"Occupy Wall Street" lays down the Demands

This is what our local media is not allowed to talk about. Local and network news media claim the "Occupy Wall Street" message is vague and lacks direction. The only way to follow what's really happening is on Twitter #OCCUPYWALLSTREET. Here it is, black and white. Like the anti-war protest in 1968, this will be even bigger. It's growing in multiple cities across the country and cities around the world. Our governments are tainted. Like our protests that lead up to the American Revolutionary War in 1776, we are tired of being silenced and being enslaved to increase profits for the rich, as jobs continue to be sent overseas, education is cut back, and with a healthcare system that kills people because they can't afford it. Our government is no longer for the people of this country. They serve the banking system and they serve the lobbyists of the Fortune 500. That is who controls our leaders, not the people of the United States. This needs to end now. Join fight and share this with everyone.

While demand number 11 seems to be an impossible demand, for it to take place, every leader from every major country would have to agree to shut down each and every financial market. In turn, would probably cause global chaos and a meltdown of the entire infrastructure that would probably do more harm than good. This demand definitely needs some sort of compromise without destroying the entire world economy.

PICKET: Occupy Wall Street protesters post manifesto of 'demands'

by Kerry Picket of Washington Times

Below is a list of proposed "DEMANDS FOR CONGRESS":

"The Sovereign People's Movement, represented nationally through the people occupying the various Liberty Square locations across this great country, have laid out and democratically submitted and are currently voting on the list of following Demands to then be distilled into one Unified Common demand of the people."

"Participate in Democracy and Vote Here to Have Your Voice Heard"

LIST OF PROPOSED "DEMANDS FOR CONGRESS"CONGRESS PASS HR 1489 ("RETURN TO PRUDENT BANKING ACT" http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-1489 ). THIS REINSTATES MANY PROVISIONS OF THE GLASS-STEAGALL ACT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Act --- Wiki entry summary: The repeal of provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999 effectively removed the separation that previously existed between investment banking which issued securities and commercial banks which accepted deposits. The deregulation also removed conflict of interest prohibitions between investment bankers serving as officers of commercial banks. Most economists believe this repeal directly contributed to the severity of the Financial crisis of 2007–2011 by allowing Wall Street investment banking firms to gamble with their depositors' money that was held in commercial banks owned or created by the investment firms. Here's detail on repeal in 1999 and how it happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass–Steagall_Act#Repeal .   Vote Here #1

USE CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORITY AND OVERSIGHT TO ENSURE APPROPRIATE FEDERAL AGENCIES FULLY INVESTIGATE AND PROSECUTE THE WALL STREET CRIMINALS who clearly broke the law and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis in the following notable cases: (insert list of the most clear cut criminal actions). There is a pretty broad consensus that there is a clear group of people who got away with millions / billions illegally and haven't been brought to justice. Boy would this be long overdue and cathartic for millions of Americans. It would also be a shot across the bow for the financial industry. If you watch the solidly researched and awared winning documentary film "Inside Job" that was narrated by Matt Damon (pretty brave Matt!) and do other research, it wouldn't take long to develop the list.  Vote Here #2

CONGRESS ENACT LEGISLATION TO PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY BY REVERSING THE EFFECTS OF THE CITIZENS UNITED SUPREME COURT DECISION which essentially said corporations can spend as much as they want on elections. The result is that corporations can pretty much buy elections. Corporations should be highly limited in ability to contribute to political campaigns no matter what the election and no matter what the form of media. This legislation should also RE-ESTABLISH THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES IN THE U.S. SO THAT POLITICAL CANDIDATES ARE GIVEN EQUAL TIME FOR FREE AT REASONABLE INTERVALS IN DAILY PROGRAMMING DURING CAMPAIGN SEASON. The same should extend to other media. Vote Here #3

CONGRESS PASS THE BUFFETT RULE ON FAIR TAXATION SO THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE & CLOSE CORPORATE TAX LOOP HOLES AND ENACT A PROHIBITION ON HIDING FUNDS OFF SHORE. No more GE paying zero or negative taxes. Pass the Buffet Rule on fair taxation so the rich pay their fair share. (If we have a really had a good negotiating position and have the place surrounded, we could actually dial up taxes on millionaires, billionaires and corporations even higher...back to what they once were in the 50's and 60's.Vote Here #4

CONGRESS COMPLETELY REVAMP THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION and staff it at all levels with proven professionals who get the job done protecting the integrity of the marketplace so citizens and investors are both protected. This agency needs a large staff and needs to be well-funded. It's currently has a joke of a budget and is run by Wall St. insiders who often leave for high ticket cushy jobs with the corporations they were just regulating. Hmmm.  Vote Here #5

CONGRESS PASS SPECIFIC AND EFFECTIVE LAWS LIMITING THE INFLUENCE OF LOBBYISTS AND ELIMINATING THE PRACTICE OF LOBBYISTS WRITING LEGISLATION THAT ENDS UP ON THE FLOOR OF CONGRESS.  Vote Here #6

CONGRESS PASSING "Revolving Door Legislation" LEGISLATION ELIMINATING THE ABILITY OF FORMER GOVERNMENT REGULATORS GOING TO WORK FOR CORPORATIONS THAT THEY ONCE REGULATED. So, you don't get to work at the FDA for five years playing softball with Pfizer and then go to work for Pfizer making $195,000 a year. While they're at it, Congress should pass specific and effective laws to enforce strict judicial standards of conduct in matters concerning conflicts of interest. So long as judges are culled from the ranks of corporate attorneys the 1% will retain control.  Vote Here #7

ELIMINATE "PERSONHOOD" LEGAL STATUS FOR CORPORATIONS. The film "The Corporation" has a great section on how corporations won "personhood status". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SuUzmqBewg . Fast-forward to 2:20. It'll blow your mind. The 14th amendment was supposed to give equal rights to African Americans. It said you "can't deprive a person of life, liberty or property without due process of law". Corporation lawyers wanted corporations to have more power so they basically said "corporations are people." Amazingly, between 1890 and 1910 there were 307 cases brought before the court under the 14th amendment. 288 of these brought by corporations and only 19 by African Americans. 600,000 people were killed to get rights for people and then judges applied those rights to capital and property while stripping them from people. It's time to set this straight. Vote Here #8

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Post #1

The "Occupy Wall Street" protesters have listed 13 proposed demands from their website.

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

Quite a list of Marxist "demands", indeed. The real question here is if these demands are not met, then what?

Cartoon and Post By: Peter Pham

healthcare debate gets heated as time is closing in

The battle over health care over at capital hill heated during a rare Saturday session where Senate Democrats voted down on an Republican Amendment to the massive healthcare overhall bill that wouldve protected massive cuts on the healthcare bill.

Obama who is at Capital Hill is pressuring Democrats to make a decsion on the #1 trillion bill before Christmas.

The legislation would provide coverage to more than 30 million additional people over the next decade with a new requirement for nearly everyone to purchase insurance. There would be new marketplaces where people could shop for and compare insurance plans, and lower-income people would get subsidies to help them afford coverage.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/health-15749655/tempers-flare-during-health-care-debate-17004624

To watch a clip of the heated debate check out the link above.

Opinion - Black Friday Sales

It is that time of year again. What are the odds on 6 deaths today? Honestly. It's become a homicidal affair, this Black Friday event, and it is aptly named. There was once another Friday with such a dark connotation. It was day considered sacred, much like it is now. It is a holiday in the Catholic faith called Black Friday because it was the day their savior, Jesus Christ, died though he rose again after three days. It is one of the most sacred days in their religion. Now the name has been re-designated to mark the most sacred day in a discount shoppers calendar. The day they will be able to afford all those lavishly useless material presents to be doled out to relatives on the anniversary of another once sacred religious holiday, Christmas. Strange how religion seems to have been overshadowed by our new belief, consumerism.

Last year a worker in a Long Island Walmart was trampled to death when unruly shoppers broke down the door and rushed inside. Two men were also killed in a Palm Desert Toys-R-Us last Black Friday after their wives got into a "personal dispute" and they both pulled out handguns, fatally shooting each other. Coast-to-coast this consumer driven society we've built is fighting back, bucking hard and turning us against one another. It is an unhealthy foundation which we have structured our whole country around, capitalistic consumerism.

Incidents like this show the violent nature we've instilled upon our society and the competitiveness of humans to the extreme; a point where community and social progress is undermined by corporate cannibalism and the lust for personal gain. Divisions wedged apart further by the contrived need for more. Cultivated by years and years of conditioning by self-serving companies run by individuals with no regard for others. If we worked cooperatively instead of competitively we might have a shot at rebuilding our country.

What is needed is a sense of community once again. Though we are undeniably building a world economy, we must first build our own correctly. The global exploitation model we're currently working with is devastating populations far beyond our own through competition for lower prices and increased profits. Those who strive to make good for all instead of just themselves are pushed aside and put out of business by those willing to exploit others to obtain their own personal success ahead of anyone else's. Operating for only a single persons gain alone is a terribly selfish way to operate and destroys our society. Much more good could be done if we helped each other out and worked toward a common good.

As long as we retain a method of operation based on the benefit of a few at the cost of others, we will suffer. This society is built on competing to become the single best, but studies show that cooperative people are actually healthier individuals in many aspects. They are more functional physically, socially and career wise. The individuals who work with others tend to be more successful than those who work alone for their personal achievement. This capitalistic, consumer driven economy is a scam we have been conned into believing will lead us to progress. It is simply untrue. Though capitalism may be great in theory, this gory celebration of corporate consumerism is one of the most blatant displays of the essential flaws in our society. We could improve ourselves vastly if we rethought the way we live, but it would take a universal shift in mentality. True change into a peaceful and cooperative society is unlikely, but attainable.

This frenzy of a day has become and unholy holiday built by corporations and mutated into a natural persons worst enemy. The addiction to material goods so ingrained in us that we will forsake all other human instincts for satisfaction. The need created for certain objects overrides the human compassion typically present, or at least the common sense. It would be understandable if it were in a region experiencing dire straits and lean times like the war torn countries we occupy, but when someone is injured then killed by SHOPPERS trampling him in a frantic dash for nonessential goods at a suburban big box store, I have to take pause and ask, "What the hell is wrong with us?"

F.T.C. 11/27/09

Walmart Event

Palm Desert Shooting

Catholic Black Friday

Cooperation Essay

Student movement reborn

Students at UC Berkeley occupied a main lecture hall last Friday in protest of the 32% fee hike imposed on public universities. This is proof the student movement is not completely dead. After years of near silence in regards to students rights, some are finally waking up enough to take action.

Students Occupy Berkeley and Give Birth to a New Movement

California in the Red

California is in the deep red with the state budget deficit and its getting worse. The state " will face a nearly $21 billion budget gap over the next year and a half, extending a fiscal crisis that already has let to steep cuts to public schools, social services, and health programs" according to (msnbc.com). With the new year just around the corner analyst are saying state leaders will have to make more cuts in the new year. Arnold Schwarzenegger California's Governor, will have to make some big decisions on how to better California's budget, by making more cuts on services that have already been affected by the budget cuts.

By: Andrew Reed

Is the New Healthcare Reform a copy of Japan's Healthcare system?

WASHINGTON - After spending hours in debate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the $1.4 trillion health care bill was approved by a narrow margin of 220-215 yesterday.
Is this the start of Socialism? No, this isn't socialism, but what is making so many American’s nervous is the cost of this measure and the fact that a number of Democrats (39) and all the republicans, except one opposed it.
“Last night's decision was the proper decision for my district even though it was not the popular decision for my party,” Anh "Joseph" Cao, House Republican from Louisiana said.
One of the many issues and concerns is Democrats are ignoring that any American that chooses not to carry health insurance faces an IRS tax penalty that would range between $750 to $3,800 labeled as an “Excise Tax” even though President Obama stands firm by saying it is not a tax.
“For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” Obama said in a “George’s Bottom Line” interview with George Stephanopulous. “What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase.”
This new plan is somewhat a copy of Japan’s healthcare system, the number one country in the world in government run healthcare, but their system has put its country in extreme debt.
In Japan, the average cost of healthcare insurance for a household is $530,000 yen per year and the government pays half of the bill. This is approximately $490 per month in the American dollars. This is an alarming rate for the lower class who can't afford healthcare insurance. For it to work in the US, the government has to at least pay half, if not more.
The Japanese government pays on average of 70 percent of the services rendered. Medicare on the other hand will pay 80 percent for some services, but actually pays an average of 42 percent for all services combined. What is saving Japan from going into world default is the fact that Japan only owes 10 percent of its debt to other countries while the US owes four-times that amount to Japan and China combined.
So, the issue isn't so much the plan, it is the cost and the risk it brings. Is it worth it for how much this measure is going to sky-rocket our GDP? Japan's GDP is 228 percent. The US is sitting at approximate 83 percent and this study was done in March. Now that the House is adding $1.4 trillion to the US debt, it's only going to go up as this healthcare bill continues. The US will soon be in the number two spot for the largest debt-to-GDP in the world.
Next, the Senate will meet to pass its own version of the health care bill. Once the Senate bill is passed, a congressional conference committee will be held to consolidate the two legislations for final approval by President Obama.

Citations
Analysis-How much debt is too much: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/reuters/2009/10/22/2009-10-22T172527Z_01_N22443509_RTRIDST_0_ECONOMY-DEBT-ANALYSIS-GRAPHIC.html
Debt Loads of G20 Nations: Japan, U.S. Deep in the Hole: http://seekingalpha.com/article/125072-debt-loads-of-g20-nations-japan-u-s-deep-in-the-hole
For US and Others, How Much Is Too Much Government Debt? http://www.cnbc.com/id/33435720
Landmark health insurance bill passes House: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33748707/ns/politics-health_care_reform
President Obama on "This Week": http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/09/20/president_obama_transcript_abc_this_week_98392.html Rising Debt a Threat to Japanese Economy: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/business/global/21yen.html
Rising debt a threat to Japanese economy http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/business/40981-rising-debt-a-threat-to-japanese-economy-