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Six Demands to Make of Wall Street
The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous, and secretive economic and political force in America. 
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
If this country is to break out of the horrendous recession and create the millions of jobs we desperately need, if we are going to create a modicum of financial stability for the future, there is no question but that the American people are going to have to take a very hard look at Wall Street and demand fundamental reforms. I hope these protests are the beginning of that process.
Let us never forget that as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country was plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes, and life savings as the middle class underwent an unprecedented collapse. Sadly, despite all the suffering caused by Wall Street, there is no reason to believe that the major financial institutions have changed their ways, or that future financial disasters and bailouts will not happen again.
More than three years ago, Congress rewarded Wall Street with the biggest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world. Simultaneously but unknown to the American people at the time, the Federal Reserve provided an even larger bailout. The details of what the Fed did were kept secret until a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that I sponsored required the Government Accountability Office to audit the Fed’s lending programs during the financial crisis.
As a result of this audit, the American people have learned that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in low-interest loans to every major financial institution in this country, huge foreign banks, multi-national corporations, and some of the wealthiest people in the world.
In other words, when Wall Street was on the verge of collapse, the federal government acted boldly, aggressively, and with a fierce sense of urgency to save our financial system from collapse with no strings attached.
Now that the middle class is collapsing and a record-breaking 46 million Americans are living in poverty, the Federal Reserve has failed to act with the same sense of urgency to make sure that small businesses receive the affordable loans needed to put millions of Americans back to work and prevent millions of Americans from losing their homes.
As a result, Wall Street is back to making record-breaking profits, handing out record-breaking compensation packages, and taking the same risks that caused the financial crisis in the first place. Meanwhile, 25 million Americans are unemployed or under-employed; middle class families are making $3,600 less than they did ten years ago; the foreclosure rate is still breaking new records; and the American people are still paying over $3.40 for a gallon of gas.
The financial crisis and the jobs crisis have demonstrated to the American people that we now have a government that is of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent and for the 1 percent, as Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz eloquently articulated. The rest of the 99 percent are, more or less, on their own. We now have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major, advanced country on earth. The top one percent earn more income than the bottom 50 percent and the richest 400 Americans own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.
Now that Occupy Wall Street is shining a spot light against Wall Street greed and the enormous inequalities that exist in America, the question then becomes, how do we change the political, economic and financial system to work for all Americans, not just the top 1 percent?
Here are several proposals that I am working on:
1) If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. Today, the six largest financial institutions have assets equal to more than 60 percent of GDP. The four largest banks in this country issue two-thirds of all credit cards, half of all mortgages, and hold nearly 40 percent of all bank deposits. Incredibly, after we bailed out these big banks because they were "too big to fail," three out of the four largest are now even bigger than they were before the financial crisis began. It is time to take a page from Teddy Roosevelt and break up these behemoths so that their failure will no longer lead to economic catastrophe and to create competition in our financial system.
2) Put a cap on credit card interest rates to end usury. Today, more than a quarter of all credit card holders in this country are paying interest rates above 20 percent and as high as 59 percent. When credit card companies charge 25 or 30 percent interest rates they are not engaged in the business of “making credit available” to their customers. They are involved in extortion and loan-sharking. Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase should not be permitted to charge consumers 25-30 percent interest on their credit cards, especially while these banks received over $4 trillion in loans from the Federal Reserve.
3) The Federal Reserve needs to provide small businesses in America with the same low-interest loans it gave to foreign banks. During the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve provided hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign banks and corporations including the Arab Banking Corporation, Toyota, Mitsubishi, the Korea Development Bank, and the state-owned Bank of Bavaria. At a time when small businesses can't get the lending they need, it is time for the Fed to create millions of American jobs by providing low-interest loans directly to small businesses.
4) Stop Wall Street oil speculators from artificially increasing gasoline and heating oil prices. Right now, the American people are being gouged at the gas pump by speculators on Wall Street who are buying and selling billions of barrels of oil in the energy futures market with no intention of using a drop for any purpose other than to make a quick buck. Delta Airlines, Exxon Mobil, the American Trucking Association, and other energy experts have estimated that excessive oil speculation is driving up oil prices by as much as 40 percent. We have got to end excessive oil speculation and bring needed relief to American consumers.
5) Demand that Wall Street invest in the job-creating productive economy, instead of gambling on worthless derivatives. The American people have got to make it crystal clear to Wall Street that the era of excessive speculation is over. The “heads, bankers win; tails, everyone else loses” financial system must end. Most important, we need to create a new Wall Street that exists not to reward CEOs and investors for the bets they make on exotic financial instruments nobody understands. Rather, we need a Wall Street that provides financial services to small businesses and manufacturers to create decent-paying jobs and grow the economy by productive means. Think of all of the productive short- and long-term investments that could be made in our country right now if Wall Street used the money it has received from the federal government wisely. Instead of casino-style speculation, Wall Street could invest in high-speed trains; fuel-efficient cars; wind turbines and other alternative energy sources; affordable housing; affordable prescription drugs that save people’s lives; and other things that America desperately needs. That is what we have got to demand from Wall Street.
6) Establish a Wall Street speculation fee on credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures. Both the economic crisis and the deficit crisis are a direct result of the greed and recklessness on Wall Street. Establishing a speculation fee would reduce gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy, and significantly reduce the deficit without harming average Americans. There are a number of precedents for this. The U.S had a similar Wall Street speculation fee from 1914 to 1966. The Revenue Act of 1914 levied a 0.2 percent tax on all sales or transfers of stock. In 1932, Congress more than doubled that tax to help finance the government during the Great Depression. And today, England has a financial transaction tax of 0.25 percent, a penny on every $4 invested.
Making these reforms will not be easy. After all, Wall Street is clearly the most powerful lobbying force on Capitol Hill. From 1998 through 2008, the financial sector spent over $5 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to deregulate Wall Street. More recently, they spent hundreds of millions more to make the Dodd-Frank bill as weak as possible, and after its passage, hundreds of millions more to roll back or diluter the stronger provisions in that legislation.
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158 Comments so far
Show AllRe: "Do remember that some politicians (most?) would use monetary policy as a re-election tool"
This is s red herring, as we know that with transparency, democratic oversight, and a wall of separation of powers keeping executive influence cordoned off from monetary policy, that surreptitious abuses could be easily guarded against... At least far moreso than guarding against the fraudulent actions of private control over monitary policy.
Why is it the more I read of your posts on this issue, GR, the more I get the sense I'm reading the same arguments I would expect from a defender, not a detractor of the Fed?
For example, one of the more egregious of the US's monetary policies is the acceptance and employment of the fractional reserve system — this system is at the heart of the banksters scam to take advantage of We The People... Yet you support it. Very odd if I don't say so myself.
I am a defender of the Fed. Certainly the Fed is not perfect. No system is. Overall, however, I believe the Fed has done a better job than previous to its existence. The fractional reserve system can be and generally is a very good system. This system allows the necessary liquidity of savers who want the freedom to demand their money at any time, while also allowing borrowers the confidence they need to know funds are available when needed. Many progressives and conservatives have a warped, limited view of fractional lending. In a modern electronic monetary system, it seems to be a necessity. The "heart of banksters taking advantage of us" is the too big to fail problem where risk-taking is rewarded no matter the outcome. A close second is the manipulation of the con games such as the derivatives scam along with the rating agencies (legal bribe takers) happily playing along.
Your defending a private legalized cartel that controls a country's monetary system -
That's basically as Undemocratic as they come - at least you are honest.
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes her laws. ". Rothschild...................
What you're arguing is that We The People should just shut up and let those 'better qualified' make the rules about Monetary Policy for an Entire Nation.
Forget it - I'm doing ALL I can to influencd the OWS to End the criminal cartel known as the Fed Reserve.
You conveniently seem to forget that our elected officials appoint those who run the Fed. Therefore, it is basically not as undemocratic as they come.
Not true - the gov names the board - not the members of each branch - plus they only get to choose from a list that has been approced by the fed member banks.
re: "The fractional reserve system can be and generally is a very good system. "
and
re: "Many progressives and conservatives have a warped, limited view of fractional lending.
Then call me warped as a vinyl LP leaning on a wall in the midday sun. You and I are obviously reading from different playbooks. In my understanding, the fractional reserve system (a euphemism for counterfeiting) is at the heart of the corruption of the 'British system'.
Please go to and read the following:
http://tinyurl.com/3zlpmbj
"How to Eliminate Fractional Reserve Banking Without Eliminating Banks"
"If the power to create the national money supply is going to be the exclusive domain of Congress, 100 backing will *have* to be required for any private bank deposits that can be withdrawn on demand."
(from pg 394 of Web of Debt, Ellen Brown)
...and let me know what you think.
I agree whole-heartedly.
Bernie Sanders is my lobbyist!
I sent you an email on how to fix this...
I haven't read the comments yet, but this quote stands out because there are still some shills who try to say that the FED only lent $700 billion, and it was ALL paid back. That's their way of arguing that instead of helping homeowners hold onto their homes, the maneuver taken by Washington elites was the correct one. Sure.
I hope this data is circulated by those in the forum who wish to counter the false narrative, as all it does is justify a status quo that favors that 1% over the 99%. Only a FOOL would argue FOR that.
Mr. Sanders reveals:
"As a result of this audit, the American people have learned that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in low-interest loans to every major financial institution in this country, huge foreign banks, multi-national corporations, and some of the wealthiest people in the world. "
There's quite a gap between 16 trillion, and the media's preferred number of $700 billion... then, too, there's absolutely NO evidence to suggest it's been paid back! As homeless rates, unemployment rates, poverty rates, and "mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore" rates rise.
occupy wall street needs to march around the fed 7 times and blow some ram horns. i think this would peek the interest of those middle america conservatives who scorn at the movement.
The BEST Demand of all is one that is KNOWN to work .
99ers,
Here is what you need to be demanding as your one big start as THE demand of the people. This ONe thing will give
you most all being asked for. It will force the Dems to chose sides and show their true colors as well.
State Banks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0rJWnRFUJA
North Dakota has a state bank . It is not in debt. Its people are protected from foreclosure. Its private farms are
protected from Big Ag. They have jobs and no real unemployment.
This is a clear answer and it it THE ANSWER to address a huge chunk of our demands.
If the Dems endorse OWS, let them prove it by awarding all the remaining 49 states State Bank Charters and helping
them to get them going. If they refuse, the party should be abolished and sent to sit with the Repubs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad0gant1zeo
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112420/why-north-dakota-may-be-best-state-in-country-to-live-in
Right on! Reverse the 1913 fiasco.
Best point and info on thread, including the article by Rep. Sanders.
IF the Dems support OWS, let them prove it?
Are you fucking kidding?
My take on the protests is that they shun the Democrats for their blatant corporate toadying, matched only by the Republicans, who are likewise shunned.
I get the feeling that if a Democratic candidate were to eat a live, shrieking child at the podium during a speech, then pat his or her belly and saunter off, that apologists like you would leap to their defense, saying: At least he kept the child down, and didn't regurgitate baby parts on the audience--
Seriously. No one currently in power can or will do anything that must be done.
This cloud has no silver lining.
It is a Death Shroud.
Act accordingly.
I'm surprised he doesn't call for reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. I definitely support this as a key demand. Also, I think they should also make derivatives illegal.
The coporatization of America and The Second Gilded Age are the results of bipartisan efforts. We need democracy, not corporatocracy.
This is why they occupy Wall Street!
The Declaration of Independence
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, these are Life, Liberty that among and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government
Corporate "personhood" has been used to bribe our elected officials ever since it was fraudulently introduced by the United States Supreme Court in the 19th century. This false idea, more than anything else, must be destroyed if our Republic is to survive.
You are so right! When I heard about this I could barely believe it. That was what got my interest in politics. I didn't really study politics until this year though, when abuses became so blatant.
We need to get rid of Fox news. It has brainwashed most of the non-thinking population. It's mind boggling to hear a conservative speak. They are SO self-righteous in their thinking, acting like God's hit-men. So deluded. We have to keep Obama in office, all of the republican candidates are either sociopaths or self-deluded bullies.
I hope the 99% keep growing and turn into a movement that will turn things around.
The Federal Reserve is not owned by the Fed. Correct? It is private, is it not. Therefore austerity worldwide to pay back those trillions.Correct? If so, we just got conned big time. Help me understand this. Thanks
Bernie is moving in a direction and movement in any direction is better than the present US swirl about the plug hole of an infinite regression.
But get do the words right! Too big to fail is indeed the big lie, but it tries to obscure the truth that the banks are not so much too big to exist as Bernie says, for they do exist and in true pirate fashion can buy and force their existence until there is nothing else left in existence, but they are too big to succeed, i.e. to be beneficial; to serve anything but themselves. This is the blatantly obvious reality now.
This reality is arguably an indicator that the USA is too big to succeed. All that is not the lowest common denominator is excluded from its agora; its open place of assembly; its market and meeting place. It is a big and dedicatedly idiotic place; the greatest aberration in history; an absurdity. The evidence of this truth is astoundingly obvious.
Yet few people believe that the USA has to go. The futility of the plethora of well meaning views in the comments here seems to show I am right. The futility of the internet that makes people as a whole forget about their intimate roots and replace them with a laughably spurious patriotism indicates I am right.
The propagandists of big money understand this. They are clever and driven little men and use this present indiscriminate swirl of opinion to their advantage. They do this by attacking big government or even just government for government is their competitor. They are also simplistic fools for they are then logically bound to attack big business and even small business or even just the individual for business or the identifiable individual is a form of governance. Yet big money cannot exist without small business and the individual. Perhaps they know this and the big money captains or wannabes simply aim to become the only man or individual of significance; to become effectively Captain God making all others into nothing but galley slaves.
But then big money is now an inveterate pirate ship and when did a pirate care for any but self? The entire structure we can see as the pirate ship USA for a long time now calling itself God by many another name and ending the lives of their simplistic Others at will must be sunk. The people must take it apart.
Thank you once again Bernie!
Good man Bernie, you are a brother.
While I admire Bernie, he aspires to a place well short of what I think is needed.
I support the Occupy movement--which I believe is not about simply reigning in Wall St. abuses. It is about restructuring away from systems of extraction and disposal and toward systems of regeneration and improvement.
Writing laws to restrict exploitation . . . that's nice--but I'm looking for a paradigm shift in human culture.
Well said, riodreaming...
"The Fundamental Challenge of Our Time" is revaluation of the most useful agricultural resource on Earth.
The evolution of revolution is revaluation.
Cannabis is essential, not illegal.
Freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed" is the first test of religious freedom.
Both unique and essential, Cannabis has never been within the rightful jurisdiction of any court.
Time is the limiting factor in the equation of survival.
We have nothing to fear but the atmosphere itself.
http://fundamentalcoot.blogspot.com/
http://youtu.be/edZw3hXkGJo
http://youtu.be/o_Tpxf1b1kE
ELECTION REFORM!
NO MORE BLACK BOX VOTING!
US ELECTIONS HAVE BEEN RIGGED!
WE CAN'T HAVE A DEMOCRACY WITH CORPORATELY CONTROLLED VOTING MACHINE SHENANIGANS!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box_voting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxtm5RF_6Ow&feature=related
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/prosecute_rove/
http://politics.salon.com/2011/09/27/votinghack/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Curtis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/1954.html
http://www.electionreformnetwork.us/
I have no intention of defending the post of mine which appears to have been deleted without so much as a by your leave. I will not let the editor of CD put me on the defensive.
George Bernard Shaw once remarked: "It is my business to be right when others are wrong." I kept this quote under my desk blotter for 25 years.
CD can keep its requests for economic support out of my mailbox.
Trylon
rephrase ??? confused ??? explanation.....
...peace...
Make no demands. Tax them until they have no more power or money.
The power to tax is the power to destroy; use it.
https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/231001226955129/
Prosecute Wallstreet Facebook Group. Please join and share.
https://www.change.org/petitions/saw-em-off
Petition to prosecute wallstreet via change.org to be sent to the Obama administration once we reach our goal. Please sign and share as well!
Here are three start points for this 99% movement...Fed up with current corporate arrogance? How about this..Let's find out which Airline es the first to come up with the idea to charge us to take our luggage with us on vacation, and together, just stop flying them. Fed up with corporate greed? If you have acc..ounts at B of A? Go into your bank tomorrow and inform the manager that if they put these new proposed fees into effect, we will most certainly close our accounts. Let them know now. And finally, buy your gas at your communities most inexpensive station. Start the gas wars again. You all have the power...lets do these three things and see.. if we can be heard.
"...buy your gas at your communities most inexpensive station."
Better yet, buy a diesel-powered vehicle and start using veggie oil fuel. I drive an '84 Mercedes 300D and love it. Veggie diesel is about the same price as petro diesel, without the environmental impact of petroleum.
Here are my six demands:
In recognition of the fact that Cannabis is historically and scientifically proved to be both unique and essential, a "strategic resource" "of first necessity to the wealth and protection" of the planet, beyond the rightful jurisdiction of any court...
1. Free ALL non-violent "drug war" prisoners immediately.
2. End ALL prohibitions and restrictions on Cannabis agriculture, manufacture and trade immediately. Freedom to farm "every herb bearing seed"is the first test of religious freedom.
3. Bring our troops home, or put them to work planting Cannabis in the countries that the U.S. has invaded. We need "farmies" not armies.
4. Hold the DEA accountable for fraud and "misprision of treason" in grossly misrepresenting the true value of "hemp" :
DEA Clarifies Status of Hemp in the Federal Register
http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/pressrel/pr100901.html
Cannabis has been recognized as a "strategic resource" critical to national security in six Executive Orders signed by six American Presidents:
Franklin D. Roosevelt Executive Order 9280 - December 5, 1942
Delegating Authority Over the Food Program.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16211&st=hemp&st1=hempstead%2C+hemphill#axzz1Gylt2Jf6
Harry S. Truman Executive Order 10161 - September 9, 1950
Delegating Certain Functions of the President Under the Defense Production Act of 1950
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=60772&st=hemp&st1=hempstead%2C+hemphill#axzz1Gylt2Jf6
Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Order 10480-- August 14, 1953
Further providing for the administration of the defense mobilization program
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=59221&st=hemp&st1=hempstead%2C+hemphill#axzz1Gylt2Jf6
John F. Kennedy Executive Order 10998 - February 16, 1962
ASSIGNING EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS FUNCTIONS TO THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=58936&st=hemp&st1=hempstead%2C+hemphill#axzz1Gylt2Jf6
Richard Nixon Executive Order 11490 - October 28, 1969 -Assigning Emergency Preparedness Functions to Federal Departments and Agencies
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=60479&st=hemp&st1=hempstead%2C+hemphill#axzz1Gylt2Jf6
William J. Clinton Executive Order 12919 - June 3, 1994
National Defense Industrial Resources Preparedness
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=50295&st=hemp&st1=hemphill%2C+hempstead#axzz1Gylt2Jf6
5. Rescind the hypocritical government patent on Cannabis medications, obtained in October of 2003:
Patent 6630507 Issued on October 7, 2003
“Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia.”
Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6630507.html
6. Pass a Constitutional Amendment recognizing organic, non-GMO Cannabis as the most ancient, completely nutritious, industrially useful, potentially abundant, globally distributed, ecologically significant, and safely therapeutic agricultural resource on Earth.
This is the paradigm shift we have all been waiting for. Revaluation of Cannabis will change the basis of the global economy from "Gaiacidal" toxic unevenly distributed finite chemicals to abundant, evenly distributed, "Gaiatherapeutic" organic and biodynamic, non-GMO agriculture.
For more information and to support the mission of the (individual, non-secular, non-dogmatic) California Cannabis Ministry, to identify Cannabis agriculture as integral to a free society and essential for human survival, you are invited to visit my blog at:
http://californiacannabisministry.blogspot.com/
iow... legalize it (mon)
_____________________________________
"The Federal Reserve needs to provide small businesses in America with the same low-interest loans it gave to foreign banks. "
The Fed is a "private" cartel. The Fed is not designed to serve the American people overall. Regulations alone will not solve our economic and environmental problems. The economic and political systems must be fundamentally restructured. A good place to start would be to eliminate the Fed by engaging in severe direct action campaigns carried out over several years of mass nonviolent conflict. Debt-free money creation must be returned to the people as the constitution requires.
Bernie, what's going on is the breaking down of the 99% to THIRD WORLD status so that state-corporatist globalization can proceed with all possible speed --- to the bottom. War and naked, systemic looting, legitimized by a corrupt congress, executive and court are effective and preferred methods.
Most of the 99% still think the political process can be re-established for the people from within the system. The quiet ones.
The noisy ones don't. I don't. I have not attended, yet, but have contributed some ideas.
The political spectrum as not a straight line, but a broken circle.
The base only of the pyramid on the Great Seal as a symbol for the movement.
And tactics. The latest of which is for the #Occupiers to gather, as they are, around the districts in need of reformation, BUT WITH THEIR BACKS TO THE 1% (in the classic gesture of shunning), ---- THEIR CHANTS/SIGNS DIRECTED AT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THE CAMERAS !!
Neither the 1% nor their enablers will change. The PEOPLE must be moved off their asses. The protest misses a grand opportunity to speak directly to the people through the cameras of the MSM.
Thank you, Bernie Sanders, Socialist. A true brave soul in the lion's den. May you inspire more to follow in your footsteps. Please continue on your journey for all our sakes. I wish you were our president. Thank you again.
Socialist? Really?
He talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk.
It's like nobody learned anything from the Clinton and Obama Presidencies.
Shorter Bernie Sanders: "Yada. Yada. Yada."
I think these are great proposals, but if we really want to repair our democracy and country, we need to take a biiiig step back and make even deeper changes. Check out the free e-book, "Imagine: A Guide to Creating the New Earth" on www.theiamyouproject.com. It lays out some of the misguided principles that have been steering our nation into decline, and how we can rethink the fundamentals to get onto a healthier track.
Urgent: Eviction for Occupy Wall Street ((Wall Street))
Occupy Wall Street protesters are being
evicted from Zuccotti Park at 7am tomorrow morning, (Friday).
Mayor Bloomberg is sending in the police to clear the park so it can be
"cleaned" and is imposing new rules that won't allow protesters to
continue to occupy the park.
These protesters have been standing up for all of us against corporate
greed on Wall Street and the corporate takeover of our democracy. It's
time we stand with them. Please join me in urgently signing a petition to
Mayor Bloomberg to keep him from evicting the protesters.
We have very little time to act. We need to gather a huge national petition as soon as possible, so we can deliver it to City Hall tonight and have it for the protesters in Zuccotti Park.
Zuccotti Park may be in New York, but the protesters are standing up against Wall Street and the damage they've done to millions of Americans everywhere. That's why it's an inspiration and nerve center for a growing occupation movement that's spreading to every corner of the country.
Employing a tactic that's been used to break up similar protest actions, Mayor Bloomberg is sending in the police under the guise of a "cleaning operation." But that's a PR farce, because protesters will only be allowed back in if they obey rules that include: no "lying down" and no use of "tarps or sleeping bags or other covering."3
Obviously, the 99% protesters can't continue to occupy Zuccotti Park if they have to stand for 24 hours a day, and as the nights grow colder and the rain pours down, they can't endure without sleeping bags, tarps, and the like. Make no mistake--this is an eviction, and we have less than 24 hours to stop it.
So sign the petition and tell Mayor Bloomberg: "Respect the protesters' First Amendment rights. Don't try to evict Occupy Wall Street." Then get the word out to everyone you know on your social networks.
So it's not just this one protest that's at stake tomorrow morning, because if we allow the eviction to happen, other mayors across the country are sure to follow Bloomberg's lead.
What's at stake today is the very right we have as Americans to speak out when we've been wronged and peaceably assemble as a community to seek redress from the government.
So act now. Sign the petition and tell Mayor Bloomberg: "Respect the protesters' First Amendment rights. Don't try to evict Occupy Wall Street."Just use the
link below.
http://civic.moveon.org/defend_ows/?r_by=31974-19931313-HEP7qGx&rc=c4_defend_ows_letter.email.g0
If you TRULY believe in the Constitution and our inalienable rights, PLEASE Facebook/Tweet/Blog this msg ASAP!
Let's add one more demand: An end to American "exceptionalism", sabre-rattling (threatening another nation with force violates the UN Charter), world-policing outside of the UN, and acts of aggression. A good standard would be: Would we protest if an action we take, were taken against us?
Glass Stegal for President!
Bernie Sanders makes sense with his proposals. I would emphasize Get Money Out of Politics.
there are only one hundred United States Senators...
this man is one of them...
he, and those serving alongside, have made careers of facilitating the disastrous status quo...
he is not another protester, another pundit or columnist, outside looking in...
he is a Senator...he is inside...
he is, arguably, responsible for this mess...
even though others, realistically, are...
Talking to Edgar Morin
What is the difference between dialogue
and negotiation?
"Negotiating is bargaining for interests, to reach an
agreement. Whereas genuine dialogue is understanding
the Other. To understand the Other, first we have to try and
know him in his entirety, know his beliefs, his customs,
his rites, his civilization – which presupposes erudition
or a certain education. We must understand that the
Other is a subject like oneself, meaning an autonomous
individual who commands respect.
"Then you need the subjective impetus of interest and sympathy. Without that,
there is no comprehension. Today we are in conditions of collective hysteria and Manichaeism that prevent sympathy and therefore understanding. We are in a period where understanding is losing ground.
"...As soon as we’re dealing with escalation of war, repression of terrorism and military terror, a vicious circle of hate, contempt, rejection and disgust emerges, and perhaps at that very moment a war between civilizations starts, which we must combat.
(Morin con't)
How can we fight?
"With words, intelligence and conscience. We know what
principles we must respect: understanding others and
recognizing their rights. There are periods, such as ours, in
which very little dialogue is possible. I think we are entering
a dark period."
Philosopher of complexity:
Philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin is one of France’s
leading contemporary thinkers. Born in Paris in 1921, he
joined the Resistance during World War II. With university
degrees in history, economics and law, he began his career in
1950 at the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research),
with a particular concern for cross-disciplinary dialogue.
He has concentrated on developing a method that can meet
the challenge of the complexity of all modern knowledge,
and reform politics and thought, in order to overcome the current
global crisis. The five volumes of the “Method” – la Nature de
la nature, la Vie de la vie, la Connaissance de la connaissance,
Les idées, L’identité humaine – were published between 1977
and 2001 by Seuil.
His extensive body of work, translated into many languages,
includes L’Homme et la Mort (Seuil, 1951); Introduction à
une politique de l’homme (Seuil, 1965); L’Esprit du Temps (Grasset,
1962-1976); Pour sortir du XXe siècle (Nathan, 1981); Les Sept
savoirs nécessaire à l’éducation du futur (Seuil, 2000); “Seven
Complex Lessons in Education for the Future” (UNESCO, 2001);
Pour une politique de civilisation (Arléa, 2002).
Among his other responsibilities, he is the President of
UNESCO’s European Agency of Culture and holder of the itinerant
UNESCO Edgar Morin Chair created in 1999 at the Universidad del Salvador in Argentina.
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001331/133120e.pdf#133185
We all can do something.
1) Do no buy the immediately unnecessary!
2) Hold your money,do not sponsor expensive electronics and
3) write your representatives.
The forst measure to delete this illness is to make lobbying illegal. I don't get this, the government itself is providing the venue for this disaster. It's like creating a "protected house" for drug dealers. C'mom!