March 31, 2012

One of the most damning and scary aspects of the Trayvor Martin murder

To me one of the most alarming and hideous aspects of Trayvon's Murder -- quite aside from the more obvious outrages
of Trayvon's death, the impacts on family and friends, the police Dept. gross incompetence and/or complicity, etc. -- is the
MESSAGE this sends to all the other gun-toting racist Right Wingnuts out there looking for excuses to act out their racist
hate with violence towards Black or Brown people. Not to mention the MESSAGE it sends to people of color about how they
have virtually NO protection from getting bullied, intimidated, ensnared into a violent white-racist incident and murdered in
cold blood; and their white murder just walks away with not even an arrest.

If Zimmerman continues to just walk away from this with no arrest, he literally "gets away with murder", believe me this is
NOT the kind of signal we want to be sending on the issue of racially motivated violence and murder.

March 26, 2012

THIS is what the 1% does NOT want to see this Spring & Summer.

The Poor People's Campaign of 1967
Organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Poor People's Campaign
addressed the issues of economic justice and housing for the poor in the United States[1] King said, “We believe the
highest patriotism demands the ending of the war and the opening of a bloodless war to final victory over racism
and poverty”.[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_People's_Campaign

Their immediate aim was to secure federal legislation ensuring full employment and promoting the construction of
low-income housing to raise the quality of life of the nation's impoverished citizens.

The SCLC planned a nationwide march on Washington on April 22, 1968, to focus the nation's attention on this issue and
particularly to pressure Congress to pass legislation to address the employment and housing issues. Unlike earlier
marches, SCLC leaders planned the creation of Resurrection City, a giant tent city on the Mall in Washington, D.C.,
where demonstrators would remain until their demands were met. When Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis on
April 4, 1968, movement leaders debated whether to go forward with the planned demonstration. They chose to
continue the march with King's lieutenant, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, as its new leader. The march date was postponed
to May 12, 1968, though a few hundred people arrived in Washington on the original date. The first week, May 12-29,
brought a wave of nearly 5,000 demonstrators. During the second week Resurrection City was completed.

The protestors, people from a wide range of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds--Native Americans from
reservations, Latinos from the Southwest, impoverished whites from West Virginia, as well as rural and urban blacks--
came together and spread the message of the campaign to various federal agencies. They also disrupted life in
Washington to try and force the government to respond. At its peak, the number of protestors reached nearly 7,000
but still far short of the expectation of 50,000 people.

The march was also marred by weather and leadership divisions. An unusual downpour of rain made the ground
turn to mud causing the tents to weaken, and eventually forcing people to leave. Tension among the demonstrators
themselves caused violent outbreaks and undermined the effectiveness of PPC leadership. The assassination of
Senator Robert Kennedy, a presidential aspirant and one of the PPC's principal supporters in Congress, on June 5, 1968,
sealed the fate of the campaign. Resurrection City closed two weeks later on June 19, 1968.
http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/poor-peoples-campaign-december-4-1967-june-19-1968

And the negative impact of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy illustrate why OWS &
Occupy DC must remain as "leaderless" as possible.

March 24, 2012

OWS and Occupy Everywhere => Constitutional Amendment declaring Public Space = PUBLIC Property

WE OWN IT RULE: We the People hereby declare the "ALL Public Space Availability Act of 2012". Whereby
ALL public space in USA -- all publicly-owned park land, Federal, State, County and City parks in particular
-- are to be made available 24/7 for any and all public protests and/or demonstrations as We The People
see fit to manifest, especially where it involves distribution of basic-needs central to our personal or collective
survival; but also to simply give voice and full expression to citizen's being empowered to bring their message.

As involved citizens, we demand that states, cities & counties, insure equal access to food, water, shelter, and
other basic resources; in the event of a "national emergency".

If getting constitutional amendments is what is going to take to steer our collective ship in direction to manifest
a cultural * social * legal Jungian "container", then we may just as well get the fuck on with it.

March 22, 2012

Who knew USA was being invaded by 100s of Iranian Hezbollah? Just ask Rep. Peter King

I could barely believe my eyes and ears when I stumbled onto this happening
on C-Span today. Un-freaking-believable foaming at the mouth hyperventelating
about "Hundreds of Hezbollah" spying and plotting terrorist attacks in the USA
"in retaliation for the sanctions against Iran".

This is a naked & desperate attempt to gin up the public to be A-OK with
attacking Iran, "before they strike on US soil". Sound familiar?
Nice set-up for the next false flag, is what this sounds like to me, so
King and his ilk can say "SEE!! We tried to warn you!! ... Now let's hurry up
and bomb the shit out of Iran .. what more 'proof' do we need?"

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Peter King: Iran May Have 'Hundreds' Of Hezbollah Agents In U.S.
Posted: 03/21/2012 1:00 pm Updated: 03/21/2012 1:10 pm

-- Iranian-backed Hezbollah agents, not al Qaeda operatives, may pose the
greatest threat on U.S. soil as tensions over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons
program ratchet up, according to the Republican chairman of the House
Committee on Homeland Security.

"As Iran moves closer to nuclear weapons and there is increasing concern
over war between Iran and Israel, we must also focus on Iran's secret
operatives and their number one terrorist proxy force, Hezbollah, which we
know is in America," said New York Rep. Peter King at a Wednesday hearing
of his committee.

The hearing, which featured former government officials and the director of
intelligence analysis for the New York Police Department, follows a foiled plot
to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., and testimony
by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in late January that Iran's
leaders are "more willing to conduct an attack inside the United States in
response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."

Opening the hearing, King said, "We have a duty to prepare for the worst,"
warning there may be hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in the United States,
including 84 Iranian diplomats at the United Nations and in Washington who,
"it must be presumed, are intelligence officers."

But Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the ranking Democrat on the
committee, said he was concerned that the testimony he was about to hear
was based on outdated information and not current intelligence. He noted
that "no current federal officials" were asked to testify on Wednesday.

"A word of caution is in order," Thompson said. "When we examine our
relationship with another country, we cannot look at any particular moment
in time and pretend that it tells the whole story. We cannot view the politics,
history and culture of any other country clearly by seeing a snapshot version."

Referencing Clapper's earlier testimony, Thompson said the director of
national intelligence should be called in for a classified hearing, but added,
"We should not engage in a public discussion that creates fear and delivers
misinformation."

ENTIRE ARTICLE + VIDEO OF COMMITTEE HEARING TODAY AT THE LINK
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/peter-king-iran-hezbollah-agents-undercover_n_1369950.html

March 17, 2012

Reality-check ... is this really what Arianna imagined would happen to HuffingtonPost?

To me, this brief article entitled "Al Qaeda To Osama Bin Laden: Fox News
'Lacks Objectivity' " .. as posted on Huffington Post --- referencing David
Ignatius' Washington Post scoop, i.e. the first reporter to examine the
documents "taken from bin Laden's compound" --- sounds to me like dog-
whistling off-key to the bat-shit crazy meme of the day to the withering
GOP, the decoded message being how much Osama HATED FOX News &
ABSOLUTELY LOVED the "Liberal Main-Stream Media".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/16/al-qaeda-fox-news-bin-laden_n_1354128.html?ref=media#s490343&title=The_OReilly_Factor

Never mind that OBL is supposedly DEAD. But now we have OBL's "documents
and notes" to resurrect OBL's boogyman back from a watery grave, anytime it
might prove useful to the national security state, for your own good of course.

The central thrust of the HP article -- aside from selacious distractions about how
there were "tension in the house" due to bickering OBL wives, the older being
jealous of the younger, etc. -- seems to be to make sure everyone knows this ....
"how much Osama Bin Laden HATED FOX NEWS!!!! and how all those
other networks were so accommodating, like they'd really get Al Qaeda's story
right, and not do much damage to them in the process.

What complete bullshit this is, to me at least, it just reeks of propaganda, setting
stage so FOX can say "OH, Looky here!! How much OBL absolutely HATES FOX, which
FOX can then tout as a "Badge of Honor" and further distort the national conversation
... and project all the blame for our very real problems onto that "Goddamn Liberal
Osamo-lovin' Media that we've been trying to warn you about all along."

If Ignatius lets this "sneek peek" piece get distorted this way and used by FOX, I consider
him an accomplis in the crimes against humanity being committed here ... but especially
the crimes happening under a dense cloak of secrecy and denial in these United States,
that go mostly un-noticed, and only selectively enforced against the 99%, if ever.

Link to the Ignatius article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-bin-laden-plot-to-kill-president-obama/2012/03/16/gIQAwN5RGS_story.html

March 15, 2012

While OWS hibernates & plans American Spring, Goldman Sachs & Bank of America go belly-up.

Make no mistake about it: the seeds sown during OWS "uprisings" are sprouting big-time.
These stories can no longer be repressed or ignored by very many, for very much longer.

tick - tock .. tick - tock ..

Goldman Stunned by Op-Ed Loses $2.2 Billion

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) saw $2.15 billion of its market value wiped out after an
employee assailed Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein’s management and the firm’s
treatment of clients, sparking debate across Wall Street.

The shares dropped 3.4 percent in New York trading yesterday, the third-biggest decline
in the 81-company Standard & Poor’s 500 Financials Index, after London-based Greg Smith
made the accusations in a New York Times op-ed piece.

Smith, who also wrote that he was quitting after 12 years at the company, blamed
Blankfein, 57, and President Gary D. Cohn, 51, for a “decline in the firm’s moral fiber.”
They responded in a memo to current and former employees, saying that Smith’s assertions
don’t reflect the firm’s values, culture or “how the vast majority of people at Goldman Sachs
think about the firm and the work it does on behalf of our clients.”
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-14/goldman-stunned-by-op-ed-loses-2-dot-2-billion-for-shareholders

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Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail
The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the
unemployed. So why does the government keep bailing it out?
By Matt Taibbi - March 14, 2012 10:55 AM ET

At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America,
a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we'll all be
paying for until the end of time. Did you hear about the plot to rig global interest rates?
The $137 million fine for bilking needy schools and cities? The ingenious plan to suck multiple
fees out of the unemployment checks of jobless workers? Take your eyes off them for 10 seconds
and guaranteed, they'll be into some shit again: This bank is like the world's worst-behaved
teenager, taking your car and running over kittens and fire hydrants on the way to Vegas for the
weekend, maxing out your credit cards in the three days you spend at your aunt's funeral. They're
out of control, yet they'll never do time or go out of business, because the government remains
creepily committed to their survival, like overindulgent parents who refuse to believe their
40-year-old live-at-home son could possibly be responsible for those dead hookers in the backyard.

It's been four years since the government, in the name of preventing a depression, saved this
megabank from ruin by pumping $45 billion of taxpayer money into its arm. Since then, the Obama
administration has looked the other way as the bank committed an astonishing variety of crimes –
some elaborate and brilliant in their conception, some so crude that they'd be beneath your average
street thug. Bank of America has systematically ripped off almost everyone with whom it has a
significant business relationship, cheating investors, insurers, depositors, homeowners, shareholders,
pensioners and taxpayers. It brought tens of thousands of Americans to foreclosure court using
bogus, "robo-signed" evidence – a type of mass perjury that it helped pioneer. It hawked worthless
mortgages to dozens of unions and state pension funds, draining them of hundreds of millions in
value. And when it wasn't ripping off workers and pensioners, it was helping to push insurance
giants like AMBAC into bankruptcy by fraudulently inducing them to spend hundreds of millions
insuring those same worthless mortgages.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bank-of-america-too-crooked-to-fail-20120314#ixzz1pAz0W0cH

March 13, 2012

I haven't been able to discern where SPELL CHECKER is on DU3?

Does DU have a spell-check function anymore? DU2 did and I found
it very useful; so would love to be directed to where it is (if anywhere)
on DU3.

March 13, 2012

This one goes up for Dennis. A CNN Presidential debate where he really shines.

Damn I wish we had hundreds more like him in Congress.
What a gem he is. And I wish him the best in his next political
undertaking.

&feature=related

March 5, 2012

Toon: Sure, the police are "part of 99%", only problem is ...

Who the police take their orders from ...

March 4, 2012

Whoa! I just learned that DU3 has "Star Members" with special rights - Who knew?

I assume these "Star Member" donate more to DU coffers than the commoners?
Or is that an unfair and totally inaccurate assumption to make?

This inquiring mind would like to know, as possible.

I love DU .. been here since 2002, under various handles. And yet, this is also some
really serious shit ... because I'm convinced we are in a dawning age of relatively
graceful equanimity, because our only other choice is to become a caricature of a
Jim Jones die-in, and totally self-destruct.