Search Episodes (Working without Walls)

"There is a little bit of a difference between Occupy Wall Str...

Added 02/08/12
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Mitt Romney's Big Promises - and Bigger Lies

Added 12/29/11
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Mitt Romney's Big Promises - and Bigger Lies

[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 16:00:56 12/29/11
Click here to view this media In the election of 1928, the Republican Party of Herbert Hoover promised voters "a chicken in every pot and a car in every backyard." (We all know how that turned out.) Now, Mitt Romney is pledging that "If I'm President" every college graduate will be guaranteed a job, Iran will have no nuclear weapons and the United States will dominate the 21st century. And when Romney isn't making fantastic promises about what he'll do when he gets to the White House, he's slandering the current occupant , Barack Obama. "I Won't Let Iran Get Nukes" Governor Romney's guarantees start with Iran and its nuclear program . In a November 10, 2011 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Romney pledged, " I won't let Iran get nukes ." Or as he put it 10 days earlier during a GOP national security debate : > "If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. If you elect me as president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon." As to how he'll ensure that outcome, Romney explained that "If you want peace, prepare for war." And despite occasionally acknowledging the complexity of a strike against Iran and even the questionable possibility of success, Romney told the Wall Street Journal this weekend how he would get it done: > So what would he do about it? "I do not have a top secret security clearance at this stage to be able to define precisely what kinds of actions we could take." But he adds that "the range includes something of a blockade nature, to something of a surgical strike nature, to something of a decapitate the regime nature, to eliminate the military threat of Iran altogether." No U.S. Decline in Romney's "American Century" Romney's promise to "eliminate the military threat of Iran altogether" is just part of his larger assurance that the 21st century will be another " American Century ." Pretending that the rise of India, China and Brazil doesn't inevitably entail the relative loss of U.S. power and influence, Romney announced in his October address at The Citadel : > "This century must be an American Century. In an American Century, America has the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world. In an American Century, America leads the free world and the free world leads the entire world...As President of the United States, I will devote myself to an American Century. And I will never, ever apologize for America." Not content to rest there, Romney accused President Obama of "waving the white flag of surrender": > "An eloquently justified surrender of world leadership is still surrender. > I will not surrender America's role in the world. This is very simple: If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your President. > You have that President today." Two months later, Mitt Romney repackaged his promise and his slander at the December 15 Republican debate in Sioux City, Iowa: > "Our president thinks America is in decline. It is if he's president. It's not if I'm president. This is going to be an American century." As for Romney's charge that President Obama "went around the world and apologized for America," the Washington Post Fact Checker deemed it a Four-Pinocchio lie . A Job for Every College Graduate At an event in New Hampshire last week, Governor Romney's pandering went from the sublime to the ridiculous. There, Mitt pledged President Romney would deliver full-employment for all American college graduates: > "What I can promise you is this -- when you get out of college, if I'm president you'll have a job. If President Obama is reelected, you will not be able to get a job. That's the reason I will hopefully get young people who are in college is to say, You know what, I understand what it takes to get jobs in America." As the record shows , not so much. After all, as the Los Angeles Times recently documented, Romney's "Bain Capital often maximized profits in part by firing workers." That's why FactCheck.org , the Washington Post Fact Checker and Fortune all refused to vouch for Romney's claim that "In those hundreds of businesses we invested in, tens of thousands of jobs net-net were created." Obama "Has Not Created Any New Jobs" If Mitt Romney can't prove his boasts about his own job creation record, neither can he justify his blatant lie about President Obama's : > "25 million people are out of work because of Barack Obama. And so I'll compare my experience in the private sector where, net-net, we created over 100,000 jobs." > "I'll compare that record with his record, where he has not created any new jobs." Sadly for Mitt Romney, the Bush recession began in December 2007. As ThinkProgress rightly noted, "The private sector has added 2.3 million new jobs since March 2010, and it took the Obama economy one year to create more jobs than the economy under President Bush did in eight." As The Economist explained earlier, the recession was not at its deepest just as Barack Obama was entering office, but far worse than official statistics revealed at the time. Romney might also want to check with former McCain economic adviser Mark Zandi as well as the non-partisan CBO , who concluded that the Obama stimulus program "added up to 0.9 million jobs in 2009, 3.3 million jobs in 2010 and 2.6 million jobs in 2011." Obama's Debt Exceeds All Previous Presidents Combined Mitt Romney didn't just lie about Barack Obama's jobs record. At the Sioux City debate, he got President Obama's contribution to the federal debt all wrong as well: > "We all understand that the spending crisis is extraordinary, with $15 trillion now in debt, with a president that's racked up as much debt as almost all of the other presidents combined." Of course, we don't all understand that, because it's not true . After Ronald Reagan tripled the gross national debt and George W. Bush doubled it again, Uncle Sam's red ink totaled almost $11 trillion when Barack Obama took the oath of office. Obama is "Taking over 100 Percent" of Health Care In his desperate quest to win over conservative Republican primary voters, Mitt Romney has turned his back on his signature achievement which he once boasted was a health care model for the nation. And to do it, Romney has been lying for months by telling voters "Obamacare is about taking over 100 percent of the people's insurance in this country." In a September 15, 2011 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer , Romney made the same charge: > "The Massachusetts plan was crafted for Massachusetts, for the needs of 8 percent of our population that didn't have insurance, not for the 92 percent that did. Obamacare is a plan that takes over 100 percent of the people in the country and their health care, and that's one of the reasons why people don't want it." Sadly for Mitt Romney, repetition of a lie doesn't make it any more true. The Affordable Care Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in the spring of 2010 targets the 17 percent of people (over 50 million people) who are uninsured . As Politifact explained in deeming Romney's fraud another "Pants on Fire" lie: > According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans without health insurance nationally was slightly under 17 percent in 2009, the year Obama began pushing for the bill. According to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, the number was about the same in 2010, when the measure was signed into law. Other estimates have pegged the national number at about 15 percent. As Henry Aaron, a senior fellow with the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution right noted, comparing 8 percent to 17 percent "would have been apples to apples" when it comes to the impact of the individual mandate at the center of both the Massachusetts and national plans. Sadly, Politifact concluded, Romney was guilty of "a felony case of comparing apples and oranges." Romney "Will Reverse President Obama's Massive Defense Cuts" During that same "American Century" speech in October, Governor Romney pledged: > "I will reverse President Obama's massive defense cuts. Time and again, we have seen that attempts to balance the budget by weakening our military only lead to a far higher price, not only in treasure, but in blood." Sadly for Romney, as Steve Benen pointed out, defense spending has not only gone up every year of the Obama presidency . It is higher than it ever was when George W. Bush sat in the Oval Office. Of course, Romney's confusion over matters of war and peace are hardly new. In an April op-ed for the Manchester Union Leader, Mitt forgot about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as he denounced President Obama for "one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history." Obama's "Equal Outcomes" and "Entitlement Society" Last week, the Romney campaign rolled out what may well become the meta-theme and meta-lie for the 2012 general election race. After President Obama declared in his Osawatomie, Kansas address that Republican trickle down economics "never worked," Romney struck back. Just not with the truth: > "Just a couple of weeks ago in Kansas, President Obama lectured us about Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy of government. But he failed to mention the important difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama. Roosevelt believed that government should level the playing field to create equal opportunities. President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. > "In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing -- the government. > "The truth is that everyone may get the same rewards, but virtually everyone will be worse off." By raising the mythical red menace of communism and falsely attributing it to Barack Obama, Romney in the words of Paul Krugman had introduced " The Big Lie " into his " Post-Truth Campaign ." While Andrew Sullivan announced "Mitt Romney is a big, fat liar," Steve Benen lamented that "Romney, allegedly the responsible one in the Republican field, has been reduced to lying uncontrollably." And while Greg Sargent in the past had expressed amazement at "Mitt Romney's casual, effortless falsehoods," New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait explained that Romney's red scare rose to a whole new level of duplicity: > "This isn't just a casual line. In eight sentences, Romney asserts over and over again that Obama wants to create "equal outcomes" and give everybody the "same rewards." This is nuts, Glenn Beck-level insane. Restoring Clinton-era taxes is not a plan to equalize outcomes, or even close. It's not even a plan to stop rising inequality. Obama's America will continue to be the most unequal society in the advanced world -- only slightly less so. The alternative proposals accelerate inequality even further." Of course, as the proliferating profiles from the Wall Street Journal , the New York Times , the Washington Post and others show, Mitt Romney is no stranger to inequality. Legendarily cheap and analytical , as a Harvard Business School student Romney gave a presentation to his classmates that "proved the value of family time based not on emotion but on yield." Two Romney quotes - " I love business " and " I love data " - seem to sum up the man. As for loving the truth, that for Mitt Romney is apparently another matter altogether. (This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)

Bed Transitions

Added 12/08/11
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Bed Transitions

[LESS INFO] 3 VIEWS | ADDED 16:02:08 12/08/11
Bed Transitions. Episode 833 is brought to you by BabyBjorn. Parents will freak out about a lot of things, but transitioning from a crib to their own bed doesn't have to be one of them. Most kids make the jump at 1.5 to 3.5 years old, but they will make the transition much easier "when they are ready." So how do you know when they're ready? Size is a great indicator, as well as whether or not they can (and will) climb out of the crib. If they are talking about a 'big kid' bed, they're ready. And night time potty training isn't going to work in a crib either. The next question is what size bed? Again, it depends on the child. Some will move right into a twin bed, some will prefer a smaller "toddler" bed. There are lots of choices in bed styles. There are themes like princess, boat or racecar beds, or simply small versions of larger beds. Convertible cribs/beds can be pricey up front, but the value is in years of use. Gro Furniture has a great model that starts as a crib, transforms easily into a toddler day bed, and finally a nice work desk, all without tools or complicated instructions. Allowing your child to help pick out the bed and the linens will help give them some ownership, and help with the transition process. Safety is still an issue of course. If your child chooses to go with a regular twin bed, rails on BOTH sides of the bed are important, even if it's against the wall. Without that wall rail, they could wedge themselves between the wall and the bed whilst squirming in their sleep. It's also important to take down the crib once the new bed is in place, to eliminate any confusion. Patience is key. Your child WILL wake up and get up in the middle of the night. They may just play in their room, but more than likely they're going to wander to your bed. Helping them back to their own bed each time will be challenging, but eventually, they'll understand and the transition to their own bed will be complete.

What 'Occupy Our Homes' Could Change

Added 12/06/11
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What 'Occupy Our Homes' Could Change

[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 15:00:01 12/06/11
Amy Goodman reports on "Occupy Our Homes" for Democracy Now This week 60 Minutes gave viewers a good look at some of the widespread criminality that created the Wall Street mortgage boom and led to our ongoing financial crisis. They also saw some of the overwhelming evidence of illegal activity on the part of big banks, and were reminded that none of those banks' executives have been prosecuted. As ugly as the situation is, there is some logic behind the government's actions - and its inactions. They're acting on a tragically incorrect (but internally coherent) set of assumptions that can be summed up in one sentence. It goes something like this: "To preserve the health of the American economy, banks must be allowed to keep preying on their consumers." That's it. That's the logic. But there are two exciting "Occupy" developments this week that could change the equation - "Take Back the Capitol" in the District of Columbia, and Tuesday's "Occupy Our Homes" events around the country. Think of them as complementary actions: One is taking place at the site of our greatest government power. The other is bringing the action to homes where people have been victimized by bankers. People may not realize it, but there's power in those homes, too. The Logic of Injustice Despite their destructive behavior, the people who bailed bankers out and are giving them a free pass for their crimes aren't necessarily evil or corrupt. Well, okay, people like this guy are. But others have merely been so infected by misguided economic thinking that they really believe that the only way to save the economy is to keep shafting consumers and pampering mega-bankers. The thinking goes something like this: Our largest banks are too big to fail, and since we lack the will or the motivation to break them up or regulate them we must protect them at all costs. We've propped them up with TARP, quantitative easing, and $7.7 trillion in secret Federal Reserve loans, but they're still shaky as hell. If we prosecute any of their executives, their stock prices will fall and they'll collapse again. And they'll take the entire economic system with them. That leads to some grotesque miscarriages of justice. Nobody at Wells Fargo has been indicted for money laundering, for example, despite the fact that the bank has paid millions to settle charges of laundering cash for the Mexican drug cartels that have murdered more than 35,000 people. As an experienced bank investigator working for the Senate observed, "There’s no capacity to regulate or punish them because they’re too big to be threatened with failure." The Bailout Nobody Knows And banks don't just need protection from their own criminality. They also need protection from their own lousy management. Their balance sheets are filled with toxic risks from their long run of incompetence, negligence, and greed. That's where you and I come in. Some powerful folks are afraid the banks will fail if they're forced to write off the bad loans on their books, or to stop profiting from loans sold deceptively or irresponsibly. TARP may be over, but there's another massive bank rescue going on. Who's funding it? We are. Every time we pay a usurious interest fee on a credit card, we're propping up the banks. Every time we make another month's payment on an underwater mortgage, we're propping them up too. Every time we pay an overpriced consumer loan of any kind, we're making another payment into the consumer-funded bailout that's keeping the big banks afloat. It would be great if politicians in Washington stopped using American consumers to subsidize banks that shouldn't even exist. But they haven't. That's where "Occupy Our Homes" comes in. Occupy Our Homes Tuesday, December 6, has been declared a National Day of Action to Occupy Our Homes . Its goal is to focus attention on the corrupt banking practices that led to the mortgage boom and today's ongoing economic misery for most of the 99 percent. It's also a day for helping people in our communities who have been victimized by predatory lending, criminal bank forgery, unfair or illegal foreclosure practices, and other bank abuses that victimize the public. Occupy Minnesota has already occupied an illegally-foreclosed home, and plans to do the same thing with another home tomorrow. Here in Los Angeles, where an inspiring victory has already taken place, OccupyLA will help two brave families re-occupy their illegally foreclosed homes . One of those homes belongs to a three-earner family that includes a gainfully employed woman with cerebral palsy named Ana Wison. Ana's household clearly seems capable of making its mortgage payments, but her bank's foreclosing anyway. And in one of ironies that have become all too common, the bank in quesion is none other than that Mexican drug cartel money-laundering outfit, Wells Fargo. The Occupy movement hopes to focus the public's attention on people like Ana Wison. In the words of the Dylan song : "Things should start to get interesting right around now." Demonizing the Victim Resisting illegal foreclosures is a good first step. It brings attention to Wall Street's criminality, venality, and plain old inhumanity toward the people they call their"customers" - but treat like serfs. It does something else important: It counteracts the brainwashing, driven by Wall Street and dutifully echoed by the media, which has demonized the victims of bank misbehavior. (We were trying to fight that brainwashing back in 2008, without much luck.) The Occupy movement has already won several battles in that war. If the public's attention can now be focused on people like Ana Wison, that can be a powerful blow against the Wall Street/corporate media "they deserve it" hype. What about the millions of people who have suffered because of the banks' predatory mortgage lending but aren't behind in payments or in the foreclosure process? We need to re-open the debate about the fairness of forcing any underwater homeowners to pay underwater principal on homes that their banks knew, or should have known, were going to decrease in value. After all, the same conglomeration of banks and corporate media that demonize homeowners as "greedy" and "irresponsible" spent most of the last twenty years convincing people that real estate was a sure-fire investment. Banks made an extraordinary amount of money off the bubble they created. The total mortgage amount outstanding in this country went from $6.2 trillion in 2002 to $11.9 trillion in 2009, a meteoric rise. And while banks feed off the Federal Reserve's unusually low rates, they've renegotiating very few home loans. Consumers also owe nearly three quarter of a trillion dollars in credit card debt, much of it being paid at unconscionable rates of 12 percent to 29 percent - while their banks enjoy rates from 0 percent to 3 percent, thanks to the government institutions created by those same consumers. Occupy Our Homes. Occupy Our Credit Cards. Occupy Our Payday Lending ... What will happen if consumers stopped blaming themselves? What if they demanded that the banks take responsibility for their irresponsible and/or predatory lending? What if they refused to stop this country's perverse economic role reversal, where customers have become the ATMs while banks keep making the withdrawals? If 10% of America's homeowners declared a mortgage strike it would rock the banking world. If everybody paying exorbitant credit card interest declared a moratorium on payments all at once, Wall Street would change forever. Think about it: "Occupy ALL Our Homes." "Occupy Our Credit Cards ... Our Payday Loans ... Our Buy-and-Drive Loans ..." I'm not saying these are necessarily the right tactics, although they very well may be. But what's most important is that we understand that consumers have far more power than we usually realize - provided we act together. Many of Washington's leaders will cringe at the thought, of course. "That could hurt our biggest banks," they say. It would be tempting to reply, You say that like it's a bad thing. Here's a better response: Then start planning to break them up in an orderly fashion. We're done living a life of indentured servitude just so we can subsidize their greed. Those are the discussions that we should be having. If powerful people on Wall Street and in Washington aren't worried about Occupy Our Homes , they're not paying attention. But with any luck, they soon will. ______________________ (If you've been a victim of mortgage abuse you can tell your story here . If you want to find an Occupy Our Homes event near you, you can look for one here .)

Occupy Bowling Green Ohio

Added 10/28/11
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Occupy Bowling Green Ohio

[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 04:25:41 10/28/11
About 30 people showed up in support of the new Occupy Bowling Green protest during the general assembly meeting Saturday October 22nd. The assembly discussed how they will operate as a group and gave their reasons for being there. Everyone's reason for joining Occupy BG is different, said Taylor Scribner, one of the original organizers of the protest. Scribner has been a part of Occupy Toledo since day one, more than two weeks, with her boyfriend Gilbert Bentley and said one day she felt a responsibility to start it in her home town. Bentley is one of the original organizers of the protest. "I agreed with a lot of messages I heard individuals at Occupy Wall Street say ... and I realized it is essential for occupations to start in little towns as well," he said. Occupations should not just be centralized to one city but every town, regardless of size, because the presence is just as important, Bentley said. "Everybody has their own grievances and it's important that we make a difference in our own town first before going onto a global scale," he said. Michael Hale, an ethnic studies professor at the University said his reason for attending was his motivation of both anger and hope. Hale said, to see his students in class that have so much potential hope and knowing how hard it is to find a job today just breaks his heart. It's impossible nowadays to be guaranteed a good job, he said. People aren't looking for handouts, Scribner said, but when an average Joe works 40 hours a week and still can't afford to get by that's just wrong. "I'm here more out of concern," graduate student Jared Brown said. "I'm a child of unions, my father was the president of one and everything he fought for is being put at risk by the decisions being made by the government without the disenfranchised members of society in mind." Clare Lemke, a graduate assistant at the University, said she's excited about the movement. "It presents an opportunity for people to come and support the community," Lemke said. In fact, local businesses have shown their support for the Occupy BG movement. Scribner said most local businesses have given them support in terms of allowing them to put up their flyers to giving them a place to meet to donating food. Grounds For Thought is among one of those supporting businesses. Sunday morning, they provided the protesters with donuts for breakfast. "Grounds For Thought is all about the community and committed to helping serve the community," said store manager Kate Dauphin. "We are proud to support the efforts of Occupy BG," said owner Kelly Wicks. Along with the local businesses, other community members are helping support the movement. People who can't come and protest or camp out find other ways to support the protesters, Bentley said, just this morning a family brought us oatmeal for breakfast. While the occupation is still in its infancy, the assembly discussed and voted on how they would operate and govern themselves along with how they would interact with the administration and the public. The general assembly created committees to deal with a wide range of aspects from a committee to educate the public on the occupy movement to a legal committee that would deal with the administration. They operate on a 90 percent consensus rate and discussions and proposals are facilitated by anyone person of the group, there is no set leader. There can be no leader because everyone has an equal say in the assembly meetings, so essentially everyone is the leader, Bentley said. The assembly is a place where people of any background or standing can come and express their opinion and educate each other in order to form stronger opinions based on those discussions, he said Everyone has their own view of how they want society to change and the groups establish that through proposals the people bring up during the meetings, he said. Occupy BG plans to have future rallies and marches with one march scheduled for this Friday on the banks in order to make people aware of the homes being foreclosed by the banks and to encourage them to join credit unions. Occupy BG is a peaceful protest and the groups want to cooperate with both the public and the police force, Bentley said. Police Chief Bradford Conner said there have been no reports of problems with the protesters and as long as they don't infringe on the rights of others, he sees no need to interfere. If a complaint does present itself, the police will work to resolve it with both parties, Conner said. The protesters want to be on good terms with everyone, despite differing opinions, Bentley said, If you notice, they swept the common area shared by a sorority and helped them clean up after their fundraiser. The Occupy BG movement plans to operate 24/7 indefinitely. If you want to join the Occupy BG movement, attend a general assembly meeting, which are held every day, twice a day at noon and 7 p.m. in the alleyway across from Reverend's or check out their Facebook page at facebook.com/occupybg

Occupy Bowling Green Ohio

Added 10/28/11
1 Views

Occupy Bowling Green Ohio

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 04:25:10 10/28/11
About 30 people showed up in support of the new Occupy Bowling Green protest during the general assembly meeting Saturday October 22nd. The assembly discussed how they will operate as a group and gave their reasons for being there. Everyone's reason for joining Occupy BG is different, said Taylor Scribner, one of the original organizers of the protest. Scribner has been a part of Occupy Toledo since day one, more than two weeks, with her boyfriend Gilbert Bentley and said one day she felt a responsibility to start it in her home town. Bentley is one of the original organizers of the protest. "I agreed with a lot of messages I heard individuals at Occupy Wall Street say ... and I realized it is essential for occupations to start in little towns as well," he said. Occupations should not just be centralized to one city but every town, regardless of size, because the presence is just as important, Bentley said. "Everybody has their own grievances and it's important that we make a difference in our own town first before going onto a global scale," he said. Michael Hale, an ethnic studies professor at the University said his reason for attending was his motivation of both anger and hope. Hale said, to see his students in class that have so much potential hope and knowing how hard it is to find a job today just breaks his heart. It's impossible nowadays to be guaranteed a good job, he said. People aren't looking for handouts, Scribner said, but when an average Joe works 40 hours a week and still can't afford to get by that's just wrong. "I'm here more out of concern," graduate student Jared Brown said. "I'm a child of unions, my father was the president of one and everything he fought for is being put at risk by the decisions being made by the government without the disenfranchised members of society in mind." Clare Lemke, a graduate assistant at the University, said she's excited about the movement. "It presents an opportunity for people to come and support the community," Lemke said. In fact, local businesses have shown their support for the Occupy BG movement. Scribner said most local businesses have given them support in terms of allowing them to put up their flyers to giving them a place to meet to donating food. Grounds For Thought is among one of those supporting businesses. Sunday morning, they provided the protesters with donuts for breakfast. "Grounds For Thought is all about the community and committed to helping serve the community," said store manager Kate Dauphin. "We are proud to support the efforts of Occupy BG," said owner Kelly Wicks. Along with the local businesses, other community members are helping support the movement. People who can't come and protest or camp out find other ways to support the protesters, Bentley said, just this morning a family brought us oatmeal for breakfast. While the occupation is still in its infancy, the assembly discussed and voted on how they would operate and govern themselves along with how they would interact with the administration and the public. The general assembly created committees to deal with a wide range of aspects from a committee to educate the public on the occupy movement to a legal committee that would deal with the administration. They operate on a 90 percent consensus rate and discussions and proposals are facilitated by anyone person of the group, there is no set leader. There can be no leader because everyone has an equal say in the assembly meetings, so essentially everyone is the leader, Bentley said. The assembly is a place where people of any background or standing can come and express their opinion and educate each other in order to form stronger opinions based on those discussions, he said Everyone has their own view of how they want society to change and the groups establish that through proposals the people bring up during the meetings, he said. Occupy BG plans to have future rallies and marches with one march scheduled for this Friday on the banks in order to make people aware of the homes being foreclosed by the banks and to encourage them to join credit unions. Occupy BG is a peaceful protest and the groups want to cooperate with both the public and the police force, Bentley said. Police Chief Bradford Conner said there have been no reports of problems with the protesters and as long as they don't infringe on the rights of others, he sees no need to interfere. If a complaint does present itself, the police will work to resolve it with both parties, Conner said. The protesters want to be on good terms with everyone, despite differing opinions, Bentley said, If you notice, they swept the common area shared by a sorority and helped them clean up after their fundraiser. The Occupy BG movement plans to operate 24/7 indefinitely. If you want to join the Occupy BG movement, attend a general assembly meeting, which are held every day, twice a day at noon and 7 p.m. in the alleyway across from Reverend's or check out their Facebook page at facebook.com/occupybg

China's Rail Expansion Faces Funding Squeeze

Added 10/24/11
1 Views

Suggestions for Local 'Occupy' Groups

Added 10/15/11
1 Views

Suggestions for Local 'Occupy' Groups

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 01:00:02 10/15/11
I've been doing a little bit of work with the Occupy Tallahassee group and have been covering Occupy Wall Street for Crooks and Liars and I thought I'd share a few suggestions based on what I've observed. These protests present an historic moment for people who think the system is broken and who want to really make a change. The protests have brought in thousands of new people across the country who don't like the way things are going and want to do something about it. But the other side has more money and more power and has faced opposition before. In order to avoid losing to them once again, there are some things that local groups need to pay attention to... 1. It's all about attracting more and more people. The way we make change is by gathering together so many people that they can't ignore us. 2. Get information about everyone who shows up. We have to be able to contact people for future events and actions. 3. Give people something to do. Protests and rallies are nice. They get people fired up and they can get some media attention. But they aren't enough. We have to take those people who show up to the rallies and give them something concrete to do that will make a difference. 4. We all, every one of us, have to know what we're talking about. The number one way to lose momentum is for us to allow the media to marginalize us as kooks or crazies. If we are all educated and we only give the media educated, thoughtful responses, then we take away the opposition's major weapon. 5. We have to have a coherent message. The media and the opposition are already trying to paint us as having no real point. If they succeed in convincing the public that is true, the movement will die off. People will go home and nothing will change. 6. We have to walk a thin line when it comes to the law. Civil disobedience is a valid tool and it changes the world. But not if it is violent or disrespectful of the very people the 1 percent are already screwing over. We have to be better than the other side, not fall into their tactics or fall for the traps they are setting for us. And keep in mind that law enforcement and other people who may appear to be our opposition at times are getting screwed over by the 1 percent, too. We should be recruiting them, not antagonizing them. 7. At the end of the day, when the protest is over, we have to realize that just showing up and protesting and occupying isn't enough. It is an amazing start, but protests are never successful if they aren't coupled with actions that can change the world. Lawsuits and elections are the key tools in American history (and beyond) that have changed the way the system worked and created progress. We have to use the mass mobilizations as a way to get politicians elected that will fight the 1 percent (like Alan Grayson and Bernie Sanders, for instance) and we have to fund lawsuits that will enforce laws that already exist that protect our rights. Without these tools we can't win. 8. We have to win the media battle. This isn't going to be easy, because the 1 percent owns the media. But they don't own the Internet. Well they do, but they can't stop us from using it. And we have to use it well enough to force the rest of the media to pay attention and do the right thing. When a reporter lies about how many people were at an event, we need to use the web to tell the truth. When a reporter tries to spin a story to undercut what we're doing, we need to use the web to tell the truth. They won't do it unless we force them to. This is cross-posted from my blog, Florida Progressive Coalition

Suggestions for Local 'Occupy' Groups

Added 10/15/11
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Suggestions for Local 'Occupy' Groups

[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 01:00:02 10/15/11
I've been doing a little bit of work with the Occupy Tallahassee group and have been covering Occupy Wall Street for Crooks and Liars and I thought I'd share a few suggestions based on what I've observed. These protests present an historic moment for people who think the system is broken and who want to really make a change. The protests have brought in thousands of new people across the country who don't like the way things are going and want to do something about it. But the other side has more money and more power and has faced opposition before. In order to avoid losing to them once again, there are some things that local groups need to pay attention to... 1. It's all about attracting more and more people. The way we make change is by gathering together so many people that they can't ignore us. 2. Get information about everyone who shows up. We have to be able to contact people for future events and actions. 3. Give people something to do. Protests and rallies are nice. They get people fired up and they can get some media attention. But they aren't enough. We have to take those people who show up to the rallies and give them something concrete to do that will make a difference. 4. We all, every one of us, have to know what we're talking about. The number one way to lose momentum is for us to allow the media to marginalize us as kooks or crazies. If we are all educated and we only give the media educated, thoughtful responses, then we take away the opposition's major weapon. 5. We have to have a coherent message. The media and the opposition are already trying to paint us as having no real point. If they succeed in convincing the public that is true, the movement will die off. People will go home and nothing will change. 6. We have to walk a thin line when it comes to the law. Civil disobedience is a valid tool and it changes the world. But not if it is violent or disrespectful of the very people the 1 percent are already screwing over. We have to be better than the other side, not fall into their tactics or fall for the traps they are setting for us. And keep in mind that law enforcement and other people who may appear to be our opposition at times are getting screwed over by the 1 percent, too. We should be recruiting them, not antagonizing them. 7. At the end of the day, when the protest is over, we have to realize that just showing up and protesting and occupying isn't enough. It is an amazing start, but protests are never successful if they aren't coupled with actions that can change the world. Lawsuits and elections are the key tools in American history (and beyond) that have changed the way the system worked and created progress. We have to use the mass mobilizations as a way to get politicians elected that will fight the 1 percent (like Alan Grayson and Bernie Sanders, for instance) and we have to fund lawsuits that will enforce laws that already exist that protect our rights. Without these tools we can't win. 8. We have to win the media battle. This isn't going to be easy, because the 1 percent owns the media. But they don't own the Internet. Well they do, but they can't stop us from using it. And we have to use it well enough to force the rest of the media to pay attention and do the right thing. When a reporter lies about how many people were at an event, we need to use the web to tell the truth. When a reporter tries to spin a story to undercut what we're doing, we need to use the web to tell the truth. They won't do it unless we force them to. This is cross-posted from my blog, Florida Progressive Coalition

Analysis: Will Cain's 9-9-9 plan work? Is it fair?

Added 10/14/11
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Analysis: Will Cain's 9-9-9 plan work? Is it fair?

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 17:11:04 10/14/11
(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons/ Gage Skidmore) BY EVAN BUSH It’s not the price of a pizza. GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan is simple -- but that has analysts asking -- is it too simple to work? First to Cain himself -- who laid out the plan during the Fox News/Google debate in September: CAIN: “It starts with, throw out the current tax code and pass the 9 percent business flat tax, the 9 percent personal income tax, the 9 percent national sales tax.” Essentially, Cain would restructure the tax code to focus on consumption. But critics say it won’t raise enough money to be revenue neutral as Cain says it would be. Others say the tax burden will fall disproportionately on those with lower incomes. In the most recent debate. Bloomberg confronted the candidate with its analysis. BLOOMBERG: “Last year the US collected 2.2 trillion in tax revenue, but Bloomberg Government has run the numbers and your plan would have raised no more than $2 trillion.” CAIN: “The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect.” Other organizations have different estimates. Another fact-checking outfit -- Politifact says there are a lot of numbers floating out there, but there are enough variables that Cain’s plan is something of a wildcard. So how much revenue would Cain’s plan generate? “It's hard to say. For instance, Cain's corporate income tax is based on gross income of businesses less investments, purchases from other businesses and all dividends paid to shareholders. But gross income figures are not always available, nor would be the value of the credits in Cain's system. We also don't know how spending habits might change if a national sales tax was enacted.” On to the second point of contention -- who bears the brunt of the tax burden -- and how does it compare to the current model? Analysts say the language Cain uses to describe the plan yields clues. CAIN: “Now what 999 does -- it expands the base. When you expand the base, we can arrive at the lowest possible rate -- you’ve got 999.” The subtext here -- lower income people who don’t currently pay income taxes -- will start paying in. Some analysts are saying the tax is regressive, or affects the lower-income disproportionately. The Christian Science Monitor weighs in. “Central to the debate is that middle- and lower-income Americans spend almost all of their income, meaning the sales tax would constitute a higher percentage of their income... The richest Americans, meanwhile, would see a big decline in their income-tax rate.” But a Wall Street Journal reporter rather bullish on the plan says that’s not the whole story -- that Cain’s plan would take steps to avoid putting too much burden on the lower income. “Herman’s plan has a hold harmless provision for low-income people. It’s kind of a tax credit to keep people below the poverty line from really being hit by these taxes. And yet, Herman himself is not talking about this at all. It may just not be a popular product for primary voters.” In fact, Cain’s campaign website cryptically addresses this issue -- without much detail. But he clarified a bit in the Wall Street Journal. “My plan promotes enterprise zones, also known as ‘empowerment zones.’ Coupled with tax reform and monetary stabilization, empowerment zones would revitalize inner cities by providing tax credits to businesses that hire workers living and working in underprivileged areas.” Analysts also question whether the plan is politically possible -- and say it won’t be easy to scrap the tax code. In short -- The Conservative Frum Forum says the plan is more of a campaign strategy than anything else. “The 999 plan is a slogan masquerading as a plan. You could quote the tax rates from it and not have missed anything…well, anything except revenue projections, a political strategy to pass it, job creation projections or methodology.” All in all, media are say the thing least fuzzy about Cain’s 999 plan -- that it’ll be a hot topic on the campaign trail -- the International Business Times reports it was mentioned 85 times during the last debate.