January 25, 2012
A man sits in front of a police line at City Hall during an anti-Wall Street protest in Oakland, California, October 25, 2011. (REUTERS/Kim White)
Written by former Seattle Police Department Chief, Norm Stamper – infamous for his role in the 1999 Seattle WTO uprising. From The Nation:
They came from all over, tens of thousands of demonstrators from around the world, protesting the economic and moral pitfalls of globalization. Our mission as members of the Seattle Police Department? To safeguard people and property—in that order. Things went well the first day. We were praised for our friendliness and restraint—though some politicians were apoplectic at our refusal to make mass arrests for the actions of a few.
Then came day two. Early in the morning, large contingents of demonstrators began to converge at a key downtown intersection. They sat down and refused to budge. Their numbers grew. A labor march would soon add additional thousands to the mix. read more »
Posted in Economy, Government |
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January 24, 2012
President Obama meets with members of the financial industry at the White House in Washington on Monday, Dec. 14, 2009, to discuss the economic recovery.
Reposted from The Nation, by George Zornick:
For months, a massive federal settlement with big Wall Street banks over their role in the mortgage crisis has been in the offing. The rumored details have always given progressives heartburn: civil immunity, no investigations, inadequate help for homeowners and a small penalty for the banks. Now, on the eve President Obama’s State of the Union address—in which he plans to further advance a populist message against big money and income inequality—the deal may be here, and it’s every bit as ugly as progressives feared.
The Associated Press reports that a proposed deal could be announced within weeks. Five banks—Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Ally Financial (formerly GMAC)—would pay the federal government $25 billion. About $17 billion would be used to reduce the principal that some struggling homeowners owe, $5 billion more would be used for future federal and state programs and $3 billion would be used to help homeowners refinance at 5.25 percent. Civil immunity would be granted to the banks for any role in foreclosure fraud, and there would be no investigations. read more »
Posted in Economy, Government |
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January 20, 2012
By Renee Parsons, from the Huffingtonpost:
As Bill McKibben and his environmental supporters bask in a well-deserved satisfaction of the now-infamous Keystone XL pipeline denial, a close reading of the president’s statement indicates reason for concern.
In what would have otherwise been another slam-dunk for the petroleum industry, McKibben et al. can take credit for bringing the issue and its deleterious impact on American farmers and climate change to the public’s attention.
The case against the pipeline is overwhelming with the Natural Resources Defense Council warning that synthetic crude made from tar sands will generate three times as much CO2 pollution as conventional crude oil production because the extremely heavy, thick viscous bitumen (tar) requires great amounts of water and energy in order to flow through a pipe. read more »
Posted in Environment, Government |
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January 17, 2012
January 14, 2012, reposted from Libcom:
Dear friend(s) and comrade(s):
We are writing to inform you about a very serious class confrontation developing on the northwest coast of the U.S., in Longview (Washington state).
In that small city, an international grain company, EGT, owned jointly by three firms
(U.S.-based Bunge North America, Japan-based Itochu and Korea-based STX Pan Ocean), spent $200 million constructing a new state- of- the-art grain terminal.
While the construction was underway, EGT indicated that it would continue to employ the 225 members of ILWU Local 21 in Longview, in keeping with the solid unionization of west coast American ports since the 1930’s by the ILWU (International Longshore Workers Union). read more »
Posted in Economy, Government, Unions |
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January 16, 2012
By Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer:
Law enforcement officers beat their wives or girlfriends at nearly double the rate of the rest of the population, and trying to control that is not only difficult for the victims but potentially deadly, experts say.
The trouble lies in the very nature of police work.
One of the hallmarks of a good cop is to radiate authority and control, and in the wrong hands, those characteristics can be misused, domestic violence counselors say.
When that misuse happens, it’s hard to report it because the victim has to go up against a man – and it is almost always a man – and his agency, both seen by society as paragons of protection. read more »
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January 9, 2012
By Marie Diamond of ThinkProgress:
In August 2010, Quelino Ojeda Jimenez, an undocumented construction worker in Chicago, fell 20 feet off a building while on the job and was paralyzed from the neck down. Unable to pay his own medical expenses, he was deported back to Mexico on December 22, 2010.
But he never made it home. Instead, he was left to languish at a small Mexican hospital that was unequipped to handle his needs. UPI reports that Ojeda died on New Year’s Day: read more »
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January 9, 2012
By Dave Jamieson of the HuffingtonPost:
More than a dozen low-level hotel workers in Indianapolis have filed a class-action lawsuit against ten of the city’s hotels and a labor staffing agency, claiming they were routinely cheated out of pay with the knowledge of hotel management. read more »
Posted in Economy |
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January 7, 2012
Originally from The Onion:
SAN DIEGO—Following seven straight years of long hours at the office and sacrificed weekends and holidays, all of account manager Sam Hemstead’s hard work and single-minded devotion to Pinnacle Automotive Insurance has finally paid off for CEO Charles Pardahee, Pardahee said Friday.
“There were definitely some nights I’d lie awake in bed and wonder, ‘Is Sam absolutely killing himself day in and day out for nothing?’” Pardahee told reporters while driving to his weekend home in a recently purchased 2012 BMW luxury sedan. “But Sam just put his head down and never looked back, and this year his blood, sweat, and tears have proven profitable to the tune of a 15 percent larger bonus for myself.” read more »
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January 4, 2012
ILWU rank and file, Occupies in Longview, Portland, Seattle, Oakland, LA and other West Coast Occupies are organizing to blockade a grain ship coming to Longview. This ship is intended to load scab cargo from the EGT terminal. The date won’t be known until 3-4 days in advance, but is anticipated to be sometime in January. read more »
Posted in Economy, Resistance, Unions |
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January 3, 2012
Originally published on TruthOut, by Cyril Mychalejko.
A controversial public relations program run by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s Pentagon was cleared of any wrong-doing by the agency’s inspector general in a report published last month. The program used dozens of retired military officers working as analysts on television and radio networks as “surrogates” armed by the Pentagon with “the facts” in order to educate the public about the Department of Defense’s operations and agenda.
At the same time, the report quoted participating analysts who believed that bullet points provided by Rumsfeld’s staff advanced a “political agenda,” that the program’s intent “…was to move everyone’s mouth on TV as a sock puppet” and that the program was “…a white-level psyop [psychological operations] program to the American people.” It also found a “preponderance of evidence” that one analyst was dismissed from the program for being critical of former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, while another analysts said a CNN official told him he was being dropped at the request of the White House. read more »
Posted in Government, U.S. Media |
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