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01:54:33 01/25/12
Henley Bridge Memorial
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 01:54:33 01/25/12
Henley Bridge Memorial
John Stewart of Jobs with Justice of East Tennessee talks about the two men killed during the Henley Bridge reconstruction and the need for safer working conditions. From: knoxnews Views: 6 0 ratings Time: 01:06 More in News & Politics
3 Views
17:00:31 12/23/11
#OccupyLA: Take 'Free Speech' Class After Arrests for Exercising Freedom of Speech
[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 17:00:31 12/23/11
[Alanis Morissette: "Ironic"]
Occupy LA protesters who have been arrested are being offered a deal that would allow them to avoid court trials. For $355, protesters can pay a private company for lessons in free speech. American Justice Associates offers the educational program taught by an attorney - Neil G. Anderson - a former police officer and Supervising Deputy District Attorney for Sacramento County, and his partner attorney Deborah Bryce McKinley of Atlanta, GA.
Via : >
Los Angeles Chief Deputy City Atty. William Carter said the city won't press charges against protesters who complete the educational program offered by American Justice Associates.
He said the program, which may include lectures by attorneys and retired judges, is being offered to people with no other criminal history and who were arrested on low-level misdemeanor offenses, such as failure to disperse.
...
Carter said the free-speech class will save the city money and teach protesters the nuances of the law.
"The 1st Amendment is not absolute," he said, noting that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled government can regulate when, where and how free speech can be exercised.
American Justice Associates , and it’s founders include Neil G. Anderson , previously a police officer and Supervising Deputy District Attorney for Sacramento County, and Deborah Bryce McKinley , a lawyer currently based in Atlanta, Georgia. Anderson, who lives in Newcastle, is currently listed as “inactive” by the State Bar of California and therefore ineligible to practice law in the state. McKinley is currently licensed to practice in the state.
In a 1997 interview, Anderson told the Los Angeles Times that "We run defendants through a comprehensive approach to keeping a job and maintaining self-esteem, so we don't have to see them back here again."
The majority of Occupy LA protesters, those who were arrested the night of the LAPD's eviction of the encampment, were already held for at least two days with a bail of at least $5,000.
A civil rights attorney who has worked with the protesters called the free speech class "patronizing," and said the demonstrators who were arrested are the last people needing free-speech training.
"There they were exercising their 1st Amendment, their lawful right to protest nonviolently," said attorney Cynthia Anderson-Barker.
[Hat tip to Alternet ]
16 Views
03:00:35 12/06/11
60 Minutes Asks: 'Why Aren't We Prosecuting Wall Street?'
[LESS INFO] 16 VIEWS | ADDED 03:00:35 12/06/11
Big banks, bailouts, and secret bailouts , the defective and even fraudulent mortgages that have already led to foreclosure on millions of American's homes; finally, a mainstream media news source is asking why none of the companies involved - or their executives - have been prosecuted.
Steve Kroft and 60 Minutes talks with two whistleblowers, Eileen Foster, a former senior executive at Countrywide Financial, and Richard Bowen, a former vice president at Citigroup.
In a script note from "60 Minutes" producer, James Jacoby, begins with "It's been three years since the financial crisis crippled the American economy, and much to the consternation of the general public and the demonstrators on Wall Street, (Emphasis mine) there has not been a single prosecution of a high-ranking Wall Street executive or major financial firm even though fraud and financial misrepresentations played a significant role in the meltdown."
A significant "win" for the Occupy Wall Street movement to be mentioned in such a groundbreaking investigative report? If nothing else, perhaps the Wall Street titans will cringe a little more with each spotting of a protest sign or "mic check."
Part one of the program begins, with the second part of the video at the bottom of the page, and a link to the final portion that's contained in the 60 Minutes Overtime report: >
Steve Kroft: Do you believe that there are people at Countrywide who belong behind bars?
Eileen Foster: Yes.
Kroft: Do you want to give me their names?
Foster: No.
Kroft: Would you give their names to a grand jury if you were asked?
Foster: Yes. >
But Eileen Foster has never been asked - and never spoken to the Justice Department - even though she was Countrywide's executive vice president in charge of fraud investigations. At the height of the housing bubble, Countrywide Financial was the largest mortgage lender in the country and the loans it made were among the worst, a third ending up in foreclosure or default, many because of mortgage fraud. >
It was Foster's job to monitor and investigate allegations of fraud against Countrywide employees and make sure they were reported to the Board of Directors and the Treasury Department. >
Kroft: How much fraud was there at Countrywide?
Foster: From what I saw, the types of things I saw, it was-- it appeared systemic. It, it wasn't just one individual or two or three individuals, it was branches of individuals, it was regions of individuals.
Kroft: What you seem to be saying was it was just a way of doing business?
Foster: Yes. >
In 2007, Foster sent a team to the Boston area to search several branch offices of Countrywide's subprime division - the division that lent to borrowers with poor credit. The investigators rummaged through the office's recycling bins and found evidence that Countrywide loan officers were forging and manipulating borrowers' income and asset statements to help them get loans they weren't qualified for and couldn't afford.
Foster: All of the-- the recycle bins, whenever we looked through those they were full of, you know, signatures that had been cut off of one document and put onto another and then photocopied, you know, or faxed and then the-- you know, the creation thrown-- thrown in the recycle bin.
Full transcript available here .
Part 2 of "Prosecuting Wall Street":
The rest of the report can be viewed on the video for 60 Minutes Overtime available online here.
1 Views
15:07:09 11/23/11
On Assignment
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 15:07:09 11/23/11
As a climber sometimes our biggest job is to try to do justice to the amazing stories of our friends and peers. For this piece I worked with our crew at camp4collective.com to tell thenorthface.com athlete Jimmy Chin's jimmychin.com story as he in turn highlights modern day climbing in Yosemite for a National Geographic feature story.
It seemed so serendipitous to be 'on assignment' in a place that we all cut out teeth as adventurers and which also ended up becoming the namesake of our collective!
As always, thanks for tuning in! ~reo
0 Views
04:23:18 11/22/11
Immigration Dilemma.
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 04:23:18 11/22/11
This nation, we often forget when it comes to people of color, is a nation of immigrants. None of us is native to this land – except Native Americans (from whom all the land was stolen or cheated away). It remains symptomatic of our obsession with skin color and cultural “otherhood” that we forget that our parents or grandparents or great-grandparents arrived here after uprooting themselves from places where they were either not welcome or no longer viable citizens – because of their religion, their crimes, their finances, their lack of opportunity, their victimhood – seeking a new start, some way to survive, feed their families, recreate community. Too often, the second- or third- or fourth-generation immigrant starts identifying as the owner of his her place and not the occupant of space that once belonged to someone else. They begin to see “the other” – either those brought here against their will or appearing voluntarily to start anew and do the work we once did and no longer will do – the dirty work. That’s the work that creates millionaires of others of us, and just a few of us at that. Do we ask why, then, the government we elect and pay for treats our immigrant brothers and sisters like criminals? Why are the very people who pick our produce, who roof our houses, who serve our domestic and commercial needs and wants harassed and discriminated against – and shoved out of the United States, despite our unwillingness to perform such tasks ourselves anymore? We have laws on the books that creates citizens of anyone born in the USA, as the children of so many immigrants are. And, yet again, we are prepared to send these children back home with their deported parents? This is a nation of laws, yet also a nation of laws that make no sense and enforcement mechanisms that ignore justice and stretch the rules to de-nude our commercial and industrial entities of their capacity to continue operating. There’s a serious duplicity operating here – hypocrisy of policy and politics so clearly based in our obsession with color and culture that it defeats its own purpose for being because our longstanding racism and white supremacy. Like the INS before it, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency often operates on a plane above the law or as a government unto itself. In whose best interests are the raids and jailings and deportations carried out by the federal government? What are we doing to the families of undocumented worker who keep this country’s economy afloat with their hard work and subpar wages? What about their children? What about their education? Their health care? What about the taxes they pay, the mortgages they’ve been allowed to take out on modest living quarters? And yet, we’re told that Minnesota does one of the better jobs of working together to solve many of these problems, and it shows in the stories coming out of towns and cities where factories and farms have created whole new communities of new residents – some undocumented, some not, but living and working together to keep those communities thriving. Worthington is one. Madelia’s another. But Uncle Sam’s vigilant guard is ever on the prowl. All questions needing answers. A few of them will come this week as TruthToTell’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI query two of the state’s most active advocates in this field. Some might even say strange bedfellows who are nevertheless members of a broad coalition of interested legal agencies, nonprofits, unions and business groups who support major immigration reform. On-air guests: JOHN KELLER – Executive Director, Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota BILL BLAZAR – Senior Vice President, Public Affairs and Business Development, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. LAURA DANIELSON – Attorney/Chair, Immigration Law Department, Fredrikson & Byron, PA; Law Instructor, University of MN Law School; Co-Author, Green Card Stories
0 Views
04:22:47 11/22/11
Immigration Dilemma.
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 04:22:47 11/22/11
This nation, we often forget when it comes to people of color, is a nation of immigrants. None of us is native to this land – except Native Americans (from whom all the land was stolen or cheated away). It remains symptomatic of our obsession with skin color and cultural “otherhood” that we forget that our parents or grandparents or great-grandparents arrived here after uprooting themselves from places where they were either not welcome or no longer viable citizens – because of their religion, their crimes, their finances, their lack of opportunity, their victimhood – seeking a new start, some way to survive, feed their families, recreate community. Too often, the second- or third- or fourth-generation immigrant starts identifying as the owner of his her place and not the occupant of space that once belonged to someone else. They begin to see “the other” – either those brought here against their will or appearing voluntarily to start anew and do the work we once did and no longer will do – the dirty work. That’s the work that creates millionaires of others of us, and just a few of us at that. Do we ask why, then, the government we elect and pay for treats our immigrant brothers and sisters like criminals? Why are the very people who pick our produce, who roof our houses, who serve our domestic and commercial needs and wants harassed and discriminated against – and shoved out of the United States, despite our unwillingness to perform such tasks ourselves anymore? We have laws on the books that creates citizens of anyone born in the USA, as the children of so many immigrants are. And, yet again, we are prepared to send these children back home with their deported parents? This is a nation of laws, yet also a nation of laws that make no sense and enforcement mechanisms that ignore justice and stretch the rules to de-nude our commercial and industrial entities of their capacity to continue operating. There’s a serious duplicity operating here – hypocrisy of policy and politics so clearly based in our obsession with color and culture that it defeats its own purpose for being because our longstanding racism and white supremacy. Like the INS before it, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency often operates on a plane above the law or as a government unto itself. In whose best interests are the raids and jailings and deportations carried out by the federal government? What are we doing to the families of undocumented worker who keep this country’s economy afloat with their hard work and subpar wages? What about their children? What about their education? Their health care? What about the taxes they pay, the mortgages they’ve been allowed to take out on modest living quarters? And yet, we’re told that Minnesota does one of the better jobs of working together to solve many of these problems, and it shows in the stories coming out of towns and cities where factories and farms have created whole new communities of new residents – some undocumented, some not, but living and working together to keep those communities thriving. Worthington is one. Madelia’s another. But Uncle Sam’s vigilant guard is ever on the prowl. All questions needing answers. A few of them will come this week as TruthToTell’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI query two of the state’s most active advocates in this field. Some might even say strange bedfellows who are nevertheless members of a broad coalition of interested legal agencies, nonprofits, unions and business groups who support major immigration reform. On-air guests: JOHN KELLER – Executive Director, Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota BILL BLAZAR – Senior Vice President, Public Affairs and Business Development, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. LAURA DANIELSON – Attorney/Chair, Immigration Law Department, Fredrikson & Byron, PA; Law Instructor, University of MN Law School; Co-Author, Green Card Stories
0 Views
20:31:52 11/10/11
Veterans Day 2011
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 20:31:52 11/10/11
Veterans Day 2011
On Veterans Day we honor the 24 million Americans who, at one time or another, have answered the call to serve their country in uniform. Also today, we as a nation must renew our commitment to these American warriors. For ten years, thousands of our nation's veterans have shown uncommon courage and resilience during multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. We are lucky to live in a country where brave men and women are willing to risk everything so that we can be safe. They fight for each other, for us, and for the ideals that bind us together as one people%mdashprinciples like freedom, equal justice and democratic government. While we rally to salute Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines when they are deployed, unfortunately, America is failing to provide them with the support they need and deserve when they return home. Our nation's newest veterans often grapple with staggering unemployment levels, homelessness, and combat-related disabilities. Veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom face an unemployment rate of 12.1 percent%mdashmore than 3 points above our national average. That means, right now, at least 240000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are struggling to find a job somewhere. In the Guard and Reserves, the numbers are even worse, with unemployment as high as 20 percent. It is absolutely unacceptable for a veteran to come home after a deployment, where he or she served at great personal sacrifice, and have to battle with unemployment or ... From: USSenatorScottBrown Views: 1129 12 ratings Time: 03:08 More in News & Politics
6 Views
03:00:00 11/08/11
Occupy's A**hole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie
[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 03:00:00 11/08/11
During Tuesday's Occupy Oakland General Strike, the so-called "Black Block" vandalized stores and buildings as peaceful Occupiers try desperately to stop them. [Caution: Strong Language-- NSFW]
Guest Editorial by Sara Robinson , Senior Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future
I wish I could say that the problems that the Occupy movement is having with infiltrators and agitators are new. But they’re not. In fact, they’re problems that the Old Hippies who survived the 60s and 70s remember acutely, and with considerable pain.
As a veteran of those days — with the scars to prove it — watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, and racists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn’t think we were allowed to say no to. It’s heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call the a**hole problem. In the hope of speeding that learning process along, here are a few glimmers from my own personal flashbacks — things that it’s high time somebody said right out loud.
1. Let’s be clear: It is absolutely OK to insist on behavior norms.
Occupy may be a DIY movement — but it also stands for very specific ideas and principles. Central among these is: We are here to reassert the common good. And we have a LOT of work to do. Being open and accepting does not mean that we’re obligated to accept behavior that damages our ability to achieve our goals. It also means that we have a perfect right to insist that people sharing our spaces either act in ways that further those goals, or go somewhere else until they’re able to meet that standard.
2. It is OK to draw boundaries between those who are clearly working toward our goals, and those who are clearly not.
Or, as an earlier generation of change agents put it: You’re either on the bus, or off the bus. Are you here to change the way this country operates, and willing to sacrifice some of your almighty personal freedom to do that? Great. You’re with us, and you’re welcome here. Are you here on your own trip and expecting the rest of us to put up with you? In that case, you are emphatically NOT on our side, and you are not welcome in our space.
Anybody who feels the need to put their own personal crap ahead of the health and future of the movement is (at least for that moment) an a**hole, and does not belong in Occupied space. Period. This can be a very hard idea for people in an inclusive movement to accept — we really want to have all voices heard. But the principles Occupy stands for must always take precedence over any individual’s divine right to be an a**hole, or the a**holes will take over. Which brings me to….
3. The consensus model has a fatal flaw, which is this: It’s very easy for power to devolve to the people who are willing to throw the biggest tantrums.
When some a drama king or queen starts holding the process hostage for their own reasons, congratulations! You’ve got a new a**hole! (See #2.) You must guard against this constantly, or consensus government becomes completely impossible.
4. Once you’ve accepted the right of the group to set boundaries around people’s behavior, and exclude those who put their personal rights ahead of the group’s mission and goals, the next question becomes: How do we deal with chronic a**holes?
This is the problem Occupy’s leaders are very visibly struggling with now. I’ve been a part of a**hole-infested groups in the long-ago past that had very good luck with a whole-group restorative justice process. In this process, the full group (or some very large subset of it that’s been empowered to speak for the whole) confronts the troublemaker directly. The object is not to shame or blame. Instead, it’s like an intervention. You simply point out what you have seen and how it affects you. The person is given a clear choice: make some very specific changes in their behavior, or else leave.
This requires some pre-organization. You need three to five spokespeople to moderate the session (usually as a tag team) and do most of the talking. Everybody else simply stands in a circle around the offender, watching silently, looking strong and determined. The spokespeople make factual we statements that reflect the observations of the group. We have seen you using drugs inside Occupied space. We are concerned that this hurts our movement. We are asking you to either stop, or leave.
When the person tries to make excuses (and one of the most annoying attributes of chronic a**holes is they’re usually skilled excuse-makers as well), then other members of the group can speak up — always with I messages. I saw you smoking a joint with X and Y under tree Z this morning. We’re all worried about the cops here, and we think you’re putting our movement in danger. We are asking you to leave. Every statement needs to end with that demand — We are asking you to either stop, or else leave and not come back. No matter what the troublemaker says, the response must always be brought back to this bottom line.
These interventions can go on for a LONG time. You have to be committed to stay in the process, possibly for a few hours until the offender needs a restroom break or gets hungry. But eventually, if everybody stays put, the person will have no option but to accept that a very large group of people do not want him or her there. Even truly committed a**holes will get the message that they’ve crossed the line into unacceptable behavior when they’re faced with several dozen determined people confronting them all at once.
Given the time this takes, it’s tempting to cut corners by confronting several people all at once. Don’t do it. Confronting more than two people at a time creates a diffusion-of-responsibility effect: the troublemakers tell themselves that they just got caught up in a dragnet; the problem is those other people, not me. The one who talks the most will get most of the heat; the others will tend to slip by (though the experience may cause them to reconsider their behavior or leave as well).
This process also leaves open the hope that the person will really, truly get that their behavior is Not okay, and agree to change it. When this happens, be sure to negotiate specific changes, boundaries, rules, and consequences (if we see you using drugs here again, we will call the police. There will be no second warning), and then reach a consensus agreement that allows them to stay. On the other hand: if the person turns violent and gets out of control, then the question is settled, and their choice is made. You now have a legitimate reason to call the cops to haul them away. And the cops will likely respect you more for maintaining law and order.
Clearing out a huge number of these folks can be a massive time suck, at least for the few days it will take to weed out the worst ones and get good at it. It might make sense to create a large committee whose job it is to gather information, build cases against offenders, and conduct these meetings.
And finally:
5. It is not wrong for you to set boundaries this way.
You will get sh-t for this. But…but…it looks a whole lot like a Maoist purge unit! No. There is nothing totalitarian about asking people who join your revolution to act in ways that support the goals of that revolution. And the Constitution guarantees your right of free association — which includes the right to exclude people who aren’t on the bus, and who are wasting the group’s limited time and energy rather than maximizing it. After all: you’re not sending these people to re-education camps, or doing anything else that damages them. You’re just getting them out of the park, and out of your hair. You’re eliminating distractions, which in turn effectively amplifies the voices and efforts of everyone else around you. And, in the process, you’re also modeling a new kind of justice that sanctions people’s behavior without sanctioning their being — while also carving out safe space in which the true potential of Occupy can flourish.
2 Views
03:00:00 11/08/11
Occupy's A**hole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 03:00:00 11/08/11
During Tuesday's Occupy Oakland General Strike, the so-called "Black Block" vandalized stores and buildings as peaceful Occupiers try desperately to stop them. [Caution: Strong Language-- NSFW]
Guest Editorial by Sara Robinson , Senior Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future
I wish I could say that the problems that the Occupy movement is having with infiltrators and agitators are new. But they’re not. In fact, they’re problems that the Old Hippies who survived the 60s and 70s remember acutely, and with considerable pain.
As a veteran of those days — with the scars to prove it — watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, and racists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn’t think we were allowed to say no to. It’s heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call the a**hole problem. In the hope of speeding that learning process along, here are a few glimmers from my own personal flashbacks — things that it’s high time somebody said right out loud.
1. Let’s be clear: It is absolutely OK to insist on behavior norms.
Occupy may be a DIY movement — but it also stands for very specific ideas and principles. Central among these is: We are here to reassert the common good. And we have a LOT of work to do. Being open and accepting does not mean that we’re obligated to accept behavior that damages our ability to achieve our goals. It also means that we have a perfect right to insist that people sharing our spaces either act in ways that further those goals, or go somewhere else until they’re able to meet that standard.
2. It is OK to draw boundaries between those who are clearly working toward our goals, and those who are clearly not.
Or, as an earlier generation of change agents put it: You’re either on the bus, or off the bus. Are you here to change the way this country operates, and willing to sacrifice some of your almighty personal freedom to do that? Great. You’re with us, and you’re welcome here. Are you here on your own trip and expecting the rest of us to put up with you? In that case, you are emphatically NOT on our side, and you are not welcome in our space.
Anybody who feels the need to put their own personal crap ahead of the health and future of the movement is (at least for that moment) an a**hole, and does not belong in Occupied space. Period. This can be a very hard idea for people in an inclusive movement to accept — we really want to have all voices heard. But the principles Occupy stands for must always take precedence over any individual’s divine right to be an a**hole, or the a**holes will take over. Which brings me to….
3. The consensus model has a fatal flaw, which is this: It’s very easy for power to devolve to the people who are willing to throw the biggest tantrums.
When some a drama king or queen starts holding the process hostage for their own reasons, congratulations! You’ve got a new a**hole! (See #2.) You must guard against this constantly, or consensus government becomes completely impossible.
4. Once you’ve accepted the right of the group to set boundaries around people’s behavior, and exclude those who put their personal rights ahead of the group’s mission and goals, the next question becomes: How do we deal with chronic a**holes?
This is the problem Occupy’s leaders are very visibly struggling with now. I’ve been a part of a**hole-infested groups in the long-ago past that had very good luck with a whole-group restorative justice process. In this process, the full group (or some very large subset of it that’s been empowered to speak for the whole) confronts the troublemaker directly. The object is not to shame or blame. Instead, it’s like an intervention. You simply point out what you have seen and how it affects you. The person is given a clear choice: make some very specific changes in their behavior, or else leave.
This requires some pre-organization. You need three to five spokespeople to moderate the session (usually as a tag team) and do most of the talking. Everybody else simply stands in a circle around the offender, watching silently, looking strong and determined. The spokespeople make factual we statements that reflect the observations of the group. We have seen you using drugs inside Occupied space. We are concerned that this hurts our movement. We are asking you to either stop, or leave.
When the person tries to make excuses (and one of the most annoying attributes of chronic a**holes is they’re usually skilled excuse-makers as well), then other members of the group can speak up — always with I messages. I saw you smoking a joint with X and Y under tree Z this morning. We’re all worried about the cops here, and we think you’re putting our movement in danger. We are asking you to leave. Every statement needs to end with that demand — We are asking you to either stop, or else leave and not come back. No matter what the troublemaker says, the response must always be brought back to this bottom line.
These interventions can go on for a LONG time. You have to be committed to stay in the process, possibly for a few hours until the offender needs a restroom break or gets hungry. But eventually, if everybody stays put, the person will have no option but to accept that a very large group of people do not want him or her there. Even truly committed a**holes will get the message that they’ve crossed the line into unacceptable behavior when they’re faced with several dozen determined people confronting them all at once.
Given the time this takes, it’s tempting to cut corners by confronting several people all at once. Don’t do it. Confronting more than two people at a time creates a diffusion-of-responsibility effect: the troublemakers tell themselves that they just got caught up in a dragnet; the problem is those other people, not me. The one who talks the most will get most of the heat; the others will tend to slip by (though the experience may cause them to reconsider their behavior or leave as well).
This process also leaves open the hope that the person will really, truly get that their behavior is Not okay, and agree to change it. When this happens, be sure to negotiate specific changes, boundaries, rules, and consequences (if we see you using drugs here again, we will call the police. There will be no second warning), and then reach a consensus agreement that allows them to stay. On the other hand: if the person turns violent and gets out of control, then the question is settled, and their choice is made. You now have a legitimate reason to call the cops to haul them away. And the cops will likely respect you more for maintaining law and order.
Clearing out a huge number of these folks can be a massive time suck, at least for the few days it will take to weed out the worst ones and get good at it. It might make sense to create a large committee whose job it is to gather information, build cases against offenders, and conduct these meetings.
And finally:
5. It is not wrong for you to set boundaries this way.
You will get sh-t for this. But…but…it looks a whole lot like a Maoist purge unit! No. There is nothing totalitarian about asking people who join your revolution to act in ways that support the goals of that revolution. And the Constitution guarantees your right of free association — which includes the right to exclude people who aren’t on the bus, and who are wasting the group’s limited time and energy rather than maximizing it. After all: you’re not sending these people to re-education camps, or doing anything else that damages them. You’re just getting them out of the park, and out of your hair. You’re eliminating distractions, which in turn effectively amplifies the voices and efforts of everyone else around you. And, in the process, you’re also modeling a new kind of justice that sanctions people’s behavior without sanctioning their being — while also carving out safe space in which the true potential of Occupy can flourish.
1 Views
20:00:07 11/02/11
Custodians, advocates protest outsourcing
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:07 11/02/11
Custodians, advocates protest outsourcing
Knox County school custodians and members of Jobs with Justice protested outside of the Knox County school board meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011, against the outsourcing of the district's custodial work. The option is just one on the table to help the district reduce an estimated $7 million deficit in next year's budget. From: knoxnews Views: 15 0 ratings Time: 02:23 More in Education
11 Views
20:00:16 10/31/11
New Hampshire Haunted by Alinsky Ghost - BOO!
[LESS INFO] 11 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:16 10/31/11
Wow, keep it up tea partiers. This is really stunning. A 15-year old student asks a legitimate question about voting rights and is completely ripped on by Bill O'Brien, New Hampshire's Speaker of the House. Way to alienate young people from conservatism there, Billy-boy.
Here's the backstory, from "michael" on Blue Hampshire : >
However, this is when I lifted my hand and asked my question. I asked him about the aforementioned quote about students and whether or not he believed that there should be a litmus test based on ideology determining who gets to vote easily and conveniently. His response was not to answer the question I quite politely posed, but to start speaking in a rather untoward, declamatory manner about how I "demonized" him and how liberals "demonize" conservatives instead of talking about the important issues of the day- namely, supporting business, lowering taxes, cutting spending and family values. He then went on to distemperately rant about Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals", bitterly implying that I, a flipping fifteen year old, am a Communist subversive, sandwiched between lines about me demonizing Republicans.
I think it's worth reading the transcript of Michael's question: >
First, you mentioned in a conversation with several Tea Party members at a Tea Party meeting that you wanted a law passed that would stop out-of-state students from voting in New Hampshire because, quote -- Students, when they're in college -- I'm paraphrasing here -- Students, when they're in college, they're sitting around, they're voting their feelings, they're being foolish, they're voting liberal.
What is the threshold for when someone can actually exercise their Constitutional right to vote? Is someone's ideology supposed to be a litmus test? Or age, when it's Constitutionally allowed, intended on being a litmus test on who can vote? I mean --
OBRIEN: No, no, no. What's your second question? There's a series of questions. What's your second question?
What do you think, C%L readers? Fair question? I think so, particularly in light of the ongoing war on voting happening around this country, courtesy of the Tea Party and conservatives.
But the answer is just...well, it's like Glenn Beck's more-evil twin was sitting at the front of the room. >
OBRIEN: You know there's a [unintelligible] thread in all of this. Namely Saul Alinsky. And Saul Alinsky realized that something -- you know, he was a Marxist back in the 40s, 50s and 60s. He realized something. He realized that the United States would never, never turn socialist. And so he thought to himself, how do I get socialism? And so he wrote this book that still [unintelligible]...he operated out of Chicago and he wrote this book and it's called "Rules for Radicals." And the Rules for Radical work never taught any substantive issues with conservative politicians. Try to demonize them, try to marginalize them, try to radicalize them, make them something strange and different and exotic.
And so we see among conservative Republican leaders in this country a constant effort to try to marginalize them. You know, Sarah Palin's, not a leader, she's not educated well, and Newt Gingrich is kind of a fat guy, and Herman Cain is -- you know.
What we find is that people want to talk about issues like that, rather than issues that are important to our state.
In fact, I was joking around with some people talking about voter ID and voter laws and having a joke with people, and that's all they want to talk about. Marginalize this guy, make sure that his conservative agenda isn't being talked about. Let's not talk about the substantive issues of overtaxing. Let's not talk about the issues of bringing jobs and affordable government back here. Let's see if we can just marginalize him.
And that's what you're doing.
Yes, Alice, you've fallen down the conservative rabbit hole into that other place where they do what they say others do. That would be the conservative rabbit hole with the unending assault on anyone who disagrees, the turning-around of a substantive question by conjuring forth Saul Alinsky from the corridors of the dead to distract, deflect, and otherwise ignore a reasonable question by a soon-to-be voting citizen of this great country.
Let me see if I can actually pull the substance away from the fiction. Evidently Mr. O'Brien was heard to say that he didn't think students should vote because they vote liberal. Mr. O'Brien doesn't like liberals very much. Therefore, he feels that it's his duty to remove their constitutionally guaranteed voting rights from them.
Do watch the video past the transcription, where another student stands up, outraged that Mr. O'Brien is marginalizing him and his right to vote coming up in a few years. It will restore your faith in humanity, at least, a little bit.
This video is a remarkable sleight-of-hand on Mr. O'Brien's part. Even when confronted with the vote in New Hampshire's House of Representatives which would have disenfranchised student voters there, O'Brien ducks the real question and chooses instead to launch an attack on the person asking it, as though the question itself were simply justification to trash liberals rather than actually address a legitimate concern.
In fact, that concern is more than well-founded. The first version of New Hampshire's Voter ID bill was vetoed by the Governor, prompting a second version to be put forward in the House of Representatives. This is the bill michael is asking about. Via PeoplesWorld : >
According to their detractors, New Hampshire Republican leaders are part of what is called a corporate-driven Republican national agenda. The American Legislative Exchange Council, which, according to the American Association for Justice, operates as " the ultimate smoke-filled back room ," is seen to have its hands in New Hampshire politics. In August, Granite State Progress called on New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O'Brien to release a list of state legislators who had attended ALEC's recent conference.
The voter ID drive in New Hampshire is itself far from dead, however. Republicans in the state's House of Representatives plan to revive it, possibly entering a new bill as early as Weds.
The original bill was drafted in the State Senate, more right leaning than the House, and did not include the provision allowing people those without photo ID to cast provisional ballots. However, the House, in passing its version of the bill, added the rule.
Fortunately it sounds as though the Governor will backstop any bill that's more to the right than the one he already vetoed, but given the push by O'Brien and his House of Representatives, it sounds like Michael asked a question regarding a substantial and far-reaching policy issue, only to be demonized, Alinsky-style.
Shame on Speaker O'Brien, and kudos to Michael and his friends for standing up for their rights and putting up with that barrage of verbal abuse.
[h/t Daily Kos ]
14 Views
20:00:16 10/31/11
New Hampshire Haunted by Alinsky Ghost - BOO!
[LESS INFO] 14 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:16 10/31/11
Wow, keep it up tea partiers. This is really stunning. A 15-year old student asks a legitimate question about voting rights and is completely ripped on by Bill O'Brien, New Hampshire's Speaker of the House. Way to alienate young people from conservatism there, Billy-boy.
Here's the backstory, from "michael" on Blue Hampshire : >
However, this is when I lifted my hand and asked my question. I asked him about the aforementioned quote about students and whether or not he believed that there should be a litmus test based on ideology determining who gets to vote easily and conveniently. His response was not to answer the question I quite politely posed, but to start speaking in a rather untoward, declamatory manner about how I "demonized" him and how liberals "demonize" conservatives instead of talking about the important issues of the day- namely, supporting business, lowering taxes, cutting spending and family values. He then went on to distemperately rant about Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals", bitterly implying that I, a flipping fifteen year old, am a Communist subversive, sandwiched between lines about me demonizing Republicans.
I think it's worth reading the transcript of Michael's question: >
First, you mentioned in a conversation with several Tea Party members at a Tea Party meeting that you wanted a law passed that would stop out-of-state students from voting in New Hampshire because, quote -- Students, when they're in college -- I'm paraphrasing here -- Students, when they're in college, they're sitting around, they're voting their feelings, they're being foolish, they're voting liberal.
What is the threshold for when someone can actually exercise their Constitutional right to vote? Is someone's ideology supposed to be a litmus test? Or age, when it's Constitutionally allowed, intended on being a litmus test on who can vote? I mean --
OBRIEN: No, no, no. What's your second question? There's a series of questions. What's your second question?
What do you think, C%L readers? Fair question? I think so, particularly in light of the ongoing war on voting happening around this country, courtesy of the Tea Party and conservatives.
But the answer is just...well, it's like Glenn Beck's more-evil twin was sitting at the front of the room. >
OBRIEN: You know there's a [unintelligible] thread in all of this. Namely Saul Alinsky. And Saul Alinsky realized that something -- you know, he was a Marxist back in the 40s, 50s and 60s. He realized something. He realized that the United States would never, never turn socialist. And so he thought to himself, how do I get socialism? And so he wrote this book that still [unintelligible]...he operated out of Chicago and he wrote this book and it's called "Rules for Radicals." And the Rules for Radical work never taught any substantive issues with conservative politicians. Try to demonize them, try to marginalize them, try to radicalize them, make them something strange and different and exotic.
And so we see among conservative Republican leaders in this country a constant effort to try to marginalize them. You know, Sarah Palin's, not a leader, she's not educated well, and Newt Gingrich is kind of a fat guy, and Herman Cain is -- you know.
What we find is that people want to talk about issues like that, rather than issues that are important to our state.
In fact, I was joking around with some people talking about voter ID and voter laws and having a joke with people, and that's all they want to talk about. Marginalize this guy, make sure that his conservative agenda isn't being talked about. Let's not talk about the substantive issues of overtaxing. Let's not talk about the issues of bringing jobs and affordable government back here. Let's see if we can just marginalize him.
And that's what you're doing.
Yes, Alice, you've fallen down the conservative rabbit hole into that other place where they do what they say others do. That would be the conservative rabbit hole with the unending assault on anyone who disagrees, the turning-around of a substantive question by conjuring forth Saul Alinsky from the corridors of the dead to distract, deflect, and otherwise ignore a reasonable question by a soon-to-be voting citizen of this great country.
Let me see if I can actually pull the substance away from the fiction. Evidently Mr. O'Brien was heard to say that he didn't think students should vote because they vote liberal. Mr. O'Brien doesn't like liberals very much. Therefore, he feels that it's his duty to remove their constitutionally guaranteed voting rights from them.
Do watch the video past the transcription, where another student stands up, outraged that Mr. O'Brien is marginalizing him and his right to vote coming up in a few years. It will restore your faith in humanity, at least, a little bit.
This video is a remarkable sleight-of-hand on Mr. O'Brien's part. Even when confronted with the vote in New Hampshire's House of Representatives which would have disenfranchised student voters there, O'Brien ducks the real question and chooses instead to launch an attack on the person asking it, as though the question itself were simply justification to trash liberals rather than actually address a legitimate concern.
In fact, that concern is more than well-founded. The first version of New Hampshire's Voter ID bill was vetoed by the Governor, prompting a second version to be put forward in the House of Representatives. This is the bill michael is asking about. Via PeoplesWorld : >
According to their detractors, New Hampshire Republican leaders are part of what is called a corporate-driven Republican national agenda. The American Legislative Exchange Council, which, according to the American Association for Justice, operates as " the ultimate smoke-filled back room ," is seen to have its hands in New Hampshire politics. In August, Granite State Progress called on New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O'Brien to release a list of state legislators who had attended ALEC's recent conference.
The voter ID drive in New Hampshire is itself far from dead, however. Republicans in the state's House of Representatives plan to revive it, possibly entering a new bill as early as Weds.
The original bill was drafted in the State Senate, more right leaning than the House, and did not include the provision allowing people those without photo ID to cast provisional ballots. However, the House, in passing its version of the bill, added the rule.
Fortunately it sounds as though the Governor will backstop any bill that's more to the right than the one he already vetoed, but given the push by O'Brien and his House of Representatives, it sounds like Michael asked a question regarding a substantial and far-reaching policy issue, only to be demonized, Alinsky-style.
Shame on Speaker O'Brien, and kudos to Michael and his friends for standing up for their rights and putting up with that barrage of verbal abuse.
[h/t Daily Kos ]
6 Views
13:11:46 10/27/11
Good Jobs No Cuts - I-5 bridge crossing 10.22.11
[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 13:11:46 10/27/11
Good Jobs No Cuts - I-5 bridge crossing 10.22.11 good jobs - no cuts - Portland to Vancouver bridge crossing Labor groups, Occupy Portland, Occupy Vancouver, Jobs With Justice, Hotel workers, Longshoremen, Postal workers, and many others joined in solidarity by walking across the state line and the I-5 bridge to join in union for Labor and worker rights From: zebra334 Views: 3 0 ratings Time: 09:04 More in Nonprofits & Activism My TIP JAR
10 Views
00:33:02 10/24/11
Good Jobs - No Cuts Portland Vancouver Solidarity Bridge Crossing10.22.11
[LESS INFO] 10 VIEWS | ADDED 00:33:02 10/24/11
Good Jobs - No Cuts Portland Vancouver Solidarity Bridge Crossing10.22.11
Portland Activist and Citizens [a group of under 1000 people] demanding Good Jobs and No Cuts joined with Vancouver Activists and Vancouver Citizens in a walk across the I-5 Interstate Bridge on Saturday 10.22.11. The I-5 bridge sidewalk was was filled end to end as the 99 percent from Occupy Portland and Occupy Vancouver joined with Jobs With Justice and Union Organizations to form one solid line across the state line. This 7 min clip is just one part of the march and and this event continues in the next video I will be posting More information about this event and more like it -- look on www.jwjpdx.org From: zebra334 Views: 9 0 ratings Time: 07:20 More in Nonprofits & Activism My TIP JAR
1 Views
01:00:37 10/18/11
Hermanomics 101: No Health Care, No Incentives, No Minimum Wage
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 01:00:37 10/18/11
Steven Perlstein's wonderful analysis in Friday's Washington Post of Herman Cain's business ideals and how they play into the larger economic landscape is not to be missed. Being from California, I'm unfamiliar with Godfather Pizza, but evidently I should learn more about his business model.
Perlstein writes : > > 'Don’t blame Wall Street. Don’t blame the big banks. If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.'
— Herman Cain, from an Oct. 5 video interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Alan Murray
What you have in this statement from the leading Republican candidate to be president of the United States is the purest distillation of the attitude of the New Republican Party toward rising poverty and inequality in the United States.
Normally, Republican politicians are politic enough to dance around questions about poverty and inequality, accusing anyone who brings them up as engaging in “class warfare” or blaming President Obama, conveniently forgetting that these were big problems when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress.
But not the Hermanator. Indeed, one of the things we love about Cain is that there is no filter between the brain and the mouth. He just tells you what he thinks, even if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Yeah, there's what we need. A dispassionate, selfish CEO who doesn't know what he's talking about. Yay, us.
Here's one more snippet, but really, just go read the whole thing. >
Through it all, his views on economic justice have been perfectly consistent: The only thing anyone deserves from society is the opportunity to work hard and succeed, just as he did, the African American son of a chauffeur growing up in the segregated South.
If Cain is the perfect Republican candidate for 2012, then Godfather’s Pizza is the perfect metaphor for the winner-take-all economy envisioned by today’s uncompassionate conservatives: a highly-leveraged management buyout that made fortunes for top executives and big franchise owners by closing stores, hiring mostly minimum-wage employees with no health or retirement benefits, and relying on slick TV ads to peddle an unhealthy and mediocre product.
This truly is what they believe, by the way. That's why you're seeing all the efforts to repeal child labor laws and drop the minimum wage while consolidating the heck out of essential industries that people actually need to survive.
This is Herman Cain's vision for this country. The only difference between now and a century ago in his mind is that he gets a seat at the rich man's table. He can thank a liberal for that.
1 Views
01:00:37 10/18/11
Hermanomics 101: No Health Care, No Incentives, No Minimum Wage
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 01:00:37 10/18/11
Steven Perlstein's wonderful analysis in Friday's Washington Post of Herman Cain's business ideals and how they play into the larger economic landscape is not to be missed. Being from California, I'm unfamiliar with Godfather Pizza, but evidently I should learn more about his business model.
Perlstein writes : > > 'Don’t blame Wall Street. Don’t blame the big banks. If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.'
— Herman Cain, from an Oct. 5 video interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Alan Murray
What you have in this statement from the leading Republican candidate to be president of the United States is the purest distillation of the attitude of the New Republican Party toward rising poverty and inequality in the United States.
Normally, Republican politicians are politic enough to dance around questions about poverty and inequality, accusing anyone who brings them up as engaging in “class warfare” or blaming President Obama, conveniently forgetting that these were big problems when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress.
But not the Hermanator. Indeed, one of the things we love about Cain is that there is no filter between the brain and the mouth. He just tells you what he thinks, even if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Yeah, there's what we need. A dispassionate, selfish CEO who doesn't know what he's talking about. Yay, us.
Here's one more snippet, but really, just go read the whole thing. >
Through it all, his views on economic justice have been perfectly consistent: The only thing anyone deserves from society is the opportunity to work hard and succeed, just as he did, the African American son of a chauffeur growing up in the segregated South.
If Cain is the perfect Republican candidate for 2012, then Godfather’s Pizza is the perfect metaphor for the winner-take-all economy envisioned by today’s uncompassionate conservatives: a highly-leveraged management buyout that made fortunes for top executives and big franchise owners by closing stores, hiring mostly minimum-wage employees with no health or retirement benefits, and relying on slick TV ads to peddle an unhealthy and mediocre product.
This truly is what they believe, by the way. That's why you're seeing all the efforts to repeal child labor laws and drop the minimum wage while consolidating the heck out of essential industries that people actually need to survive.
This is Herman Cain's vision for this country. The only difference between now and a century ago in his mind is that he gets a seat at the rich man's table. He can thank a liberal for that.
