Open Thread – Occupy Oakland
For the first time since 1946, Oakland California is having a general strike. Occupy Oakland has grown since the brutal police crackdown that left many injured, including a U.S. Marine with a serious head injury. A general strike was called for, and this evening occupiers swarmed the Port of Oakland, shutting it down.
You can read more HERE.
Another veteran has been seriously injured by the Oakland police. He was walking alone, having left the protest on Strike Day, when he was blocked by several police. They beat him, arrested him, held him in jail, and then finally took him to the hospital hours later, where he had emergency surgery because they burst his spleen.
Can anyone help me out with some background information/opinion of Patricia DeMarco? She moved to Alaska in 1998 and was appointed to the State Utilities Regulatory Commission when it was started in 1999. Tony Knowles reappointed her to a six year term in 2002. However, she moved to my home town, Pittsburgh, in 2005. She is now the Executive Director of the Rachel Carson Homestead Association, and as such should be on the side of the good guys, environmentally speaking.
I’m going to a small program where she will be speaking about local air quality and the Marcellus Shale issues.
My questions are: How did she handle her role as commissioner? Was she fair? Honest?
Why did she leave before her 6 year term was up? It could well have been for personal or family reasons, since she came back to her home town, but I wanted to see if there was any controversy. She left before Palin became Governor, but Palin was appointed Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2003 – any conflicts between these two commissions?
I’m really hoping she will be an authoritative, knowledgeable voice of reason in the insanity surrounding Marcellus Shale, but the oil and gas companies have bought off a majority of the GOP governor and the GOP controlled state legislature. The latest bill to be fast-tracked through the legislature would override all the local governments zoning authority. It will be easier to build a compressor station next to the school playground than to add a deck to your house.
Any information will be appreciated.
Correction: should be “GOP Governor and a majority of the GOP controlled legislature.”
Did you check the ADN for articles on her? They weren’t always the hacks they are now. I don’t remember the name personally. Check the Juneau Empire archives as well, even though I believe her home town during that time was Anchorage.
She also worked as Associate Dean for the College of Business and Public Policy at the University of Alaska Anchorage, so you look for UAA archives. Good luck – hope she’s a good guy!
Thanks for the suggestions.
What I find so sad is that many in the GOP see the insanity of their party but will vote for the crazy anyway as long as there is an R next to a candidate’s name. Take a look at this posting from Frum Forum and read the comments…enlightening and sad:
http://www.frumforum.com/to-govern-better-gop-should-admit-reality
we are under attack make no mistake about that. whether it is some friend who sends us ugly emails or who speaks in Fox tongue we need to be able to reply sensibly, quietly and in the voice of our great ones who came before us and whose voices have been stilled by death. we are the ones they have left behind to continue the fight and use their collective wisdom as shields and swords against ignorance, stupidity, greed, rapaciousness and all those who lack empathy, sympathy, and grace.
here are twenty-five of fifty quotes from Addicting Info.org:
Many Americans today tend to take the past for granted, and with that, we also tend to take the words of past leaders for granted. We forget what they told us, and as a result we lose our identity, we lose the values that make us who we are. Below is a list of quotes spoken by American leaders, heroes, journalists, and others. You’ll find common themes throughout this list. These are the messages from the American past that we should all remember if we hope to solve our own problems and bring America forward to a better future. The future that these people envisioned.
1.) “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”
~John F. Kennedy
2.) “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” ~Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
3.) “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
~John F. Kennedy
4.) “The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.”
~Franklin D. Roosevelt
5.) “I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.”
~Robert Kennedy
6.) “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”
~Franklin D. Roosevelt
7.) “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
~Dwight D. Eisenhower
8.) “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
9.) “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
~Abraham Lincoln
10.) “Ultimately, America’s answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.”
~Robert Kennedy
11.) “It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
~Hubert H. Humphrey
12.) “I believe that there should be a very much heavier progressive tax on very large incomes, a tax which should increase in a very marked fashion for the gigantic incomes.”
~Theodore Roosevelt
13.) “To impose taxes when the public exigencies require them is an obligation of the most sacred character, especially with a free people.”
~James Monroe
14.) “The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for … the protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use.”
~Theodore Roosevelt
15.) “The laboring classes constitute the main part of our population. They should be protected in their efforts peaceably to assert their rights when endangered by aggregated capital, and all statutes on this subject should recognize the care of the State for honest toil, and be framed with a view of improving the condition of the workingman.”
~Grover Cleveland
16.) “It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.”
~Theodore Roosevelt
17.) “Today’s so-called ‘conservatives’ don’t even know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.”
~Barry Goldwater
18.) “The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.”
~Thomas Jefferson
19.) “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.”
~Franklin D. Roosevelt
20.) “Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.”
~John F. Kennedy
21.) “America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal – to discover and maintain liberty among men.”
~Woodrow Wilson
22.) “If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men to capitalize their labor.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright
23.) “I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education.”
~Thomas Jefferson
24.) “While I am a great believer in the free enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment.”
~Barry Goldwater
25.) “Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.”
~Hubert Humphrey
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/29/50-quotes-americans-should-remember/
i hope you are as inspired and uplifted as you read the rest.
Don’t miss Taibbi, this one’s a classic:
“These banks did not need to be dragged kicking and screaming to make the billions of dollars in profits from these and other similar selling-baby-powder-as-coke transactions. They did it for the money, and they did it because they did not give a f… who got hurt.
Who cares if some schmuck carpenter in Connecticut loses the pension he’s worked his whole life to save? Who cares if he’s now going to have to work until he’s seventy, instead of retiring at fifty-five? It’s his own fault for not knowing what his pension fund manager was buying.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/mike-bloombergs-marie-antoinette-moment-20111103
nice post Beth.
i watched Sharpton’s show on Tuesday and was blown away when Ann Coulter announced that ” Their Blacks were better than than the Left’s Blacks. i was not aware that i or any of my people were still in slavery and are owned by anyone. thanks to Miss Ann i do now. so i would like it if Missy would send me airfare so i can go prepare a feast for her and her family members (all of them), her friends and associates at Fox News and her neighbors. i promise it will be a night to remember. a feast to die for.
Right on, Bubbles, right on.
May I contribute anything, any thing at all, to the feast?
I love the poster. That the shackles being broken are dollar signs is so appropriate.
I am so proud of the people participating in this. There is little movement here in the KC-metro area, but Lawrence has had a significant protest this fall.
That a significant percentage of the movement is young people gives me hope for the future of our country. Change indeed is inevitable. The tipping point is closer and we may see improvements in how wealth is distributed in this country and around the world. It is immoral that one percent disregards the welfare of the rest of the population to further their own greed.
More power to the those who peacefully protest! They are real patriots and warriors for change. Just as movements before them, peaceful masses make for positive change.
It’s facinating to me to watch how the GOTP/rwnjs and FOX interpret the OWS movement. It’s rather obvious they are trying to put it into context with which they are familiar, and aren’t having any luck; no, OWS is not the polar opposite of The Tea Party movement.
Nor does OWS have celebrity endorsers (Glenn, $P, et.al.) as ‘draws’ to rallys; deep, deep pockets (Koch, Murdoch, et.al.) to fund its “grassroot-iness” (busses to transport participants, patriotically decorated stages, state-of-the-art sound systems, etc.); or a national media outlet promoting –with feigned incredulity at its ‘spontaneity’!– the movement with 24/7 commentary and coverage (FOX).
You won’t see a OWSer carrying a sign saying: “Keep the CEOs out of my $607K annual salary”, either, but you’ll see TPers at their rallys with signs saying: “Keep Govrenment out of my Medicare”. And you won’t see at various rallys across the nation, OWSers with large signs visciously and nastily portraying the duly and democratically elected leader of the country as ‘the enemy’ and/or the cause of all the woes they’re protesting. Hmmm…
Funnily enough, *non* GOTP/rwnj-ers understand perfectly well the [original] gripes of the TP movement, but choose *not* to join in because 1) the movement was –and is– not in the best interest of the vast majority of citizens, 2) the movement is inundated with newly-elected Johnny-One-Worders (“No!”), and the political arm of the movement has been pretty much co-opted by the Talibangelicals.
You’d think the GOTP/rwnjs would throw their weight behind the OWSer movement and/or join in whole-heartedly — afterall, wouldn’t freeing up that mega 1% of national individual wealth make their “trickle down economics” a reality; wouldn’t it ‘prove’ to the sane amongst us that there even is such a thing and that TDE actually *does* work? But they don’t.
They, like their 9 1/2 not-ready-for-prime-time brain cells (FOX, Glenn, Rush, Laura, SP et.al.) are still scratching their collective heads trying to figure out how a “grassroots movement” could *possibly* work Without huge amounts of $ backing all the venues, celebrities, and ‘patriotic’ bells and whistles the TP had/has for ITs ‘grassroots movement.’ Other than knowing OWS is “bad” (because they’ve been told it is) the poor folks who are dependent upon The Gospel According to FOX for their brain-feed, don’t know what to make of it…FOX is still fumbling around looking for who/what is funding the OWSers — they’re still under the delusion and totally insane notion that OWS is the left’s ‘answer’ to their Tea Party.
I must say, I’m really scratching my head over the GOTP/rwnj/FOX reaction to OWS. beth.
There’s been another toxic coal ash spill, this one into Lake Michigan:
http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2011/coal-ash-spills-into-lake-michigan-in-wisconsin
The power company responsible has been handing out bottled water to Wisconsinites whose wells are now contaminated. Of course, the T Potty Congress has refused to take any action to regulate coal ash.
Wow, here’s a new gotta read:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933633867
I’m about a fourth of the way through it and can’t put it down. Check out the Wonkette article “Meet the Smart Anthropologist Who Helped Launch #OWS” – look in the right sidebar. It contains a link to the Bloomberg article about David Graeber.
I can remember Joan Baez and her mother, plus a big group of Quakers lying down on the tracks at the Oakland Military Depot, blocking trains pulling carloads of troops bound for Vietnam. I would’ve joined them, but hadn’t a clue how to skip junior high and travel the 60 miles to Oakland. It was a lovely gesture, but it didn’t stop anything. The war didn’t start weighing on the America peoples’ conscience until protesters started burning down cities across America. Looking back now, it was an awful mess, and so sad that things had to go that way. “All is changed, changed utterly,” as Yeats wrote about an earlier conflict, “A terrible beauty is born.” This movement is as big as the anti-war movement of the 60’s, and even more important. I think many things will get broken in the process, but change is going to come.
but I think sometimes things have to get violent before the rest of us start paying attention.
absolutely Mag. i quite agree.
I’m biting my tongue real hard on this one.
me, too
To paraphrase Lemony Snicket, ignoring crowds of upset, angry people never leads to a happy ending.
American Revolution. French Revolution. Arab Spring.
“A Texas Sheriff’s Department is Launching an Unmanned Helodrone that Could Carry Weapons”
“A sheriff’s office outside of Houston is taking a big and potentially controversial step forward with a new piece of law enforcement technology. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Conroe, Texas, is prepping its deputies to fly a $300,000 unmanned ShadowHawk helicopter –paid for with a Department of Homeland Security grant–that someday might carry a weapons payload.
“This wouldn’t mark the first time a law enforcement agency has put a drone in the air, but the potential for carrying anything besides a surveillance payload is unprecedented as far as we’ve heard. There won’t be any Hellfire missiles here, but ShadowHawk–built locally by a company called Vanguard Defense Industries–is designed to carry a range of less-lethal payloads, including Taser-esque weapons that deliver an electric charge or a firearm that fires beanbag rounds known as stun batons…”
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-11/texas-sheriffs-department-launching-unmanned-helo-could-carry-weapons
This technology in the hands of “a Texas sheriff’s dept.” ~ what could possibly go wrong?!
sounds like they are getting ready to make war on us yanks doesn’t it? leave the Union so they can fly that confederate flag they so proudly love to wave. or maybe they will use that weapon against Texas citizens they don’t like the look of.
in any case we have seen police departments receiving military grade weapons for some time.
they used sound wave machines against university kids and peaceful demonstrators in Pennsylvania.
i have seen them use heavy duty tank-like vehicles to evict people from their illegally occupied homes in Manhattan. overkill to say the least.
That is scary. Can you imagine these being used as crowd control tools? Gees, the idea of a non-surveillance payload should terrify us all. The ways that could be misused are endless.
Thanks for the heads-up, Scout. People need to protest this now, before it gets a foothold. Our children and grandchildren could very well be paying the price for our inaction and apathy.
Consider corporations eventually taking over policing actions. It is not inconceivable to see the GOP or TP push for the privatization of police forces just as they have done with the prison industry, and we all know of instances of abuses and excesses there.
I read the article, and the sheriff’s department says their first priority for use of this drone is in search-and-rescue operations.
I am a search manager for a search-and-rescue team here in Alaska, and I would love to have drones available for searches. Why send a team on foot down a trail at maybe two miles an hour when a drone could fly at treetop level at eight miles an hour? Why should I risk volunteers when I could risk a machine? And if this drone can carry a payload, all the better. I could load it with a package to drop to a subject when the drone found him: a radio, a space blanket, some food and water, some chemical heat packs. This would vastly improve the subject’s chance of survival until a team got to him.
If I were in the military and wanted to kill people I would already have drones. But because all I want to do is to save lives, “it’s too expensive.”
Don’t assume the worst about the sheriff’s department getting this equipment.
You are off the hook on this one.
The uses you describe sound like an extremely worthwhile purpose for the drones.
However, my first thought was that the drones will next make their way to Maricopa County and into the dirty little hands of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And THAT is a frightening thought because I can guarantee he would NOT be thinking along the same lines as you are. He would be quickly swapping the survival gear for some nasty weapons he could aim towards anyone who doesn’t look like a middle-aged, white, overweight and undereducated Sheriff.
Did anyone catch Ann Curry’s interview this morning w/ Reince Priebus, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee? It was absolutely shocking and embarassing to watch. She was trying to get his response to some of the harassment allegations against Cain, and also about the news that the Perry campaign may have leaked info against Cain. He never answered a single question, and went on several completely nonsensical rants against the current administration and the Democrats. He distorted statistics, he denied any knowledge of hearing about the leaks from the Perry campaign over the last 24 hours (out of touch with his position as head of the party, or just a bad liar?). He even managed to blame the Democrats and Obama for creating the divide in this country and pitting citizens against each other. Wow! Delusional much? It was absolutely maddening, and really, really transparent and unprofessional. It could only appeal to the most uninformed, dyed-in-the-wool Fox News types. I’m guessing it will only help to point out to most folks just how dysfunctional and out of touch the party has become.
the Kochs own ‘Caine. he is their “boy” (my use of “boy” is intentional and denotes my personal opinion and contempt for this deeply ignorant and oblivious man.)
i, being a registered repub, so that i can retain the power of my vote in primaries in CA, received a mailer from R. Preibus, outlining the Repub strategy in the 2012 election. The entire plan is simply to trounce Mr. Obama. no other platform issues, no other goal. no pride in any R candidates or positions. Simply, remove Mr. Obama (i add the honorific Mr.) from office.
i used the postage paid envelope to send them a response, which was “is this truly the stand you are taking?”
i love using their postagepaid envelopes
i stood with some locals in my area’s occupy rally yesterday. i held a sign that read “people over profit”, and i learned from my fellows what they think is the problem. i was there purely to learn.
i have been watching the ows movement, and am always glad to see people getting involved in the process of governing ourselves.
then, there were hooligans in Oakland that tarred the ows folks with ugliness and violence. why do these people have to do that? isn’t peaceful assembly the correct path? why is it necessary to go to such extremes? i can’t get with that at all.
so, i will continue to learn…and i will continue to admire the folks who stand for something real; for economic inequity and corporate greed.
i meant against economic inequality and corporate greed. 🙂
The hooligan factor is a serious threat to the Occupy movement, in my opinion.
And these days the hooligans are very organized. They call themselves “anarchists” and their “anti-capitalist” philosophy revolves around infiltrating peaceful demonstrations and marches and intentionally wreaking destruction and violence, thus making the peaceful marchers look bad.
We had this happen the night of May 1 last year here in Santa Cruz, CA, where a bunch of them showed up in “black bloc” mode (dressed all in black – hooded sweatshirts, ski masks, backpacks) and took over an International Workers Day march on one of our main streets. They smashed and bashed their way down the street, throwing boulders, breaking windows, and painting their slogans. Thousands of dollars of damage to businesses, most of whom are owned by locals just trying to get by.
These types have already shown their presence in the Occupy movement (last night in Oakland being a good example), and it worries me that it could get worse and derail the whole movement. 🙁
approximately two weeks ago,a journalist who claimed to be an ass’t editor at American Spectator rag,name of Patrick Howley, said he infiltrated a group of protestors at the National Air and Space Museum fot the express purpose of starting a riot to show that the protestors were violent. He was apparently the only one involved in his plan and he got peeper-sprayed roundly for his efforts. His sole purpose was to create a story he could write an article about.
He got peeper sprayed? Wow, that must have HURT.
Conservative columnist takes Cain to task:
“And more to the point, the source of the story is not relevant to evaluating Cain. It’s his behavior that voters should assess, both as an executive then and in handling a scandal now. The past few days have been horrendous for Cain, not merely (or primarily) because of the underlying allegations. He’s played the race card (how Perry fits into that scheme is unknown). He’s changed his story multiple times. He’s shown to be, at the very least, forgetful; at worst, a liar. Under pressure, he’s essentially wilted. So does it matter if Perry or someone else got the ball rolling? Hardly.
“What this week has shown is that Cain lacks both knowledge (on China, terrorism, taxes, abortion) and self-awareness. He has a weird and incompetent staff. He lacks any feel for political communication in emergency situations. So if Perry did orchestrate this (and I find that hard to believe), he did the party and country a public service. Cain shouldn’t get near the White House, unless he’s on a public tour.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/who-done-it-it-doesnt-matter-who-fingered-cain/2011/11/02/gIQAPj99gM_blog.html?hpid=z3
excellent. you know who else lacks knowledge and self awareness?
Interesting choice of words from Oakland’s Chief of Police when he called vandals “anarchists”. That is what Americans were called during labor strife in the late 19th century by the monopolistic thugs of railroads and oil companies. Anarchists amd Communards.
The thing is, mike, they aren’t the same group. The anarchists that now show up at protests are bent on violence and destruction of property. They don’t seem to really have a political point to make except to destroy whatever is there. They are the same ones who hijacked the protests at the WTO in Seattle. It was a mostly peaceful protest until they started vandalizing and causing nothing but trouble. When they take over a protest movement, any message is lost and the police have to step in.
Here’s a link that explains what happened – and I think it’s particularly interesting that the peaceful Occupy protestors stepped in to try to stop this group:
http://jamaicaplain.patch.com/articles/anarchists-vandalize-oakland-calif-whole-foods
“The People Are Too Big To Fail”. (H/T to an occupier up there in AK with that sign)
I am so heartened to see people standing up and calling attention to the power of people. I have heard several say that they don’t see any sort of message from the occupiers….and I tell them, “Really? Ok, but you’re paying attention, aren’t you?” That’s the beginning, having people actually pay attention and get interested in what the hell is going on in this country. Mostly, people think it’s just about the pissed off unemployed. I wish the movement would identify all the ones who are still in the 99, but make good money. Because even if you make $200,000 a year, it’s still a tiny fraction of what the 1% are raking in and not paying taxes on.
I would like to see a cohesive message for those Americans with the tiny attention span who are unable to formulate their own ideas about what this all means. There might be more support. However, that being said, I love that this is happening here, and around the globe. It’s about time. The people united will never be defeated. No amount of money can suppress the fighting spirit of a population who feels wronged.
Keep this thing going.
It gave me chills to watch and read about the “Occupy Oakland” General Strike !! I can’t think of a better symbolic target (The Port of Oakland). (Not to discount the effort, brotherhood, the personal reality that ‘today’s the day’. )
grammer and punctuation is drifting. Imagine, shutting down the Port of Anchorage. 20 degrees, north wind 20 to 30 kph. Probably could not happen here, since we are all pretty soft. But the concept simmers.
I’m going to think about this more.
nem
Yeah, I thought about the Port of Seattle and the Port of Tacoma here. I wonder if anyone will try to do the same here, as the Occupy movement has continued in Seattle. We’ll see. At the moment, I don’t think they have the organization or will to make that happen.
There were thousands there today. It was pretty amazing.