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On the News With Thom Hartmann: The United Nations Weighs In on Police ...

22.05.12

Thom Hartmann here – on the intelligence…

You need to know this.  Clashes between Occupy Wall Terrace and the police have finally arrived at the nation’s capital.  Yesterday – the heat moved into one of Occupy DC’s encampments to remove a wooden structure being built to abode General Assembly meetings during the winter.  Police deemed the organization was unsafe – and had to be taken down.  That set up a tense few hours as patriots clung to the roof of the erection while a police cherry picker prodded them off.   In all, 31 people were arrested – and the design was torn down – but police as of right now have no intention of evicting the entire field.  Meanwhile – the United Nations is weighing in on the police response to Into Wall Street in America. Frank La Rue – the special rapporteur for the UN legate for freedom of expression is drafting a letter to the US government demanding to know why federal officials are not protecting the rights of quiescent demonstrators.   As La Rue said in an interview with the Huffington Post, “I assume trust to in city ordinances and I believe in maintaining urban order.  But on the other worker I also believe that the state - in this case the federal state - has an obligation to protect and further human rights."  As usual – the United States is greatest by example…although, unfortunately, when it comes to Occupy Wall Street – it’s the off the target example.  If people can’t peaceably protest in America – then where can they?

The Circulate Office is screwed! The Republican plan to bankrupt the Post Office and its half a million unionized employees is working.   Fa a fiscal crisis created solely by poison-pill legislation passed 5 years ago by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bush that required the Stanchion Office – unlike any other company or government agency – to prefund 75 years merit of employee health benefits in a 10 year period – the Pale Office is now moving forward with massive cuts in service.  Next-day correspondence delivery is the first to get the axe – but even more drastic cuts are coming down the pike, including closing nearing 4,000 local mail facilities and laying off as many as 100,000 postal workers.  Meanwhile – Congress is doing nothing to voiding the poison pill legislation that’s threatening to kill off an institution was founded by Ben Franklin.  Call your lawmakers and carry weight them to help the post office and resist Republican efforts to completely privatize post delivery in America.

In the best of the rest of the news…

Will the banksters ultimately have their day in court?  Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley announced lawsuits against 5 of the country’s biggest banks - including Bank of America, JPMorgan Track, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and Ally Financial.  The suit alleges the banks fraudulently foreclosed on Americans’ homes and failed to adequately work for in loan modification.  The move by Coakley is the first major action taken by a state Attorney Generalized since nationwide talks between Attorneys General and the White House over a possible settling for all the banks collapsed a few months back.  New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Delaware Attorney Overall Beau Biden are also pushing ahead with their own investigations and likely their own lawsuits against the banks too.  In the old days in America – we the people had the power to screen down banks and other corporations that committed even a whiff of the sort of scams the banksters pulled off during the Bush years.  Let’s desire we return to the age of accountability soon with these latest lawsuits, and throw in some prosecutions for wholesome measure.  

Civil unrest and economic destruction are being exported from Greece to Italy.  The new bankster-run sway formed in the wake of Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation has approved a new austerity carton that will raise the retirement age of all Italians – and let inflation destroy their pensions.  While announcing the new austerity measures at a hug conference – the Minister of Labour and Welfare, Elsa Fornero, poverty-stricken down crying.  But Prime Minister Mario Monti said austerity was needed to “release Italy.”  But as we’ve seen in Greece – austerity has only pushed that state closer to bankruptcy and brought millions of Greeks into the streets to riot.  Unreservedly put – austerity doesn’t work for anybody but the banksters.

The emergency at Fukushima continues.  Over the weekend – the crippled Japanese atomic plant spewed even more highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean – amateurishly 45,000 liters in all.  According to a French nuclear research set up – since the Fukushima nuclear crisis began in March – the undercover has leaked more radioactive material into the ocean that has ever happened before in the history of the planet.  Let’s hankering the world learns some lessons – and doesn’t ignore one of the worse ecological disasters ever.  Spell to ditch nuclear power – the most expensive and dangerous form of vivacity on Earth.

Herman Cain officially “suspended” his presidential manoeuvres – or national book tour – after news broke that he carried on a 13-year amour with another woman.  But for those who are worried the Republican field has now last it’s flare – have no nightmare.  Donald Trump has signed on to moderate a Republican debate in Iowa at the end of the month hosted by the fittingly-wing blog Newsmax.  Already – candidates Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul have declined invitations to show up – claiming they don’t be deficient in to be a part of “Presidential Apprentice” and that the debate is beneath the office of the President.  If there were still any questions protracted whether the Republican race to the White House was little more than a circus – all of those questions have now been answered by the Donald.    

Ill-considered Alert!  A car crash for the 1%.  A major pileup in Tokyo caused over a million dollars of harm to nearly a dozen luxury cars.  Involved in the accident were eight Ferraris – a Lamborghini – and two Mercedes.  The assembly of luxury sports car owners went awry when one driver tried to silver lanes – hit a median – and collided with all the other cars.  The freight police spokesman in Tokyo referred to the accident as “a gathering of narcissists.”  Contemplate Republicans in the House this week to introduce legislation to bail out  1%ers who bang-up their million-dollar rides.  They’ll call it the “New Cars for Job Creators Aid Act.”

And that’s the way it is today – Monday, December 5th, 2011.  I’m Thom Hartmann – on the scandal.

Source: truthout

How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests

22.05.12

I have a confession to for. At first, I misunderstood Occupy Wall Street.

The first few times I went down to Zuccotti Preserve, I came away with mixed feelings. I loved the energy and was amazed by the much in evidence organic appeal of the movement, the way it was growing on its own. But my initial impression was that it would not be taken very kidding by the Citibanks and Goldman Sachs of the world. You could put 50,000 angry protesters on Bulwark Street, 100,000 even, and Lloyd Blankfein is probably not going to break a toil. He knows he's not going to wake up tomorrow and see Cornel West or Richard Trumka on-going the Federal Reserve. He knows modern finance is a giant mechanical sponge that only an expert surgeon can remove. Yell and scream all you want, but he and his fellow fiscal Frankensteins are the only ones who know how to turn the machine off.

That's what I was thinking during the first few weeks of the protests. But I'm origin to see another angle. Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and brand-new finance. It's about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Impediment Street, but everything . This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire handling of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, penniless-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American Roe society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one's own culture, this is it. And by being so broad in spread and so elemental in its motivation, it's flown over the heads of many on both the right and the left.