March 15, 2013

Timcast: Today at 5pmEST I will be covering the manifencours Anti Police brutality protest.

Tim Pool ?@Timcast

Today at 5pmEST I will be covering the #manifencours Anti Police brutality protest. Follow me here and watch live at
http://Timcast.tv

(The Montreal student movement continues! For very recent backstory: )

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12526135

March 15, 2013

Occupy Sugar: A Movement Whose Time Has Come

via Occupy Chicago.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/03/occupy-sugar-a-movement-whose-time-has-come.html

Right here in America, under our collective nose, there is an industry that survives on political patronage and government subsidies, that regularly receives mysterious and untraceable bailouts funded by taxpayers, that is disproportionately influential in Washington as a result of its massive lobbying efforts, and that is making huge profits at the expense of ordinary consumers.

I'm not talking about Wall Street. I'm talking about the American sugar industry, which for years has been a perfect case study for the corrupting influence of money in politics. These days, beverage-makers like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are catching flack for working behind the scenes to build opposition to Mayor Bloomberg's soda ban. But the sugar industry has been exerting its power in politics for decades. And while camping out at a Florida sugarcane farm isn't as sexy and eye-catching as a Zuccotti Park protest, it's clear that Big Sugar needs to be kept in check with an Occupy movement of its own.

Today's Wall Street Journal has a story about the Department of Agriculture's decision to consider bailing out the U.S. sugar industry by buying 400,000 tons of sugar from major U.S. producers, at a taxpayer-funded cost of roughly $80 million. The massive purchase would "prop up tumbling U.S. sugar prices, which have fallen 18% since the USDA made the nine-month operations-financing loans beginning in October," according to the Journal.

Why does the U.S. sugar industry need an $80 million bailout, you ask? Because sugar-makers are in danger of defaulting on loans the government gave them as part of a previous bailout program.

(More at the link.)

March 14, 2013

Three waves of revolt: Where do we aim our fists to strike a death blow to capitalism's body?

EcoAgAA ?@EcoAgAA

Read for the day: Three waves of revolt Where do we aim our fists to strike a death blow to capitalism's body? https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/106/three-waves-revolt.html …

https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/106/three-waves-revolt.html

Muscles and Heart

The traditional Marxist answer, embraced by insurrectionaries from Bakunin to Occupy, is to hit the processes of production by going on strike. The total worker’s strike is the dream, once hauntingly imagined by socialist novelist Jack London, of the scales overturned: the rich starving in their mansions while the workers sit idle. The strike strikes at the heart and muscles of capitalism by threatening the system with the paralyzing withdrawal of our collective labor. But the transformations wrought by post-industrial capitalism, combined with decades of organizing for a grand defection that never materializes, have tattered the strike’s proud flag. The last generation to pull it off was the heroes of 1968, who instigated the first-ever wildcat general strike before flaring out.

Brains and Mind

A newer answer urges us to end economic bondage by abolishing debt. Debt, this argument goes, is modern day slavery. Unrepayable debts shackle most of us to the manic-depressive cycles of capitalism, while a decreasing number of men grow increasingly rich. Accordingly, two post-Occupy tactics make debt the bullseye. First is the debt-strike tactic, like the student loan debtors who collectively refuse to repay their loans. Second is the movement to strike debt, like the recently launched Rolling Jubilee. This project, conceived by Adbusters in 2009 and pulled off by a maverick affinity group of Zuccottis in 2012, buys distressed debt for pennies on the dollar – and then forgives it. Like the traditional strike, both angles of debt resistance target the system of production, now epitomized by Goldman Sachs rather than Ford. But such tactics also, as Friedrich Nietzsche and more recently David Graeber have argued, undermine the powerful social and moral bonds that enmesh us in the system. Anti-debt activism thus strikes simultaneously at the material and the ideological: at capitalism’s brains as well as its mind.

(More at the link.)

March 14, 2013

Eyes please upon tonight's Kimani Gray vigil.

A young man gunned down by NYPD undercovers whom witnesses say did not identify until the boy was fleeing...riot cop response to the last few nights of vigils, with arrests designed to troll for outraged response (riot cops need a riot)...apparently there will be another vigil tonight. NYPD have declared Flatbush to be a "frozen zone" into which no journalist may enter, so you know NYPD are at their worst behavior.

One possible livestream, more to be added as applicable:

http://www.ustream.tv/stopmotionsolo


Libor Von Schönau ?@LiborVonSchonau

Cops on roof: not just poor neighborhoods of #USA under military #NYPD #occupation. #KimaniGray #BrooklynProtest pic.twitter.com/HWy0RAvAkk

March 14, 2013

Using disaster to create the government of your choice (Updated and much worse)

Flying Squirrel's interesting OP regarding perhaps Obama should have allowed the country to fall into another great depression

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12526385

spawned this reply:

Look at Greece and the neo-NAZI "golden dawn" party, and until recently the Goldman Sacks lackey in charge of Italy, and his henchmen scattered around Europe in government and banking. Debt to the big banks, among other things, has helped to create disaster situations in which the very rich have installed personnel and even entire political parties which will benefit the growth of their enterprise and power.

When you look at America, you are looking at Personal Convenience as a main motivating factor. Helping Others is another but it doesn't factor in this particular equation. When Personal Convenience is directly assaulted, people will be unhappy and want it to change. When it becomes bad enough, people will scream for change. Unfortunately the powers that be fully understand this sadistic possibility and opportunity: you can purposefully create the causes and conditions in which people will demand Change no matter what, and will jump to demand placed into power, any who shout that they can deliver it. Even those who have created the problem in order to be placed into power.

This has occurred three particular times in recent history:

1. The Bush Disaster Family and their ties with OPEC caused an oil embargo which made President Carter appear weak and foolish. Americans were significantly impacted and they demanded Change. Bush also managed to get reportedly get Iran to hold the hostages until Reagan took office to again make Carter appear weak and foolish. Worked like a charm and disaster waltzed right in. From Reagan we see the beginning of the destruction of unions and the middle class, the start of the long game which is currently reaching fruition.

Regarding Bush, Reagan, and the "October Surprise":

"I was deposed in June 1981 as a result of a coup against me. After arriving in France, I told a BBC reporter that I had left Iran to expose the symbiotic relationship between Khomeinism and Reaganism.

Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan had organized a clandestine negotiation, later known as the 'October Surprise,' which prevented the attempts by myself and then-US President Jimmy Carter to free the hostages before the 1980 US presidential election took place. The fact that they were not released tipped the results of the election in favor of Reagan.

Two of my advisors, Hussein Navab Safavi and Sadr-al-Hefazi, were executed by Khomeini’s regime because they had become aware of this secret relationship between Khomeini, his son Ahmad, the Islamic Republican Party, and the Reagan administration."

2. The major Bush supporters Enron met with Schwarzenneger before purposefully shutting down portions of the California power grid, a series of events named "rolling blackouts". Californians wanted Change. A run-off election occurred and Schwarzenneger waltzed right in and immediately began hacking away at infrastructure serviceperson pensions and unions, schools, etc. And Enron were forgiven the rulings against them to the tune, IIRC, of pennies on the dollar.

3. Most recently, in Michigan. Rachel Maddow warned us about the far right "tea party" (read: Koch Brothers) politicians in Michigan steamrolling the political process as well as wishing to grab up the bequeathed beach-front property in otherwise impoverished, African-American Benton Harbor. Pontiac, Benton Harbor, and shortly Detroit are under the tender loving ministrations of "emergency managers" who through appointment by the State, are free to do as they will with all resources. And Wall Street have walked away from Detroit's distress to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.

Forcing cuts upon the poor while the rich benefit is "austerity" as seen in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and now America.

Although Big Ed (love him) appears to not see that the "emergency manager" process is a planned scam, his overview of its effects is superb and frightening:

Since Lou Schimmel became Pontiac’s emergency manager in 2011, he has privatized the Department of Public Works, outsourced police services to the Oakland County sheriff’s office, and turned over the city’s fire department to nearby Waterford Township, killing the public sector unions which represented the city’s firefighters and cops. He’s put every city property, including City Hall, up for sale and cut the city’s public employee workforce by about 90%. And he’s done it all without the consent of the city council.

Across Michigan, emergency managers installed by the state are using sweeping powers to privatize public services, lay off city employees, and weaken public sector unions with little standing in their way. Now the same thing is likely to happen in Motor City, one of the industrial centers of America.

Ostensibly a mechanism for rescuing insolvent Michigan cities and school districts from the brink of bankruptcy, the Emergency Management system has turned into a way for unelected officials to break up public sector unions, privatize public services, and drastically shrink the size of municipal governments. Currently, five Michigan cities are being administered by emergency managers—all of whom were appointed by the state’s Local Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board (ELB).

When a city fails to meet certain financial benchmarks, the state can step in.

To have the state step in, it helps to have a Koch Brothers-funded "tea party" politician as governor.

"...it secures a dream of the anti-union Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council, whose associates are well-represented among Snyder’s donors, and whose economic agenda has been ascendant within the modern GOP."

Rachel Maddow warned in 2011:

"Last night on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, Maddow explained that Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder is pushing a bill through that will give ultimate governmental power literally to corporations, thereby using shock doctrine tactics to create a dystopian government. Synder’s bill not only goes after collective bargaining rights, but does in fact seem to represent the Republicans’ final solution to killing democracy by enabling the replacement of elected officials, dissolving entire city’s government and handing them over to corporations. Snyder calls his 'budget bill' a 'shared sacrifice,' but it gifts corporations with 1.8 billion in tax breaks while hitting citizens with harder taxes, including seniors and other vulnerables, and cutting essential services to an already suffering region."

dtom67 said in a related thread:

The " derivitives" are usually the culprit... Municipal officials use some byzantine derivative bet ,that they do not really understand, to fund pensions. The Bet crashes and they city owes a shitload of money to wall street.
This allows the city to go bankrupt and void its Union contracts. It has finally been understood that the key to breaking unions is to bankrupt those they work for."

And here it is:

It appears that UBS, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase enabled about $3.7 Billion of bond issues to cover deficits, pension shortfalls since 2005 and with interest these liabilities rose to $15 billion including money owed to retires and the city employees pension fund.

These bond sales cost Detroit $474 million for underwriting expenses, bond insurance and the handling of interest rate swaps. This total cost is equal to the Detroit’s budget for police and fire protection for that same period.

Note that energy was involved twice, and that the right wing pulled it off. Energy and such are issues which are not effected by voting, and the right and the rich will use such lateral stunts to direct politics in their preferred direction. See the Koch brother article I posted yesterday.

Read "The Shock Doctrine" and "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room". Debt and disaster are used to ripen conditions for control and profit. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. And debt is the main tool being used as far as I can see to ripen conditions in Europe. This may be why it is seemingly impossible to get politicians to do something, anything about the $1 trillion of US student loan debt. Our young are already in their thrall.

The Citigroup "Plutonomy" memo mentions the rich wanting right-wing, anti-immigration governments which will aid in profitable globalisation efforts. The very rich are most certainly engaging in their creation as we post. Voting will not slow down these corporations. But note that the memo lists their first and most significant fear, which is of a populist uprising demanding fair income equality and action against right-wing, corporate and bank-friendly politics.

Referenced:

There are two important factors regarding the DHS/TSA which are rarely taken into consideration:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022486390

Charles Koch Reflects on Last Election, Promises to Do More to 'Persuade Politicians'
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173315/charles-koch-reflects-last-election-promises-do-more-persuade-politicians#

Student Loan debt surpasses credit card debt in the US: $1Trillion+
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12526452

Who or what exactly enables "austerity", or "sequestration"?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022445620

Article regarding Goldman Sach's reach into European government and banking:
http://acampadabcninternacional.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-acampadabcn-takethesquare-acampadasol-15m-occupy/

Reagan Iran "October Surprise" article via greenman3610
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Global-Viewpoint/2013/0305/Argo-helps-Iran-s-dictatorship-harms-democracy

Only Wall Street Wins in Detroit Crisis Reaping $474 Million Fee via limpyhobbler
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-14/only-wall-street-wins-in-detroit-crisis-reaping-474-million-fee.html

Cash-strapped cities seized by new management via erinlough
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/11/michigans-emergency-manager-law-another-front-in-the-war-for-union-survival/

Koch brothers, Tea Party cash drives Michigan right-to-work bill
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/11/koch_brothers_tea_party_cash_drives_michigan_right_to_work_bill/

Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaire Koch Brothers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/study-confirms-tea-party-_b_2663125.html

Rachel Maddow Exposes Michigan Republicans Secret War On Democracy
http://www.politicususa.com/rachel-maddow-michigan.html

dtom67 "Derivatives" quote:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1252&pid=6552

LIBOR Rigging & Complex Derivatives By UBS Contributed To Detroit’s Demise
http://www.mfi-miami.com/2013/03/libor-rigging-complex-derivitives-by-ubs-contributed-to-detroits-demise/

Scattered analysis of the Citigroup "Plutonomy" memo:
http://occupyobservations.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-leaked-2006-citigroup-plutonomy-memo.html

March 14, 2013

Justice Dept. charges Reuters employee Matthew Keys with helping Anonymous hack Tribune Co.

Doran ?@doranb

RT @ForbesTech: Justice Dept. charges Reuters employee Matthew Keys with helping Anonymous hack Tribune Co. http://bit.ly/ZRhyyo


http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/03/14/reuters-employee-matthew-keys-indicted-for-helping-anonymous-hack-tribune-co/

A social media producer for Reuters faces federal prosecution after allegedly helping the hacker collective Anonymous break into the computer systems of the Los Angeles Times and its corporate parent, Tribune Co.

The Department of Justice indicted Matthew Keys, a 26-year-old from Sacramento, Calif., on three counts of hacking-related felonies, which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and $250,000.

According to the indictment, which is embedded below, Keys is a former employee of the Sacramento television station KTXS-Fox 40, where he worked as a web producer. In December 2010, in an online forum used by Anonymous, Keys, under the username AESCracked, allegedly shared a username and password that he told them would allow them to access the content management system of Fox 40 and the Times.

One hacker, operating under the screen name Sharpie, told Keys he “had a whole front page layout made for the chicago tribune” but “there [sic] sysadmins were good” and quickly shut down his access. Keys allegedly attempted to get Sharpie back into the system but was unable.

(Apparently looking for a story and later on says he did not offer any confidentiality, which is a journalist's job, to protect their sources...more at the link.)

March 14, 2013

Former CEO reveals Blackwater worked as ‘virtual extension of the CIA’

via Truth Beckons on Facebook.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/14/former-ceo-reveals-blackwater-worked-as-virtual-extension-of-the-cia/#.UUHeVz4eNSw.facebook

The mercenary group formerly known as Blackwater worked as a “virtual extension of the CIA,” the company’s former CEO revealed to Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake, who obtained court documents showing the company argued as much when its executives were facing prosecution.

It has long been known that Blackwater, now called Academi, worked with the Central Intelligence Agency, and there were even some pretty straightforward clues that former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince was an agency asset. That relationship is strongly clarified by the company’s own legal defense in a three-year prosecution that collapsed in February, going from having the potential to jail several of the company’s executives to wrapping up with a guilty plea from two men punishable by probation, house arrest and a $5,000 fine.

“Blackwater’s work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked,” Prince told Lake. “In the years that followed, the company became a virtual extension of the CIA because we were asked time and again to carry out dangerous missions, which the Agency either could not or would not do in-house.”

Prince added that for many missions he did not even charge the CIA, saying his work at the company came not out of a desire for enrichment, but because “in the wake of 9/11, I felt it my patriotic duty.”

(More at the link.)

March 14, 2013

DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones

Cross-posted from Occupy Underground.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57572207-38/dhs-built-domestic-surveillance-tech-into-predator-drones/

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show.

The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department's unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States' northern and southern borders but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.

Homeland Security's specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they "shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not," meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify "signals interception" technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and "direction finding" technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained a partially redacted copy of Homeland Security's requirements for its drone fleet through the Freedom of Information Act and published it this week. CNET unearthed an unredacted copy of the requirements that provides additional information about the aircraft's surveillance capabilities.

(More at the link.)

March 14, 2013

Last rites in foreclosure fight? Minnesota Senate Dems block hearing on Homeowners' Bill of Rights

via Carlos, Occupy Fights Foreclosures. I was requested to cross-post this from Occupy Underground. My best to Minnesotans!

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2013/03/11/last-rites-foreclosure-fight-minnesota-senate-dems-block-hearing-homeowners-bill-rig

This is not the way Minnesota housing rights activists thought it would turn out when Democrats regained control of the the State Legislature: Hopes for passing a Homeowners’ Bill of Rights to protect Minnesotans from needlessly losing their homes to foreclosure all but died Friday.

A Homeowners’ Bill of Rights — similar to one that was adopted by California last year — would require automatic mediation between banks and homeowners facing foreclosure and prohibit the practice of “dual-tracking,” in which banks negotiate with homeowners while simultaneously moving them towards foreclosure, often without their knowledge. Activists have been hoping that the Legislature will adopt such protections to help end the foreclosure crisis but got a cold dose of political reality: Without banking industry approval, some Democrats in the Senate appear unwilling to support a Homeowners’ Bill of Rights.

In a polite but tense, closed-door meeting between activists and staffers for the Democratic chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, Sen. James Metzen of South St. Paul, supporters of the proposal were told that it will not be given a hearing this session. This news contradicted an understanding that representatives of the group Isaiah/Faith in Democracy thought they had reached with Metzen at a meeting last month. Metzen, a banker in private life, did not attend Friday’s scheduled meeting in his office, with staffers telling Isaiah that the DFLer had chosen to attend a different meeting.

The ministers and volunteers from Isaiah, a coalition of more than 100 congregations plus clergy members and people of faith, were openly disappointed at Metzen’s absence and at the news that the housing reforms they have been pushing for will not be given a hearing. As a small circle of clergy prayed outside Metzen’s office in a Capitol corridor, the discussion between Metzen’s staff and a dozen volunteers from Isaiah turned difficult.

(More text and a short video at the link.)

March 14, 2013

DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones

Privacy Related News ?@privacyfocused

Not scared yet? ... DHS built domestic surveillance tech into Predator drones http://cnet.co/ZaD4fa via @CNET #policestate #privacy


http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57572207-38/dhs-built-domestic-surveillance-tech-into-predator-drones/

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones, government documents show.

The documents provide more details about the surveillance capabilities of the department's unmanned Predator B drones, which are primarily used to patrol the United States' northern and southern borders but have been pressed into service on behalf of a growing number of law enforcement agencies including the FBI, the Secret Service, the Texas Rangers, and local police.

Homeland Security's specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they "shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not," meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify "signals interception" technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and "direction finding" technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained a partially redacted copy of Homeland Security's requirements for its drone fleet through the Freedom of Information Act and published it this week. CNET unearthed an unredacted copy of the requirements that provides additional information about the aircraft's surveillance capabilities.

(More at the link.)