EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures
- Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New 'Highly Toxic' Pesticide
Popular content
Today's Top News
Mayor Bloomberg, Gov. Cuomo Deaf to Suffering Masses as Occupy Wall Street Movement Grows
Bloomberg, Cuomo oblivious to how this movement’s fury resonates with public
In just a few months, Occupy Wall Street has mushroomed into an astonishing nationwide movement against corporate greed and political corruption in American life.
During a trip around the country the past 10 days, I visited 14 cities — among them, Oakland, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, San Antonio, Houston, Denver and Washington.
photo: Timothy Krause
Each of those cities has its own homegrown, round-the-clock occupation. There are hundreds of them in communities big and small.
In Oakland, protesters succeeded Wednesday evening in shutting down the city’s busy port. That followed a day of demonstrations outside major Bay Area banks.
On Thursday, labor unions and the Occupy Washington movement rallied outside the U.S. Treasury building, pressing for a new financial transaction tax on trades of stocks and bonds — a tax the European Union is also considering.
But right here in New York, where the entire movement started, establishment politicians like Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo just don’t get it.
They are oblivious to how deeply this new movement’s fury resonates with the public.
New Yorkers are sick and tired of rampant unemployment, a never-ending mortgage crisis and the crushing debts of credit cards and student loans. They are aghast at how the politicians and the courts have never held the banks that created this crisis accountable.
Nowhere else in America is there a greater gap between the 1% and the 99% than right here.
In 2007, less than 1% of New York City households — 23,000 in all — had incomes of more than $1 million. That’s the equivalent of earning about $20,000 per week.
That same year, 37.5% — or 1.3 million households — made less than $20,000 a year.
Yet both Bloomberg, the Republican turned Independent, and Cuomo, the Democrat, oppose extending a “millionaire’s tax surcharge” that expires in December.
They oppose the tax, even though New Yorkers overwhelmingly support it.
Bloomberg’s class solidarity with his mega-rich friends is at least understandable. But that of Cuomo’s is not.
The man who once prided himself on building housing for the homeless has the nerve to compare his stand on the millionaire’s tax to his father Mario’s moral opposition as governor to capital punishment.
What is the morality in refusing to raise taxes for those swimming in cash while cutting services to the least fortunate?
With tone-deaf leaders like these two, no wonder the protest in Zuccotti Park keeps growing.
Where wide walkways existed only weeks before, hundreds of tents now fill the park. One kiosk even dispenses free warm coats for the coming winter.
On Thursday, in the park, Princeton University philosopher Cornel West and former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges presided over a mock “people’s trial” of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs.
Several hundred occupants then marched to Goldman’s headquarters. As they chanted, “We got sold out; banks got bailed out,” dozens of Freedom Tower construction workers on their lunch break smiled approvingly.
One of those marching was a middle-aged, well-dressed black man. He said his name was Alvin David, and he hadn’t been able to find much work these days.
“I come here two or three days a week to join the marches,” he said. “This movement is waking the country up, and I want to be a part of it.”
As the camps keep growing, the politicians will be forced to listen. That is how social change has so often come in America.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
28 Comments so far
Show AllWhen people get determined, they can achieve practically anything. I like a statement attributed to Queen Victoria who, of course, declared herself Empress of India and sent her troops around the world on the wrong side of history.
I keep this quote on my wall, and used it in a fight against a huge toxic waste dump when some of our people wanted to compromise with the developers. I said NO and stuck to it and in a 3-year battle did keep them out. Completely.
.
So, we can take this sentiment from Queen Victoria and use it for ourselves against the 1 percent. To wit:
: "We will not consider the possibilities of defeat."
Onward, Brave People. Remember, cold weather is healthier than hot weather; just keep bundled up. See www.firedoglake.com and article by Jane Hamsher in today's C.D. for how you can donate cold-weather gear and money for same.
During the Apollo program, when one of the ships going to the moon developed a leak, mission control figured out how to get them back. Their mantra was "Failure is not an Option."
"But right here in New York, where the entire movement started, establishment politicians like Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo just don’t get it."
They "get it," all right. They're just out to destroy it by any means available.
Why should anyone be surprised that Cuomo doesn't get it? LIke Senator Schumer, he rakes in contributions from Wall Street every day. He knows who pays the bills.
Yup. And let's never forget that Cuomo is a Democrat. DEM-O-CRAT.
Say it ain't so! Cuomo can't really be on of the GOOD guys.
Our republican presidential candidate leader says he is a brother to charles and David Koch from a different mother, along with blocking all jobs bills and protecting the top two percent, unanimously, the republicans and teavagelicals are proving their intentions. Fuck the working class and poor.
Andy Cuomo is a Koch boy -- enough said there.
Yeah, I remember those days of Andy's "affordable" housing projects. Kind of reminds me of Barry's "community organizing." Street cred -- nothing more, nothing less. A typical both-sides-of-the-mouth neolib is Andy. None of this should as a surprise. He would have had Barry's massive support, had he been anything less. And, as for Bloomberg, NYers will perhaps not-so-fondly remember the tepid support of Barry for the Dem candidate compared to the effusive praise he gave to Bloomberg.
'On Thursday, in the park, Princeton University philosopher Cornel West and former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges presided over a mock “people’s trial” of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs.'
...for which Chris was promptly arrested. Serves him right...he violated the rules on speaking out against the king.
"...deaf to the suffering masses..." Hmm, just like the French aristocracy. And look what happened to them.
The corrupt political system is ignorable and our best efforts are in focusing on building the new 21st Century system. As OWS expands, the talent pool expands, and ideas flourish. As issues confront us our vast idea pool will creatively and peacefully overcome them. Allow time for ideas to take root and give them room to breathe. This is a long term movement, not an instant gratification movement. Remain peaceful, non-violent, and enjoy life as we progress. The 1% have lost control and they know it. If they start another war we will not serve. If they tax working people we will not pay. If they cut our benefits we will restore them. If they send their private armies against us we will pursue them and bring them to justice. If they try to starve us using the dollar, we will issue new currencies. If they try to restrict our food supply we will grow our own. If they try to control our water supply, we will restore it. If they use biological agents against us we will capture them and try them for murder. If they employ their police state security against us, we will turn it against them. If they believe in American Exceptionalism, we will remind them of their genocidal history. Their paths will be thorney and their streets dead end. Their escape routes will be closed and their hideouts discovered. Justice will prevail and life will be restored. Trust the decentralized process, allow it time to grow and breathe, and live more sustainably and joyfully.
______________________________
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Richard Buckminster Fuller
" They are oblivious to how deeply this new movements fury resonates with the public ".
No, they are not oblivious, they are bought and sold politicians!
Contemporary politicians are deaf, dumb, and blind to the majority of the citizenry and residents of this country.
They are basically hopeless and irrelevant and should be treated as such. As far as I can see, the Occupy movement is rightly ignoring them, as well as, of course, our Party of Money (with two totally corrupt right-wings).
The more irrelevant our one-party system becomes, the better, until such time as it actually becomes history.
"Contemporary politicians are deaf, dumb, and blind to the majority of the citizenry and residents of this country."
Amen! The other night, I was talking to an obamabot who kept saying that OWS, "Has to support Obama, there's no choice." I tried to explain to him that if the OWS people had the slightest faith that Obama and the Democrats wouldn't backstab them again, they wouldn't be in the streets to begin with. The very existence of OWS signals that the people finally realize the Democrats (and other politicians) are not on their side. He absolutely couldn't grasp this ...
Cuomo also tried to order the NY State Police to clear out the Albany Occupation, a la what happened in Oakland and elsewhere. Fortunately the head of the State Police basically told him to shove it up his ass, the protestors did not constitute any sort of threat that would justify instigating a riot. But Cuomo showed his true corporatocracy colors. The apple fell about ten thousand miles from the tree on this piece of shit.
"The apple fell about ten thousand miles from the tree on this piece of shit."
Maybe it just rolled down a huge hill, fell into a river, followed the river's path into the sea, and then drifted to the other side of the planet where it became trapped by floating toxic waste.
Actually, Cuomo's daddy - probably the last Democrat to utter the phrase "help the poor" instead of the advertizing consultant-approved "help the middle class", is now a senior lawyer in a big corporate law firm. He has no doubt has changed his socialist ways and now is at least as big a big-business ass-kisser as his son:
http://www.willkie.com/MarioCuomo
No power on earth can stop an idea who's time has come.
Did I miss it? Is there any mention in this article of the carnage, deaths, and destruction that we cause all around the world? How can so many focus on money; and so few focus on the immorality of killing unarmed kids and other civilians? OWS needs to think about prioritizing. It can't be ALL about the banks.
The article does not mention that, but those same Banksters are behind that carnage and death. They are at the root of the woes of this country and the rest of the world. Let this movement envelop and enclose that root, so that it falls away.
Follow the money. It isn't all about money but as long as the cartels rule, it is money that talks. It is the love of money that is behind the carnage. The carnage is a symptom. To cure the problem treat the cause, not the symptom.
"Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo just don’t get it."
Yeah! They gen it. They are confrontively indifferent as in tax breaks to the corps in Manhattan and fights with BOE's over increased taxes for the rest of us.
Wall to wall sky scrapers and suits in Manhattan and they don't WANT to get it. Limos sail down the LIE with darkened glass because they don't want to see it, us.
The 1% seem to see themselves as the soul hope of civalization. "The Iron Heel", Ron Suskinds interview in 2005 with the senior whitehouse aide suggest that the 1% see us as the means, as well as the rest of the natural world, as the resources to perpetuate their goal. They are very delusional. Latley, coal ash in the Great Lakes, and efforts to lesson EPA regulation.
Besides amygdala impairment, what does it take to be a free market capitalist?
If not now, when?
-30-
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead
We're the 99% and we won't go away! Below is a passionate chant by a passionate group, including a police chief's wife! Please pass it on!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbP-5zUsom8&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLD1D60D9DE71DB8AE
“What is the morality in refusing to raise taxes for those swimming in cash while cutting services to the least fortunate?”
Anonymous answers: “If you are trying to reveal that our mission could not be God ordained because there is no ‘morality’ involved, maybe you just don’t realize that the God we (actually) serve has no problem with immorality, blasphemy, sanctity, lying, twisted justice, or rampant and escalating suffering. It’s all about achieving the Goal (see my last statement). Once you understand this, we can move on to the next levels of war. In time, we will see whose (PR) campaign wins?”
http://www.care2.com/news/member/640348900/3008646
This action has ignited the spark yet will create the same OLD results as with NO central demand U*R allowing Media & Government to frame the debate RATHER THAN discussing the REAL ISSUE HOW OUR MONEY IS SPENT Take CONTROL with Nonviolent Marches & Sidewalk Vigils to Occupy the Hearts & Minds of those who support your goals yet are unable to participate, to GAIN MASS APPEAL & Media attention Reframe the debate under One*Demand + Individual Directed Capitalization My*1040 YOUR SAY IN HOW 65% of YOUR Tax Contribution IS SPENT.