οἱ οἱ οἱ

Time magazine has named Occupy Wall Street the story of the year. Yep. So what's happening? The DC occupistas are showing serious strategic savvy: they're taking it to K Street, lobbying central, the funnel through which Corporate money purchases its (non-)governance. It is the crucial supply line. And, in grand '60s-style street theater, they've occupied the U.S. Chamber of Commerce holiday party by rolling out the red carpet for the lobbyists' and their Corporate masters' arrivals. Check it:



Brilliant. Who says this generation is lacking in imagination?

On yet another front, occupistas are attempting to occupy unoccupied foreclosed-upon houses. Keep up with them here.



For οἱ πολλοί:



God bless us, every one.

Occupy K Street!

I think it's pretty big news when the President of the United States announces that all American troops who have been entangled in an eight-year foreign adventure of his predecessor's doing in Iraq will be home for Christmas. There are still questions about the role of Blackwater/Xe and other military contractors, but this is the fulfillment of a campaign promise by President Obama which many of us felt should have come much, much sooner. I have recognized how institutional concerns and Obama's own trepidation in dealing with the military-industrial powers-that-be have hampered these efforts. But here it is. It is major news. I applaud it. What's important, however, is what the contenders for the Republican nomination for office think about it—which will inevitably be the focus of all the Sunday political talk-shows. Oh, and what Sen. John McCain (R. Loser) and Lindsey Graham (R. So Closeted) feel about it. One hopes the resources to support this misbegotten war-like adventure can be put to better use rebuilding our own economy.

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The Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Everywhere/Occupy Together let's call it a 'movement' (this cycle's Move On?) is standing pat. Occupistas are occupying all over the Western world. Were I a commander of forces, I would shift focus a bit, especially in Washington, DC. "Occupy K Street" should be the mantra. Yes, corporate/financial control of the economy and hoarding is causing increasing misery among the 99% of Americans (and others) who are not hedge fund, Goldman Sachs, BoA, etc. affiliated. Calls for austerity, such as cutting back Social Security or Medicare or Veterans benefits, while bankster profits soar cannot stand. But the instrumentality of this control of the economy is the undue influence of MONEY on the law-making and regulatory (and enforcement, as well) processes of government. Money and influence filters into Congress and the Executive through the law firms, PR, and lobby shops of K Street. Break this supply chain link—Occupy K Street—and you stand a chance of making real, long-lasting democratizing effects on our politics and our economy.

Speaking of banksters, Bank of America is once again engaging in the should-be criminal act of privatizing profits and socializing losses. It is attempting to shift $55 trillion of potentially toxic debt exposure to risky Merrill Lynch derivatives from its investment side to its depositor, FDIC-insured side. Glass-Steagall, anyone?

That being said:

'A recent study of the global economy by three complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich "combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations," New Scientist reported.[1] -- It confirms that "a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy..." '

Want to know what the top 50 organizations in this network are (using data as of 2007)?

THE TOP 50 OF THE 147 SUPERCONNECTED COMPANIES

 1. Barclays plc
 2. Capital Group Companies Inc
 3. FMR Corporation
 4. AXA
 5. State Street Corporation
 6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
 7. Legal & General Group plc
 8. Vanguard Group Inc9. UBS AG
 10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
 11. Wellington Management Co LLP
 12. Deutsche Bank AG
 13. Franklin Resources Inc
 14. Credit Suisse Group
 15. Walton Enterprises LLC
 16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
 17. Natixis
 18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
 19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
 20. Legg Mason Inc
 21. Morgan Stanley
 22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
 23. Northern Trust Corporation
 24. Société Générale
 25. Bank of America Corporation
 26. Lloyds TSB Group plc
 27. Invesco plc
 28. Allianz SE
 29. TIAA
 30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
 31. Aviva plc
 32. Schroders plc
 33. Dodge & Cox
 34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc*
 35. Sun Life Financial Inc
 36. Standard Life plc
 37. CNCE
 38. Nomura Holdings Inc
 39. The Depository Trust Company
 40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
 41. ING Groep NV
 42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
 43. Unicredito Italiano SPA
 44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
 45. Vereniging Aegon
 46. BNP Paribas
 47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
 48. Resona Holdings Inc
 49. Capital Group International Inc
 50. China Petrochemical Group Company
 * Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used

Research project: Who are the Hill and State lobbyists for these firms? What are the trade groups and organizations they support? Who are their law firms? What are their PACs and Super-PACs and 501(c)(4) organizations? Who do they pay to wine and dine and entice your Representatives and Senators and regulators and their staffs with campaign donations and contributions to their own PACs? These are their instrumentalities in the halls of power. These should be OCCUPIED!

Occupy K Street!

Occupy St. Louis at Keiner Plaza

Long-time, faithful reader and ever-insightful Commenter here @ WoW, Frances Madeson, has graced us with a first-hand account of her experience @ Occupy St. Louis. I reprint it below in its entirety:

"Imagine you're on the set of Night of the Living Dead just as Romero yells Cut and Wrap!

Our original intent (on Day One Saturday, October 1) was to occupy the Federal Reserve Bank. 300 or so strong for several hours we lined the sidewalk on Locust Street holding signs that read: Yo Momma is Part of the 99%, Capitalism is a Sucker's Game, How Did the Cat Get So Very Fat?—chanting: The people have finally found their voice! and being honked at (presumably in solidarity) by cars taxis buses trucks streaming past.

As an icebreaker, I handed out a few hundred homemade tearsheets (the medium very much being the message) with the excerpts from Henry IV, Part II and Romeo and Juliet where the word Occupy can be found. The lone policewoman I attempted to give one to politely declined with a nod, but otherwise eyes lit up, smiles formed, and the response was vocal: Cool, Right On! To groups of friends I distributed a single copy and before long lips were moving and Shakespeare's fierce words were being read aloud:

Captain! Thou abominable damned cheater, art thou not ashamed to be called captain? An captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them...You a captain! you slave, for what? for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house...He a captain! hang him, rogue! He lives upon moulded stewed prunes and dried cakes...A captain! God's light, these villains will make the word as odious as the word 'occupy', which was an excellent word before it was ill-sorted: therefore captains had need look to't.
—Doll Tearsheet, Henry IV Part 2, Act 2, Scene 4

O, thou art deceived! I would have made it short, for I was come to the whole depth of my tale, and meant indeed to occupy the argument no longer.
—Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 4

Do I have to explain to WoWers that I had hoped to spark if not an immediate conversation at least a meditation on the possibilities of the meaning and resonances of the word Occupy, central as it is to the embryonic movement? And in the form of a note, like an alternative currency, to connect the group with a potent and always available renewable energy source—our collective unabashed creativity.

Many were already of a similar mindset. Occupiers arrived in fully extended peacock feathers, one wearing a cape of a modified American flag—stars replaced by corporate logos. This young Superhero, who stood for hours with a one-dollar Federal Reserve Note taped over his mouth, was unrecognizable to me when we next met. It was a few afternoons later when most of the others had gone to the Renaissance Center to confront Obama, in town for a $25,000-a-plate event with one of the Carnahans. But my fellow Occupier joined me in holding signs on Market Street: me, sporting an I Am An Illegal Immigrant button: him, far more daringly, wearing his U.S. Army Class A’s.

While occupying, we spent the time discoursing like characters in Boccacchio's Il Decameron, the occasional roar of the crowd at the nearby Cardinals/Phillies playoff game punctuating our elaborate conversation. Mostly talking about his many brushes with death in Iraq: as he tells it, he was once saved because a commanding officer had suffered a bout of diarrhea and his squad couldn't go out on patrol as scheduled. Or about his buddy who survived the war only to come home and blow away his disloyal wife with a firearm and fatally dispatch their two children to join her—hanging them like collaborators. On a somewhat lighter note, my fellow Occupier told me how he's in his first polyamorous relationship, confronting his own notions of possession, and riding the emotional waves of jealousy and abandonment. And I told him how I had recently taken a lover, the first after a long marriage, and we compared and contrasted the thrills of occupying St. Louis by day and being occupied in St. Louis by night—Que rico!

This being Missouri, many Occupiers are either military themselves in some capacity—active duty, reservists, veterans—or are the children of military families. Nomenclature seeps in: we go on Excursions to various Targets, and we Debrief after our Campaigns. Plus, we have plenty of practical military know-how among our ranks—men and women adept at hooking up generators; feeding masses of people while keeping things sanitary; constructing tents and other temporary shelters. Erecting a tent at the Fed was in fact the act that had subjected us to the specter of Federal arrest, precipitating our relocation on that first day to the more spacious, sunny and felicitous Keiner Plaza.

Exercising one's rights without access to showers is…well…smelly. Incredibly ripe body odor emanates from many of our young Occupying families—yes, we have infants and toddlers here—, some for whom this is their first act of public protest (“so my daughter doesn’t have to go through the same shit I’ve had to”). As the days go by we do have fascinating encounters with visitors, such as the 80+-year-old retired Wash U. economics professor who dropped by, volunteering to answer questions about the Fed, offering up his “expertise”. Though I doubt he was aware, the session came to feel like an apologia for his own brainwashing (“Bernanke’s not a bad guy. Quantative Easement’s a valid strategy.”). But to his credit, he listened to another lost soul waxing about the days when Abraham Lincoln led the Revolutionary War as if he were tuning in to language poetry, delightful to the ear. Yesterday, Mountaintop Removal Coal activists unfurled their magnificent banner for us—a Diego Rivera mural crossed with a Faith Ringgold quilt—that depicts the struggle in Appalachia in a composition of metaphors transformed into cartoons.

Ominously, also yesterday, Keiner Plaza’s public fountain was turned off. As Chaka Khan says, Ya never miss the water till it’s gone. Did the cops fear a splashing as they arrested the Occupiers? When I left last evening to come home to write this for WoW, it was clear that the 10 p.m. curfew would be selectively enforced. Today I see on our Facebook page that arrests were in fact made, the prisoners are already being released, and Occupiers are going to meet them to cheer them as they get out of incarceration.

There’s a feeling brewing—that this weekend could be a turning point for Occupy St. Louis, that we could get a surge of participants from the hinterlands and locals who’ve been following the action while at work during the week. I doubt the core St. Louis Occupiers are, how many have literally faced hardship, deprivation and even death, I doubt they’ll be deterred by the threat of lock-up, or worse. Many of them are trained to be courageous and valiant, some of them just naturally are, and their bravery is palpable, contagious, and priceless. As the sign says: Austerity Is An Illusion!"

Thank you, Frances, and good luck!

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This reportage will stay up on the front page at least until I return from a brief weekend in the N.C. mountains Monday.

A Possible Retraction: Like I Said: Heavy

The mis- and dis-information is flying fast and furious. Yesterday I posted a video allegedly by Anonymous threatening to shut down the NYSE by the use of a DDoS.

Today, a further report declares that that was some sort of false-flag operation meant to make Anonymous look either criminal or inept.

Here is the rejoinder:

Citizens of the world

We are Anonymous! Recently something very disturbing has come to our attention. You must take all notices and information claiming to be 'Anonymous' with a grain of salt. Consider EVERYTHING.

Operation Invade Wall Street is bullshit! It is a fake planted operation by law enforcement and cyber crime agencies in order to get you to undermine the Occupy Wall Street movement. It proposes you use depreciated tools that have known flaws such as LOIC.

Anonymous would never tell you to use LOIC - Not after the arrests and failures of Operation Payback.

Anonymous wouldn't attack NYSE on a HOLIDAY - It is debatable if Anonymous would ever even attack NYSE.

Be wary friends!

We are Anonymous

If I was duped, I apologize for spreading the manure. I'm a rube.

Given the nature of Anonymous, it's not possible for someone like me to decide which claim is legit. If it's a false flag, it's of a piece with the use of counter-hacker tactics developed last year by HB Gary Federal cyber security firm and pilfered by Anonymous. You decide.

But pay attention.

And if I determine that the video is a fraud, a trap, a tool, a false-flag, a fake, then I will specifically rebuke it, apologize, and pull it off my inconsequential blog.

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Here's a video of an articulate occupista talking to a FoxNews reporter regarding the motives behind Occupy Wall Street. Needless to say, it did not make it on air:


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And here's today's editorial cartoon from Mike Lukovich in the ATL Journal Constitution:

Contrast

Looks like it's gonna' get heavy up in here:

Anonymous declares war against the New York Stock Exchange:

[Video removed by proprietor]

Meanwhile, on the counter-revolutionary front, according to Bloomberg News (that radical leftist rag) it seems the fact that the Koch brothers (whose PR/Marketing wing is otherwise known as the Tea Party) have been running an anti-patriotic, corrupt, criminal enterprise for some time now is coming to light. Who would have guessed?

So, for contrast: 700 mostly poor, young peaceful protestors were arrested and thrown in jail over the weekend for exercising their Constitutional rights to assemble and speak freely on the Brooklyn Bridge because they broke some minor city ordinances, but the phenomenally wealthy, senescent owners/operators of a vast international corrupt criminal conspiracy get to continue to lobby the U.S. Congress with impunity and maintain their social and political prominence without legal consequence?

Am I missing something here?

Occupy America

I'll be the first to admit I do not understand fully what all's going on at Occupy Wall Street. I am old fogey out of place in a Deep Red South, caught up in my own middle-aged life and its parochial concerns. My first reaction is, natch, cynical: Who's counter-organizing here? The corporate-, Koch-funded Tea Party movement managed to stimulate the Right-wing base sufficiently to swing an off-year election in 2010. So, now, the tactic shifts to the other side, and instead of appearing authoritarian and right-wing, the 99%-ers claim to be an anarcho-, de-centralized, left-wing, non-violent, populist, grass roots movement. Is it a movement in preparation to stimulate the Democratic/liberal/progressive base for the upcoming elections in 2012?

Am I off-base so far?



That being said, my natural sympathies necessarily flow to the Occupy Wall Streeters. This goes back a ways: I got kicked out of junior high school in the 7th grade for wearing a black armband in support of the Moratorium against the Vietnam Police Action. The Tea Party tried to capture the magic of the bottom-up style of Sixties' protests, but it became apparent quickly how most of them were useful idiots for oily corporate interests. It was like they had all lived through the Sixties and missed out on all the fun, so they wanted to get some of their own in before it was too late.

I don't—yet—get the sense that what's happening in NY has the flavor of useful idiocy. That doesn't mean it isn't, or won't be, if it's not already, co-opted by The Man. One reason is that the PR machine has yet to latch on to Occupy Wall Street, much less political co-opters. A few yahoos at their local congressmen's town halls made loud national news during the Tea Party summer. Their significance was blown way out of proportion by outsized media attention and, frankly, outright propaganda by FoxNews. Moreover, their signs and slogans felt too glib, too scripted. Neither seems the case with the current batch of protestors. This movement feels like both a reaction to the attentions of the Tea Party and a domestic response to the Arab Spring uprisings. They are being ignored by much of the US media to the same extent as their earlier cousins who marched in the MILLIONS against Bush's drumbeat to invade Iraq.

The Tea Party, also, felt like a 'movement' (let's call it) of stirred-up 'geezers' (let's call them) who never quite got the talking points. Remember: "Keep the Government's hands off my Medicare?" The Occupy Wall Street crowd is young. Their dissatisfaction is against what? "The occupation of Washington by Wall Street" seems to be the best they can come up with. (h/t BDR). Not bad, though. It has an organic feel: where the Tea Party was a corporate-organized and -financed political operation, this is a groundswell against corporate corruption of democratic government—something Mussolini once described as Fascism.

Correntewire (again, h/t BDR) points to this:

"their solution to hacking out a platform knocks me flat with amazement: The group is going to use the next few days to talk about these demands. And then here's what they'll do: on Friday, they will spread blank sheets of white paper all across the park. Some will have topic headings, some will be all blank. Magic markers will then be distributed, and everyone will write, in large letters, the issues and goals they think are most important. If you agree with someone's poster, you can put a "Check".

Fascinating! It is actually rather Chinese in technique. It reminds me of the student Big Character Posters that appeared in Tienanmen Square.

After the writing exercise, they'll collect all the papers and collate them into a larger online manifesto, which can then be debated/modified/changed online in a Wikipedia-style collaboration."

I do question, however, how far such an unorganized, even disorganized protest can sustain itself. Tea Parties thrived because of the influx of money, the congealing of leadership, the coordination with a well-oiled propaganda machine. And because they had co-optative candidates lined up with platforms and talking points ready to swoop into power. How these youngsters fare after the first burst of enthusiasm blows itself out remains to be seen.

If you're curious about the origins of Occupy Wall Street here's, a brief history of "How Anonymous, AmpedStatus, the NYC General Assembly, US Day of Rage, Adbusters and Thousands of Individual Actions Led to the Occupation of Liberty Park and the Birth of a Movement."

In the meantime, though, if you're interested in heading to the frontlines of Occupy Wall Street or Occupy [Your Town's Name Here] or Occupy America or Occupy Together or Occupy International, or whatever they decide to call the burgeoning occupista movement, here's a Survival Guide to get you through.