Occupy Will Be Back - Chris Hedges' Columns Occupy Will Be Back Posted on Jun 18, 2012 By Chris Hedges In every conflict, insurgency, uprising and revolution I have covered as a foreign correspondent, the power elite used periods of dormancy, lulls and setbacks to write off the opposition. This is why obituaries for the Occupy movement are in vogue. Those who have the largest megaphones in our corporate state serve the very systems of power we are seeking to topple. The engine of all protest movements rests, finally, not in the hands of the protesters but the ruling class. Our dying corporate class, corrupt, engorged on obscene profits and indifferent to human suffering, is the guarantee that the mass movement will expand and flourish. “We had a very powerful first six months,” Kevin Zeese, one of the original organizers of the Occupy encampment in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., said when I reached him by phone. “The recent election in Wisconsin shows why Occupy should stay out of the elections,” Zeese said.
Demokratie, oder: Die geraubte Braut - NZZ.ch, 11.07.2012 Von Adolf Muschg Es gehört kein böser Blick mehr dazu, demokratische Wahlen für schwerfällige Simulationen der Marktforschung zu halten. Ein Produkt wirbt um freie Wahl des Kunden, den es als König anspricht; als der Grösste (oder die Schönste) erscheint er im Spiegel der Reklame. Auch die Politik hat keine grössere Sorge, als ihren Souverän persönlich «abzuholen», auch wenn er in der Abrechnung nur noch als statistische Grösse erscheint. Burckhardts drei «Potenzen» In Jacob Burckhardts «Weltgeschichtlichen Betrachtungen», 1905 postum publiziert, treten Wirtschaft und Demokratie nicht einmal als eigenständige Grössen auf. Nach Burckhardts Urteil, dass Macht per se böse sei, handelte die westliche Rechtskultur schon seit Beginn der Neuzeit. «Vaterland nennt sich der Staat immer dann, wenn er sich anschickt, auf Menschenmord auszugehen» (Dürrenmatt). Legitimer Egoismus Die Minderheit ist die Seele Der Schriftsteller Adolf Muschg lebt in Männedorf.
Noreena Hertz - Why we must stay silent no longer | Politics | The Observer In the hullaballoo following the American presidential election, with hanging and pregnant chads, and ballot forms that needed a PhD to decipher, it was easy to forget something that was in many ways even more alarming than confusion over who won. More than 90 million Americans had not bothered to vote - that is, more than the combined population of England, Ireland and Scandinavia. Low turnout is not just a US phenomenon. In the UK, the landslide victory for Labour in the election of 1997 was achieved on a turnout of 69 per cent - the lowest since the war. During the European elections in 1999, less than half of the electorate voted, and less than a quarter came out in the UK. In the Leeds Central by-election last year only 19 per cent of those eligible to vote did so. People have lost faith in politics, because they no longer know what governments are good for. Unregulated or under-regulated by governments, corporations set the terms of engagement themselves.
ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH | Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich - Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio In the United States House of Representatives Monday, June 9th, 2008 A Resolution Article I Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq. Article II Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression. Article III Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War. Article IV Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States. Article V Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression. Article VI Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of H. Article VII Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War. Article VIII Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter. Article IX Article X
In der Branche gilt das Verhindern von kritischen Berichten als Königsdisziplin „Unsere Arbeit ist prinzipiell nicht öffentlichkeitsfähig“ – mit diesem Leitsatz fasste ein führender Altana-Lobbyist einmal das Arbeitsprinzip seiner Branche zusammen. Noch deutlicher kennzeichnete der Chef einer Berliner Lobby-Agentur, Peter Köppl, das Geschäftmodell der Interessenvertreter: „Lobbying ist vom Grundgedanken her ’non public’.“ Also nicht-öffentlich. Ähnlich geheimnisumwoben arbeitet auch der wichtigste Berliner Lobby-Kreis – das ‚Collegium’ mit etwa 30 Vertretern der führenden DAX-Unternehmen. Auf legalem Weg ist nicht einmal die Mitgliederliste des Kreises zu bekommen. So abgeschottet und schmallippig die Lobbyisten ihr Geschäft nach innen betreiben, so professionell agieren sie gegenüber Medien und Journalisten. Ein Lehrbuch für die Methoden der „schmutzigen PR“ hat ein Lobbyist in einer bislang nicht veröffentlichten Mappe zusammengestellt. Die ACS-Argumente finden sich bis hin zu Detail-Formulierungen in den Texten führender Wirtschaftsmedien wieder.
Think Voter ID Laws Couldn't Cost You Your Vote? Think Again. A 93-year-old great-great grandmother who alleges she will be disenfranchised by Pennsylvania's recently enacted voter ID law heads to trial on Wednesday. In legal action backed by the ACLU and NAACP, Viviette Applewhite claims she no longer possesses any of the documents she needs to get a photo ID. Without it, she won't be able to cast a ballot this November in the Keystone State. Voter ID supporters argue that identification requirements for registered voters helps prevent voter fraud, ensuring the integrity of elections. Adversaries say the ID requirements stand as a solution in search of a problem. The U.S. While voter ID proponents maintain that new provisions requiring photo identification are sensible and not overburdensome, despite some evidence to the contrary, the situation isn't always so simple. Below, scroll through hypothetical scenarios that demonstrate how strict voter ID laws already enacted in the U.S. could disenfranchise would-be voters of different bents:
Chile cracks down on violent student protest - Americas Police have used water cannons to break up a protest in Chile's capital, Santiago, by thousands of students demanding free education, and hooded vandals set ablaze three city buses amid violence that left dozens arrested and injured. Chile's government said student leaders cannot be exempt from responsibility for the burning of the Transantiago mass transit system buses in Wednesday's protest, during which 75 people were arrested and 49 policemen were injured. "The leaders are opening the doors to vandalism and delinquency," presidential spokesman Andres Chadwick said. "How much more should we put up with these illegal marches that call on school takeovers and that threaten a violent August? Gabriel Boric, the president of the University of Chile student federation, told local TV: "I deeply regret what is happening today in the streets of Santiago, but the government is responsible for this because of its indolence and silence to all the proposals of the student movement."
The closing of American academia It is 2011 and I'm sitting in the Palais des Congres in Montreal, watching anthropologists talk about structural inequality. The American Anthropological Association meeting is held annually to showcase research from around the world, and like thousands of other anthropologists, I am paying to play: $650 for airfare, $400 for three nights in a "student" hotel, $70 for membership, and $94 for admission. The latter two fees are student rates. If I were an unemployed or underemployed scholar, the rates would double. The theme of this year's meeting is "Traces, Tidemarks and Legacies." My friend is an adjunct. According to the Adjunct Project, a crowdsourced website revealing adjunct wages - data which universities have long kept under wraps - her salary is about average. Why is my friend, a smart woman with no money, spending nearly $2000 to attend a conference she cannot afford? Below poverty line In most professions, salaries below the poverty line would be cause for alarm.
'Big Government' Isn't the Problem, Big Money Is With the 2012 elections projected to be the priciest ever, we must rein in the billions of influence-peddling dollars flowing toward Washington. Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney responds to cheers from the crowd as he speaks at a campaign rally at West Hills Elementary School in Knoxville, Tenn., Sunday, March 4, 2012. About the Author Robert Reich Robert Reich, a former secretary of labor, is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of... Also by the Author Surging inequality, not Wall Street banditry, is the underlying cause of the Great Recession. That view is understandable. Homeowners can’t use bankruptcy to reorganize their mortgage loans because the banks have engineered laws to prohibit this. Not a day goes by without Republicans decrying the budget deficit. The other big budget expense is defense. “Big government” isn’t the problem. Millionaires and billionaires aren’t donating to politicians out of generosity.