Now that Alyona Minkovski has gone over to the dark side, meaning Arianna Huffington (formerly Stassinopoulos) and her YouTube minions, RT’s latest attempt to reach a younger (and more critical) audience is the show Breaking the Set, presented by Abby Martin, and it ‘is a show that cuts through the false Left/Right paradigm and pre-established narrative set in the corporate news and political establishment. Host Abby Martin undermines the mainstream media propaganda while calling out the real players behind the scenes’. And now the election season is finally over, here is Abby Martin explaining that your vote is much more than casting a choice on a ballot. In fact, you can vote in more ways than you know multiple times every day. So make it count (6 November 2012).
On the other side of the aisle is Michael Moore exhorting U.S. citizens who have continued their support for the duopoly: “Congratulations everyone!! This country has truly changed, and I believe there will be no going back. Hate lost today. That is amazing in and of itself. And all the women who were elected tonight! A total rebuke of neanderthal attitudes.
Now the real work begins. Millions of us must come together to insist that President Obama and the Democrats stand up and fight and, if the House doesn’t want to play ball, do a massive end run around them. Likewise, we have to have Obama’s back. As he is blocked and attacked by the Right, we need to be there with him. We are the majority. Let’s act like it.
And please Mr. President, make the banks and Wall Street pay. You’re the boss, not them. Lead the fight to get money out of politics – the spending on this election is shameful and dangerous. Don’t wait til 2014 to bring the troops home – bring ‘em home now. Stop the drone strikes on civilians. End the senseless war on drugs. Act like a mother***** when it comes to climate change – ignore the nuts and fix this now. Take the profit motive out of things that any civilized country would say, “this is for the common good.” Make higher educational affordable for everyone and don’t send 22-year olds out into the world already in debt. Order a moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions. There are ways to create good-paying jobs – I have some ideas, if you’ve got a minute. Make your second term historical!
Finally thanks to the Occupy movement who, a year ago, set the tone of this election heart with “the 1% vs. everybody else” – and inspired Obama and his campaign to realize that there was huge popular sentiment against what the wealthy have done. And that led to Romney’s “47%” remarks which was the beginning of the end of his campaign. Thank you Mother Jones for releasing that secret tape and thank you to the minimum wage worker who did the secret taping. Thank you Sandra Fluke for enduing the insults hurled at you and becoming an important grass-roots leader. Thank you Todd Aikin for… well, for just being you. Thank you CEOs of Chrysler and GM for coming out forcefully against a Republican candidate, saying he lived in “an alternate universe” when he lied about Jeep. Thank you for Governor Cristie for being the final nail in the coffin.
And thank you Mother Nature, in all your horrific damage you caused last week, you became, ironically, the undoing of a Party that didn’t believe in you or your climate changing powers.
And here is ‘Abby Martin talking to activist, author and campaigner for Roots Action, David Swanson,[2] about the state of our democracy and the path toward real change’.
The Occupy movement has united hundreds of thousands across the world in protest against economic and social injustice. In this episode, key Occupy activists talk global finance, politics, and direct action. The former Deutsche Bank building inLondonplays host to this week’s discussion, which sees Julian discuss the origins, targets, and future of the Occupy movement with five high profile activists. The roots of the movement lie in the growing outrage many felt in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. However, according to Alexa O’Brien from OccupyNew Yorkand US Day of Rage, they are also responding to a “Global Political Crisis, because our institutions no longer function.” Aaron Peters from Occupy London agrees that political failure is a “global phenomenon”, with power shifting to unaccountable non-democratic institutions. However, the last word goes to David Graeber from Occupy New York, who jokes “there’s nothing that terrifies the American government so much as the threat of democracy breaking out in America” (29 May 2012).
U.S. police have arrested at least six anti-Wall Street protesters in New York City. The arrests were made during a confrontation between police and demonstrators in the city’s Union Square Park. According to the New York Police Department, the protesters were detained after officers ordered a crowd of 99-percenters to leave the lower Manhattan park (22 March 2012).
It looks like the one percent are fighting back against Occupy Wall Street. A Bloomberg report out this week highlights what looks like a concert effort by hedge funders, banking executives and the like, to craft their own message. Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital discusses (22 Feb 2012).
Tent cities have sprung up all over America and poverty has a key role in the increasing numbers. Homeless people have been forced to seek refuge in camps in the woods over the last 5 years. What will it take to make places like these obsolete? Richard Eskrow, senior fellow at The Campaign for America’s Future, helps us answer this tough question (7 December 2011).
While Occupy Wall Street tents have been popping up all across the U.S., homeless people have been forced to Occupy a camp in the woods over the last 5 years. RT’s Anastasia Churkina reports from New Jersey’s Tent City — and finds out why the homeless haven’t been joining the protests (7 December 2011).
In fact, somebody, probably Pastor Steve Brigham, has even ensured that Tent City has an internet presence now: ‘2005 started out a few people homeless trying to find shelter. Now known as Tent City a makeshift village in the woods near Lakewood, New Jersey has approximately 70 people seeking shelter. Now six years later it’s a battle to be able to call this place home for some. With eviction notices from the township on its doorstep. Tent city is in need of community support’.[1]
One of the Tent City dwellers, a certain Elwood E. Hyers, has said this about living in Tent City: “Instead of being depressed that you’re homeless, at least this way you’re going inside and saying ‘wow’. You shut the door and don’t feel homeless”.[2]
A small business owner and independent investor, as well as blogger and propagandist Mac Slavo writes that “[w]hile Americans [seem to] argue amongst themselves over wages, union bargaining rights, government spending, monetary easing, and a host of other issues, including who’s to blame for the country’s malaise, Minister Brigham and his community [at Tent City] trudge on, despite what’s happening outside of their neighborhood microcosm. As millions struggle to hold on to the American Dream, the residents of this New Jersey “Tent City” have already experienced loss, and the emotional roller coaster that inevitably follows. They’ve gone through the first four stages of loss – denial, anger, bargaining, depression. In a situation where everything has been lost, and hope seemingly doesn’t exist, only the fifth stage, acceptance, becomes applicable. These individuals and families have accepted what has happened, and understand that they have a choice. Either give up and wallow in regret and blame. Or, empower oneself, and those around you, and move forward by whatever means are available”.[3]
Another way to look at the situation is to assume that the fifth stage would be resignation, which would be anathema to the American Dream and its championing of the underdog striving hard to overcome adversity and emerge victorious.
Thom speaks with an Occupy Philadelphia protestor recently released from Jail and gets the latest developments on the Occupy Los Angeles movement. Later Thom Debates his two conservative guests in the Lone Liberal Rumble.
On BBC’s Newsnight, the ever-aloof Jeremy Paxman hosted an unlikely couple to debate the current political malaise in the U.S. Teabagger Sharon Angle and comedian Lee Camp talk about the Republican wanna-be candidates for the 2012 presidential elections and the accompanying gaffes.[1] In an effort to provide some context, last year Angle declared the following: the “Federal Department of Education should be eliminated. The Department of Education is unconstitutional and should not be involved in education, at any level”,[2] proving that Rick Perry is not completely on his own.
All the while the Occupy Movement continues unabated, albeit that the police and other agencies are trying very hard to extinguish the flames of resistance in the Land of the Free. As written by Wonkette Jr. on the eponymous website: back in the day when the Bush administration was in charge “people were freaking out over the Patriot Act and Homeland Security and all this other conveniently ready-to-go post-9/11 police state stuff, because it would obviously be just a matter of time before the whole apparatus was turned against non-Muslim Americans when they started getting complain-y about the social injustice and economic injustice and income inequality and endless recession and permanent unemployment? That day is now, and has been for some time. But it’s also now confirmed that it’s now, as some Justice Department official screwed up and admitted that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated the riot-cop raids on a dozen major #Occupy Wall Street demonstration camps nationwide yesterday and today”.[3] Wonkette’s source is Minneapolis-based Rick Ellis who writes that according to an unnamed “Justice official, each of those [anti-OWS] actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies”, particularly referring to conference calls made just prior to crackdowns.[4] In other words, as I wrote last year in Today’s Zaman, “the quickly passed Patriot Act clearly limit[s] the much-valued constitutional rights of US citizens as well as ‘aliens’ deemed threats to US national security. To date, the Obama administration has not revoked this legal measure” and now the Act seems to have been put to good use suppressing the Occupy Wall Street movement.[5] In an effort to boost the credibility of his story, Ellis adds that his “original source for the story (who still works at the Justice Dept.) stands behind the original story and we’re working to flesh it out in more detail today”.[6] Moreover, here is Keith Olbermann shedding light on this and other topics on Friday, 18 November.
Meanwhile in Egypt, the revolution that in some ways sparked the current wave of protest movements worldwide, is undergoing a kind of revival, due to the fact that the ouster of Mubarak did not usher any tangible change but merely solidified the military’s grip. Tahrir Square has been the scene of violent repression since last Friday, 18 November. The Daily Telegraph reports that on ‘a fourth morning of violence in Cairo, Tahrir Square protesters report police firing live rounds but remain firm in their beliefs as they demand that Egypt’s military name a date on which they will hand over power to elected officials (22 November 2011’.
And now, it seems that something has changed in the state of Egypt, as reported by RT: ‘Egypt’s government has resigned amid huge protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Since Friday up to 33 have died in clashes between protesters and security forces, with riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets against stone-throwing demonstrators (22 November 2011)’.
Following the forceful eviction of protesters and occupiers, the ‘Occupy Wall Street’s encampment is gone, but the movement lives on. No one knows, however, just how long it can survive without a literal place to call home. Police cleared Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan early Tuesday [, 15 November] and although protesters are being allowed to return, they can bring only a small bag with them. No tents or sleeping bags are being allowed’.
The ever-intrepid Dennis Trainor, Jr. has been talking about his documentary on the protest movement in 2011 for quite some time now. Initially, the plan was to occupy D.C. and to document that protest against U.S. foreign policy and the wars that are being waged abroad. But then, the Adbusters-inspired Occupy Wall Street came along,[1] which was then subsequently transformed into a nation- and even worldwide phenomenon. As a result, Trainor’s objectives have become larger and his documentary more important and gaining in poignancy as it will now attempt to record the beginning of the Occupy movement as well as being a statement of intent in its own right: Occupy the World!!!
Legendary musicians Graham Nash and David Crosby talk about their support for the Occupy Wall Street movement on Current TV’s Countdown (8 November 2011).
Four More Years of the Same???
Now that Alyona Minkovski has gone over to the dark side, meaning Arianna Huffington (formerly Stassinopoulos) and her YouTube minions, RT’s latest attempt to reach a younger (and more critical) audience is the show Breaking the Set, presented by Abby Martin, and it ‘is a show that cuts through the false Left/Right paradigm and pre-established narrative set in the corporate news and political establishment. Host Abby Martin undermines the mainstream media propaganda while calling out the real players behind the scenes’. And now the election season is finally over, here is Abby Martin explaining that your vote is much more than casting a choice on a ballot. In fact, you can vote in more ways than you know multiple times every day. So make it count (6 November 2012).
On the other side of the aisle is Michael Moore exhorting U.S. citizens who have continued their support for the duopoly: “Congratulations everyone!! This country has truly changed, and I believe there will be no going back. Hate lost today. That is amazing in and of itself. And all the women who were elected tonight! A total rebuke of neanderthal attitudes.
Now the real work begins. Millions of us must come together to insist that President Obama and the Democrats stand up and fight and, if the House doesn’t want to play ball, do a massive end run around them. Likewise, we have to have Obama’s back. As he is blocked and attacked by the Right, we need to be there with him. We are the majority. Let’s act like it.
And please Mr. President, make the banks and Wall Street pay. You’re the boss, not them. Lead the fight to get money out of politics – the spending on this election is shameful and dangerous. Don’t wait til 2014 to bring the troops home – bring ‘em home now. Stop the drone strikes on civilians. End the senseless war on drugs. Act like a mother***** when it comes to climate change – ignore the nuts and fix this now. Take the profit motive out of things that any civilized country would say, “this is for the common good.” Make higher educational affordable for everyone and don’t send 22-year olds out into the world already in debt. Order a moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions. There are ways to create good-paying jobs – I have some ideas, if you’ve got a minute. Make your second term historical!
Finally thanks to the Occupy movement who, a year ago, set the tone of this election heart with “the 1% vs. everybody else” – and inspired Obama and his campaign to realize that there was huge popular sentiment against what the wealthy have done. And that led to Romney’s “47%” remarks which was the beginning of the end of his campaign. Thank you Mother Jones for releasing that secret tape and thank you to the minimum wage worker who did the secret taping. Thank you Sandra Fluke for enduing the insults hurled at you and becoming an important grass-roots leader. Thank you Todd Aikin for… well, for just being you. Thank you CEOs of Chrysler and GM for coming out forcefully against a Republican candidate, saying he lived in “an alternate universe” when he lied about Jeep. Thank you for Governor Cristie for being the final nail in the coffin.
And thank you Mother Nature, in all your horrific damage you caused last week, you became, ironically, the undoing of a Party that didn’t believe in you or your climate changing powers.
Perhaps they’ll believe now”.[1]
And here is ‘Abby Martin talking to activist, author and campaigner for Roots Action, David Swanson,[2] about the state of our democracy and the path toward real change’.
[1] Cfr. http://www.michaelmoore.com/.
[2] Cfr. https://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Swanson/297768373319 and http://davidswanson.org/.
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Americana, Current Affairs, Current History, Democracy, Interwebz, Military-Industrial Complex, Mormonism, New Cold War, Obama, Political Commentary, Propaganda, Uncategorized, Wall Street