Stop The Chamber
The Chamber of Commerce, under the leadership of Tom Donohue, has gone from a well respected trade organization to an extremist political organization dedicated to corrupting American democracy by elevating the profits of big corporations over the well being of the citizens they serve. Recent examples of this corrupt behavior is the Chamber's spending of more than $100 million to defeat initiatives to protect the environment and provide affordable health care to everyone, and its massive attacks on democracy through the use of secret money in the 2010 election.
The Chamber is the biggest lobbying operation in the United States, spending billions of dollars on behalf of big business over the past decade to corrupt the political system. Polluters like Big Coal, Big Asbestos, and Big Oil only need call the Chamber to stop any accountability for their toxic destruction. Wall Street banks and CEOs need only make sure that they have paid their Chamber dues to ensure that they can continue to rip off the taxpayers. And killers like Big Tobacco need only form a partnership with the Chamber to ensure that they will be given immunity from lawsuits that seek accountability for the death and sickness of millions of Americans.
Tom Donohue has turned the once respected and even-handed Chamber into an extremist organization, bragging that the Chamber gutted the Clinton tobacco settlement, killed the Clinton health care plan, and scuttled previous oversight of Wall Street and the banking system. Now the Chamber is spending tens of millions on ads and lobbyists to repeal health care for all, protect polluters from accountability, and shield the financial industry from government regulation.
Sign on to Stop The Chamber
Sign On To This Campaign. Sign on to this campaign and your name will be added to the thousands who have complained about the conduct of the Chamber. We will send this letter letter to all the members of the Chamber board and others asking that they quit and condemn the Chamber.
Sign on to the campaign here
An INTENSE moment of TRUTH with MAINSTREAM Media
Following this rant, Dylan Ratigan was not seen on his program for two weeks. Conicidence?
October2011.Org: Bloomberg Threatens OWS Again; Warning on Police and Dem Party Infiltrators; the Status Quo is Threatened
Now that Occupys Are Having an Impact Watch Out for Infilitration By Police and Democratic Party Co-Opters
-By Kevin Zeeese
November 5, 2011- LUV News introduces an article by Danny Schecter with a warning about how the status quo powers are no doubt plotting their attack on the Occupy Movement. We should be especially wary right now as we are affecting the debate.
The powers-that-be know that when the super committee recommends austerity for everyone but the wealthy and militarists that there will be large growth in the Occupy Movement. They need to find a way to get rid of us now or see us grow.
In addition to the provocateurs that LUV News mentions, the Occupy Movement needs to be on the watch for Democratic Party front groups which are increasing their efforts to co-opt us. This weekend many occupiers joined in an action against the Koch brothers that was organized by some of the most Democratic Party-affiliated non-profits; tomorrow many will support the Tar Sands protests. Yes, we support these causes but be aware the groups leading these efforts are Democratic Party allies, i.e. allies of the corporate-government. Do not let the Occupy Movement be co-opted!
KZ
NYT OpEd: Oligarchy, American Style
-By Paul Krugman
November 3, 2011- Inequality is back in the news, largely thanks to Occupy Wall Street, but with an assist from the Congressional Budget Office. And you know what that means: It’s time to roll out the obfuscators!
Anyone who has tracked this issue over time knows what I mean. Whenever growing income disparities threaten to come into focus, a reliable set of defenders tries to bring back the blur. Think tanks put out reports claiming that inequality isn’t really rising, or that it doesn’t matter. Pundits try to put a more benign face on the phenomenon, claiming that it’s not really the wealthy few versus the rest, it’s the educated versus the less educated.
So what you need to know is that all of these claims are basically attempts to obscure the stark reality: We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only.
Chicagoist: Board of Trade Offers Job Counseling Advice for Occupy Chicago
November 1, 2011- Someone at the Chicago Board of Trade issued another message to the Occupy Chicago protesters by blanketing them with these McDonald's job applications. The protesters are understandably offended by both the message and by the hundreds of pieces of new litter around them.
First the CBOT folks posted "We are the 1%" in their eighth floor windows a few weeks ago. This is the second time they tossed flyers down from their ivory tower, too. They tossed down “We Are the 1% Paying For This" on Oct. 21. They've perhaps moved the war to a second front by sending email spam to protesters.
Truthout: Occupy Writers: A Mirror of and a Stimulant for the Occupy Movement
-by J.A. Myerson
October 25, 2011- "I love the Occupy Wall Street Library," Jeff Sharlet tells me. He is the best selling author of "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" and someone who has spent a lot of time here at Liberty Plaza Park recently, observing the general assemblies, tweeting his thoughts and filing reports on the Wall Street occupation. "I've brought a lot of books there. I took a book, I like having it because it says, 'Occupy Wall Street Library' on it."
Sharlet is also the brain behind Occupy Writers a collection of authors, poets, playwrights, journalists, cartoonists, and others (anyone who self-identifies as a writer can get on the list) who have signed onto a simple statement: "We, the undersigned writers and all who will join us, support Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world."
