Two weeks into Occupy Wall Street protests, movement is at a crossroads

I'm not sure, but if I saw a mob protesting anything, I would be somewhat suspicious of those carrying crowbars.

Perhaps they just wanted a little leverage is all.

Top Romney Donor Pens Book Arguing We Need More Income Inequality

Income inequality in the United States has skyrocketed over the last several decades and especially since the Great Recession, so much so that it is now worse than in Ivory Coast and Pakistan. It may even be worse than it was in Ancient Rome, a society built on slave labor.

That income inequality is crushing the middle class and its political power. But don’t tell that to Edward Conard, a top donor to presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney who gained notoriety during the campaign as a million-dollar mystery donor who set up a shell company to shield his identity. Conard, a former director at the Romney-founded Bain Capital, is working on a new book in which he argues that income inequality is a good thing, and what the U.S. really needs is more of it, the New York Times’ Adam Davidson reports:


Unlike his former colleagues, Conard wants to have an open conversation about wealth. He has spent the last four years writing a book that he hopes will forever change the way we view the superrich’s role in our society. “Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong,” to be published in hardcover next month by Portfolio, aggressively argues that the enormous and growing income inequality in the United States is not a sign that the system is rigged. On the contrary, Conard writes, it is a sign that our economy is working. And if we had a little more of it, then everyone, particularly the 99 percent, would be better off. This could be the most hated book of the year.

Conard instead argues that income inequality helps everyone because investors grow wealthy by creating products that benefit the 99 percent. Though that is certainly true to an extent, Conard’s line of thinking leads to the supply-side policies that are proven failures at “growing the pie” for everyone. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, for instance, were supposed to create jobs and spark economic growth for everyone. They did neither, instead saddling the nation with unsustainable debt and deficits that Republicans are now using to justify massive budget cuts to programs that benefit the lower- and middle-classes.

And while investors like Conard made luxuries available to some Americans, they also bankrupted companies and left workers without jobs, pensions, or health care. Bain Capital, in fact, made billions of dollars for people like Romney and Conard while bankrupting nearly a quarter of the companies in which it invested.

Further, Conard believes the financial industry — the same financial industry that sold “shitty deals” and purposely exploited consumers — isn’t to blame for the financial crisis. Instead, it was investors who created an “old-fashioned run on the bank” that created the crisis. That’s a view that, as Davidson notes, “is not shared by many analysts.” It is, however, a view that is shared by Conard’s favorite presidential candidate, who has admitted that he is “not concerned with the very poor” and has promised to repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act that aimed at preventing another such crisis.

Why dont you put it like it is. its just another bunch of politicians bought by the rich. In my opinion nothing to be proud of.

Activists join May Day protests across US, stinging gas in Oakland sends demonstrators fleeing
(By TERRY COLLINS | Associated Press | May 2, 2012)

Thousands of protesters in New York demanded an end to income inequality and housing foreclosures. Police fired tear gas to disperse marchers in Oakland, Calif. And black-clad demonstrators smashed windows in Seattle and occupied a building owned by the Catholic archdiocese in San Francisco.

Activists across the U.S. joined in worldwide May Day protests Tuesday, with anti-Wall Street demonstrators leading the way in some cities as they tried to recapture the enthusiasm that propelled their movement last fall.

While some protesters clashed with police, the melees were far less violent than ones that erupted last fall when the movement was at its peak. There were no major disruptions, though arrests were reported _ including dozens in the San Francisco Bay area.

Many of the rallies, which drew activists pushing a variety of causes, also did not have the same drawing power that gatherings had last year for the Occupy movement or a half-dozen years ago for May Day rallies for immigration reform.

In recent years, activists in the U.S. used May Day to hold rallies for immigrant rights, but the day has been associated for more than a century with workers' rights and the labor movement both in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Across the world on Tuesday, protests drew tens of thousands of demonstrators into the streets from the Philippines to Spain. They demanded everything from wage increases to an end to cuts in education, health care and other austerity measures.

The U.S. protests were the most visible organizing effort by anti-Wall Street groups since the movement's encampments were dismantled last fall.

The major developments include:

_ In Oakland, the scene of several violent clashes between activists and police during last fall's Occupy-inspired protests, the situation threatened to boil over again when police fired tear gas, sending hundreds of demonstrators scrambling.

Officers also fired "flash-bang" grenades to disperse protesters converging on police as they wrestled people to the ground while trying to make arrests, and used more tear gas on Tuesday night to break up the bottle-throwing remnants of what had been a peaceful rally of several thousand.

At least 25 people were taken into custody during the course of the day, including one for setting a police car on fire, police said.

Earlier, some protesters tried to force businesses to shut down for not observing calls for a "general strike."

_ In Seattle, black-clad protesters used sticks to smash store windows and ran through the streets disrupting traffic. Police have made at least eight arrests.

While much smaller in scale, the mayhem was reminiscent of the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in the city that caused widespread damage to stores and forced the cancellation of some WTO events.

Authorities said many of the most violent protesters were trying to hide in the larger crowd by shedding their all-black clothes after they used items such as rocks, hammers and tire irons to damage property.

_ In New York, hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters and their supporters spilled out onto Fifth Avenue in a confrontation with police amid citywide protests, while thousands later gathered peacefully in Union Square.

The group had promised the day would mark a spring revival of their movement.

Occupy organizer Mark Bray said the mood had changed since the group's first organized events late last year. "There was a sense of novelty to Occupy in October," he said. "Today is more celebratory, and nostalgic."

Marchers briefly flooded the avenue and blocked traffic before police in riot gear pushed them back onto the sidewalks. The group chanted: "We are the people. We are united!"

_ In San Francisco, about 200 people took over a vacant building that is owned by the local archdiocese and has been targeted for previous protests. Two men on adjacent rooftops lobbed pipes and bricks at a line of police officers.

About two dozen protesters were taken into custody as police officers in riot gear cleared the building Wednesday, KGO-TV reported.

Police Chief Greg Suhr told reporters he assumed some of the people inside the building were part of a group that vandalized shops, cars and a police station during a pre-May Day demonstration Monday night.

_ In Chicago, about 2,000 activists marched through the city to demand immigration reform and greater protections for workers. The demonstration was largely peaceful. Half a million people rallied in Chicago in 2006 to demand immigration reform. But numbers since have plummeted to just a few thousand.

_ In Los Angeles, a group that broke off from a downtown rally for immigration reform briefly skirmished with police and left an officer injured, and 10 union demonstrators were arrested for blocking an intersection near Los Angeles International airport.

The downtown splinter group of several dozen protesters surrounded a small group of police in a tense standoff. Police Cmdr. Andrew Smith told KNBC-TV that an officer was hit in the helmet by a skateboard, but she was in good condition at a hospital.

_ In Atlanta, about 100 people rallied outside the state Capitol, where a law targeting illegal immigration was passed last year. They called for equal rights for all workers and an end to local-federal partnerships to enforce immigration law.

The rally was significantly smaller than last year's, which drew about 1,000 people. Organizers said turnout last year was greater, in part, because the protest was on a Sunday, rather than during the work week.

"I'm a bit disappointed, but I think this is something to be expected," said Adelina Nicholls, executive director of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, one of the main organizers of the rally.

"It's very difficult to keep a high level of excitement going," Nicholls said. "But it's not only about mobilization. It's also about organization, and we have people working every day to promote immigrant rights."

Cleveland leader: Occupy must watch for trouble
(The Associated Press, May 3, 2012)

CLEVELAND — A city councilman who has served as a liaison to the Occupy movement said Thursday that bomb plotting charges against five men associated with Occupy Cleveland show the group needs to watch for troublemakers.

"This is a horrific example in terms of the arrests of how the movement itself failed to identify and understand the dangerous potential of people affiliated with it," Councilman Brian Cummins said.

Five men associated with the Cleveland Occupy movement, which protests what it calls corporate greed, were charged Tuesday with plotting to bomb a highway bridge in suburban Cleveland. An FBI undercover informant provided a dud bomb and the public was never in danger, the government said.

Cummins, who has served as an occasional go-between for city hall and Occupy Cleveland, said that he became acquainted with one of the alleged bomb plotters, Douglas Wright, 26, of Indianapolis, last fall as the group set up a protest center in downtown Cleveland.

He said Wright came across as an out-of-town drifter trying to fit into the Occupy movement. The criminal complaint against Wright and the others portray them as trying to incite violence by the Occupy protesters and frustrated when they met resistance.

"The whole group appeared to be together and was constantly moving throughout the crowd expressing displeasure at the crowd's unwillingness to act violently," the criminal complaint said. When told by organizers that protesters would submit to arrest peacefully as part of an act of civil disobedience Oct. 21, the men left, one expressing a vulgarity.

While Occupy participants have cooperated with police for months on crime issues, Cummins said the group needs to work on understanding how to monitor those involved.

The Occupy movement said the men were associated with the group but didn't represent Occupy Cleveland or its non-violent philosophy.

Occupy participants stood aside as police removed the group's tent early Thursday, leaving about a half-dozen people standing around or zipped up in sleeping bags. The city said the permit for the tent in the heart of downtown had expired.

Cummins said the Occupy movement has been hampered by the inability to present a unified message because it allows all views to be heard.

"That's a real problem with trying to track and broaden their base," he said. "The decision model really makes it difficult for them to be productive. The movement itself prides itself on allowing diverse opinions and divergent views."

The plotters, described by the government as anarchists, allegedly acted out of anger against corporate America and the government.

All five have been ordered held pending a preliminary hearing Monday, when a federal magistrate will take up the issue of setting bond. The government wants them kept locked up as too risky to release.

I wonder how many people bother too check the so called information the media feed us. Has anyone noticed that Murdoch the guy who owns a large chunk of the U.S. media is in legal trouble. It says something when a crook despinces our news.