Un-reasonable People

My response to post about the SuperCommittee  

 http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011104328/reasonable-people

I don't agree that taxes raised on the the 1% require equal, or any, cuts to the 99%'s insurance programs--I refuse to call them entitlements. The 99% has already been "cut" to the bone and is bleeding heavily from every orifice. We need every insurance program we have.... and more....like healthcare for all. We need to take it out of the hides of those who aren't paying their fair share of the freight of the weight of running this country; we need to put the cheaters and thieves that destroyed the housing and banking market in the for-profit prisons they like so much. We, the 99%, are telling them enough is enough. 1% you've had your 30 years of gains, and now it's our turn.. We the People are the 99% and we will #Occupy and we will win.

The Occupy Movement

 Response to Michael Moore comments on Keith Olberman from article in National Memo

http://www.nationofchange.org/keith-olbermann-interviews-michael-moore-about-occupy-movement-1319299608

I love Michael Moore but his call for both Repubs and Dems to embrace the Occupy movement ignores the fact that the Occupy movement is saying they don't want endorsement from any groups because they don't want to be co-opted by any groups.  They are happy to have Unions and people with differing agendas join in the Occupations but the problem comes in when each group starts lobbying for their special wants and needs and insisting that their way is the only way it can be.  What we all want is Social Justice, and that includes economic, political, medical, environmental, old age security, or whatever you believe important.

I am well aware that both Democrat and Republicans take money from the same people.  In spite of that, you must be blind to say there is no difference between the two parties. I am a Democrat, and you cannot tell me that it makes no difference who I vote for...I did not vote for GWB...I did vote for Obama...there is a difference.  The RWNJs and LWNJs and Tealiban and whatever else is out there that wants "my way or the highway" needs to stay the hell out of the Occupy movement.  I'm 67, but I love the energy of this movement, I love the FDR optimism of this movement, and I love that the people in Occupy believe they can change things.  The Eyores are always with us, nay-saying with their constant mantra of "it will never work" " it's hopeless" "it's doomed to failure" .  Maybe so, but at least we aren't sitting on our hands whining about how it can't be fixed, and how we need to get rid of all the bums, and how we should throw them all out and start over.  Bull!

We have an wonderful Constitution, it does not need to be thrown over. We do not need to build the damn world from scratch. We do not need to wreck the whole house because it is dirty.   What we need is to use our votes as Democracy intended to vote in those who have the Peoples' Agenda in mind, regardless of party.  We need liberal filibuster-proof control of both House and Senate so we can get some laws passed to fix the problems.  Primarying the President, or writing in some 3rd party candidate, or writing in "the 99%" or "Occupy"  will only guarantee the GOP status quo wins. Then the President   will likely be re-elected, but will still only be able to get done those things that the GOP allows.  They will not allow votes on anything progressive, they will not agree to make the rich pay their fair share.  This President has gotten a lot done in spite of the GOP.  When not impeded by their stonewalling, he has managed to get rid of Osama Bin Laden, Khaddafi, rescue an American from Somalia pirates, and end the Iraq War.  He has shown he understand the nuanced subtleties of working with your allies so that we do not need to send our military into more unnecessary wars when a surgical strike will work.   Imagine all the stuff we could have fixed if there had been any cooperation. The Ayn Rand worshipping nutcases are not examples of true Americans.   They are not the kind of people American's have always been who care and help one another.  They do not accept that our religion in America never was something we shouted from the street corners while blaming the poor, old, weak and disabled for their own lot.   It was the quiet religion of handouts to the starving from a million kitchen doors in the Depression. It was farmers buying their brothers' farms at auction and then giving it back to the ones who lost it.  It was the everyday heroism of a country that went to work to rebuild itself by rebuilding its foundations and filling the holes and helping each other to move up.  It's the true religion that provided for our elderly and poor and starving with programs that ensured a base of security for the people.  Our religion is the brilliant Democratic Republic created in the Bill of Rights and Constitution that calls for our nation to promote the general welfare of all.

OWS UNAFILLIATED

 Reponse to National Memo story:

OWS unaffiliated

Permalink Submitted by dmcrane on Fri, 10/21/2011 - 11:18pm

I do not want OWS to become part of any Party. It should stay as it is, pushing progressive goals and trying to change hearts and minds where possible. If OWS were to become a third party, I think it would lose most of its participants, and I would be one. I am not interested in futile posturing but in results. I don't care what the Press or the pundits say about OWS because each of us know why we are involved. While we all want to change the system, most of us believe we can do it with the vote if we give our current President a strong, liberal, and filibuster-proof House and Senate. There is nothing we can't fix if we get strong control of both. We do not want it all, but we do want "All" to have enough, and perhaps a little extra to smile about as well. We want the young, and sick, and old, and disabled to be cared for properly. We want education for our children and healthcare for all. We do not have anything against being rich, but we do not want to be a rich people in a poor and angry country. I grew up Republican but I don't recognize the selfish mindset of the majority of the current Republicans. I am sorry to say, they are making all the same mistakes they've been making since the early 1900's and it has been a disaster for us every time. It is indeed time to throw the dirty bathwater out, but we do not need to destroy the house to change the water.

A Response to people saying that MoveOn is trying to Co-Opt  the #Occupy movement.

Actually, I'd say it evolved from the American Dream Movement that Van Jones started up. MoveOn was one of the first to sign on with it, and then other organizations signed on and many of us belonged to several of them. We realized we had many of the same goals and started waking up, and Wisconsin showed us we can be powerful if we work together.  I don't think MoveOn is trying to co-opt the movement, nor could they.  We all want Social Justice and for different people there are different "must haves"  in that scenario, be they economic, political, educational, environmental, racial,  marital, or any social injustice that you may feel oppressed over.  The important thing is that the American public is engaged and enraged and will no longer live lives of quiet desperation. We have watched our health, wealth, jobs, houses and savings go away and our cupboards get more bare and more of our children go hungry and homeless.  We blamed ourselves while working like crazy and were unable to understand what we did wrong.  We  made errors in judgement, didn't understand what was happening to us, and trusted our elected officials and suited bankers to treat us fairly. We felt guilty; surely if we were deserving this wouldn't have happened to us.  That was our biggest mistake., but it does not make us evil. It makes the ones who cheated and stole our country and her resources evil.  We do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, we love our country when she is at her best, and we will get our country back, and fix it,  The greedy will still be greedy, & they will probably still be well off, but they will be more carefully watched and regulated. Some will hopefully get to spend some time in those for-profit prisons they are so fond of running.  The pendulum of  humanity is swinging back our way.  Not all rich are evil; Roosevelt was rich and he loved America and made it strong and great and kind; Buffett is rich and appreciates what America has done for him, Henry Ford was rich and paid a living wage + that allowed his workers to share in his wealth and buy what they built. They all understood that we all benefit when the poorest among us has an education, a roof over their head, and a little pocket money to spend to buy the products we need. I am confident in US; I will continue to be confident in the 99% and I have hope for US.

Supporting the President ...in spite of his not being perfect

 This was a response to a post from someone who didn't think the President was doing enough....

I think you're wrong and I think I'll support the President on this because I'm sensible of the fact that there's probably no one, outside of FDR, who could have done better. I have no wish to bite off my nose to spite my face, lay down, and hand my country over to the Republicans.  At least I'll wait until I can find another President who after having a huge garbage truck of crap dumped on him on a daily basis from the minute he took office and almost never having enough cooperation given because we've got some damn Blue Dog Dems who need their asses kicked, no help and only gaming the system from Republicans instead of helping fix any of these problems. I'll keep this President who in spite of that managed to get some health care, save the auto industry, stop the free fall in the economy, bring the troops home from Iraq (yes, I know he sent more to Afghanistan--just as he said he would during his campaign), rescued an American from pirates, got Bin Ladin and numerous other Al Queda terrorists, and stopped the Republicans from raising taxes on the poor and middle class and from further tanking the economy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling.  Now I am aware that he did not "actually" save or capture the aforementioned people himself, so save yourself a oneupsmanship rant, but he did authorize people, and allowed the right people to plan, the events.  I have been alternately furious when I didn't get everything I wanted and ecstatic about things the President did get done,  Right now, I'm in total disagreement with him on the Keystone XL project and have done and will continue to let him know it in no uncertain terms.  However, one thing I know though, if we get pissed and have a temper tantrum and don't vote, if we split the Presidential vote with another "Savior", we will lose our asses and our country in this 2012 election. That is exactly how we let them get control in the 2010 election.  We let the spoiled brat people who didn't get what they wanted, hated the idea of a black President, and wanted to make sure no one was getting anything they weren't rich enough to be "deserviing of".  We let nut cases who wanted the Government hands off their Medicare, who believe the earth is flat, who believe if you aren't a Christian, you are evil, and a whole host of other sick stuff.  I am part of the 99%, and there is not one more thing I care to give to the Republicans, the Religious Righteous, the Racists, the Rednecks, the TeaPartiers, the 9-9-9 nutcases, or the people who don't give a damn about women or babies after they are born.   If you want everything fixed, it's relatively easy.  Give us a filibuster proof and veto proof Senate and House and we can begin to fix all the parts of our country that have been broken over the last 20 years.  Thank you very much; frailties and all, I support my President..

My Post on AZCentral.com 10/14/11 regarding "for profit prisons"

Brewer/Pearce/Arpaio/Babeu, et al, are turning the prison population into Soylent Green for themselves and for their supporters. They are making huge profit off the pain and heartbreak of the less powerful. There are some things that should not be done for profit...and selling people is one of them. There is too much temptation to let the sick, weak, mentally ill, and just plain poor and powerless become part of the food chain of the greedy. When we turn our backs on the suffering of those who are being eaten for profit by this unjust system, we are endangering all our rights.

I am part of the 99%. I a 67 yr old, retired, homeowner and I will #OccupyPhoenix tomorrow. If you don't understand what we want watch this, http://www.youtube.com/watc... It is very clear and a brilliant statement of purpose. If you disagree stay home, but if you agree join us downtown at Cesar Chavez Plaza..

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2011/10/14/20111014arizona-private-prisons-lawsuit-ON.html#ixzz1amqJbYVC

Article from National Memo with my response.

Why Occupy Wall Street Should Scare Republicans

shareShare on:

Fri, 10/07/2011 - 10:27am — 

Jonathan Alter

Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- In Florida this week, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was asked about the growing Occupy Wall Street movement. "I think it's dangerous, this class warfare," he said.
Romney's right. It may be dangerous -- to his chances of being elected.
Occupy Wall Street, now almost three weeks old, isn't like the anti-globalization demonstrations that disrupted summits in the 1990s or even the street actions at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, though some of the same characters are probably in attendance. With unemployed young protesters planning to camp out all winter in Zuccotti Park (with bathrooms available only at a nearby McDonald's), it's more like a cross between a Hooverville and Woodstock -- the middle-class jobless of the 1930s and the hippie protesters of the 1960s.
With the help of unions and social networking, the movement has at least some chance of re-energizing Democrats in 2012 and pushing back against the phenomenal progress Republicans have made in suppressing voter turnout in several states.
Why? Because the tectonic plates of U.S. politics are shifting in ways we don't yet fully understand. We don't know whether Occupy Wall Street is a carnival party -- a piece of left-wing street theater that gets old fast -- or a nascent political party that revives a long-dormant tradition of class-based politics.
It's possible that these demonstrations, which have now spread to about 150 cities and campuses, will be hijacked by extremists or dissipated by obnoxiousness; the American left has practice in committing suicide. The whole thing could fade as young people find a better way of hanging out offline.
Something Consequential
But my visits to Zuccotti Park made me think it's the beginning of something consequential. So far it looks like a younger, lefty version of the early days of the Tea Party -- a leaderless, mostly organic movement with a catchy symbolic name that captures the public imagination by channeling anger against elites.
Like the Tea Party on the Republican side, Occupy Wall Street makes the party establishment nervous. It's not just that Democratic candidates have done well fundraising on Wall Street in recent years. The bigger problem is getting the activists to draw a distinction between bringing specific greedheads to justice and mocking those parts of Wall Street that are blameless in the 2008 crash and do plenty to invest in the future of the country.
Directing Anger
But a healthy rebalancing of the national conversation is nonetheless under way. The Tea Party directed public anger against the federal government in general and President Barack Obama in particular; Occupy Wall Street directs that ire against Wall Street in general and -- inevitably -- Romney in particular.
This will have no effect on Romney in the Republican primaries, of course, but in a general election it could make him the poster boy of the big banks that many see as the cause of their woes. The specifics of his record running Bain Capital LLC will be subsumed in the image of his rationalizing the actions (resisting any tax increases) of the "1 percenters."
The arguments I heard from the often-articulate protesters in the park were economic, not partisan. None of the posters depicted Romney, House Speaker John Boehner, or any other Republicans. Instead they said things like "Top 1% Want Everything," "Listen to the Drumming of the 99% Revolution," "Stop Off-Shore Tax Evasion," and "Protect Medicare, Not Billionaires."
It's easy to denigrate the movement for simplistic sentiments that lack a clear agenda. But as the Tea Party demonstrations showed in 2009, that very shapelessness is a huge asset (to use the Wall Street term). If "We're the 99 percenters" catches on, and the crazies can be marginalized, then the challenge will be to move from the streets to the ballot box, as the Tea Party did in 2010.
Voting Barriers Multiply
Lack of enthusiasm for Obama would be one problem. But the young people brought into activism by Occupy Wall Street may face other impediments. Today's Republican Party is not just anti-Democratic but anti-democratic. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University just released a disturbing report showing that changes in state laws could make it much harder for more than 5 million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012. Some states are putting barriers in the way of early voting and student voting, both of which are used heavily by the liberal base.
The most appalling laws make it almost impossible to vote without a driver's license, which 11 percent of U.S. adults don't have. College ID cards are not an acceptable substitute in several states. Texas Governor Rick Perry recently signed a bill saying you can vote with a concealed-handgun permit but not with identification from the University of Texas.
Discipline Needed
It isn't hard to see what Republican-controlled legislatures are trying to do. They want to make sure that the kind of free-floating anger expressed by Occupy Wall Street doesn't end up helping Obama's reelection. The claim that the purpose of the new election laws is to prevent voter fraud is itself a fraud, given that there's no widespread evidence of ballots cast under assumed identities.
To make something lasting of this movement, the left must move from legitimate moral outrage to a disciplined approach for electing candidates who want to make Wall Street more answerable for the mess we're in. Even as they're outspent by the Koch brothers and their corporate ilk, the 99 percenters will make 2012 a helluva lot more compelling.
(Jonathan Alter, a Bloomberg View columnist, is the author of "The Promise: President Obama, Year One." The opinions expressed are his own.)
Copyright 2011 Bloomberg.

Occupy Wallstreet "Ye are many -They are few"

'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'

.....last 2 stanzas of "The Masque of Anarchy" 

by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 

Written on the occasion of the massacre of protesters carried 

out by the British Government at Peterloo, Manchester 1819 

Full poem may be read at:  http://www.artofeurope.com/shelley/she5.htm