features that precious word in its name, financed a private equity group that bought up a lot of apartment buildings in New York in the hope of squeezing out the rent-regulated tenants and replacing them with more lucrative ones paying market rents. With the real estate bust, the PE firm is having trouble servicing its debts, and the residents of its buildings are suffering as services are cut further.

Yes there are some decent places to park your money, like community development credit unions. But there’s only so much they can do with their holdings. There’s no way they could accommodate even a small fraction of our near-$8 trillion in bank deposits without turning to Treasury bonds or Merrill Lynch wealth management services. Getting banks under control is a matter of politics, not individual portfolio allocation decisions.

Move your money and it’s still money.

The following article appeared in Left Business Observer #124, January 2010. Copyright 2010, Left Business Observer.

Yes, of course, get out of the major banks. But research your credit unions first. And don't even stop to pat yourself on the back because something like 'moving your money' (wisely) is the bare minimum we can do. Henwood seems to miss the point that an organized, mass movement of money accounts from major banks is political action with some symbolic potency, but I think his larger point needs to be kept in mind.

[2012 Countdown]

one million...1,000,000-so far

[2012 Countdown]

Roger Waters - Occupy



=======

Roger Waters - The Tide Is Turning (Re: Occupy)


Uploaded by rogerwaterschannel on Nov 5, 2011
Roger Waters - The Tide Is Turning (Re: Occupy)
Big Thank You goes to Stonehartfloydfan for making this video.

[Jeff]

Tragedy found, pretext deployed

The alacrity here is breathtaking, especially given Vancouver's legendary unresponsiveness to dead young women

Occupy Vancouver camp must shut down after woman’s death: mayor
Camille Bains
VANCOUVER— The Canadian Press
Published Sunday, Nov. 6

The death of a woman at the Occupy Vancouver camp means the site has become so unsafe that it must be shut down as soon as possible, says Vancouver's mayor.

Gregor Robertson said Saturday night he's instructed city officials and the chiefs of the fire and police departments to look at how that can be done safely and peacefully.

The 20-year-old woman was found unresponsive in a tent at the site in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery on Saturday afternoon, two days after a man suffered a non-fatal overdose at the encampment.

“There is a serious problem here and we want to address it urgently,” Mr. Robertson said.

The woman's death is tragic and is also upsetting for him because he has a 20-year-old daughter, he said.

Occupy Vancouver supporters tried to drown him out as he spoke to reporters, with one woman shouting that at least his daughter has a home.

...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... nt=2227070




And thanks, 2012, for the Roger Waters.

[Hammer of Los]

We can occupy anywhere.

And nowhere.

It doesn't matter.

Space and time are the deepest mysteries. Materialism is over. Theism too. False dichotomies all, to set man against man, to divide and conquer. But now this is the age of integrated Mind. We are located everywhere and nowhere.

Don't create a confrontation. Move on peacefully.

Do everything with peaceful loving intent.

Irresistible.

Invisible.

Silent.

Revolution from below, from within, from above, as ONE.

I have reams of notes now of semi religious philosophical thoughts and aphorisms, maxims and mottos. But I don't want to be a prophet, nor a preacher neither, so I may spare you them. Or I may not.

Can it be true?

Is something tremendous happening?

Crazy synchs for me, crazy. You must feel it too. Yes of course the hippies were right.

The internet unites us in peaceful loving action for change. We shall never be divided again.

They cannot divide us now.

Therefore their old tactics will fail them.

Don't stop at the banks. Remove your financial support, and your attention, from large corporate interests ultimately under the control of the 0.00001%. Don't buy from big companies, but support local small businesses. Dont watch and listen to the BBC, check out some internet webcasts, watch some fascinating documentaries, on the internet. Seek to do none harm, but to bring benefit to all. This done, their only recourse will be to threaten with physical violence. Then we must practice the most ancient martial arts skill of all - Me Fleeum - which is the noble art of being where the blow is not. Also, we must demonstrate to the policeman and the soldier that they must stand with us, and not with the mad overlords.

Really, nothing could be easier.

It's a done deal.

Well done guys.

It looks like we were the ones we were waiting for after all. We are our future selves.

Go, go Children of Light!

[Laodicean]

Jimmy Breslin's piece in the New York Daily News:

It’s hard to see the ‘animals’ of Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park from the luxury of a warm office

Protesters are not the uncooth pack that some would like you to believe they are.

I am starting the day reading the paper while I'm walking to the subway to go downtown to cheer a new gathering of the Wall Street protesters. The entire city is just starting to be convinced that these crowds are going to change things and forever. Just follow the numbers and energy of the people.

Still, the people you thought would be first to tell the country all about this are news people. But they have stayed seated in the office. These desks in a warm office save some newsmen from going out to the site where they would have to get cold and push through the crowds of protesters. That is work — and they are not so busy at that.

Instead, they’re telling another kind of story.

The New York Post had a front-page headline on Thursday for the city:

“Enough! Post Editorial. Mr. Mayor, it is time to reclaim Zuccotti Park — and New York City’s dignity.”

The paper’s ownership comes out of Australia and LondonEngland. The owner is Rupert Murdoch, who is friendly with New York politicians who fall down when they get a glimpse of his money.

On Friday, the New York Post runs a front page that screams:

“Occupy Wall Street animals go wild. ...”

I am standing in the middle of Eighth Ave. and after reading the start of this paper I became busy reading other parts while standing there. A bus had to stop dead or leave me in the same condition.

Underneath the headline, a big photo of a bald man in blue throwing a left hand at some much younger guy in the park. Inside the paper, there were two pages showing a fight between two senseless and homeless men. Following were two more pages of people being called morons and animals.

But actually walking around Zuccotti Park, you find the scene pleasant and moderate. The large crowds coming here now are filled with children walking in front of their parents. At the park, Bill Dobbs was found with his transportation, a big black bike. He was with Nikita, who is 44 and looks a lot younger. She was sitting on a desk under a tent as you walk onto the grounds. She works full-time in physical training in the Bronx. Any time she has left, you can find her here at the information desk. Like just about everybody else around the park, she draws no pay for this.

There was a reason to see her and watch her life amid the crowds in this park. There was a delightful energy that ran through it all, and that was important to witness.

There is no question that some of the young women say they have suffered sexual attacks. Walk through the great happy crowd and you find it not perfect toward young women, maybe, but nowhere near the newspaper screams of great molestation unfolding. You probably have more of that happening on Park Slope in Brooklyn.

The mayor we have, Bloomberg, must have said a thousand times that he wants the park turned empty and for a lot of good reasons. The ones using the park are not perfectly good like he is. He is different. He is good. And the mayor has long ago stopped searching his life for perfection because it simply bursts from his head and his body.

On Friday, Zuccotti Park was crowded all day and into night with the young and old, including several hundred who remain in the park at night and stay in low tents of nylon set down in rows. They sleep wrapped in thermal covers.

They were helped to stay warm yesterday by Brian, who is from New Jersey. He sits on a bike on a raised platform like this bike I’m on, a stationary, doing what I am doing now — pedaling without taking a break — and why? The bike creates power to replace the generators they no longer have since the cops came in at night and took them all away because the head cops and fire chiefs and the like announced that the place was a fire danger.

Walk through the park and you come upon what has become a fixture.

Sitting in chairs with their laps filled with wool were two women who had been in this park from the start, 37 days as of yesterday. Here is Marsha Spencer who lives in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan. She sits with hardly a word out of her as these big needles in her hands work on thick wool face masks, knitting colorful lines of red and blue into a white background.

Sitting a couple of feet away with the same concentration was Karin, and her last name is hers and not yours. She is from the East Village and knits here every day.

We stop when the sky becomes too dark for us to work our needles, Karin said.

This is molestation? Lawlessness? These are animals? Morons?

That’s another kind of story, all right.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/s-h ... z1cwkfpXtI

[crikkett]

http://www.reddit.com/r/occupywallstree ... ors_in_30/
new (to me). please forgive if it's already been posted.

Denver turns sprinklers on protestors in 30 degree weather after cops mysteriously vacate area. (self.occupywallstreet)
submitted 17 days ago by 5avan10

The sprinklers, according to the city, are supposed to be off for the season. Their excuse is that it must have been a computer malfunction. If that is the case please explain why:

Just moments before the sprinklers came on, a police SUV drove past, called the officers over, then the officers crossed to the other side of the street.

When the protestors attempted to block the sprinkler by putting a bucket over it, an officer confiscated the bucket and drove off playing "La Cucaracha" on his PA.

Many of the protestors have no place where they can go to get dry and warm, and the police confiscated most of their blankets and sleeping bags in a raid a few days ago, so turning the sprinkler on them in freezing temperatures could literally have been a fatal sentence for exercising their first amendment rights. The sprinkler over-sprays onto the sidewalk where the protestors were assembled since they are trying to cooperate and stay out of the park itself as local ordinance requires between the hours of 11:PM and 7AM. Not to mention that watering the lawn in Denver in October is a waste of water, could lead to frozen and burst pipes, and root rot on the lawn.

If you wish to express your feelings on this matter, you can leave a message for Mayor Hancock at 720-865-9090.

EDIT for updates and clarifications: My wife talked to someone with the city today. They claim that the sprinkler would normally be shut off by this time of year, but they have it on due to re-sodding areas of the park. They gave her a schedule for the sprinkler system. I failed to mention that this occurred at 1:00 AM, so even though it was warm here today it was very cold last night (and will be again tonight). The temperature I mentioned is approximate; the temperatures last night did reach freezing, which would be 32 Fahrenheit or less (0 Centigrade) but I don't know exactly what the temperature was at 1:00 AM.

[Jeff]

David Rovics

[Jeff]

An open letter from Judy Rebick

Just sent this letter to Mayor Gregor Robertson Dear Mayor Robertson, gregor.robertson@vancouver.ca. Please send him a letter protesting this announcement that he would shut Occupy Vancouver

Dear Mayor Robertson:

The death of a young woman from an apparent drug overdose is a terrible tragedy but I don't understand how it is a legitimate reason to shut down Occupy Vancouver. As you know better than I do, drug use is epidemic in Vancouver. ODs from drug use is a common occurrence on the Downtown Eastside. What is needed is more resources for services and supportive housing not shutting one of the places in your city that is trying to correct the societal inequalities that promote this kind of drug use.

Shutting down Occupy Vancouver, which is the one place that is trying to integrate homeless and marginalized people into a loving community, makes absolutely no sense. If there are specific safety issues, these can be identified and corrected. But forcing a shut down of the site, will only lead to unnecessary confrontation.

I visited Occupy Vancouver last week and was impressed by the dedication especially of the young people there who are trying to build a better world. Of course their community reflects the problems in the community around them but they are doing their best to solve these problems with care and compassion. The Occupy movement is one of the most hopeful signs of deepening democracy and citizen engagement that we have seen in North America in generations. Young people are taking leadership to try and change the brutally unequal society that produces the epidemic of drug use both legal and illegal.

I fear that you are using this tragic death for political reasons. If so I am very disappointed in someone I thought was a progressive mayor. Please re-think your announcement today and put a halt to any measures that would shut down Occupy Vancouver.

Sincerely,
Judy Rebick

[beeline]

Easy, practical way to Occupy the banks

[Gouda]

Easy, practical way to Occupy the banks

I like it. What would stodgy old Doug Henwood say about this?!

[Gouda]

Extre tips and follow-up:

[Plutonia]

All is not lost!

Goldman Sachs Mock Trial #OWS, Nov 3 2011 - the full hour



Watching now