How to Identify an Agent Provocateur

By Occupy Taketothestreets Asheville in Occupy Asheville INFO Group

As governments around the world, including our own, face more and more popular resistance, we’re witnessing a revival of the use of agent provocateurs. An agent provocateur is the well-used tactic of using undercover military or police to join a dissenting group or protest in order to provoke others in the group to carry out illegal actions and violence. The goal is to discredit the group from the inside. Sometimes the group gets discredited with those outside. Other times the group is enticed into internal divisions and collapses.

-Drawing from several sources, experienced observers have suggested some tips for identifying such agents. They’re not foolproof, but they’re a start.

-Agents will often lack background connections or references. No one in your circles or related groups will know them.

-Agents try to keep discussions and action unproductive and still. They’ll spend plenty of time debating issues, with little action. They focus on ideas over people.

-They tend to create messes in groups and between group members. They leave chaos in their wake.

-They tend to gravitate toward people in the group who are dissatisfied. Once relationships with those folks grow, the dissatisfaction spreads.

-Some agents have been former prisoners who do this work as part of a deal. These folks tend to jump from organization to organization in a relatively short time.

-Agents don’t have known sources of income. They might have a job that doesn’t match their spending or claim their money comes from prior savings.

-They tend to provide gifts for key figures at first. This helps them build trust with the group.

-When confronted, they will get defensive and start making their own accusations.

-They act like zealots, but they don’t have the fruit of it. They have passion but don’t truly care.

-Of course, good but immature people can do all these things. Discernment involves sound judgment calls. Protection from agent provocateurs increases as your group matures. If your group has rich relationships and trust, you won’t as easily fall prey to cheap provocateurs.

For more info on Agents Provocateurs Please see our other links on ALGG that discuss Anarchists and their tactics such as vandalism and attempts to hijack the marches etc.

O'Keefe apparently has no problems breaking his probation.

                                         
       You may remember James O'Keefe from such incidents as the maligning of an ACORN official, the maligning of NPR executives, and , most notable, his attempted wire tapping of the phones of the New Orleans Senatorial office of Senator Mary Landrieu. The former landed him a felony conviction along with Robert Flanagan, the son of William Flanagan, acting U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of Louisiana. He was sentenced to probation, court ordered to live with his parents in Westwood, New Jersey. But this hasn't stopped O'Keefe from attempting to malign the occupywallstreet movement. This isnt the first time he has appeared in New York or Washington D.C. If O'Keefe is allowed to break his felony convicted probation, I would love to know what his probation officer thinks about it. Would you?
Darrel Naquin Federal Probation Officer New Orleans 
United States Probation Office 
New Jersey Federal Probation Supervisory Officer
Patrick Hattersley - (973)-357-4080
-humanstruggle

#OCCUPY POSTERS: NIXON STYLE

Click through each image to download hi-res versions! Based on the Poster Issues by OBEY/GIANT. Remixed by Psychological Industries. Do what thou wilt with them in a non-profit way!

Original OBEY Posters Here

Portland Pisses off Anarchists trying to incite violence

Excerts from the Occupy Seattle Forums:

We just got back from the opening march for Occupy Portland, and were even more disappointed by how liberal, reformist, and nonthreatening it was than we had expected. The website for Occupy Portland had promised that "proper actions" would be taken against "instigators" of any "illegal activity (property destruction etc.)," which we can only interpret as a threat to snitch to the cops, so we went with low expectations, but this was by all means a massive disappointment even taking into account our pessimism from the get-go.


We attended the opening march for Occupy Portland because we are some angry-ass proles who really hate capitalism. Although Occupy Wall Street (and the various off-shoot occupations) have few official defined goals or positions, there is a general opposition to "corporate greed" and "corrupt politics". As anarchists, we seek to expose and destroy the roots of these problems - as long as capitalism and the state exist, there will be greedy corporations and corrupt politicians. Capitalism and the state cannot be reformed into something kinder, gentler, or more humane, it is exploitative by nature. We wished to push the discourse at Occupy Portland in a more radical, explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-state direction.

Why are these guys always trying to take over while complaining about how no one should be in charge in the same breath? Dont you just love cognitive dissonance?

Although Occupy Wall Street and the offshoot occupations are supposed to be leaderless movements, we found that there were most definitely leaders who managed everything, from the route to the chants to who was allowed to be at the front of the march to who was allowed up on the microphone at the rally at the end of the march. To be clear, this was a hierarchical, authoritarian event. These leaders/organizers, especially the wannabe-cops wearing blue "peacekeeper" armbands, are not our comrades in any way, shape, or form. When the march stopped at Pioneer Courthouse Square, the "peacekeepers" (whose role it was to de-escalate any conflict should it arise) chanted to the bike cops something along the lines of "Thank you cops, we love you!" It should be self-evident to anyone who doesn't have their head stuck up their ass that the police are not our allies. The police protect property over people and enact violence daily along lines of oppression. The police exist to protect and serve capital. The police uphold the very institutions that the Occupy movement is supposedly fighting. When we brought out the usual anti-cop chants ("All cops are bastards, ACAB" and "No justice, no peace! Fuck the police!") we were shouted over and told to calm down. One of the peacekeepers called out on the megaphone, "we need volunteers to block the anarchists because they're being negative and this is a positive event!" We were repeatedly told that "cops are the 99% too!", which made us very sad that so few people have any understanding of how class society functions. Cops are class traitors and the enemy.

The person who spoke on the microphone before us said something along the lines of "this is a revolution that started in Egypt and is now sweeping the globe!" The Occupy Portland organizers conveniently forget that in Egypt, they actually fought the cops. Again and again, past movements are rewritten as nonviolent and nonconfrontational, and anyone who dares to draw clear lines in the sand with the cops on the other side is silenced and branded divisive and a threat to the movement.

Obviously these cats think they can rail road the movement to obey their twisted demands to go against all civilized actions straight to murder, arson, and depraved chaos. But as you can see Seattle organizers dealt with the situation properly.

http://forum.occupyseattle.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=36

EFF on Digital Privacy Rights

Stickers and Posters here. Proceeds donated to the EFF

In a recent Washington Times editorial titled “Internet trolls, Anonymity and the First Amendment,” Gayle Falkenthal declared that “the time has come to limit the ability of people to remain anonymous” online.* She argued that any benefit to online pseudonyms has long since dissipated and anonymous commenters have polluted the Internet “with false accusations and name-calling attacks.” Newspapers, she wrote, should ban them entirely.


This argument is not only inaccurate, it's also dangerous: online anonymity, while allowing trolls to act with impunity, also protects a range of people, from Syrian dissidents to small-town LGBT activists and plenty of others in between.


Unfortunately, many newspapers have already banned anonymous comments, and while not all have offered an explicit reasoning for their policies, "civility" is often cited as justification in discussions on online anonymity.


Of course, online civil discourse is something to strive for. Anyone who’s spent time reading YouTube comment threads is aware of the vitriolic bile spewing from the keyboards of largely anonymous masses. And it is a truism that when people speak using their true identity, they are more likely to think about the consequences of their speech.

SOURCE LINK

Kate Danley on OCCUPY Wall Street

What They did not want you to ever find out is that your generation, the gener...ation born between 1980-1995, actually outnumbers the Baby Boomers. They knew that if you ever turned your eye towards political reform, you could change the world.

They tried to keep you sated on vapid television shows and vapid music. They cut off your education and fed you brain candy. They took away your music and gave you Top Ten pop stations. They cut off your art and replaced it with endless reality shows for you to plug into, hoping you would sit quietly by as They ran the world. I think They thought you were too dumb to notice.

Indeed, I thought They had won.

But I watched you occupy the capital of Wisconsin. I see you today as you occupy Wall Street. And I see a spark, a glimmer of the glorious new age that is yours. A changing of the guard, a guard that has stood for entirely too long and needs your young legs to take his place.

I watch you turn away from what is easy and stand up for what is right. I see you understand we as a society are only as strong as our weakest link. I see you wise beyond your years. And I am proud. Give ‘em hell, kids. You are beautiful. -Kate Danley

#OCCUPY Support Team U.S. Branch - Donate to the Cause and get cool stuff!

These items and More are available now!

We also have a Pure donations page where you can donate fund so we can produce stickers, buttons and more to ship out to Media Teams across the Country!

THX

OCCUPY Support Team [U.S. Branch]

Click here to Support OCCUPY Wall Street with your Donations and purchases!

Henry Rollins on OCCUPY Wall Street

Progressive Counter-balance to the Tea Party movement born out of #Occupywallstreet

Today when I was checking my Facebook feed I stumbled across an episode of Up w/ Chris Hayes on msnbc.com and he had Van Jones on his panel and Jones gave an interesting plug. Van Jones's Rebuild the dream movement is planning to launch a Progressive Campaign movement in 2012 out of the #Occupywallstreet protests.

To me this is music to my ears how great would it be if we had a government with values like putting kids through college, actually stopping climate change so we don't get screwed like in the Day After Tomorrow. Make the outsourcing corporations bring their jobs back to America. I think if Occupy Wall St. & Van Jones rebuild the dream movement succeed we could be on the verge of a new America and a better one for the good of the people.

http://rebuildthedream.com/blog/2011/10/06/lets-make-history-solidarity-with-occupy-wall-street/

We Are the 99%.

#OCCUPY: Cool Photo by Lee Ranaldo

SOURCE LINK

#OOCUPY Update: Anarchist's try to PWN OWS Movement, epic fail imminent

Anarchists: trying to steal everyone else's thunder again as usual. You dont own any activist movements you just like to get stomped and arrested at everyone else's movements in order to steal headlines. Thanks but no thanks...

Why should you listen to us? In short, because we’ve been at this a long time already. We’ve spent decades struggling against capitalism, organizing occupations, and making decisions by consensus. If this new movement doesn’t learn from the mistakes of previous ones, we run the risk of repeating them. We’ve summarized some of our hard-won lessons here.

Don’t fetishize obedience to the law. Laws serve to protect the privileges of the wealthy and powerful; obeying them is not necessarily morally right—it may even be immoral. Slavery was legal. The Nazis had laws too. We have to develop the strength of conscience to do what we know is best, regardless of the laws.

Dont fall for the provocateurs hype. Thats all they ever have to contribute to any movemnet they have tried to co-opt and disrupt, hype and nothing more.

Don’t assume those who break the law or confront police are agents provocateurs. A lot of people have good reason to be angry. Not everyone is resigned to legalistic pacifism; some people still remember how to stand up for themselves. Police violence isn’t just meant to provoke us, it’s meant to hurt and scare us into inaction. In this context, self-defense is essential.


Assuming that those at the front of clashes with the authorities are somehow in league with the authorities is not only illogical—it delegitimizes the spirit it takes to challenge the status quo, and dismisses the courage of those who are prepared to do so. This allegation is typical of privileged people who have been taught to trust the authorities and fear everyone who disobeys them.

See, they can tell we are on to them....

No government—that is to say, no centralized power—will ever willingly put the needs of common people before the needs of the powerful. It’s naïve to hope for this. The center of gravity in this movement has to be our freedom and autonomy, and the mutual aid that can sustain those—not the desire for an “accountable” centralized power. No such thing has ever existed; even in 1789, the revolutionaries presided over a “democracy” with slaves, not to mention rich and poor.


The occupations will thrive on the actions we take. We’re not just here to “speak truth to power”—when we only speak, the powerful turn a deaf ear to us. Let’s make space for autonomous initiatives and organize direct action that confronts the source of social inequalities and injustices.

They cant be serious...they admit that petitioning the Government for grievances is pointless while trying to lay claim on every social movement of the last hundred years?


The cognitive dissonance in that statement is deep enough for a psychosis...

SOURCE LINK

Even Alex Jones could tell you this statement is total bullshit...

Screen Capture from Prisonplanet.com

Corporate boot licker tries to delegitimize #OCCUPY Movement

Beware the "agent provacteurs"...there are unfortunately....people he'll bent on destroying this movement....so they behave badly for their own personal motivations whether its for the police to step in or bankers etc. Bottom line - there will be attempts to delegitimize this movement. Do not let them. No violence.

The conservative writer then went on to explain what exactly he was doing leading the charge past museum guards into the building itself:

[A]s far as anyone knew I was part of this cause — a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine in the pages of The American Spectator — and I wasn’t giving up before I had my story. Under a cloud of pepper spray I forced myself into the doors and sprinted blindly across the floor of the Air and Space Museum…

The liberal blog Fire Dog Lake, used a detail of a photo shot of the protesters just inside the entrance, and lined it up with Howley’s Facebook profile.

True to his admitted purpose, Howley mocked the 99 Percent Movement for a disorganized meeting at Freedom Plaza, the base camp for D.C.’s “Occupy Wall Street” franchise, derided the bulk of protesters for not disobeying the museum guards (“all of a sudden liberal shoes started marching less forcefully”), and said he was “proud” to get pepper sprayed:

I deserved to get a face full of high-grade pepper, and the guards who sprayed me acted with more courage than I saw from any of the protesters.

The evidence doesn’t seem to show that Howley incited protesters to do anything they weren’t already primed to do, but his stated intention to “undermine” the 99 Percent Movement and associated demonstrations — and his position leading the charge of protesters at the museum entrance — indicate a little more activism than simply an attempt to get a close look at protests, as Howley says, “for journalistic purposes.”

SOURCE LINK

#OCCUPY Update: DONT OCCUPY WALLS POSTER

A warning to Graffiti writers from the ANONYMOUS / Occupy Wall Street Movement / International Occupation Movements / Revolutionaries World Wide:


We will assume you are Rigth-Wing Tea Party haters, Anti-Labor operatives, Corporate Banking Thugs, or City Police disguised as Anarchists.


You will be dealt with if we have to turn you over to the Police ourselves.


We will not permit vandalism of city property during demonstrations or areas surrounding Occupation Camp Sites.


We will not allow our movement to be disenfrachised for your props.


We have invested our lives for the poor and disenfracnised everywhere who are counting on us.


Dont be jerks. Respect is a two-way road.

You are welcome to Join Us and paint signs with us.

DOWNLOAD VIEW POSTER HERE

BLACK AND WHITE VERSION HERE

What happens when you want Graffiti on your property

We agree with the Property Owners. It is their choice to allow it if they choose. Every city should have a designated place for street art of all kinds. When someone can take their time with it you get much better looking art every time.

After someone complained about the loud scribbles on Russell Johanson's property, the city told him in July he had to clean it up. Johanson ignored the warning. A graffiti patroller visited his building, on a small, weed-choked lot, three more times and found the tags still there.


The city sent more notices. It offered Johanson paint and volunteers to help him to clean things up. It threatened him with hefty fines.


All to no avail. In a decision published Friday, a hearing examiner declared Johanson's building a "graffiti nuisance property" and fined him $2,000. That represented $100 a day, from the time he got the civil-violation notice to the day of the hearing.

This week, Johanson, who runs his Ravenna Rare Books from the property, was still defiant.


"I would like to expose the absurdity of the code," he said. "It's not anybody's business but mine."


"This comes perilously close to the government saying, 'We get to tell you what color to paint your house. We tell you how to dress, what to do.'"


Seattle's graffiti ordinance requires property owners to paint out graffiti if someone has complained about it. But owners can escape the requirement if they say the graffiti is "authorized" on their building.


That loophole has led to arguably Seattle's most famous graffiti wall, the old Tubs building, a few blocks from Johanson. Once a hot tub business, the abandoned structure, at prominent corner of 50th and Roosevelt, is coated with layers of garish spraypaint.


But despite years of neighborhood complaints, the city is powerless to clean it up, because the owner says he likes the graffiti there. He called it an "evolving piece" of art. It has since become a well-known "freewall."

SOURCE LINK

#OCCUPY Wall Street Journal - PDF Download

Direct PDF Download Here

How To: Giant Space Invaders Street Art

MORE INFO AT SOURCE LINK

Update on #Occupy Seattle from Very Cool Mayor

We understand that Occupy Seattle wishes to have a sustained presence in Westlake Park for the purpose of expressing their views. From the outset we have been trying to work out a solution that meets the city’s needs and Occupy Seattle’s need to protest against wealth inequality in our country.


My staff has been reaching out to and communicating with members of Occupy Seattle. Here’s how we are proceeding:

* We are providing a permit for protest activities at Westlake Park which will allow them to have an organizing tent that can remain overnight. As a condition of the permit, protestors will have to allow for cleaning of the park, protect park property, accommodate the other existing permitted events, and protect access to businesses.
* We are making City Hall Plaza available for those that wish to stay overnight, with reasonable restrictions on the tents so as to allow free use of the plaza during the day. Unlike Westlake, City Hall also has restroom facilities available. Both the permit and the ability to set up tents at City Hall Plaza would last for two weeks, at which point we can assess whether the arrangement is meeting everyone’s needs and should be extended.

These are extraordinary times. We have seen the Occupy Wall Street movement take off in cities across the country, and there’s a reason for it. There is real anger about the unprecedented concentration of wealth and power in this country and the inequality it has produced. I share the values and the message of the Occupy Wall Street movement. We want to provide the opportunity for the people of Seattle to express their views. And we are.


Posted by: Mayor Mike McGinn

SOURCE LINK

Right Here All Over - A film from #OCCUPY NYC

Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall St.) from Alex Mallis on Vimeo.

A new angle on Occupy Wall Street reveals the strong micro community that has formed there.

Alex Mallis

Down with Student Debt

From This...

To this...

Says Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing

Reclamations, a journal published by University of California students, has published a special, timely pamphlet called "Generation of Debt," on the trap of student debt in America. Young people in America are bombarded with the message that they won't find meaningful employment without a degree (and sometimes a graduate degree).


Meanwhile, universities have increased their fees to astronomical levels, far ahead of inflation, and lenders (including the universities themselves) offer easy credit to students as a means of paying these sums (for all the money they're charging, universities are also slashing wages for their staff, mostly by sticking grad students and desperate "adjuncts" into positions that used to pay professorial wages; naturally, the austerity doesn't extend to the CEO-class administrators, who draw CEO-grade pay).


The loans are backed by the government, and constitute a special form of debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy, and that can be doubled, tripled, or increased tenfold through usury penalties for missed payments (the lenders themselves have a deplorable habit of applying these penalties even when payments are made, through "bureaucratic error" that is nearly impossible to correct).


These debts are turned into securities, and represent the backbone of yet another subprime bubble in America, one that is due to explode soon, as more and more Americans find themselves drowning in student debt and faced with the prospect of having their wages garnished all the way through to social security.

"Generation of Debt" consists of five essays on the trap of student debt, analyzing the causes of the problem, marking out the beneficiaries of this bubble, and suggesting ways to break free of it.

Reclamations LINK HERE

4 Billionaire 'Vultures' Trying to Pick Our Next President

In light of the nature of this Article it is completly reposted here and no commentary is needed, Greg Palast needs no introduction and no help from our staff at ALGG at making a point.

Stealing oil from Indian reservations, cheating dying workers out of compensation for asbestos-exposure claims, voter-roll purging -- just some of the work of these kingmakers.

By Greg Palast,
Posted on October 5, 2011
Alternet.org

Hedge fund magnate Paul Singer likes to breakfast on decayed carcasses. What he chews down is sickening, but just as nausea-inducing are his new tablemates: billionaires Ken Langone and the Koch brothers, Charles and David.


Singer has called together the billionaire boys' club for the purpose of picking our next president for us. The old-fashioned way of choosing presidents -- democracy and counting ballots and all that - has never been a favorite of this pack. I can tell you that from my investigations of each of these gentlemen for The Guardian. When the Statue of Liberty has nightmares, she dreams that these guys will combine to seize America via a cash-and-carry coup d'état.


Welcome to the nightmare. Singer, Langone and the Kochs last month decided to elect Chris Christie for us. The New Jersey governor's pseudocampaign went belly up before it began. But that's beside the point. Now that the Supreme Court has effectively ended campaign finance limits and allowed secretive contributions through "corporations," this new combine of the ultrawealthy should not be viewed as just a political threat to the Democrats, but as a threat to democracy.


Let me give you a rundown from my sulphur-scented files on these men who would be king-makers.

Billionaire 1: Ken Langone


Langone likes to be known as the founder of Home Depot, just your local tool guy in a blue apron with a little bag of screws.


But he was also the man, with his right-wing partners, behind Database Technologies. It was in my first investigation of Langone in 2000 that I discovered that DBT had created a list of several thousand "felons" - most of them black, all of them innocent, all of them purged from Florida's voter rolls by DBT's client, Katherine Harris. And Langone's company knew exactly what was going on.


What qualifies Langone to pick our president? In his own words: "I'm nuts; I'm rich."


Billionaires 2 and 3: David and Charles Koch


You think you've read all about the billionaire brothers. Well, there's more:


In 1996, an FBI agent, Richard Elroy, told my team that oil had been pilfered from the Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma. He and other G-men filmed the filch-theft, say witnesses, personally ordered by Charles Koch. A few barrels here, a few barrels there.

It all added up: to about a billion and a half dollars in looted petroleum, says one expert, a third of the Koch fortune at the time. David and Charles shared in the booty via their private company, Koch Industries.


Billionaire 4: Paul Singer


Now we get to the carrion king, Paul Singer, known as Singer The Vulture. I didn't give him the moniker. The name Vulture was tagged on him and his speculator colleagues by the prime minister of Britain and the World Bank. Recently, former United Nations envoy Winston Tubman suggested I ask Singer or his business associates, "Do you know you're causing babies to die?"


What does this guy do -- put poison in kiddies' milk? Worse: he takes away the milk.


Singer's modus operandi is to find some forgotten tiny debt owed by a very poor nation (Peru and Congo were on his menu). He waits for the United States and European taxpayers to forgive the poor nations' debts, then waits at bit longer for offers of food aid, medicine and investment loans. Then Singer pounces, legally grabbing at every resource and all the money going to the desperate country. Trade stops, funds freeze and an entire economy is effectively held hostage.

Singer then demands aid-giving nations pay monstrous ransoms to let trade resume. At BBC TV's Newsnight, we learned that Singer demanded $400 million dollars from the Congo for a debt he picked up for less than $10 million. If he doesn't get his 4,000 percent profit, he can effectively starve the nation. I don't mean that figuratively -- I mean starve as in no food. In Congo-Brazzaville last year, one-fourth of all deaths of children under five were caused by malnutrition.


For BBC, I tried to ask Vulture Singer the diplomat's question about the baby-killing, but I couldn't get past George Gershwin. (In the New York office tower housing the billionaires' roost, a Gershwin lookalike in top hat and tails plays show tunes on a grand piano for Singer's grand entrance.)


And it's not just poor African carcasses that tempt Singer. Indeed, during my investigation for my new book, Vultures' Picnic, I discovered that Singer's first big vulture attack was on American asbestos victims.


Background: The executives of three companies -- vermiculate mine operator WR Grace, wallboard manufacturer USG and building materials company Owens Corning -- knew that asbestos exposure in their respective operations was killing their workers. When caught and sued, the companies filed for bankruptcy, agreeing to pay almost all of their earnings to the people who were dying and injured by their asbestos.


But Singer had a better idea. These companies, as you can imagine, were worth next to nothing, and Singer bought Owens Corning for a song.

If he could cut the amount paid to the victims, Singer could boost Corning's value big time. So, a public relations campaign began, attacking the dying workers, saying they were all faking it.


One attacker was a guy named George W. Bush.


In January 2005, President Dubya held a televised meeting to promote an "expert" who pronounced that over half a million workers suing Singer's industry were liars. If workers couldn't breathe, he said to the grinning president, it wasn't the fault of asbestos.


The "expert" was not a doctor, but, notably, his "research" was partly funded by ... Paul Singer. And so was Bush. Since the death of Enron's Ken Lay, Singer and his vulture flock at Singer's hedge fund, Elliott International, had become the top contributors to the Republican National Committee. It's hard to measure his largess exactly because some of that help comes in through the side door. For example, Singer put money behind the Swift Boat smear on Bush's opponent, John Kerry.


The legal, political and public relations attacks on the dying workers chiseled away the compensation expected to be paid by the asbestos companies, boosting their net worth. Singer then flipped Corning, selling it for a neat billion-dollar profit.


It's legal. It's brilliant. It's sick. It's Singer.

One of my favorite Singer scores was his successful scheme to legally loot the Treasury of Peru. The nation's US lawyer told me, aghast, how Singer let Peru's rogue President, Alberto Fujimori, flee his nation to avoid murder charges. Singer had seized Fujimori's getaway plane. The Vulture named his price: one of Fujimori's last acts as president before he fled was to order his dirt-poor nation to pay Singer $58 million.


Why the Billionaires Need to Buy the White House


A Koch Industries executive (not knowing he was being taped) said he had asked Charles Koch, who already had a billion from an inheritance, why Koch was pocketing a few bucks a week from poor American Indians. Koch told him, "I want my fair share, and that's all of it."


And "all of it," of course, includes the White House.


Putting Bush in the White House was worth his weight in gold to these gents - more, in fact. And now, the Kochs, Singer and Langone have teamed up to pick a candidate they pray can take back their real estate at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.


The Gimme for Langone

Langone's firm DBT's "felon" scrub list included only innocent people, so you certainly wouldn't find the name "Langone" on it. In 2004, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged Langone with conspiracy, accusing the billionaire with subverting a stock exchange regulator's investigation into monkey business by Langone's investment bank.


A technicality ended the civil action on the conspiracy charge.


But now, Obama's new banking and securities reforms, albeit weak, give regulators new enforcement powers and provide an extra independent eye on stock market shenanigans. For Langone, picking the president means closing the regulatory eye.


The Gimme for The Kochs


FBI man Elroy told our investigators that the Justice Department was going to let the FBI cuff Charles Koch on criminal charges for the theft of the Osage Indian oil. But then, fumes Elroy, Koch's well-funded buddies, then-senators Bob Dole and Don Nickles, stepped in - and Koch walked. No charges.

Dennis DeConcini, then an Arizona senator, wanted to know why criminal or civil charges were never brought against the Kochs. That was not a wise question to ask. The senator told me that the Kochs threatened his political destruction if the Congressional committee he chaired continued with its investigations of the theft of Native oil. He continued, but his political career did not.


During the Clinton administration, Koch Industries was charged with criminal violations of the Clean Water Act. Under President Bush, the charges, but not the water, were cleaned up.


In other words, crime pays -- if you get to pick the sheriff.


The Gimme for Paul Singer


Paul Singer had placed a big bet on the asbestos industry, then, set out to fix the casino, helping install Bush in the White House. That is, he had a president willing to beat up on asbestos workers and push for so-called "tort reform" that undermined these victims' claims. What the victims lost, Singer gained.


But there's trouble on the horizon for Singer. In 2007, Britain outlawed Singer and all other Vulture speculators in Third World debt from collecting their pound of flesh in the United Kingdom. Other European nations are following suit.

Several US Congressmen are pushing a UK-style prohibition on Singer's activities. (Even Chevron Corporation is complaining about the Vulture attacks. When Chevron calls bankers unscrupulous, they've got to be really unscrupulous.) Without a veto pen over Congress, Singer stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.


Singer plays defense, but is best at offense: to collect on some of his claims against Argentina, his lobbyists have pushed a bill in Congress to put an economic chokehold on trade with the South American nation. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blocked this crazy attack on our ally. As a result, Singer is not a happy gaucho. There will be blood. Obama will have to pay.


The Gimme for Them All


There's one thing that every billionaire wants: another billion. And that's threatened by Obama's plan to tax the "carried interest" tax deferment.


Guys like Singer and Langone don't pay taxes like you and I do. While we pay taxes on income, the profits from vulture speculation and arbitrage are often recorded as "carried interest," effectively not taxed. It's a billion-dollar benefit for the billionaires, and every Republican candidate has sworn to keep this loophole open and make sure you and I pay Singers' taxes for him.

Unfortunately for Singer, the Kochs and Langone, the GOP candidates currently kissing the billionaires' behinds don't seem electable.


So the Billionaire Boys Club prodded Gov. Christie, a bully-boy from Jersey, to muscle his way into the Oval Office. Christie didn't fly, no surprise. But whether they pick the GOP candidate or retreat to their old tactics of smear-from-the-rear, the fragile thing called democracy stands little chance against the tsunamic powers of the quartet's combined checkbooks.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
View Palast's reports for BBC TV and Democracy Now! at gregpalast.com.

© 2011 TruthOut.org All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/152625/

Cool Photo of the Day: The Delorean

Classy Girl Photo of the Day: Street Art Girl

Corporate Psychopaths, like we didnt already know

...the researchers "pitted a group of stockbrokers against a group of actual psychopaths in various computer simulations and intelligence tests and found that the money men were significantly more reckless, competitive, and manipulative." Even more striking, the researchers note that achieving overall success was less important to the stock speculators than the sadistic drive "to damage their opponents."

...the award winning-documentary "The Corporation" used World Health Organization metrics to show that if companies really are "people," as our Supreme Court insists, then many of them are mentally ill.

Obviously, these results reflect the not-so-surprising fact that the extreme nature of the modern political process and of today's casino economy inherently self-select for certain kinds of traits. And no doubt, wholly changing that dynamic may be impossible or undesirable — or both.

However, the findings are a reminder of why now — more than ever — we must refuse to succumb to political apathy and laissez-faire demagoguery. Indeed, it's time to redouble our commitment to strengthening checks on political and corporate power because that power is often being wielded by the most unstable among us.

SOURCE LINK

The Corporation (2-Disc Special Edition)

#Occupy Update: iPhone and Android Apps for Activists

Here is a short but very effective list of Apps for phones that can really save you alot of toruble when attending Rallies, Conventions, and many other Security related events in your life. Esspecially ones that involve the Law...

Audioboo: This application allows you to record sound and then publish it to your Audioboo account directly from your iPhone. The application is supported by Audioboo.com where you need register for a free account. It has its own categorized community of others’ boos you can listen to, follow and favourite. In addition the site provides you with embed codes for audio players for each boo so you can embed them anywhere the code is supported.

The application comes in handy when you want to conduct a vox pop or perhaps record what is being said at a rally or in a meeting with politicians. However, it is limited by the fact that you cannot edit the audio before it is uploaded, so it is important to know what you want to ask or say before you begin. An additional limitation is that there is no way of saving the audio file to upload Audioboo application and site registration is free.


Documents 2: This application lets you use your iPhone as a storage device so you can carry documents with you. In addition to having a storage device you can download documents from your Google Documents account, through a WiFi connection or an FTP account. It’s handy when you can send emails with the necessary documents when you’re not at your desk or in front of your laptop. Not having the right documents at hand could cause a delay in distributing key information through email or even through blogs and social media.

The application however is limited by the iPhone’s capabilities. You can download a free version but it comes with advertisements, which are not overly annoying.


Flickr (or Photobucket): Sharing your photos through Facebook and Twitter is great but it probably isn’t reaching your entire network; or even the widest possible audience. Using applications like the one from Flickr to upload photos to your account can help increase the visibility of your photo(s). The application gives you the option of adding a title, description, tags and assign pictures to albums; as well as the picture size. There is the option to upload multiple pictures. The interface is simple to use however, it can be confusing as to how you upload a picture the first time you try.

The application is free but requires a Flickr account, which is also free. If you’re using Yahoo!7 mail or have an account then you’re ready to go.

Photobucket is another photo sharing and networking site. It’s application is sophisticated and easy to use, with options to add a title, description, tags and assign pictures to albums. Like the Flickr application, you need to have a Photobucket account to use the application. It’s free to download and to register a Photobucket account.


Qik Video: lets you record video using the iPhone's camera. It's also possible tostream the video live to the Internet.

There are a range of video modes to select from before shooting your video. For example youshoot video in sepia, black and white or with frost, among others. The application alsoincludes zoom and light-balance functionalities. It's an easy-to-understand and easy-to-useapplication.You can connect the application with your Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter accounts to helptell all your followers about the video.

This application is great for activists while they're out attending a rally or demonstration. Itcan also be a great tool to interview different people involved with the campaign to add toyour blog or share with friends on Facebook and Twitter; including in real time, as it'shappening.


PhotoShop Express: This application is a god-send. Having looked at a large range of photo-editing applications, this is by far the best one. There will be those that argue thatInstagram is the better application, I find the fact that membership to a site not be necessary to be a major advantage.

PhotoShop Express is from those wonderful folk at PhotoShop. The application is a very simple, cut-down version of the PhotoShop. It gives you a limited range of functionality butit does deliver is powerful and effective.

The application also allows you share your edited pictures with your online social networks.There are no limitations on the number of pictures you can edit and it is free to download.


Bambuser: is a popular app already used by many Middle Eastern activists.

The sheer power of Bambuser came to light when Egyptian activist Tarek Shalaby was arrested during a protest outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo. In the harrowing recording, which streamed live at the time of his arrest, you can clearly hear Egyptian security forces attacking protesters.

In addition to live streaming video, you can automatically connect the service to your social networks, sending a notification to Facebook, Twitter and 10 other sites, that you’re video is live.

Bambuser is available as a free download and is compatible with over 260 phone models, including all iPhone models, Nokia phones and a wide variety of Android phones.


AndroidLost: Activists in the Middle East face a serious risk of being arrested by governmental security forces. Their smartphones, while an essential weapon in protests, can easily become a weapon used against them when detained. One way in which activists can protect themselves, and their contacts’ identities, is by wiping their phones and restoring them to factory settings.

AndroidLost is available as a free download from the Android Market. After you’ve installed and activated the app on your phone, you can log into the web interface where you can remotely control your phone.

You can share your log-in information with a trusted friend, or under Security you can add their phone number so they can SMS commands to your phone, which will come in handy if WiFi or data has been disabled. You can also enter a passcode to lock your phone, and most importantly if you have sensitive data on your phone, you can wipe the SD card or reset the phone to factory settings.

Total F*cking Idiots trying to spread Disinformation fail miserably

Whoever wasted their time making and posting this image is an idiot. I cant say that any better.

The movement is not an anti-capitalist nor an anti-corporation movement, its a Movement against a corrupt financial system that has stolen from the American people to line its pockets. The housing crisis was a manufactured attack on the people in an effort to take their homes. And when America was forced to bailout the banks the banks used the funds to give themselves raises, buy private jets and other crap you would expect from crooks and thieves.

I keep seeing the news talkingheads confused about what the movement is about... it's not AGAINST corporations, it's about ending their disproportionate influence on political policy via financial contributions. 

Politicians no longer represent 'the governed', they represent whoever gives them the largest campaign contributions (read: bribes) and unfortunately us common working folk cant afford to 'lobby' (read: bribe) them to preserve OUR interests so companies prosper at the expense of the 99%. 

It would take anyone 2 seconds of research to find that our for themselves, Olbermann read the Occupy Wall Street Statement on the air earlier this week! I guarantee you these kids are doing the right thing based on a simple observation technique you can test for yourself. Listen to RUSH, Glenn Beck, any Right wing politician, and any other corporate mouth piece you can dig up and see if they are for or against this movement! Then you will know for sure that, whatever the goals of this movement may be, it is righteous!

So we also have some 'Sock Puppet' action on Social Networking Sites trying to spread lies and scare people from gathering in new cities, so be on the lookout for this kind of garbage. Of course its no real surprise when you have your typical asshat bootlicking Commentators posing as politicians and 'Reporters' standing up for the 1% en masse.



Eric Cantor (Merrill Lynch-R) is now calling the protesters across the country a "mob" and is very upset that people are standing against this huge income inequality and legalized corruption. He is the House Majority Leader...the 2nd highest leadership post in the House. Its safe to say that he speaks for the whole of the Republican party. Interestingly...he was and is a HUGE supporter of the "Tea Party" protesters.

And then there is this shit passing for News...

#OCCUPY Wall Street updates from The Young Turks

Federal Government cracks down on the Cure for Cancer

First we get this wonderful News...

Scientific trials have for decades documented the anti-cancer properties of cannabis and its constituents. Yet it took until this week for the website of the National Institute of Cancer, a component of the U.S. government’s National Institutes of Health, to finally acknowledged the herb’s therapeutic utility for patients living with disease or suffering from the adverse side-effects of cancer treatment.


In a newly added section to the website, entitled ‘Cannabis and Cannabinoids,’ the Institute states:

Cannabinoids may cause antitumor effects by various mechanisms, including induction of cell death, inhibition of cell growth, and inhibition of tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. Cannabinoids appear to kill tumor cells but do not affect their nontransformed counterparts and may even protect them from cell death.”


…The potential benefits of medicinal cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.”

It’s a stunning acknowledgment, given that the NIH is a branch of the very same government that presently maintains that the cannabis plant and all of its naturally-derived components have ‘no accepted medical use.’ Yet it also begs the question: Where has the National Institute of Cancer been all these years?

After all, the anti-tumor activity of cannabinoids were initially documented in 1975! That’s right; it’s taken 36 years for the Institute to get with the program.

SOURCE LINK

Then we get this horrible News...

Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on some pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state's 15-year-old medical marijuana law.


In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation's burgeoning medical marijuana industry, at least 16 pot shops or their landlords received letters this week stating they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical marijuana is legal in California. The state's four U.S. attorneys were scheduled Friday to announce a broader coordinated crackdown.


Their offices refused Thursday to confirm the closure orders. The Associated Press obtained copies of the letters that a prosecutor sent to at least 12 San Diego dispensaries. They state that federal law "takes precedence over state law and applies regardless of the particular uses for which a dispensary is selling and distributing marijuana."


The move comes a little more than two months after the Obama administration toughened its stand on medical marijuana. For two years before that, federal officials had indicated they would not move aggressively against dispensaries in compliance with laws in the 16 states where pot is legal for people with doctors' recommendations.

SOURCE LINK

SIGN PETITION HERE

#OCCUPY Wall Street benefit Stickers from Psychological Industries

Psychological Industries - By Any Memes Necessary

High-Quality Weather-Proof Silk-Screened Vinyl stickers

Design as pictured - 4x5 inches [10.2 x 12.7 cm]

A detournement of V for Vendetta & a Tribute to Anonymous. With a dash of Culture Jamming featuring the Corporate Flag.

50% of Proceeds to benefit #OCCUPY Wall Street!

***
Available Wholesale via www.DKEtoys.com


CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE

99% in DC

Obama make statement about #OCCUPY Wall Street Movement

“What I think is that the American people understand that not everybody has been following the rules, that Wall Street is an example of that, that folks who are working hard every single day, getting up, going to the job, loyal to their companies, that that used to be the essence of the American dream,” Obama explained. “That’s how you got ahead, the old fashioned way. And these days a lot of folks who are doing the right thing aren’t rewarded and a lot of folks who aren’t doing the right thing are rewarded."

FOLLOW LINK TO VIEW VIDEO

CNN hack mocks #OCCUPY Wall Street, The Young Turks Take it on

CNN anchor Erin Burnett had a segment where she mocked Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.


The Young Turks on Current TV:  http://current.com/shows/the-young-turks/
The Largest Online New Show in the World.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tytnation

#OCCUPY NYC Jesse LaGreca at it again

Interview with Jesse LaGreca, freelance writer for the Daily Kos under the name MinistryOfTruth, at the Oct. 5th Solidarity March with Occupy Wall Street. Jesse's interview with a FOX News Reporter has been exploding on the internet...but for some reason FOX never aired it. Hmmmmmm.

Mad As Hell

For to long we were asleep, and just ran with and didn't pay attention to what was going on in this country, but no more. We ARE awake and we ARE paying attention and we are mad as hell and we are not going to take this goddamn corporate greed bullshit any longer. The 99% is what runs this country not the goddamn 1% rich bastards. Rich bastards look and see what is going on. FEAR US!! We ARE coming for you assholes.

NYPD beat #OCCUPY Protesters

Talking the talk...

Walking the walk...

Olbermann reads The Occupy NYC Statement

One Day power companies will pay people to use Energy in the US

Looking forward to the day this sort of story will happen in the United States...

The 15 mile-per-hour winds that buffeted northern Germany on July 24 caused the nation’s 21,600 windmills to generate so much power that utilities such as EON AG and RWE AG (RWE) had to pay consumers to take it off the grid.


Rather than an anomaly, the event marked the 31st hour this year when power companies lost money on their electricity in the intraday market because of a torrent of supply from wind and solar parks. The phenomenon was unheard of five years ago.


With Europe’s wind and solar farms set to triple by 2020, utilities investing in new coal and gas-fired power stations no longer face stable returns. As more renewables come on line, a gas plant owned by RWE or EON that may cost $1 billion to build will be stopped more often from running at full capacity. It may only pay for itself on days like Jan. 31, when clouds and still weather pushed an hour of power on the same-day market above 162 ($220) euros a megawatt-hour after dusk, in peak demand time.


“You’re looking at a future where on a sunny day in Germany, you’ll have negative prices,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance chief solar analyst Jenny Chase said about power rates in wholesale trading. “And a lot of the other markets are heading the same way.”


Europe’s biggest power markets give preference to renewable energy including forcing some utilities to use their fossil-fuel plants less. That cuts into profit, complicating investment decisions as the companies try to meet emission targets and replace older plants and networks that Citigroup Inc. estimates will cost them more than 900 billion euros by 2020.

READ MORE AT SOURCE LINK

RIP: Steve Jobs

Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life's setbacks -- including death itself -- at the university's 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005.

Bank of America the Dirty Business Roundup

Taxpayers have given Bank of America $25 billion in bailout funds to help jumpstart our economy, but instead the bank has misspent on executive salaries and corporate jets. Then Bank of America took even more money from cash-strapped states by not paying for workers healthcare.


Its time for Bank of America to use its taxpayer-funded windfall to support a real economic recovery and provide health care for its 247,000 workers—or give the money back.

From what we can gather, according to eye witness testimony, St. Louis PD has barricaded the Bank of America building and is refusing customer access to deposits.


Eye witness account:


'They would not let me get past that barricade, where those three guys are. I talked to the liutenant of the St. Louis Police Department - and he said they [customers?] don't have a legal right - but he was going to try to work out something, a symbolic gesture where eight people to pull out their money, I being one of them.'


He came back later and said they [BofA] will not go along with that. You will have to withdraw your money online.'

October2011 comes on the heels of OCCUPYEVERYWHERE

               
  As we see the OCCUPYWALLSTREET movement turn into OCCUPYEVERYWHERE, solidarity is building, and the 1% have taken notice. Right on the heels of this action, a separate action is set to begin tomorrow Oct. 6 in D.C. . The OCTOBER2011 Coalition is set to occupy Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. . The pledge for those involved (yes there is a pledge) goes as follows:
                  "I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., with others on that day or the days immediately following, for as long as I can, with the intention of making it our Tahrir Square, Cairo, our Madison, Wisconsin, where we will NONVIOLENTLY resist the corporate machine by occupying Freedom Plaza to demand that America's resources be invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation. We can do this together. We will be the beginning."

- humanstruggle