On Saturday, Chris Hayes revealed a memo prepared by a lobbying firm which detailed a strategy to discredit and defeat the Occupy movement.
Written by the firm of Clark, Lytle, Geduldig and Cranford, it was discussed here: (Link). The original memo can be seen here: (Link).
Newly discovered footage shows a pitch meeting between a firm member and a prospective customer from the financial services sector. They discuss key elements of the memo, while making some candid, behind the scenes admiss...
I'm just sayin'.
It isn't even Thanksgiving yet and we're hearing all the Christmas marketing, mostly from (wait for it) large corporations.
And I think about what really has meaning for us as a nation this year and season, and I realize that it's the awakening of the Occupy movement, and the shift in our national dialogue it has produced such that we are now actually talking, even in the generally obtuse mainstream media, about previously "taboo" topics:
The income gap, and how it's grown in...
This is a close up of the shrine at Occupy Oakland where people are leaving their thoughts and wishes for Scott Olsen, who is now a hero of two wars - one overseas, and one here at home.
(Image)
Best wishes, Scott.
:patriot:
This is a very interesting article by long-time activist and social scientist David Graeber about what went right with OWS, and the social and political factors involved.
He looks at the history of various protest movements, and what makes OWS different, and powerful.
...as I paced about the Green, I noticed something. To adopt activist parlance: this wasn’t really a crowds of verticals—that is, the sort of people whose idea of political action is to march around with signs under the control o...
Dateline October 14, 2011:
Despite initial negative reactions to her newly premiered program's ostensible stance regarding the massive citizen protests in defense of Wall Street, a significant portion of the inaugural viewing audience still held out hope that Erin Burnett would splash some cold water on her face when she wakes up early the next morning, and bring her journalistic curiosity to bear on the questions thrust into her face.
Literally, almost: giant billboards featuring Burnett'...
Only in their own minds, of course. But the question is, how can anyone, ever, think is this fair?
I think I've figured it out.
To them, it's fair play, and just part of the "game", to take the phantom menace of "voter fraud", and use it to spearhead, across the nation, laws to make it harder to vote.
To some of us, it's been hard to believe that they could actually get away with advocating making it harder for American citizens to cast a vote. And the more attention you've paid, the more yo...
Via RawStory:
"The New York City General Assembly — the decision-making body for the “Occupy Wall Street” protest in lower Manhattan — approved a statement of purpose on Friday amid concerns that the movement lacked a clear message."
...
[div class="excerpt"As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your all...
"...for no good reason, other than engaging in a political hatchet job."
A nice concise commentary on the real take-away lesson of the ACORN/O'Keefe/Breitbart debacle.
(Link)
An organization devoted to helping the poorest and least powerful wasn't destroyed by a couple of political hoodlums; it only happened because of the complicity of MSM flagship The New York Times, which it still has not fully acknowledged, let alone correcting the falsehoods it printed that fueled the grass fire of "outr...
Sent out with talking points, training, and confidence.
Can't close the deal when they meet the actual people at their town hall meetings.
In fact, they should Always Be Closing... In fact, these town hall meetings should be victory laps.
And yet, the leads, they don't seem to be that good, in that there's some skepticism, even resistance.
Are the talking points, the "leads" given from above, perhaps weak?
Or are the reps the ones who are weak, failing to sell what is an obvious Sure Thin...
A real portait in principles, Mr. Ryan is.
From Jonathon Chait, at The National Review:
The Republican pose toward deficit projections under the Obama administration is one of pure hysteria -- we face an existential civilizational crisis that requires us to remake our welfare state. Ten years ago, the Republican pose was surplus hysteria. The surplus is huge, we must eliminate it it lest the government pay off the entire national debt and start buying up private industry. As part of this argum...
It's been discussed for so long, it's hard to believe that this might really be the time. I mean, THE time where we actually see it happen.
But so many factors have come into confluence, it would be folly to turn away from acknowledging what opportunity is really presented here. After all, we've waited so long.
It's time to stand up, speak up, and make sure this monstrosity is finally put down. We must starve the beast.
The Beast we speak of is known by its many marks:
It claims that Am...
At least, that's what I assume.
But reading responses over at FR to the One Nation Rally doesn't do much to support that assumption:
"I love it. Black folk, union mafia gangsters, gays and whacko commie environmentalists. They should let Charles Manson out to speak for a few minutes. We're all One Nation-- as long as you're either black, a felon, trannie or crazed. Good luck with that!"
"Looks like a Black 1930’s Germany."
"What's funny is, none of these people work!! HAHAHAHAH They shou...
"Some said, it couldn't be done: create a second earth-shattering disaster they could use to reshape the world to their own designs.
But anyone who said that did some serious misunderestimating..."
"Coming, this summer, the blockbuster motion picture starring Dick "Tin Man" Cheney and George W. Loonie:
Just when you thought they'd done all the damage they could,
It turns out they've left...
A little surprise."
{Insert scene of rig workers being tossed against walls by explosions, gene...
I was looking at a paint brush just now, and because paint brushes figure into my life, I was looking at it while thinking about the recent SCOTUS decision that decided that corporations have the rights of people.
The paint brush had natural bristles, which are really the best in a lot of applications. They come from pigs, traditionally.
I wondered whether the bristles came off the pigs while they were alive, or after.
Then I realized that basically, it was an economic decision. All the par...
Great piece at Emptywheel analyzing how Cheney's testimony, beyond being a set of implausible blanket denials, actually puts Libby in the position of holding the bag for each and every potential crime involved in the whole Plame affair:
If I were Scooter Libby right now, I’d be seething. I’d be utterly disgusted with the way Dick Cheney hung me out to dry, over and over and over, in his interview with Fitzgerald. Cheney denies any knowledge of issues he and Libby worked on together repeatedly a...
If you're going to present an alternative school program for people who think that letting kids hear a pep talk from the President is akin to sending them to Mao's re-education camps, you'd think you'd at least demonstrate a sixth-grade understanding of grammar and punctuation.
But over at the teabagger-backed website ((Link)) offering their own program for people fearing the power of Obama's mind-ray on the tender gray-matter of little Caitlin, Madison, Landry, and their unsuspecting classmate...
He said "wrecking havoc", when in fact the correct expression is "wreaking havoc".
However, he did this while demonstrating towering leadership and captaining a course out of a worldwide economic catastrophe.
Also, he did it while NOT torturing people without discerning their guilt or innocence, starting an illegal war, shredding the Constitution, or skewing national policy to circumvent all of the safeguards that keep the wealthy and powerful from profiting at the expense of the rest of us.
...
Dan Rather and his Texas Air National Guard story being set up for immediate shoot-down in the right-wing blogosphere;
The miraculous 2004 "re-election" of a "president" with an approval rating below 50%;
Silence of the media and outright complicity in the Iraq War, and the 9-11 Commission's serial obstruction by the Bush Admistration;
Silence of key Democrats responsible for oversight of the Executive Branch;
Compliance of Congressional Republicans who fell into line like whipped puppies, a...
Abraham Lincoln Brigade Veterans and Supporters Celebrate 70th anniversary of Despedida
Farida Jhabvala-Romero, Nov 13, 2008
The 70th anniversary of the farewell or despedida to the Spanish Civil War’s International Brigades - thousands of volunteers who fought for the Spanish democratic government from 1936 to 1939 - was celebrated last Saturday November 1st in San Francisco.
“They were people who wanted to fight for international social justice,” said Richard Bermack, 58, author of The Fro...
I believe that after a series of elections stolen in various ways, resulting in a small group of incredibly frustrated, angry, but very determined people (present company included first and foremost), today's action by the Obama campaign requesting that the special prosecutor for the U.S. Attorneys scandal include the GOP's co-ordinated effort to whip up a "voter fraud" scandal regarding Acorn indicates that the terrain has changed.
Obama and his exemplary campaign aren't the battered spouse. ...
November 4th, for all you've done to date.
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But we'll all taste the rewards for the work done, and for having the courage to say that we knew that even when the laughter of the bullies rained down on our heads, and the frustration of feeling alone was infuriating and seemed to leave each of us helpless, alone, and without a way to overturn the crime that had happened right in front of everyone, there would come a day like the first Tuesday of next month, when we would be repaid for the ...
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