You Are Not A Loan

In These Times
Rebecca Burns

Is a debt strike the future of Occupy?

Though the Occupy camps have disbanded, many organizers believe they’ve found the next big tent under which the year-old movement can regroup: debt. At the one-year anniversary celebration of Occupy Wall Street, members of the group Strike Debt distributed 5,000 free copies of a “Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual.”

Debt, Occupiers argue, is a new way of understanding what sets the 99% apart from the 1%. With wages remain- ing stagnant as the cost of living has increased, workers increasingly finance their day-to-day lives on a deficit. An estimated 75 percent of households now carry some amount of debt. And the problem goes even deeper: Creditors ranging from seedy sub-prime lenders to the International Monetary Fund have the power to compel cities, states and entire nations to forgo basic necessities in order to fulfill their promissory notes.

Could this new offshoot of Occupy reignite the movement? In These Times organized a dialogue about the prospect of a modern-day debtors’ revolt—and how the creditors might fight back. Participating were Pam Brown, an organizer with Strike Debt; Jodi Dean, professor of political science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Mike Konczal, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute; and Peter Rugh, an organizer with theOccupy Wall Street Environmental Solidarity working group. 

Most Occupiers have been reluctant to organize the movement around any one overarching issue. What’s the potential benefit of focusing on debt?

Jodi: The issue of debt is typically embedded in the austerity agenda. Debt, whether our nearly unfathomable national debt or debilitating personal debt, supposedly signifies a will too weak to sacrifice present pleasures for future benefits. And in a country so punitive that weakness of any sort invites cruelty and condemnation, debt has given Republicans—and Democrats tripping over themselves in their race to the Right—an opportunity to inflict pain on “the 47 percent” by cutting much-needed benefits and services. So Strike Debt’s move to claim debt as a cause for the Left is a welcome change.

Pete: It would be a mistake to understand Occupy as a single-issue movement focused on debt. For example, OWS Environmental Solidarity is helping coordinate direct actions against fracking and other forms of extraction. But there is a symbiotic relationship between the exploitation of the planet and the exploitation of people, and debt is a useful lens for this. The question we ask by focusing on debt is “Who owes who?” We are all owed a future, but we aren’t going to get one if we accept that Wall Street is entitled to cash in on the investments it’s already made in wrecking the planet.

What are the challenges of organizing people as debtors—rather than as workers, women or others who have been the basis of mass movements?

Jodi: The individual quality of debt makes a collective response a big challenge. Unlike the factory, where worker encounter one another daily, debtors accumulate debt—and face the consequences of default—privately. That others are in the same boat may feel reassuring, but it doesn’t change one’s credit score. And because it’s often hard to figure out who actually owns a loan, it will be hard to organize and target debtors’ actions.

Pam: It’s true that debt is much harder to organize around than the collective grievances of the workplace. But that’s why, as the power of labor declines, figuring out how to build a debt resistance movement is so important.

During the Red Scare, federal support for increased home ownership was considered vital to the project of combating Soviet influence. While nothing longer than a five-year mortgage existed before the Great Depression, homeownership shot up once the government began insuring loans for home building and home buying. The 30-year mortgage was created, and it was an axiom of the time that a homeowner encumbered by years of mortgage debt was less likely to go on strike. So the acceleration of our indebtedness, and its erosion of collective action, was in many ways a response to the power of worker solidarity.

So what could a collective response to debt look like?

Mike: While the language of “striking debt” is important and provocative, there are a number of problems that a strike against paying debts to creditors would encounter.

In a factory strike, workers have leverage because the bosses and owners are losing money and want the factory to resume running. But creditors often want people to miss the first payment so they can charge fees and penalties, and third-party collection agencies get a windfall through defaults on student loans. This raises the question: If a debt strike takes the form of encouraging people to miss payments or default, how can it be effective in an industry that would likely cheer such a move?

There’s also the question of retribution. Your boss can’t work against your renting a house or getting a phone in a different city five years down the road because you went on strike, but your creditor can. So part of the project will be thinking of new ways of imagining a strike.

Pam: On the horizon is a Rolling Jubilee, where we will be purchasing defaulted debt and legally abolishing it. We are also in the process of building an international organization analogous to a union. In the same way factory strikes improved conditions, withdrawing from the debt system opens up space to reclaim our future. 

Pete: The fact that Pam is proposing an “organization analogous to a union” without fear that her bicycle will get keyed shows how far Occupy has come from a vehement fear of codifying anything. But this effort may require organization to a greater extent than we’ve seen so far. 

Is a campaign against debt in part an argument for a stronger welfare state?

Jodi: Debilitating medical and student debt are the result of a market approach to medicine and education. So if Strike Debt grows, we could see demands for free healthcare and free universities. Once people stop thinking of banks as entitled to interest and fees, then we may also decide as a society that public sector workers, pensions and basic infrastructures are more important than playing the bankers’ game.

Mike: Strike Debt could serve as the basis for a campaign to reestablish education, health, civic infrastructure and income maintenance as part of our basic commons, not to be auctioned off for the benefit of the few.

One challenge is that the government is also increasingly on the other side of these debts, and the same powers that make it a good provider of social insurance make it a vicious debt collector. The government can outwait even the most resistant of student loan debtors. There are more and more stories about senior citizens pushed into poverty or having their Social Security checks garnished to make student loan payments. Strikes work against factories because eventually the capital owners need the factory to start working again, but there’s no indication that this leverage exists with the debts governments stand behind. Factor in how law enforcement is increasingly acting as a front line of debt collection, and this is a poisonous combination.

Occupy has to this point resisted making demands. But could a broad demand for something like debt cancellation advance the movement at this stage?

Pam: Many of us believe that cancellation of some sort is inevitable; the question is who will have their debts canceled and who will not. But I don’t think we’ll see one demand, even as it relates to debt, coming out of Occupy.

Pete: One year into the movement, we need to sustain the bonds that have been forged between Occupiers working on different issues in different parts of the world. How do we do this without demands? We shouldn’t be afraid of raising “mini-demands” under the broad banner of Occupy, whether we are student debt resistors or environ- mental activists fighting nuclear power. Together, we are all demanding a more just and sustainable world.

Judge tosses Occupy Chicago park arrests

Chicago Tribune
David Heinzmann

The mass arrests of Occupy Chicago demonstrators that city leaders held up as a model for how to respect protesters' rights has been ruled unconstitutional and tossed out of court by a Cook County judge.

In a 37-page ruling issued today, Associate Judge Thomas Donnelly ruled the October 2011 arrests were unconstitutional because the city routinely chooses not to enforce the curfew for events the city supports, such as the 2008 Election Night rally for President Barack Obama. The judge noted that no arrests were made at that event, even though it went well past curfew.

Occupy not safe from FBI surveillance

One of the main issues many Occupy Wall Street protesters spoke of during the last year was their concern that they were being watched by the police. The American Civil Liberties Union has obtained documents they had to file a lawsuit to get their hands on, and in these paper they've found proof that federal surveillance targeted protesters at Occupy encampments. J D Tuccille, managing director for Reason 24-7 News, joins RT's Kristine Frazao to discuss the matter.

The Federal Reserve, a Privately Owned Banking Cartel, Has Been Given Police Powers, with Glock 22s and Patrol Cars

Alternet
Pam Martens

By mid morning on Monday, September 17, as Occupy Wall Street protesters marched around the perimeter of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, all signs that an FRPD (Federal Reserve Police Department) existed had disappeared. The FRPD patrol cars and law enforcement officers had been replaced by NYPD patrol cars and officers. That decision may have been made to keep from drawing attention to a mushrooming new domestic police force that most Americans do not know exists.

Quietly, without fanfare or Congressional hearings, the USA Patriot Act in 2001 bestowed on the 12 privately owned Federal Reserve Banks, domestic policing powers.

Section 364 of the Act, “Uniform Protection Authority for Federal Reserve,” reads: “Law enforcement officers designated or authorized by the Board or a reserve bank under paragraph (1) or (2) are authorized while on duty to carry firearms and make arrests without warrants for any offense against the United States committed in their presence…Such officers shall have access to law enforcement information that may be necessary for the protection of the property or personnel of the Board or a reserve bank.”

The police officers are technically known as FRLEO, short for Federal Reserve Law Enforcement Officer. The system has its own police academies for training, their own patch and badges, uniforms, pistols, rifles, police cars and the power to arrest coast to coast without a warrant. They have ranks of Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain and a recruitment ad campaign with the slogan: “It’s about respect and recognition from your peers. It’s you.”

According to a former St. Louis Federal Reserve Law Enforcement Training Instructor, the officers are trained on pistol, rifle, auto-rifle, sub-gun and shotgun with manufacturers encompassing Smith & Wesson, Glock, Remington and Armalite.

The FRLEOs employed by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. are considered employees of the Federal government since the Board is a government entity. Each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks, as settled law under Lewis v. United States confirms, is a private corporation owned by commercial banks in its region. An email to several of the Federal Reserve Banks confirmed that they regard their FRLEOs to be privately employed by the bank.

The San Francisco Fed ran an ad for Captain Specialist, noting that “you will be charged with gathering and disseminating law enforcement intelligence information to the District.” It also noted that the individual would need to “obtain and maintain top secret clearance.” Typically, that clearance level is reserved for only the highest positions in the Federal government.

A recruitment ad for the Richmond Fed indicates their FRLEOs would be plugged into the nation’s criminal databases: “The Law Enforcement Unit has an immediate opening for a Communications Center Operator, reporting to the Center leadership team in Richmond, Virginia. The pay is $32,458 — $40,573…[the officer will query] “information from a variety of law enforcement data bases for information, wants/warrants, intelligence, driver’s license and vehicle information, etc.” The Cleveland Fed notes that the job “may include, but would not be limited to: use of deadly or non-lethal force…”

FRLEOs now even have their own Federal Reserve Policemen’s Benevolent Association, Local 385. The group’s Facebook page [3] carries the statement that it is a “government organization.” The site says the group “was established to create a fraternal organization for its membership and to act on behalf of the members as a liaison between the New Jersey State PBA and all other police agencies within the state and the country.” The connection to New Jersey likely stems from a now deceased police officer, James Rose, from Moonachie, New Jersey, who was a FRLEO in New York and helped to establish Local 385. In addition, the Regional office of the New York Fed is located in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

In addition to regular policing functions, the Federal Reserve police have been observed in airports with rifles, functioning as dignitary protection teams. Various recruitment ads confirm that this is sometimes part of the job.

Buttressing the private nature of the Federal Reserve Banks, the Maiden Lane building that the Occupy Wall Street protesters were swarming around this morning, chanting “F*** the Fed,” was purchased on February 28, 2012 by the New York Fed, which had previously been leasing the building. According to the press release the “Federal Reserve Bank of New York (New York Fed) today announced that it has acquired the building at 33 Maiden Lane for $207.5 million from Merit US Real Estate Fund III, L.P. and established a new, wholly owned limited liability company called Maiden & Nassau LLC to serve as owner of the building.”

The Federal Reserve Building up for sale at 301 Rosa L. Parks Avenue in Nashville has this slogan engraved on the building: “Federal Reserve System Through Which Our Banks and Government Join Hands to Further the Enduring Prosperity of American Commerce, Industry and Agriculture.”

There is nothing in that motto that shows a concern for the average American. And that’s the problem inherent in the continuing venting of anger against Wall Street banks and their perceived crony patrons at the Fed who gave them trillions of dollars in low-cost bailout loans and then fought a court battle to keep the loans a secret. That domestic policing functions have now been added to the mix can only create more suspicions and hostility.

There is also the obvious question as to why the expense, training and potential liability of armed police would be necessary when all of the Federal Reserve Banks are in cities with large municipal police forces. With private bankers sitting on the Boards of each of these Reserve Banks, many of whom are officers of banks under criminal investigation, there is the serious need for Congressional investigation into how the Nation’s criminal databases are being used by the private sector as well as the further chilling of protest and dissent from another new sheriff in town.

Occupy Wall St activists to surround NYSE in effort to regain impetus

Group, which struggled to maintain momentum after initial flurry last autumn, to celebrate one-year anniversary on Monday

Guardian

Activists plan to mark the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street on Monday by descending on New York's financial district in an attempt to rejuvenate a movement that has failed to sustain momentum after initially sparking a national conversation about economic inequality.

The group, which popularized the phrase "We are the 99%," will attempt to surround the New York Stock Exchange and disrupt morning rush hour in lower Manhattan, according to a movement spokeswoman.

Monday's protests will cap a weekend of Occupy seminars, music and demonstrations in New York, said Linnea Paton, 24, an Occupy Wall Street (OWS) spokeswoman. Demonstrations are also planned in other US cities, other OWS organizers said.

The grassroots movement caught the world by surprise last fall with a spontaneous encampment in lower Manhattan that soon spread to cities across North America and Europe.

Occupy briefly revived a long-dormant spirit of US social activism, and drew enduring attention to economic injustice.

But the movement's colorful cast of theatrical demonstrators struggled through last winter to sustain the momentum that first drew attention to its patchwork of economic grievances – including corporate malfeasance on Wall Street, crippling student debt and aggressive bank foreclosures on American homes.

On Sunday, organizers will provide live music, including a Foley Square concert featuring Tom Morello, guitarist for the rock band Rage Against the Machine.

At 7am Monday, some protesters will try to surround the NYSE, while others will engage in a loosely choreographed series of "sit-ins" at intersections throughout the financial district, according to OWS's website.

The tactics are designed to undermine New York police efforts to contain protesters on the narrow, winding streets of the financial district.

Last year's demonstrations featured the spectacle of activists breaking into sudden dashes down one narrow street or another, pursued by visibly frustrated police and television reporters tripping down cobblestone streets.

Sound permits for Sunday's events have been secured, Paton said, but OWS has not sought permits for Monday's protests - which last fall led to mass arrests and clashes between police and protesters. Occupy Wall Street maintains about $50,000 in its bail fund, several organizers said.

NYPD spokesman Paul Brown confirmed that no OWS demonstration permit applications were submitted, but said police will be prepared for demonstrations.

"We accommodate peaceful protests and make arrests for unlawful activity," he said.

Brown said that based on previous experience with OWS, the NYPD expects that "a relatively small group of self-described anarchists will attempt unlawful activity and try to instigate confrontations with police by others while attempting to escape arrest themselves … we expect most demonstrators to be peaceful."

New York police have made a total of 1,852 Occupy arrests as of September 12 according to Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance's office, including the arrest of 700 protesters who spilled into the roadway while marching across the Brooklyn bridge last October.

On Friday, Twitter was ordered by a New York judge to turn over the tweets of one of the protesters arrested on the bridge. That case has emerged as a closely watched court fight over law enforcement access to users' social media content.

Six weeks after the Brooklyn bridge arrests, citing public health concerns, New York authorities entered the Manhattan OWS camp and dispersed protesters. The movement has never regained its initial momentum.

Twitter complies with prosecutors to surrender Occupy activist's tweets

Site ends fight with New York lawyers after contempt warning from judge over protester Malcolm Harris's Twitter account

Twitter has relented in its fight with New York prosecutors to hand over three months worth of messages from an Occupy Wall Street protester ahead of the activist's criminal trial.

Twitter had argued that the posts belong to Malcolm Harris and as such it would be violating fourth amendment privacy rights if it were to disclose the communications.

But having lost a legal appeal against a subpoena, Twitter faced the prospect of steep fines if it did not comply with the judges order to turn over the tweets to the Manhattan district attorney's office.

The firm handed over the tweets on Friday after being told by a New York judge that it would be held in contempt after that date.

The activist has been charged with disorderly conduct in relation to a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge in October last year. He was among several hundred Occupy Wall Street demonstrators arrested during the protest march.

Prosecutors say that messages posted by Harris – who goes by the twitter handle @destructuremal – could show whether the defendant was aware that he was breaking police orders relating to the demo.

In January, the New York district attorney's office issued a subpoena to Twitter, calling on the firm to hand over "any and all user information, including email address, as well as any and all tweets posted for the period 9/15/2011 – 12/31/2011".

Harris initially attempted to block the move, but was told that he had no proprietary interest to his own messages.

Twitter countered that this contradicts its own terms and conditions, which explicitly states that users "retain their right to any content they submit, post or display on or through". Moreover, in its own legal challenge to the subpoena, the firm accused prosecutors of trying to force its employees to violate federal law.

Lawyers for Twitter also argued that under the Uniform Act, prosecutors would need to obtain a subpoena in California before it could demand documents from a company based in that state.

But a New York judge rejected most of the firm's arguments and ordered Twitter to hand over the messages to the court, which would review the material and hand over relevant tweets to prosecutors

No one at the firm was available to comment, and the New York's district attorney's office declined to respond.

Harris' lawyer, Martin Stolar, said the decision by Twitter to hand his client's messages "certainly doesn't help our case".

He added: "I assume Twitter made a business decision, that they did not want to go into contempt. I would think they would be better off making a business decision to stick up for the fundamental privacy rights of their customers."

Harris has pleaded not guilty. Mr Stolar said Friday that he would continue to appeal against the tweets being used as evidence in any criminal trial.

Austin Police Provocateurs Coordinated With Houston Through Fusion Center

OccupyAmericaSocialNetwork

For more on the Gulf Port 7 and Austin Police Infiltration of Occupy Austin see Undercover Austin Officer Enabled Houston Felonies, Judge Campbell Is Not Amused, and Kit’s Gulf Port 7 Interview.

Austin Police coordinated felony arrests at the Gulf Port Shutdown with Houston Police through the fusion center known as Austin Regional Intelligence Center.

The pre-trial hearings for the Gulf Port 7 case continued on September 6, 2012; although the Austin Police Department presented the information Judge Joan Campbell requested at the previous hearing, most of it was done in camera – in private, where defense and accused activists could not access it. What was revealed is troubling — that APD coordinated the day’s actions with Houston police through the local Texas fusion center, known as Austin Regional Intelligence Center. This, of course, raises the question of to what degree federal authorities were involved in the entrapment of Occupy activists; I personally witnessed Department of Homeland Security vehicles on the ground at the Occupy Houston encampment on December 12, in addition to photographing men in unknown military-like uniforms who were observing the port shutdown.

Further, it appears that officials involved may have made a decision to withhold information that was requested by Ronnie Garza’s defense attorney. This is in direct violation of Brady disclosure. Campbell’s frustration with the behavior of the state is clear in court transcripts, as she gives lawyers a lesson in this essential aspect of criminal law:

Read more:

Austin Police Provocateurs Coordinated With Houston Through Fusion Center - posted by james at Occupy America Social Network

Guidance on First Amendment Rights of Occupy Wall Street Participants From Rutgers–Newark Law School Clinic

Rutgers

NEWARK, NJ – A legal memorandum prepared by the Constitutional Litigation Clinic at Rutgers School of Law–Newark to help Occupy Wall Street (OWS) leaders and participants understand their constitutional rights to assembly and expression concludes that much of the OWS conduct falls within the protections of the First Amendment. “More problematic,” the memo concludes, “is establishing that First Amendment protection extends to sleeping and camping activities.” Click here to read the memo.

Written by Professor Frank Askin, Director of the Constitutional Litigation Clinic, and three of his students, the memo identifies several U.S. Supreme Court decisions upholding the rights of free speech and assembly in parks and other public arenas. States the memo: “The movement’s efforts involving rallies, marches, distribution of literature, displaying signs and posters and engaging in conversations regarding the movement’s platform are well within the protection of the First Amendment.”

As for sleeping and camping, the memo notes: “Recently, courts have assumed that sleeping and camping are symbolic expressions protected by the First Amendment, but reasonable, time, place and manner restrictions have, generally, precluded the protestors from actually sleeping and camping in public fora.” The memo describes the court rulings in two cases involving demonstrators seeking to maintain a 24-hour presence in a public space.

A significant section of the memo is devoted to the various factors that courts may consider when deciding whether to uphold free speech restrictions of privately-owned public spaces (POPS), such as Zuccotti Park in New York City, site of the first OWS activities. The memo advises: “Individuals contemplating the exercise of their right to protest within a privately-owned public space should keep in mind the following: (1) find out the regulations that are applicable to a particular POPS and check to make sure they have been legally authorized; (2) research the relevant legal opinions in the jurisdiction; and (3) investigate whether there are favorable arguments that can be raised in jurisdictions where there are no applicable precedents regarding POPS.”

The memo, titled “The Right to Peaceably Assemble: U.S. Constitutional Law and Occupy Wall Street,” was prepared by the clinic as part of the Protest and Assembly Rights Project, a national consortium of law school clinics formed to address the U.S. response to Occupy Wall Street.

Media Contact: Janet Donohue
973-353-5553
E-mail: jdonohue@andromeda.rutgers.edu

How Quantitative Easing Helps the Rich and Soaks the Rest of Us

And why the Occupy movement should be up in arms.

Reason

Anthony Randzzo

The decision is in: Unlimited quantitative easing. That was the announcement from the Federal Open Market Committee this afternoon, launching a third round of purchases of securities in a bid to boost the economy and reduce unemployment. This time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and crew are pledging to buy $40 billion per month until the economy improves. The Fed's policy committee also extended its zero-interest rate policy until “at least mid-2015.” If QE3 lasts that long, the Feds will be printing at least another $800 billion to buy mortgage-backed securities.

It won’t be a surprise to read conservatives lambasting this as unconventional monetary policy meant to help re-elect President Obama. And inflation hawks have already started screeching. But the loudest cry of “for shame” should be coming from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Quantitative easing—a fancy term for the Federal Reserve buying securities from predefined financial institutions, such as their investments in federal debt or mortgages—is fundamentally a regressive redistribution program that has been boosting wealth for those already engaged in the financial sector or those who already own homes, but passing little along to the rest of the economy. It is a primary driver of income inequality formed by crony capitalism. And it is hurting prospects for economic growth down the road by promoting malinvestments in the economy.

How is the Federal Reserve contributing to regressive redistribution, income inequality, and manipulated markets? Let’s flesh this out a bit.

Last month, Bernanke said that quantitative easing had contributed to the rebound in stock prices over the past few years, and suggested this was a positive outcome. “This effect is potentially important, because stock values affect both consumption and investment decisions,” he argued, apparently under the belief that the Fed has a third mandate to support rising stock prices.

This is ironically a trickle down monetary policy theory, where rising stock prices mean more wealth and more consumption that trickles down the economic ladder. One problem with this idea is that there is a gigantic mountain of household debt—about $12 trillion worth—that is diverting away any trickle down. An even worse assumption is that the stock market really reflects what is going on in the real economy.

Where the Occupy movement should really be teed off is when you consider that most equity shares in America are owned by the wealthiest 10 percent. That is not inherently a problem—wealthier individuals with more disposable income will have more ability take ownership stakes in companies than those in lower income brackets. And it is not a call for class warfare. However, it does mean that when the Fed engages in quantitative easing it is providing a benefit to a very narrow segment of society at the expense of others (either through future inflation or through the cost of raising taxes to pay for increased federal debts). That is the definition of crony capitalism.

At the same time, all Americans have seen the prices of basic goods increase over the past few years in large part due to rising commodities prices. The whole idea of QE is to drive investors out of lower risk investments like mortgage backed securities and government debt and get them to put that money in “more productive” use—lend it, build skyscrapers, invest in technology, etc. Since there is little confidence about the future of the economy, many investors have crowded into the stock market with their money, and still others have invested in commodities.

The problem is that investing in commodities can push up prices on things like gas, meat (because of feed corn prices), bread (because of wheat prices), and even orange juice. There certainly have been other contributors to commodities prices going up, but if the Fed has boosted stocks, they've boosted commodities too. So not only are the cronies gaining from quantitative easing, there is a negative wealth effect too.

The cronyism doesn’t end there. In a Dallas Fed paper released in August, OPEC chief economist William White points out that easy monetary policy favors “senior management of banks in particular.” And even Bernanke himself suggested (as if it was a good thing) that quantitative easing purchases “have been found to be associated with significant declines in the yields on both corporate bonds and MBS.” Translation: the Federal Reserve has made it artificially cheaper for corporations to borrow money and has pushed up the prices of houses (benefiting homeowners but hurting homebuyers).

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought cheap loans allowing businesses to leverage up and juiced housing prices were key parts of what got us into this mess?

All of this might be acceptable to some if quantitative easing was helping the American economy recover. The reality is that quantitative easing has made it cheaper for the government to borrow, has artificially propped up the housing market (making it take longer to recover), and has dramatically manipulated the distribution of capital in financial markets. And the economy has not been in recovery.

The plans announced today will exacerbate pre-existing malinvestment and income inequality. What is this continuous round of purchases going to do? It won’t get banks lending any more than they already are. And even if it did, households and small business still have a lot of debt that will keep them in a deleveraging state for a while. It won’t help the housing market bottom out, clear away toxic debt, and end the wave of foreclosures that need to process. It is not going to push up incomes, create new jobs, or change the technological revolution that is altering the face of employment in America.

To put it simply: More quantitative easing is not going to move the dial much on the growth meter.

Taken together, the crony capitalism and negative wealth effects of quantitative easing should clearly give pause. The fact that QE promotes activities that led to the housing bubble should have stopped its progression as an idea a long time ago, especially since these problems are greater than any gain that would come from this now perpetual pace of money creation.

If there is a time to head down to Zuccotti Park and raise some cardboard in opposition to the continuation of such a devastatingly failed policy, it is now.

APD: Officers infiltrated Occupy movement

MyFoxAustin

In December, Occupy protesters, some of which were from Austin, blocked the entrance of a Houston port.

A group of protestors were charged with a felony because they linked their arms with a device called a "lockbox". They claim Austin Police helped them make it and now they want charges to be dropped.

Dave Cortez, an Austin Occupier claims he had interaction with one of the undercover officers.

"Supplying and encouraging these folks in Houston to be more aggressive with their actions," said Cortez. "This man would attend our meetings pull me aside and say we need to do more aggressive actions which he encourage the folks to do in Houston."

Austin Police confirmed Friday undercover officers infiltrated the group to gain intelligence about plans of breaking the law.

"Based on concerns from citizens in the movement and actual criminal activity taking place in downtown and city hall plaza it was determined plain clothes officers blending in with the surroundings was necessary in the safety of participants and the community," said Austin PD Assistant Chief Sean Mannix.

Maninx says one of their detectives testified in Harris County Court.

The Assistant Police Chief walked out afterwards dodging reporter questions saying there is no internal investigation. He says because of the nature of the ongoing criminal trial in Harris County he can not make any further comment.

"If it's true I'd expect city council to hold everyone of those officers and the police chief accountable," said Jim Harrington with the Texas Civil Rights Project. "These are the people who are supposed to be applying the law and upholding the law."

He says if the allegations are true, APD went too far.

"It's perfectly fine to infiltrate and watch but when you cross the line and enable a crime and become part of a crime you're called a provocateur," said Harrington.

The Global 1%: Exposing the Transnational Ruling Class

Global Research

Prof. Peter Phillips

Kimberly Soeiro

This study asks: Who are the the world’s One percent power elite? 

And to what extent do they operate in unison for their own private gains over benefits for the 99 percent? 

We examine a sample of the 1 percent: the extractor sector, whose companies are on the ground extracting material from the global commons, and using low-cost labor to amass wealth. These companies include oil, gas, and various mineral extraction organizations, whereby the value of the material removed far exceeds the actual cost of removal.We also examine the investment sector of the global 1 percent: companies whose primary activity is the amassing and reinvesting of capital. This sector includes global central banks, major investment money management firms, and other companies whose primary efforts are the concentration and expansion of money, such as insurance companies. 

Finally, we analyze how global networks of centralized power—the elite 1 percent, their companies, and various governments in their service—plan, manipulate, and enforce policies that benefit their continued concentration of wealth and power. We demonstrate how the US/NATO military-industrial-media empire operates in service to the transnational corporate class for the protection of international capital in the world.

The Occupy Movement has developed a mantra that addresses the great inequality of wealth and power between the world’s wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of us, the other 99 percent. While the 99 percent mantra undoubtedly serves as a motivational tool for open involvement, there is little understanding as to who comprises the 1 percent and how they maintain power in the world. Though a good deal of academic research has dealt with the power elite in the United States, only in the past decade and half has research on the transnational corporate class begun to emerge.[i]

Foremost among the early works on the idea of an interconnected 1 percent within global capitalism was Leslie Sklair’s 2001 book, The Transnational Capitalist Class.[ii] Sklair believed that globalization was moving transnational corporations (TNC) into broader international roles, whereby corporations’ states of orgin became less important than international argreements developed through the World Trade Organization and other international institutions. Emerging from these multinational corporations was a transnational capitalist class, whose loyalities and interests, while still rooted in their corporations, was increasingly international in scope. Sklair writes:

The transnational capitalist class can be analytically divided into four main fractions: (i) owners and controllers of TNCs and their local affiliates; (ii) globalizing bureaucrats and politicians; (iii) globalizing professionals; (iv) consumerist elites (merchants and media). . . . It is also important to note, of course, that the TCC [transnational corporate class] and each of its fractions are not always entirely united on every issue. Nevertheless, together, leading personnel in these groups constitute a global power elite, dominant class or inner circle in the sense that these terms have been used to characterize the dominant class structures of specific countries.[iii]

Estimates are that the total world’s wealth is close to $200 trillion, with the US and Europe holding approximately 63 percent. To be among the wealthiest half of the world, an adult needs only $4,000 in assets once debts have been subtracted. An adult requires more than $72,000 to belong to the top 10 percent of global wealth holders, and more than $588,000 to be a member of the top 1 percent.  As of 2010, the top 1 percent of the wealthist people in the world had hidden away between $21 trillion to $32 trillion in secret tax exempt bank accounts spread all over the world.[iv] Meanwhile, the poorest half of the global population together possesses less than 2 percent of global wealth.[v] The World Bank reports that, in 2008, 1.29 billion people were living in extreme poverty, on less than $1.25 a day, and 1.2 billion more were living on less than $2.00 a day.[vi] Starvation.net reports that 35,000 people, mostly young children, die every day from starvation in the world.[vii] The numbers of unnecessary deaths have exceeded 300 million people over the past forty years. Farmers around the world grow more than enough food to feed the entire world adequately. Global grain production yielded a record 2.3 billion tons in 2007, up 4 percent from the year before—yet, billions of people go hungry every day. Grain.org describes the core reasons for ongoing hunger in a recent article, “Corporations Are Still Making a Killing from Hunger”: while farmers grow enough food to feed the world, commodity speculators and huge grain traders like Cargill control global food prices and distribution.[viii] Addressing the power of the global 1 percent—identifying who they are and what their goals are—are clearly life and death questions.

It is also important to examine the questions of how wealth is created, and how it becomes concentrated. Historically, wealth has been captured and concentrated through conquest by various powerful enities. One need only look at Spain’s appropriation of the wealth of the Aztec and Inca empires in the early sixteenth century for an historical example of this process. The histories of the Roman and British empires are also filled with examples of wealth captured.

Once acquired, wealth can then be used to establish means of production, such as the early British cotton mills, which exploit workers’ labor power to produce goods whose exchange value is greater than the cost of the labor, a process analyzed by Karl Marx in Capital.[ix] A human being is able to produce a product that has a certain value. Organized business hires workers who are paid below the value of their labor power. The result is the creation of what Marx called surplus value, over and above the cost of labor. The creation of surplus value allows those who own the means of production to concentrate capital even more. In addition, concentrated capital accelerates the exploition of natural resources by private entrepreneurs—even though these natural resources are actually the common heritage of all living beings.[x]

In this article, we ask: Who are the the world’s 1 percent power elite? And to what extent do they operate in unison for their own private gains over benefits for the 99 percent? We will examine a sample of the 1 percent: the extractor sector, whose companies are on the ground extracting material from the global commons, and using low-cost labor to amass wealth. These companies include oil, gas, and various mineral extraction organizations, whereby the value of the material removed far exceeds the actual cost of removal.

We will also examine the investment sector of the global 1 percent: companies whose primary activity is the amassing and reinvesting of capital. This sector includes global central banks, major investment money management firms, and other companies whose primary efforts are the concentration and expansion of money, such as insurance companies.

Finally, we analyze how global networks of centralized power—the elite 1 percent, their companies, and various governments in their service—plan, manipulate, and enforce policies that benefit their continued concentration of wealth and power.

The Extractor Sector: The Case of Freeport-McMoRan (FCX)

Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) is the world’s largest extractor of copper and gold. The company controls huge deposits in Papua, Indonesia, and also operates in North and South America, and in Africa. In 2010, the company sold 3.9 billion pounds of copper, 1.9 million ounces of gold, and 67 million pounds of molybdenum. In 2010, Freeport-McMoRan reported revenues of $18.9 billion and a net income of $4.2 billion.[xi]

The Grasberg mine in Papua, Indonesia, employs 23,000 workers at wages below three dollars an hour. In September 2011, workers went on strike for higher wages and better working conditions. Freeport had offered a 22 percent increase in wages, and strikers said it was not enough, demanding an increase to an international standard of seventeen to forty-three dollars an hour. The dispute over pay attracted local tribesmen, who had their own grievances over land rights and pollution; armed with spears and arrows, they joined Freeport workers blocking the mine’s supply roads.[xii] During the strikers’ attempt to block busloads of replacement workers, security forces financed by Freeport killed or wounded several strikers.

Freeport has come under fire internationally for payments to authorities for security. Since 1991, Freeport has paid nearly thirteen billion dollars to the Indonesian government—one of Indonesia’s largest sources of income—at a 1.5 percent royalty rate on extracted gold and copper, and, as a result, the Indonesian military and regional police are in their pockets. In October 2011, the Jakarta Globe reported that Indonesian security forces in West Papua, notably the police, receive extensive direct cash payments from Freeport-McMoRan. Indonesian National Police Chief Timur Pradopo admitted that officers received close to ten million dollars annually from Freeport, payments Pradopo described as “lunch money.” Prominent Indonesian nongovernmental organization Imparsial puts the annual figure at fourteen million dollars.[xiii] These payments recall even larger ones made by Freeport to Indonesian military forces over the years which, once revealed, prompted a US Security and Exchange Commission investigation of Freeport’s liability under the United States’ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

With 50 Million Americans Destitute, Austerity Cuts Mean Genocide– Forget Ron Paul and Occupy; Organize for the Five-Point Program to End Depression, Begin Recovery

Batman joins the police to take on Occupy Wall Street

Toronto Star

Film critics have rightly picked up on a disturbing message in the latest instalment of Christopher Nolan’s hugely popular Dark Knight series of Batman movies. Fascism, the film suggests, is just great.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Nolan insisted the film is apolitical. “What we’re really trying to do is show the cracks of society,” he said. “We’re going to get wildly different interpretations of what the film is supporting and not supporting, but it’s not doing any of those things.”

But, as many critics have pointed out, the parallels between the movie’s plot and recent political events are hard to ignore — as is the film’s apparently conservative, if somewhat incoherent, stance.

As The Dark Knight Rises begins, the good guys are still in charge of Gotham, the ersatz New York City watched over by Batman. Gotham is in the midst of a precarious peace, preserved by the white lies the state tells to placate its citizens. It’s a utopia taken from the pages of neo-conservative guru Leo Strauss.

Bruce Wayne, Batman’s billionaire alter ego, spends his time managing his declining health and the anxieties of retirement, until he is coaxed back into his batsuit by a violent group of anti-capitalist crusaders. The activists, led by an enormous, incomprehensible masked mercenary named Bane, expose the state’s lies and foment a successful popular uprising with rhetoric ripped directly from the Occupy Wall Street movement. (At one point, the villains literally occupy the stock exchange.)

Left to its citizens and their vicious, hypocritical leaders, Gotham succumbs to chaos and brutality — an updated version of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, with Bane a muscle-bound Robespierre. Kangaroo courts, political murders and looting — this is what we get, the film tells us, when the people win power.

The city’s only chance for salvation: a crackdown by police and Batman, a charter member of the 1 per cent. In Nolan’s world, rows of armed, marching police are a symbol of hope, a Warren Buffett with martial arts training is Gotham’s only possible saviour, and a populist movement, which in many ways resembles the one still playing out in the real world, is shown to be fraudulent and evil.

If this isn’t topical political commentary, it sure seems like it. And whether the film’s authoritarian vision is political propaganda or artistic oversight, the troubling message communicated to millions of viewers is the same.

FBI Agents Raid Homes in Search of “Anarchist Literature”

From the Trenches

Green is the New Red – by Will Potter  When FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents raided multiple activist homes in the Northwest last week, they were in search of “anti-government or anarchist literature.”


The raids were part of a multi-state operation that targeted activists in Portland, Olympia, and Seattle. At least three people were served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury on August 2nd in Seattle.

In addition to anarchist literature, the warrants also authorize agents to seize flags, flag-making material, cell phones, hard drives, address books, and black clothing.


The listing of black clothing and flags, along with comments made by police, indicates that the FBI may ostensibly be investigating “black bloc” tactics used during May Day protests in Seattle, which destroyed corporate property.

If that is true, how are books and literature evidence of criminal activity?

To answer that, we need to look at the increasing harassment, surveillance, and prosecution of anarchists and political activists associated with the Occupy Movement.

In some cases, such as the May Day arrests in Cleveland, the FBI has been so desperate to arrests “anarchist terrorists” that it supplied them with bomb-making materials and used an informant to entrap them. The same thing happened in Chicago.

The motivation for these operations, and the instruction that “anarchist” means “terrorist,” is coming straight from the top levels of the federal government. As I recently wrote, new documents show that the FBI is conducting “domestic terrorism” training presentations about anarchists.

The FBI presentation described anarchists as “criminals seeking an ideology to justify their activities.”

This is the guilt-by-association mentality that is guiding FBI and JTTF assaults on political activists; if agents find “anarchist literature” in a raid, it is evidence of criminalactivity because anarchism, in and of itself, is criminal activity.

The Seattle grand jury may or may not be investigating May Day protests. What’s clear, though, is that the grand jury is being used as a tool in this criminalization of those suspected as “anarchists.” Grand juries are secretive processes that are frequently used against political activists in order to acquire information. They are fishing expeditions. If activists refuse to testify about their personal beliefs and political associations, they can be imprisoned. Jordan Halliday, for example, was recently released after serving more than six months in prison (and being imprisoned once already for four months) for asserting his First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights and refusing to provide information about the animal rights movement.

As one organizer with Occupy Seattle said after the raid: “…we are not being raided for connection to any crime, but to some political ideology that the police think we have.

“I was just doing research on the old Pinkerton strikebreaking paramilitaries, so it’s kind of funny, you know, to have that old Red Scare history burst through my front door at six AM.”

Activists push city to be first in U.S. to prohibit use of drones

Buffalo News

The City of Buffalo has a chance to be the first in the country to ban Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, also known as drones.

A group of activists and community leaders came to City Hall on Tuesday to have their say in front of the Common Council Legislation Committee.

"You guys have an opportunity to make Buffalo the first drone-free city in the United States, and I hope you take that seriously," John Washington of Occupy Buffalo told lawmakers.

While the city has not been approached by the federal government or any other entity about purchasing drones, about 20 people showed up for Tuesday's public hearing to encourage lawmakers to support a proactive ban.

"Drone manufacturers will push this hard on you and other elected officials, They will say that one of the reasons [for drones] is fighting crime," said Charles Bowman of the Western New York Peace Center.

"We don't need drones in the City of Buffalo. We don't need further militarization of our police department," he added.

Earlier this month, Occupy Buffalo and the WNY Peace Center proposed legislation to the Council prohibiting the use and purchase of unmanned aerial vehicles in Buffalo, arguing that they violate constitutional rights and pose imminent danger to the public.

Excerpts from the proposal state that "drones present an unreasonable and unacceptable threat to public safety in the air and to persons and property on the ground ... due to limitations in drone vision, capability to avoid other aircraft and adequate control."

Another part of the proposed legislation reads "armed drones and surveillance drones present an unreasonable and unacceptable threat to the rights of individual privacy, freedom of association and assembly, equal protection and judicial due process ..."

Victoria Ross of the Peace Education Project noted that the drones in Buffalo most likely would be used primarily for surveillance, "which means warrants won't be needed."

The proposed legislation submitted to the Common Council asks that drones not be purchased, leased, borrowed, tested or used by any agency of the City of Buffalo.

The hearing was a chance for concerned citizens to voice their opinions on the matter, and the committee took no action.

"I will be thrilled if Buffalo will be the first in the nation to go down on record we are against drones," said Lesley Haynes, a social activist and retired social worker, during the hearing.

"I think it would be a really nice thing for Buffalo," Haynes said. "I would be proud to know Buffalo was leading this."

Police captain to be punished over OWS support?

Russia Today



Retired Captain Ray Lewis served within the ranks of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Police Department for nearly a quarter of a century. Now he is at odds against the force’s higher ups, however, over his role with Occupy Wall Street.

Captain Lewis became a regular at protest and rallies since the infancy of the Occupy movement last year. Regularly donning his Philadelphia PD uniform, Lewis was caught at demonstrations across the country demanding for changes within the system. Speaking with RT, though, the 24-year veteran of the force says it hasn’t been easy.

After first involving himself with OWS, Lewis says he received a letter from the department condemning his uniformed protests. “They want to make sure that no other officers join me in promoting this Occupy movement,” he tells RT. According to the captain, the aesthetic of a uniformed officer rallying against the backbone of the law enforcement industry is the reason behind the department’s demands.

“It is my belief that they were pressured by corporate America, because the one sign I carry on a daily basis is to ask people to watch the documentary Inside Job,” says Lewis. “Inside Job is a scathing, indicting film of banks, specifically in the 2008 financial collapse, and anybody who watches that documentary will fully understand the corruption of our banks in this country.”

The ties between the police and the nation’s financial institutions might not be clear cut, but Lewis attests that it is certainly there.

“In Philadelphia, the Fraternal Order of Police — a lot of cops want to be the president of that union — and they have elections. And these elections are run just like any other political election: they are based on money. A lot of advertising goes into these elections and those cops don’t pay for that advertising out of their back pockets. This advertising is paid for by corporations, banks, financial institutions.

“Subsequently, when you are elected, you are beholden to those financial institutions. And when I come out condemning those financial institutions, if the president of the [union] wants to get continuing contributions, he better pay heed to the banks,” explains Lewis. Now, he says, his benefits with the Philly PD could be revoked if the department decides to pursue an investigation into his role with the protest movement.

Lewis says that the union’s response to his participation in the Occupy movement wasn’t exactly what he had expected. He tells RT he “was taken aback” when he received a letter in the mail from high higher-ups at the Fraternal Order of Police.

“They threatened me with having a hearing, perhaps to expel me,” he says. “I was surprised that they took that extent, without even giving me the courtesy of a phone call and finding out exactly what I was doing; what I was about.”

After going public with his grievances over his demands, Lewis was let off the hook — for now. He says that the way the department acted over his involvement with the Occupy movement should be a chilling wake up call to the rest of the country, though.

“When they come out and say what I’m doing is illegal or improper and give me an order to immediately cease and desist wearing my uniform…or they will take any and all unnecessary action to stop me, what’s so egregious about this is it sends the message to officers that they can violate people’s First Amendment rights,” he says.

Today Lewis says he has yet to be expelled but is still sure that the department will continue to investigate his role with OWS. As for the movement itself, he says he has no expectations but is still behind it 100 percent.

“It’s not going to do any good wondering where it’s going to go,” he says. “I’d rather spend my time and my positive energy on determining what path I can take, what can I do to further the goals of the movement.”

OWS being discredited by the US government?

Editor's Note: What's the biggest threat to the establishment? The "Occupy Movement" or scores of people achieving major delegate victories on behalf of Ron Paul in states throughout the country?

Declaration from Occupy San Francisco General Assembly

Occupy San Francisco 

“…We collectively confront a monolithic government, a parasitic financial system, and a military industrial juggernaut…”

It has been well-established in declaration and law that all people are endowed with inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly. We, and our descendants, share common human needs — a sustainable global ecology, adequate food, shelter, health, education, and equal opportunity to fulfill our potential.

Through a deliberate series of attacks, these rights and basic necessities are being stolen from us by the economic elite in Washington, London, Wall Street and other centers where money and power consolidate.

We have no redress from our government, as it is busy ensuring the health, prosperity, and security of corporations and financial institutions while ignoring and actively working against the basic needs of the People. In light of this, a call was made to occupy Wall Street on the 17th of September, 2011. From Liberty Square in New York City to the Financial District in San Francisco, we answered that call, occupying with determination and solidarity.

To reclaim our rights, we collectively confront a monolithic government, a parasitic financial system, and a military industrial juggernaut, all of which command overwhelming economic power and seemingly insurmountable physical and legal force. We confront these entities with courageous nonviolent civil disobedience. By occupying public space, mobilizing people, and transforming public discourse, we shine the light of truth on the situation at hand.

Financial institutions have become parasites of the economic system.  Instead of functioning as a buttress for the economy, they have constructed mechanisms that allow them to plunder the world’s wealth and divert it directly into their pockets. By abusing the money creation powers of the Federal Reserve, manipulating domestic and international financial markets, and creating risky, deceptive, and dangerous investment products, they accumulate staggering wealth and power, leaving in their wake global economic devastation.

Multi-national corporations are equally guilty.  Under the guise of fair competition, they take an unfair proportion of produced wealth.  When true competition threatens their power, they crush it.  They achieve global hegemony by using our armed forces as personal enforcers and looting the public treasury to fund their empires.  They befoul and contaminate the air we breathe, the waters we drink, and the soil that gives us life. The Earth’s resources are destroyed and depleted for their insatiable avarice.

NDAA press conference

DHS Documents Show Role in Occupy Crackdown

Reader Supported News

A trove of documents released today by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to a FOIA request filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, filmmaker Michael Moore and the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee reveal that federal law enforcement agencies began their coordinated intelligence gathering and operations on the Occupy movement even before the first tent went up in Zuccotti Park on September 17, 2011.

On September 17, 2011, a Secret Service intelligence entry in its Prism Demonstrations Abstract file records the opening of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The demonstration location that the Secret Service was protecting? The "Wall Street Bull." The name of the Protectee? The "U.S. Government."

American taxpayers might find it odd to learn that the Secret Service was on duty to protect the Wall Street Bull in the name of protecting the U.S. Government. But there it is.

The DHS's Game of Three Card Monte to Deflect Disclosure of Law Enforement Operations

These documents, many of which are redacted, show that the highest officials in the Department of Homeland Security were preoccupied with the Occupy movement and have gone out of their way to project the appearance of an absence of federal involvement in the monitoring of and crackdown on Occupy.

On the street it would be called "Three Card Monte," a swindler's game to hide the ball - a game of misdirection. The House always wins.

The DHS, as revealed in the newly released documents, has engaged in what appears to be a effort to avoid looking for Occupy related materials where it is likely to be found, including in Fusion Centers and DHS sub-divisions such as the Operations Coordination & Planning sub-division which is responsible for DHS coordination with local and federal law enforcement partners.