Demonstraties VS #3: Wanneer valt 'the wall'?

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Op woensdag 19 oktober 2011 21:13 schreef arucard het volgende:
In andere landen worden ze doodgeschoten.

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GAO Finds Serious Conflicts at the Fed

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - A new audit of the Federal Reserve released today detailed widespread conflicts of interest involving directors of its regional banks.

"The most powerful entity in the United States is riddled with conflicts of interest," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said after reviewing the Government Accountability Office report. The study required by a Sanders Amendment to last year's Wall Street reform law examined Fed practices never before subjected to such independent, expert scrutiny.

The GAO detailed instance after instance of top executives of corporations and financial institutions using their influence as Federal Reserve directors to financially benefit their firms, and, in at least one instance, themselves. "Clearly it is unacceptable for so few people to wield so much unchecked power," Sanders said. "Not only do they run the banks, they run the institutions that regulate the banks."

Sanders said he will work with leading economists to develop legislation to restructure the Fed and bar the banking industry from picking Fed directors. "This is exactly the kind of outrageous behavior by the big banks and Wall Street that is infuriating so many Americans," Sanders said.

The corporate affiliations of Fed directors from such banking and industry giants as General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, and Lehman Brothers pose "reputational risks" to the Federal Reserve System, the report said. Giving the banking industry the power to both elect and serve as Fed directors creates "an appearance of a conflict of interest," the report added.

The 108-page report found that at least 18 specific current and former Fed board members were affiliated with banks and companies that received emergency loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.

In the dry and understated language of auditors, the report noted that there are no restrictions in Fed rules on directors communicating concerns about their respective banks to the staff of the Federal Reserve. It also said many directors own stock or work directly for banks that are supervised and regulated by the Federal Reserve. The rules, which the Fed has kept secret, let directors tied to banks participate in decisions involving how much interest to charge financial institutions and how much credit to provide healthy banks and institutions in "hazardous" condition. Even when situations arise that run afoul of Fed's conflict rules and waivers are granted, the GAO said the waivers are kept hidden from the public.

The report by the non-partisan research arm of Congress did not name but unambiguously described several individual cases involving Fed directors that created the appearance of a conflict of interest, including:

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To read the full GAO report, click here.

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Op donderdag 20 oktober 2011 02:10 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

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Op donderdag 20 oktober 2011 05:30 schreef NorthernStar het volgende:
How to Regain Our Democracy

28th Amendment

Corporations are not people. They have none of the constitutional rights of human beings. Corporations are not allowed to give money to any politician, directly or indirectly. No politician can raise over $100 from any person or entity. All elections must be publicly financed.

Now, it's our time. Get up, it's time to get them back.

----
super initiatief

The Corporation Full Length Documentary + Multiple Subtitles

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Op donderdag 20 oktober 2011 10:53 schreef Aether het volgende:
Leuke reacties op http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/(...)naar-de-53-beweging/

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Op donderdag 20 oktober 2011 11:19 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

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Bah, wat een kruiperigheid.

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Op donderdag 20 oktober 2011 10:53 schreef Aether het volgende:
Leuke reacties op http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/(...)naar-de-53-beweging/

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Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).

"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based."

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Something’s Happening Here

When you see spontaneous social protests erupting from Tunisia to Tel Aviv to Wall Street, it’s clear that something is happening globally that needs defining. There are two unified theories out there that intrigue me. One says this is the start of “The Great Disruption.” The other says that this is all part of “The Big Shift.” You decide.

twitter:

AnonymousPress twitterde op donderdag 20-10-2011 om 15:56:53 ✔ #OWS News: SF Police Commission decided will no longer raid #OccupySF camp 1st Amendment Rights take precedence #Winning v @CalFireNews reageer retweet

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Anonymous Calls On Occupy Wall Street To Form A New Political Party Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/anonymous-is-against-a-revolution-and-wants-a-new-political-party-2011-10#ixzz1bLB8BnAv

Anonymous central just posted a notice on its website calling for the Occupy Wall Street Movement to avoid a full blown revolution and put its weight behind forming a new political party.

The statement says a vote for either party is a vote for the status quo and the two party system is entirely insufficient to carry the country through its problems and into the future.

This new party would work in the interests of th 99%.

The full proposal is below.

Read more: http://www.businessinside(...)011-10#ixzz1bLAy7eRw

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What the NYPD Really Thinks of Occupy Wall Street

As midnight approached in New York City's Washington Square Park on Saturday, 14 occupiers sat in the center of an empty fountain playing Woody Guthrie songs. "If you would like to remain in the park past midnight, you will be subject to arrest," a policeman had just broadcast through a bullhorn, sending thousands who'd come for a political rally fleeing. Backed by some 100 riot cops in face shields, an exhausted-looking community affairs officer moved in to try to talk reason. "We marched with you guys; we treated you with respect," he said, pointing out that some officers had been on duty since 3 a.m. "We understand your cause. We understand your voice. We understand what you are saying. But all we want is for you to vacate the park."

"This is political," said a man in black glasses, between drags on a cigarette.

"C'mon guys," the officer pleaded. "Why get arrested?"

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And it seems like every time the police are learning to get along with the occupiers, they overreact in one way or another. On Tuesday night, it was the arrest of well-known feminist author Naomi Wolf, who was hauled off in plastic zip cuffs for doing nothing more than standing on a sidewalk in an evening gown in front of a Huffington Post event in SoHo, where sheand Gov. Andrew Cuomowere invited guests.

Angry at police for barring anti-Cuomo protesters from assembling there, Wolf occupied the sidewalk herself in solidarity. She was tossed in a police van and hauled off to a "faeces- or blood-smeared cell," she later wrote. The protesters responded by marching on a nearby police station, the same one where I'd interviewed Jim, to demand her release.

When they got there, they found that the police had calmed down. A community affairs officer used the "people's mic," a method of group communication devised by the protesters, to announce that Wolf had been released. Then the occupiers asked him for a "temperature check" on whether they should go back to Zuccotti. Adopting their hand signal for "yes," the officer held his hands up in the air and wiggled his fingers.

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Op donderdag 20 oktober 2011 14:12 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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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 Inc
9. 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

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From:NPR Communications
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2011 6:12 PM
Subject: From Dana Rehm: Communications Alert

To: All Staff
Fr: Dana Davis Rehm
Re: Communications Alert

We recently learned of World of Opera host Lisa Simeone’s participation in an Occupy DC group. World of Opera is produced by WDAV, a music and arts station based in Davidson, North Carolina. The program is distributed by NPR. Lisa is not an employee of WDAV or NPR; she is a freelancer with the station.

We’re in conversations with WDAV about how they intend to handle this. We of course take this issue very seriously.

As a reminder, all public comment (including social media) on this matter is being managed by NPR Communications.

All media requests should be routed through NPR Communications at 202.513.2300 or mediarelations@npr.org. We will keep you updated as needed. Thanks.

##

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This is how they do it. It was how it was done under McCarthy, for those not old enough to remember. It was also how it was done in the Soviet Union after they effectively shut down the Gulag. This is how they do it.

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Op donderdag 20 oktober 2011 11:20 schreef Aether het volgende:

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Artikel of reacties?

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Op vrijdag 21 oktober 2011 14:37 schreef deelnemer het volgende:
Het NRC is zelf ook uitgekleed door Apax. Heeft het iets te maken met de nieuwe eigenaar van het NRC, de private equity maatschappij Egeria?

http://weblogs.nrc.nl/gel(...)-van-private-equity/

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Op vrijdag 21 oktober 2011 17:11 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

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Ik denk dat het probleem algemener is. De media volgen al jaren de logica van Wall Street, waarschijnlijk omdat die lekker simplistisch is en in hapklare brokken wordt aangeleverd. "En dan gaan we nu naar het economisch nieuws, de beurs... " Volgens mij is er op de beurs zelden nieuws in die zin dat het weerbericht met een temperatuursverandering van 2 graden ook geen nieuws is, en de economie is heel wat anders dan de beurs.

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Op vrijdag 21 oktober 2011 14:37 schreef deelnemer het volgende:
Het NRC is zelf ook uitgekleed door Apax. Heeft het iets te maken met de nieuwe eigenaar van het NRC, de private equity maatschappij Egeria?

http://weblogs.nrc.nl/gel(...)-van-private-equity/

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Occupy Wall Street: Washington Still Doesn't Get It

I'll have more coming out about this in a few days, but there have been two disgusting developments in the realm of plutocratic intervention on behalf of Wall Street that everyone protesting should take note of.

The fact that both of the following things took place in the middle of the full fever of OWS, when everyone is supposedly trying to placate anti-banker sentiment and Obama and the DCCC are supposedly pledging support of the protesters, shows how completely bankrupt this system is and how necessary street-level protests have become. Popular uprising is probably the only move left to stop developments like the following:

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Op zaterdag 22 oktober 2011 19:20 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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http://www.occupationalist.org/

Occupationalist is an impartial and real-time view of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Covering history as it unfolds. No filters. No delays.

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Police brutality charges sweep across the US

From Naomi Wolf's arrest in New York to shootings in Tucson and Florida, forces face allegations of abuse of power

Officer Michael Daragjati had no idea that the FBI was listening to his phone calls. Otherwise he would probably not have described his arrest and detention of an innocent black New Yorker in the manner he did.

Daragjati boasted to a woman friend that, while on patrol in Staten Island, he had "fried another nigger". It was "no big deal", he added. The FBI, which had been investigating another matter, then tried to work out what had happened.

According to court documents released in New York, Daragjati and his partner had randomly stopped and frisked a black man who had become angry and asked for Daragjati's name and badge number. Daragjati, 32, and with eight years on the force, had no reason to stop the man, and had found nothing illegal. But he arrested him and fabricated an account of him resisting arrest. The man, now referred to in papers only as John Doe because of fears for his safety, spent two nights in jail. He had merely been walking alone through the neighbourhood.

The shocking story has added to a growing sense that there are serious problems of indiscipline and law-breaking in US police forces. Last week the feminist author Naomi Wolf was arrested outside an awards ceremony in Manhattan. She had been advising Occupy Wall Street protesters of their rights to continue demonstrating outside the event. Instead, as she joined the protest, she was carted off to jail in her evening gown. That incident is only the most high-profile of many apparently illegal police actions around the protests. One senior officer, deputy inspector Anthony Bologna, created headlines worldwide when he pepper-sprayed young women behind a police barricade.

A report from the New York Civil Liberties Union recently looked at police use of Taser stun guns in the state, and revealed that in 60% of incidents where they were used, the incident did not meet the recommended criteria for such a weapon. Some cases involved people already handcuffed and 40% involved "at risk" subjects such as children, the elderly or mentally ill. "This disturbing pattern of misuse and abuse endangers lives," said the NYCLU's executive director, Donna Lieberman.

In Los Angeles, officers in the sheriff's department are accused of physically abusing some prison inmates and having sex with others. An internal report, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, revealed allegations that included beating people visiting relatives in jail. In Pittsburgh, there is the case of Jordan Miles, a high-flying high-school student stopped by three plainclothes policemen. Miles, 18 at the time, was walking to his grandmother's house and had no idea who the men were, as they did not identify themselves. He ran, but the officers caught him and beat him so badly that he ended up in hospital. He is undergoing neurological treatment for memory problems and has had to drop out of college.

Yet it was Miles who was charged with aggravated assault – a case that a judge later threw out. His mother, Terez Miles, said: "We are no strangers to police brutality in the city of Pittsburgh, but what they did was terrible and then they lied about it."

In Chicago, Jimmel Cannon, 13, was shot eight times by police who claimed that he had a BB gun in his hand. His family said that he had his hands in the air. In Tucson, Arizona, former marine Jose Guerena was killed by a Swat team on a drugs raid. They found nothing illegal, but Guerena was shot 23 times.

The list goes on. Miami is still dealing with the fallout of the fatal shooting of Raymond Herisse. He had been driving a car out of which police claimed gunshots came. However, it took three days before they produced a weapon. They also confiscated and destroyed the phones of people trying to record the incident.

"There is a widespread, continuing pattern of officers ordering people to stop taking photographs or video in public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply," said Chris Calabrese, of the American Civil Liberties Union. Campaigners say the spread of camera phones is why so many incidents of brutality are appearing.

In another recorded call, Daragjati complained to a friend: "I could throw somebody a beating, they catch me on camera, and I'm fired." Some activists have taken that to heart. Diop Kamau, a former officer, runs the Florida-based Police Complaint Centre, which investigates allegations of police abuse nationwide. "Police are now facing an onslaught of scrutiny because everyone has a cellphone," he said.

Kamau said that many police departments still had a culture of secrecy and many officers believed that there was little likelihood of punishment even if caught. "The police fill in the blanks. They say what happened and they will be believed," he said.

One weakness is that there is no central organisation for the police, and local departments do not release data on complaints or allegations of abuse. "The problem is that there is an absence of research," said Professor John Liederbach, an expert in American policing at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. As the list of complaints and incidents grows, that might be about to change.

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Op zondag 23 oktober 2011 11:58 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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"[The protests] will end when they tire out or when they start getting jobs"

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Op zondag 23 oktober 2011 12:42 schreef Aether het volgende:
Suits Who Work Around Occupy Wall Street Tell Us What They Really Think

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Ja, dat is het
Hoezo, het niet willen snappen...

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"Everyone of us suits has debts and everything else," said Alex Malano of New Jersey. "Just because you wear a suit doesn't mean you have money."

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Chicago police arrest 130 Occupy protesters

Demonstrators erected tents and refused to leave Grant Park at its closing time, police say

About 130 protesters have been arrested at an Occupy Chicago demonstration after they erected tents and refused to leave a park at its closing time, police said.

The breakup of the protest in Grant Park, next to Lake Michigan, was the second mass arrest of demonstrators from Occupy Chicago in the past week. Last weekend, about 175 protesters were arrested.

The protesters were charged with violating a city ordinance and most were released after agreeing to appear in court, Chicago police said.

Grant Park, the site of major anti-war protests during the Democratic convention in 1968, is closed after 11pm.

The Occupy protests began more than a month ago in New York and focus on anger at government bailouts of big banks and persistent high unemployment.

Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have been arrested in New York and there have also been numerous arrests in Tampa, Cincinnati, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Denver and other cities.

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http://youranonnews.tumbl(...)-bail-chicago-police

We posted funds for bail. Chicago Police Department refusing to allow us to post bond, forcing protesters to stay overnight for a noncriminal citation and exercising their 1st amendment rights. Arrestees are being denied phone call, legal counsel, food, sleep basic human rights.

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Message To Occupy Wall Street: You’ve Already Won…

You’ve already won occupiers because there are more of you then there are of “them”. You’ve already won because you are right, and the folks in the media who have been pretending all along that they simply did not know what has been happening to this country over the past thirty years are going to be, one-by-one, shamed by you into admitting that they know that yes, our economic and political systems have been dominated all this time by the worst of the worst.

You’ve already won because the time has finally come where everybody in the nation has got to stop pretending that they did not know all along that the Emperor indeed has no clothes. The time has finally come when it is no longer permissible for polite (and otherwise) people to make believe that we were not all living in a monstrous and kleptocratic system where wholesale theft, abuse, and outright political fraud was simply business as usual. We played out that game all the way to the point where we became occupiers of a foreign country for no reason at all, and in it, we built our own style of prison camps where we tortured both the people in it, as well as the logic that we used to justify everything that we did in connection with it.

We as Americans created an economic system where the primary business model was based on fraud. Our banks lied to potential borrowers in order to get them to take out expensive mortgage products, and we as borrowers lied to the banks about our incomes so we could quality for these mortgages. We took out these mortgages so that we could speculate in the rapidly rising real estate market, and when that bubble burst, we all looked at each other in astonishment and wonder at how this all could have all happened to us.

A bank cannot do very much with one or two bad loans issued to borrowers who lack the ability to repay them, but if you have enough of them, then you can pool them up in a very large portfolio of mortgages and get them rated “Triple A” so that they are fit to be used as collateral for very large bond offerings. “Triple-A” of course, — as safe as U.S. Government treasury securities. And why not? We are the people who created Hollywood and Disneyland are we not?

You have already won Wall Street occupiers because after much more time it will be too ridiculous for any of us to think that we can go back to pretending that nothing was wrong all this time. Our banks have gotten bigger, and much more ill-behaved than they were before they got bailed out. Our political leaders are at the present time looking increasingly foolish as they continue to play the game of pretending that they are leading us and crafting laws that serve and protect us, and not the corporations who buy them at auction. Your victory has come about because the images of you on the television make us all quite aware that the real truth can no longer be ignored and obfuscated by the weaselly language of the media message crafters and their corporate whores. It is too late now, and the jig is up.

It started about thirty years ago. The slow, grinding process of making the middle class go away. They did it gradually in order to make the game last a while longer, and they did it in the same way that a Monopoly game winner doles out cash to the losers to keep the game from ending too soon. They wouldn’t let you earn more money at your job to support your illusionary lifestyle because they wanted that for themselves. Instead, they relied upon you to figure out how to work two jobs and take on more personal debt in order to finance it that way. When the credit cards got maxed out, we turned to the equity in our homes, and after that, to the equity in our second homes that we did not own yet, but might be able to if we could find a bank with “flexible” enough terms.

Sooner or later, and I am betting that it will be sooner, it will come to our collective realization that there is no actual solution to what we are going through at present other than to accept what we have done to ourselves and make the best of it. We are not going back to what we thought we had over the past 30 years, and even if we could, what intelligent person would want that? Once it becomes apparent that we are never going back to what we once had, then it will become apparent to the politicians that govern us that they no longer have the power to motivate us to do anything, because there is nothing that they can offer us by way of policy that will make our lives any better than they are right now. Once that happens then they will have no choice but to admit that we are on our own, and when that happens what do we need them for?

The corporations did this, and they are not coming back to save us any time soon. They are done with us and have gone to other “markets” in other hemispheres where the population is eager to make buck or two is not so “whiny”. The corporations did this, and they do not feel any sense of urgency to fix what they did. Corporations do not need clean air to breathe. They do not need safe food to eat, and they do not need any good schools to send the kids they don’t have to.

If you are a young person with a student loan, you have to ask yourself what you are going to do about that loan if the job that you anticipated getting after graduation simply does not exist anymore. This is something that has never happened in this country before, and as such, we have no answers for it. When the dimmest among us starts to realize that nobody is coming to save us, then indeed everyone will know for sure that it is time to give up pretending that we had a fair and honest system all along. When that happens, then everyone will know that you have won.

Much has been written about in the empty-headed media about your own “lack of a purpose”. They cannot see that your purpose is to simply shame THEM into understanding that you (the 99%) know that the emperor has no clothes, and that THEY can now stop pretending that we don’t live in a system that is steeped in corruption.

Do not allow yourselves to become suckered or bullied into generating some kind of “manifesto” or declaration of principles. They will only pick that apart. The only weapon you need is shame, and your objective is to simply shame everyone into admitting that yes, they know that the game was rigged all along, and we can now all stop pretending. That is all.

Much good luck in your praiseworthy struggle. You are the best among us.

J. Mark. Soveign

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Marines Are Calling In Reinforcements To Occupy Wall Street Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/occupy-marines-shamar-thomas-2011-10#ixzz1be5BojU6

Last week's dressing down of the NYPD by Marine Sergeant Shamar Thomas at Occupy Times Square has started a movement of its own.

Thomas unleashed on the police at length about the use of abusive tactics on unarmed civilians and the YouTube video of the exchange went viral.

Since then, #OccupyMARINES has sprung up, calling for former Marines to don a civilian uniform and join the Occupy protests.

OccupyMARINES have now called on veterans of other branches of the military to lend their support to help "talk sense" to police and recruit them into supporting the Occupy movement.

Because active members of the armed forces are prohibited by military law from joining the protests, only former servicemembers are being called upon and even they have restrictions. (via Jill Klausen and Addicting Info)

Veterans may wear their uniforms, but only if they do not protest. The OccupyMARINES website says:

Should Non-Active Military Supporters Present Themselves At Demonstrator Groups In Military Dress Uniform We Ask They Do Not Actively Participate With Group Activities; We Will Honor Our Military Uniforms And The Sacrifices Of Our Brothers And Sisters. Only Non-Dress Uniform Supporters May Actively Participate.

The dress code for protesting veterans is:

- An OccupyMARINES shirt or sweatshirt with military service affiliation and Occupy Wall Street logo
- Dicky's EMT black cargo pants
- Ranger Joe's Corcoran Boots-I XC Jump Black Aviator Boots
- And blouse bands. Elastic bands used by military members to fold the hem of their pants up and drape over the top of their boots.

While requesting donations, the group's website asks that contributors wait until OccupyMARINES has achieved 501(c)(3) status.

In addition to the Marines' initiative, the police have formed a separate organization called #OccupyPolice that is "for police in support of the 99%." The OP website goes on to say that "Police in America are part of the 99 too #OccupyPolice."

Read more: http://www.businessinside(...)011-10#ixzz1be5K42jl

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Op zondag 23 oktober 2011 12:47 schreef arucard het volgende:

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