How to help Occupy Wall Street (or Missoula) — Bring yourself and something you can offer

Matt Browner Hamlin recently made note of a nice piece by Matt Stoller at Naked Capitalism. There he focused on the "church of dissent" aspect of the movement/event:

[T]hey are practicing the politics of place, the politics of building a truly public space. They are explicitly rejecting the politics of narrow media, the politics of the shopping mall. To understand #OccupyWallStreet, you have to get that it is not a media object or a march. It is first and foremost, a church of dissent, a space made sacred by a community. But like Medieval churches, it is also now the physical center of that community. It has become many things. Public square. Carnival. Place to get news. Daycare center. Health care center. Concert venue. Library. Performance space. School.

I'd like to focus on another aspect of this article — how to get involved.

As Stoller says, all of these #Occupy locations are public spaces in both the literal and virtual senses (my phrasing on the virtual part). The physical space is Zuccotti Square, or wherever. The virtual space is the ownership of consensus-creation and communication. (The amplification of speeches/requests without microphones is a marvelous concept, with a dual effect. It creates consensus, and it creates listening. Read the article for a fuller description.)

So what's the best way to get involved in a publicly owned process? Offer something and see if your offer is accepted (I've emphasized some sprinkling of ideas below; also some paragraphing for our narrower columns):

If you want to “help” #OccupyWallStreet, in New York or any place around the country, think about what you can bring to a public space to make it more lively, interesting, or helpful.

On a basic level, just bring yourself. If you are a cook, cook food and bring it. If you are a lawyer, offer free legal help. If you’re an artist, make art. If you’re Joe Stiglitz, go by and host a brief teach-in (as he actually did). If you can publish, make a newspaper.

One idea is to bring a laptop with internet access, and open it to the spiffy complaint page of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Put up a sign called “Complain About Your Bank” above the laptop, and show people how to use it. That’s useful. That shows people how to interact with their government and take action to empower themselves against banks.

Make the space better, and then enjoy what you’ve made.

Or, if you want to fight politically, fight for the right to this public space. Try and make sure predator drones aren’t at either political convention. Advocate for keeping parks open.

Pretty basic. Be sure to ask for acceptance of your gift; so far it's a public process. Help keep it that way by respecting (and enhancing) public ownership. As in all shared-power relationships, your offer does not compel acceptance.

Stoller is optimistic that if this fades in the winter, the spirit (and methodology) won't go away; they'll just morph and return. (And yes, Virginia — there is an Occupy Missoula.)

About those predator drones? Not kidding. (Hey, rules of engagement, y'all. Rules of engagement.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

OccupyWallStreet NYC announces "emergency call to action" as Bloomberg tries to shut them down

As Matt Browner Hamlin wrote earlier today, NYC Mayor Bloomberg appears to have come up with a cute way to trick the Occupy Wall Street protesters into leaving their encampment.  They're having none of it, and earlier today issued an emergency call to action.

From OccupyWallSt.org:

EMERGENCY CALL TO ACTION: Keep Bloomberg and Kelly From Evicting #OWS
Posted Oct. 13, 2011, 2:14 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

EMERGENCY #OWS EVICTION DEFENSE:
Prevent the forcible closure of Occupy Wall Street

Tell Bloomberg: Don't Foreclose the Occupation.
NEED MASS TURN-OUT, SHOW UP NO LATER THAN 6 A.M.

This is an emergency situation. Please take a minute to read this, and please take action and spread the word far and wide.

Occupy Wall Street is gaining momentum, with occupation actions now happening in cities across the world.

But last night Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD notified Occupy Wall Street participants about plans to “clean the park”—the site of the Wall Street protests—tomorrow starting at 7am. "Cleaning" was used as a pretext to shut down “Bloombergville” a few months back, and to shut down peaceful occupations elsewhere.

Bloomberg says that the park will be open for public usage following the cleaning, but with a notable caveat: Occupy Wall Street participants must follow the “rules”.
NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said that they will move in to clear us and we will not be allowed to take sleeping bags, tarps, personal items or gear back into the park.
This is it—this is their attempt to shut down #OWS for good.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION

1) Call 311 (or +1 (212) NEW-YORK if you're out of town) and tell Bloomberg to support our right to assemble and to not interfere with #OWS.
2) Come to #OWS TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT to defend the occupation from eviction.

For those of you who plan to help us hold our ground—which we hope will be all of you—make sure you understand the possible consequences. Be prepared to not get much sleep. Be prepared for possible arrest. Make sure your items are together and ready to go (or already out of the park.) We are pursuing all possible strategies; this is a message of solidarity.

Click here to learn nonviolent tactics for holding ground.

Occupy Wall Street is committed to keeping the park clean and safe—we even have a Sanitation Working Group whose purpose this is. We are organizing major cleaning operations today and will do so regularly.

If Bloomberg truly cares about sanitation here he should support the installation of portopans and dumpsters. #OWS allies have been working to secure these things to support our efforts.

We know where the real dirt is: on Wall Street. Billionaire Bloomberg is beholden to bankers.

We won't allow Bloomberg and the NYPD to foreclose our occupation. This is an occupation, not a permitted picnic.

Read the rest of this post...

The Galleon insider trading conviction is not a Wall Street crisis conviction

As I've said many times before, if Rajaratnam is guilty, fine, find him guilty and send him to prison. But let's not confuse this case with the much larger problem of Wall Street triggering the recession. Rajaratnam was a swindler and used insider information to profit by tens of millions of dollars. That's a much different story than the trillions of dollars needlessly lost by Wall Street, yet we see no legal action related to those losses. Reuters:

Raj Rajaratnam, a self-made hedge fund tycoon convicted in the biggest Wall Street trading scandal in a generation, was ordered on Thursday to serve 11 years in prison, one of the longest sentences ever in an insider-trading case but far less than prosecutors sought.

The sentencing caps a prosecution, marked by secret wiretaps of Rajaratnam and his associates, that shocked the investment world. Rajaratnam once ran a $7 billion hedge fund, but was found guilty of running a network of informants who provided him with corporate secrets.

The sentence was lighter than the 19-1/2 year minimum prison term that prosecutors had sought, but is still above the 10 years handed down recently in another major insider trading case.

Read the rest of this post...

AP says federal regs cause a whopping .2 percent of all layoffs. So the GOP basically lied.

So, again, the Republicans are simply liars, or know-nothings, or both. They've all been claiming that the reason there are so many unemployed in this country is because of federal regulations. The President, sadly, chimed in with his agreement - regs kill jobs - when he killed the new anti-smog regulations. In any case, it was a lie. Government regulations are not causing unemployment, unless you consider two-tenths of one percent of all those unemployed to be a significant number.

From AP:

Is regulation strangling the American entrepreneur? Several Republican presidential candidates say so. The numbers don't.

THE FACTS: Labor Department data show that only a tiny percentage of companies that experience large layoffs cite government regulation as the reason. Since Barack Obama took office, just two-tenths of 1 percent of layoffs have been due to government regulation, the data show.

We have a problem in this country. We only have two political parties. And while one is somewhat more spineless than we'd like, the other simply lies. And worse, they base their policies - what they're going to do when they come into office - on lies. And the lies, I'm sure coincidentally, usually seem to benefit their big rich corporate donors at the expense of everyone else in the country.

Republicans need to question who's running their party.  This is no way to run a country, unless you're intent is running it into the ground.

PS Case in point, John McCain just said today on - wait for it - Fox News that federal regulations are costing us billions of jobs.  Which is pretty amazing since we only have a population of 312 million. Read the rest of this post...

OWS "I’m Getting Arrested" app released for Android

For those heading to any of the Occupy protests, it might be worth downloading. Cnet:

I'm Getting Arrested is a creative Android app that, according to developer Quadrant 2, was inspired by a real-life "Occupy Wall Street" incident. It lets you quickly notify your family, friends, and crack legal team (if you have one) of your situation with a single tap of your finger. Just initially enter a custom message and some SMS-ready numbers to contact in the event of your arrest. Then, as you're about to be corralled into the back of a squad car, fire the app up and long-press the bull's-eye for 2 seconds. From there, you can rest assured that your message will be sent to the appropriate contacts.

As you can imagine, I'm Getting Arrested can be used for more than just incidents of wrongful detainment. It's actually a great shortcut for sending any kind of message in a hurry. It can also be used for messages that you send regularly. For instance, do you send the same text to your carpool partner every day? Well, with I'm Getting Arrested, you can just program it in, and long-press the bull's-eye instead of typing out your message every time.

Read the rest of this post...

Feds continue assault on medical marijuana industry

C'mon, move on to something serious that people actually care about like Wall Street corruption. It's hard to shake a stick in the US without hitting someone who hasn't smoked pot. The majority of Americans have inhaled, including politicians at all levels across the country. Few people are demanding action on this issue. As I said the other day, this should not be a priority for the federal government. Hasn't anyone in Washington noticed the real and justified anger against Wall Street's plundering?

The federal government has limited resources and tight budgets and most would prefer action on one of the most important issues of our time rather than attacking the advertising industry.

Federal prosecutors are preparing to target newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets that advertise medical marijuana dispensaries in California, another escalation in the Obama administration's newly invigorated war against the state's pot industry.

This month, U.S. attorneys representing four districts in California announced that the government would single out landlords and property owners who rent buildings or land where dispensaries sell or cultivators grow marijuana.

U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy, whose district includes Imperial and San Diego counties, said marijuana advertising is the next area she's "going to be moving onto as part of the enforcement efforts in Southern California." Duffy said she could not speak for the three other U.S. attorneys covering the state, but noted their efforts have been coordinated so far.

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NY Mayor Bloomberg moves to evict OccupyWallStreet

Mike Bloomberg, New York City's billionaire mayor, is taking the first strong step towards evicting #OccupyWallStreet from Zuccotti Plaza, where the occupation has been taking place. Zuccotti Plaza used to be a public park, but was privatized. It is now owned by Brookfield Properties, a company whose board of directors, coincidentally, includes Bloomberg's girlfriend.

Bloomberg and Brookfield are asking protesters to vacate Zuccotti Plaza in stages so the park could be cleaned. Needless to say, the occupiers have been religious about keeping the park where they have been living for four months very clean and are doing a hardcore cleaning effort today and tomorrow to make sure it is spotless.

Additionally they are putting in strong restrictions about what would and would not be allowed back into the plaza after the cleaning. Brookfield and Bloomberg are banning sleeping bags, tents, and even lying down within Zuccotti Park. Folks on the ground have a clear picture of what is going on here:

Beka Economopoulos, an organizer with Occupy Wall Street, said that the protesters “have worked vigorously to ensure safe and sanitary conditions, and we recognize the importance of being good neighbors.”

She said she feared that the cleaning was a pretext “to end this occupation.”

Driving protesters out of public spaces as a vehicle for breaking long-running protests has been a common tool by powerful elites this year. We saw it in Madison, Wisconsin during the occupation of the capitol; it was done to Los Indignados in Madrid; it was even done in NYC earlier this year, when activists had set up a Bloombergville tent city.

If you're in NYC, call 311 and tell Mayor Bloomberg not to interfere with Occupy Wall Street tomorrow.

If you're outside NYC, you can call 212-NEW-YORK and do the same.

We should be crystal clear that this action by Bloomberg, on behalf of Brookfield on its face, but all Wall Street banks and financial firms who are the target of protest is the epitome of class warfare. But more importantly for the #OccupyWallStreet movement, it would completely validate every aspect of their critique of the power financial elites control over the political process, to the point where politicians are accountable only to elites and completely unaccountable to the other 99%. Mayor Bloomberg doesn't have to move forward with busting up the protests to make the analysis any less true, but if he does, it's hard to imagine a more powerful representation of what is wrong with America today.

Update (3:03 PM)
Two more notes.

First, I just called NYC 311. Between my time on hold, making my request for Bloomberg to not evict the #OccupyWallStreet protesters, and giving my contact information for follow-up, it took 13 minutes. Best 13 minutes I've spent today. Credo Action has a page where you can log your calls into NYC 311 on this issue. MoveOn has a petition to Mayor Bloomberg up and they will be delivering it to him tonight.

Second, #OccupyWallStreet has an official call to action posted. They write:

Occupy Wall Street is committed to keeping the park clean and safe — we even have a Sanitation Working Group whose purpose this is. We are organizing major cleaning operations today and will do so regularly.

If Bloomberg truly cares about sanitation here he should support the installation of portopans and dumpsters. #OWS allies have been working to secure these things to support our efforts.

We know where the real dirt is: on Wall Street. Billionaire Bloomberg is beholden to bankers.

We won't allow Bloomberg and the NYPD to foreclose our occupation. This is an occupation, not a permitted picnic.

Read the rest of this post...

Majority of Americans see OccupyWallStreet favorable; Tea Party not so much

Via Greg Sargent at the Wash Post:

Americans favor Occupy Wall Street far more than Tea Party: Despite nonstop GOP and conservative disparagement of the Wall Street protests, the most detailed polling yet on Occupy Wall Street suggests that the public holds a broadly favorable view of the movement — and, crucially, the positions it holds.

Time released a new poll this morning finding that 54 percent view the Wall Street protests favorably, versus only 23 percent who think the opposite. Interestingly, only 23 percent say they don’t have an opinion, suggesting the protests have succeeded in punching through to the mainstream. Also: The most populist positions espoused by Occupy Wall Street — that the gap between rich and poor has grown too large; that taxes should be raised on the rich; that execs responsible for the meltdown should be prosecuted — all have strong support.

Meanwhile, the poll found that only 27 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party. My handy Plum Line calculator tells me that this amounts to half the number of those who view Occupy Wall Street favorably.

Be prepared for Reuters to do a story about how 170m Americans are secretly behind the entire OccupyWallStreet movement. Read the rest of this post...

GOP lawmaker in Florida introduces bill to reintroduce death by firing squad

Yes, this Republican is creating serious policy based on chit chat at the Waffle House.

Saying it's time to stop letting convicted killers "get off that easy," a Florida state lawmaker wants to use firing squads or the electric chair for those on death row.

Rep. Brad Drake filed a bill this week that would end the use of lethal injection in Florida executions. Instead, those with a death sentence would choose between electrocution or a firing squad.

Drake, a Republican, said the idea came to him after having a conversation with a constituent at a Waffle House over the legal battles associated with the Sept. 28 execution of Manuel Valle.

Read the rest of this post...

Reuters runs bizarre anti-OccupyWallStreet hit piece, using Limbaugh as proof

Reuters has a new story that breathlessly concludes that George Soros is behind the entire #OccupyWallStreet venture because - wait for it - some kid saw a poster in a cafe criticizing Wall Street, the poster was made by a small group of arch-liberals in Canada, the arch-liberals in Canada receive a small amount of their funding (less than 5%) from the Tides foundation, and the Tides foundation receives some of their funding from George Soros.

Get it?

Reuters did forget to mention that George Soros is a Jew and has horns, but it's implied.

I'm astounded by how bad this article by Mark Egan and Michelle Nichols really is. You have to read it. They actually quote Rush Limbaugh as proof that George Soros is behind #OccupyWallStreet.

Pressed further for his views on the movement and the protesters, Soros refused to be drawn in. But conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh summed up the speculation when he told his listeners last week, "George Soros money is behind this."

Then they go on to give their "proof," that some kid was inspired by a random poster in a cafe. Well I'm sold. Egan and Nichols go on to explain that Soros appears to agree with some of the opinions of the protesters, so he simply must be in cahoots with them.

Like the protesters, Soros is no fan of the 2008 bank bailouts and subsequent government purchase of the toxic sub-prime mortgage assets they amassed in the property bubble.

Holy cow! You mean the protesters aren't big fans of the Wall Street bailout and George Soros also isn't a fan? That kind of deductive logic deserves a Pulitzer:

"A" dislikes something incredibly unpopular and "B" also dislikes something incredibly unpopular, so A must be allied with B.

Yeah, there's that. Or perhaps A and B simply agree with the majority of the country.

This article reads like Joe McCarthy wrote it.

More important than who's behind the #OccupyWallStreet protests, I'd like to know who's behind this Reuters' "story"? Read the rest of this post...

Yahoo drop membership in controversial US Chamber of Commerce

You remember the US Chamber of Commerce.  They're a bit of a rogue organization here in DC.  They have such a wholesome name, like the Kiwanis - you never knew exactly what they did, but you figured it must be something good, or at least benign.  Then you find out the truth.  They're a far-right Republican lobbying juggernaut that has devastated civil rights in this country (including being responsible for the recent wholesale repeal of gay rights in Tennessee, and now Michigan is trying the same thing - thanks Chamber!) and done far more damage on other issues.

And now Yahoo joins Apple in dropping them.  Ouch. Read the rest of this post...

Herman 999 Cain takes the lead in GOP presidential primary race

HuffPost Hill citing a new POP poll:

According to a new poll, Herman Cain is leading the Republican primary field, thanks to dissatisfaction with the other candidates and increased attention given to his 9-9-9 plan (which our office determined was either derived from the first three digits of a New York City limo service or the tax settings from Sim City). "Cain is up 30-22 on Romney with Newt Gingrich sneaking past Rick Perry for 3rd place at 15% to Perry's 14% with Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul tied for 5th at 5%, Jon Huntsman 7th at 2%, Rick Santorum 8th at 1%, and Gary Johnson 9th with less than 1%...There are indications within the poll that Cain's stay at the top could be short lived. Only 30% of his supporters are solidly committed to him with 70% saying they might still go on to support someone else. Those numbers aren't much better for Romney, who only has 31% of his supporters solidly committed, or Gingrich, who only has 34% solidly committed."

Read the rest of this post...

100,000 millionaires pay lower tax rates than 10 million middle class families

Not so mockworthy any more, those #OccupyWallStreet kids. From the Washington Post:

All told, 94,500 millionaires paid a smaller share of their income in taxes than 10 million households with moderate incomes, the report found.

Late Tuesday, Senate Republicans rejected a variation on the Buffett Rule — a 5.6 percent surtax on income over $1 million — to cover the cost of Obama’s $447 billion jobs package.

Oops.

The article goes on to note that the Republican counter-argument, that millionaires pay a lot of taxes on other stuff, so it all equals out, is not at all true for a quarter of all millionaires - all 100,000 of them.

Critics initially blasted the Buffett Rule, arguing that the average millionaire already pays a significantly higher effective tax rate than middle-class families do. The CRS report, by Thomas L. Hungerford, a specialist in public finance, found that to be true: Millionaires, on average, paid about 30 percent of their income in federal taxes, while households earning less than $100,000 paid closer to 19 percent.

But the averages hide wide variations within income categories, Hungerford wrote, with millionaires paying anywhere from 24 percent to more than 35 percent of their income in federal taxes. The lower tax bills are primarily the result of low tax rates on investment income, such as capital gains and dividends.

So Warren Buffett and President Obama were right, and the Republicans were wrong. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday MOT: A bear nods with small Japanese children

I've been coding html for 3 days now, trying to find ways to make the blog(s) load faster (and it's not just the java script, though that is "part" of the problem). From the tests I've run, it seems to be going faster now, though still not fast enough for my tastes (oddly, one of the problems seems to be Firefox - I'm getting pretty quick loading times with Safari and Chrome (and forget about IE, they stopped making that for Mac a long time ago, and lots of folks recommend you drop it if you can). Anyway, I figure I have a few more days of this - I'm in the process of learning how to create image sprites - I have it down pretty well, and found some generators that create the sprit and the css, though now need to figure out how I do the html that references the sprite and puts the image where I want it on the page. Sasha the wonder dog is not amused, I've been slacking off of my ball throwing, plastic duck tossing and rubber pig tug of war.

So enjoy the video of the bar nodding with small Japanese school children, while I get back to blogging and html-ing.

Click image to see video

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Georgia considers prisoners for firefighting jobs

Who wouldn't want to live in Georgia with this kind of thinking? Think Progress:

A select group of inmates may be exchanging their prison jumpsuits for firefighting gear in Camden County.

The inmates-to-firefighters program is one of several money-saving options the Board of County Commissioners is looking into to stop residents’ fire insurance costs from more than doubling. [...] The inmate firefighter program would be the most cost-effective choice, saving the county more than $500,000 a year by some estimates. But that option is already controversial, drawing criticism from the firefighters who would have to work alongside – and supervise – the prisoners.

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