Bloomberg’s Police State

Of special concern is the rationale or basis for the  the rising ‘Police State’ in New York City under the leadership of Mike Bloomberg.  In the video referenced above Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks breaks down rather  effectively the real reasons for raids on Zuccotti Park and why Bloomberg must by any means necessary do what is necessary to destroy the Occupy Wall Street protests. For all intents and purposes, it is becoming even more clear by the day that he is the Mayor of Wall Street and the guardian of the 1%. As further  stated by Robert Scheer on Truthdig:

What is so offensive is that someone who abetted Wall Street greed, and benefited as much as anyone from it, has no compunction about ruthlessly repressing those who dare exercise their constitutional “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” that he helped to create.

Given the recent crackdown, the arrest and the assault of licensed journalists (including one I know ,at least superficially, Julie Walker),  and especially in light of the NYPD’s attempted media blackout  during raids on Zuccotti Park which included the Mayor restricting the airspace over Lower Manhattan, as part of the  ongoing efforts to contain and dismantle the Occupy Wall Street movement, it is time for citizens to consider whether the NYPD is in fact the appropriate licensing body for NYC Press Passes or to determine or set eligibility guidelines.  Of even greater concern is that media forces more friendly to the rising police state, if not working directly in concert with the police state are distorting the import and character of the citizen led movement.  As aptly stated by one citizen in a comment on the NY Observer:

“Giving control over the flow of information to a paramilitary group with demonstrably selective interpretation of the rule of law (do you honor Temporary Restraining Orders signed by a Judge or not?) is a recipe for a poorly informed populace and a weaker democracy.”

The Citizens Union, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Human Rights Watch and other similar organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists themselves can now clearly make an effective case that the NYPD has in effect unlawful and unhealthy control over freedom of the press. Even if there are concerns over security and safety in crossing police lines, requests for NYC Press Passes as well as renewals should also be reviewed by an independent licensing body whose mission should be to safeguard liberty and freedom of the press as a counter balance to the NYPD’s heavy handed tactics. As one commentator on Forbes.com stated, ‘Maybe It’s Time to Occupy the Police State.’

De-humanization of Citzenry Enables  & Sustains Fascism

Contempt for the 99% is surely quite diverse and extends well beyond journalists. Among the many  subject to dehumanization for their participation in the Occupy movement are:  poor people, college students, the unemployed, the underemployed, professionals, lawyers, professors, journalists, liberals, hippies (do they really event still exist?), anarchists, heterosexuals and now presumably gays or ‘faggots’ (e.g, members of the LGBT community).  Ironic that this broad net of undesirables cast by forces in the mainstream media sympathetic to the Mayor and the NYPD’s tactics, would seem to include approximately the 72% of New Yorkers who support OWS.  I can only wonder what’s next. How soon before they pepper spray, baton or wrestle to the sidewalks someone they refer to as “a commie Jew?”

Fascist states always begin with de-humanization tactics. They always start looking for someone else, someone who is so unlike you, not a ‘responsible’ member of society. In the end, they always come around to look for folks of your ilk as well. Trust me it is inevitable. First it is people you do not care about, then it’s the ‘faggots’, the ‘niggers’ and then ultimately the ‘Jews’. It’s coming. Don’t say you were not warned.

The Illusion of Bloomberg’s ‘Independence’

Those who point to Mike Bloomberg’s independent status and who might be comforted that he “can’t be bought” need to re-examine the facts. While Bloomberg may not be Satan, he is an opportunist and a businessman, first and foremost.  Bloomberg has increased his personal wealth five fold since he became Mayor of New York City. This is especially convenient given the collapse of of the relative wealth of the 99% during that same time period.  It’s good to be the ‘King of New York’. Bloomberg is the sole stockholder of Bloomberg, LP, a veritable ‘money machine’ which has increased its operations as a media outlet in  recent years. In a series of maneuvers before the financial crisis he bought back the stock in his enterprise that was held by leading investment banks. According to Forbes.com,   Bloomberg is now the 8th Wealthiest man in America.

Furthermore, one might also consider the fact that Boss Tweed’s – Tammany Hall Machine was never so profitable or generous to its inhabitants as has been the reign of Bloomberg for his minions in City Hall, Bloomberg LP and those safely ensconced in the cities charitable apparatus or infrastructure via the Bloomberg Foundation. Going against the Mayor involves taking on a huge multi-headed beast with many voices who are deeply vested for life in the Bloomberg Machine.  Doing so may ultimately contribute to your own social demise.  Now the man even has his own mainstream media enterprise in Bloomberg TV

Critics of the Mayor condemn the Mayor with the indictment that Mike Bloomberg is the Mayor of Wall Street masquerading as the Mayor of New York City, a job he clearly prefers that his multiple overpaid deputy Mayors do for him while he is visiting his Bermuda Estate in Tuckers Town on weekends, unless there is a favorable media opportunity. Occupy Wall Street may or may not be cutting into his weekend time in Bermuda, perhaps that is the reason he purchased a $20 million Hamptons mansion.

The Commissioner of the New York Paramilitary Department (NYPD) is Ray Kelly, a nice enough man for sure. Solid as a rock and deeply loyal to his overlord is the charming and personable man who is affectionately referred to by many as Popeye. He stands stoically in crisp fitted suits and $200 Charvet Ties. Kelly makes a fashionable statement simply standing there, even while his NYPD is ’spinning out of control’.

New York City under the stewardship of Mike Bloomberg and Ray Kelly is however, quickly starting to resemble a police state. In a Police State, the ones doing the policing ought not to be the ones deciding who qualifies for a NYC Press Pass. Is that not sort of a conflict of interest? It is like asking Il Duce, Hosni Mubarak or Adolf Hitler what aspects of their brutality are permissible to document for public consumption.

The solution: New York City and perhaps other major cities should create independent licensing authorities to determine who should qualify for a Press Pass. Otherwise the integrity of the first amendment and the security of citizens will be irreparably jeopardized.

ABBA -The Winner Takes it All (1980)

The history books are written by the winners. In the words of Swedish pop band, ABBA, ‘the Winner takes it all, the loser standing small, beside the victory, that’s [our] destiny.’  The relative triviality of the loser’s pain and suffering is often long forgotten. But it truly need not be that way.  With the Madoff Crime Family again in the headlines these days, what may be a worthwhile endeavor is to gather a petition of Madoff’s Victims worldwide to petition the institutions that benefited from donations made by one of the largest philanthropic frauds in American history —Jeffry Picower, the largest Madoff beneficiary. The petition should request that they strip his name as their donor of record and that  whatever that they have named in his honor should be appropriately renamed for the interests of those defrauded as well as for the integrity of said institution’s brand going forward and their ability to raise funds in the future . For example:

MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory

should be renamed to:

The Madoff/Picower Fraud Survivors Institute for Learning and Memory

Picower’s name should be removed from any institution that carries his name honoring his philanthropy. Too much of American philanthropy often comes in one name at the expense of those who have had their legacy taken from them. The Madoff Survivors have had their legacy taken from them while Mr. Picower has not.

Critical to the American Restoration movement is that  we discredit the legacy of those who have been honored for their philanthropic deeds with funds fraudulently obtained. In those cases it can be presumed that their generosity was not purely or honorably motivated but instead part of a fraudulent overall branding mechanism, the extension of their  philanthropic brand masking their covert criminal wealth redistribution schemes. America must cleanse itself and conduct an internal accounting or philanthropic colonic to liberate and detoxify ourselves from the stench of a legacy built on a cesspool of corruption or a mountain of crappola.

It matters not now that Mr. Picower was found dead and seemed to have curiously drowned in his own pool at his estate in Palm Beach, that his lawyer William Zabel of Schulte, Roth & Zabel, “who has has spent his career striking complex deals for wealthy families in sticky situations” according to the NY Times, negotiated a $7.2 Billion extraction from Mr. Picower’s widow in the form of a civil forfeiture to the U.S. Department of Justice.  Likewise that Mrs. Barbara Picower was rather graciously left with $200 million and her Palm Beach home so she could continue her ‘philanthropic works’ at this point is troubling but I will also concede it is no long relevant to the legacy of the Picower name.

This is a movement which may and ought to have legs.  Let us discredit those previously honored. The legacy of Jeffry Picower is an objective fraud so let us begin with him.  Despite the best public relations efforts of William Zabel and Picower’s widow, the   Department of Justice settlement has not cleared the Picower name as intended in the eyes of most American citizens.

Full interview at 60 Minutes website

The wife and son of Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff gave their first interview to Morley Safer of 60 Minutes on Sunday evening, October 30th.  Also joining the duo was their  ‘Black Umbrella’, Catherine Hooper, the founder of the aptly named disaster preparedness enterprise, who is engaged to and been living with Andrew Madoff in luxury condominium in one of the toniest zip codes on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.  The irony that these monsters came out on Halloween eve should not be lost on anyone. They were there to promote their con job and the book ‘Truth & Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family’. Hooper was reportedly the driving force behind publication of the book written by hand picked author Laurie Sandell.  It is based on interviews with Ruth, Andrew and the visually delectable and publicity oriented - Ms. Hooper.

The Media Whores who were ‘laying it on thick’ (with claims of a suicide pact and depression) in an effort to pull another  fast one on the American public, may have just have provided anecdotal evidence of their complicity in the fraud. After this interview, many Americans, including rightfully angry and vigilant Madoff fraud victims like Ilene Kent, will have the right to continue to believe that the Madoff Sons and their mother had full knowledge of and were participants in the monstrous fraudulent scheme along with other members of The MCF –Madoff Crime Family including Peter and Shana Madoff and key beneficiary, Philanthropic Fraud, Jeffrey Picower.  And then they continued on their circuit to Matt Lauer live on Halloween:

According to Andrew, Ruth’s first question was  ‘What’s a “Ponzi scheme?’ Come again? If you did not hesitate for even a moment when you heard that, let’s back up for a second here. Ruth was a math wiz who graduated from Queens College where she majored in Business Administration & Finance. She was working on Wall Street before Bernie Madoff.  In fact, biographers have detailed how Bernie was studying law at Brooklyn Law School before he dropped out to join his ambitious young wife on the street.  Ruthie went to Wall Street for similar reasons as Willie Sutton who was once asked why he robbed banks, famously answered, “Because That’s Where The Money Is.”  Let’s just say Ruthie knew where the money was.  According to reports, she was her husband’s bookkeeper, which it turns out required one to be a Chef as well.  Queens College may not be Harvard but it is a fine institution, hence I find it very hard to believe that the little mathematical wiz managing/cooking her husband’s books had no idea what was a Ponzi Scheme.

Mainstream media continues to proffer stories seemingly designed to evoke sympathy for the lives of  Bernie Madoff and members of the Madoff criminal family enterprise (’Madoff Crime Family’ or ‘MCF’), many of whom are still at large, leading lives far better than the average man or any of his defrauded investors in what Paul Krugman has referred to as ‘the Madoff Economy’. Do you ever stop and wonder why in these tumultuous times, where the financial fortunes, if not basic economic security of so many in the middle class and the aspiring upper middle class has been undermined, destabilized if not destroyed by Ponzi schemes and  Crony Capitalism so severely that ‘the pitchforks’ now Occupy Wall Street, why the media continues to offer up these stories?  If Barbara Walters’ interview with Bernie Madoff behind bars and discussed on ABC News did not disgust you enough then maybe the one by Morley Safer on 60 Minutes with Ruth Madoff and Andrew Madoff and his Black Umbrella might literally make you throw up.  They were there promoting their con job and the book ‘Truth & Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family’ written by author Laurie Sandell, at the direction of Catherine Hooper and Andrew Madoff based upon interviews with each of them as well as Ruth.

Then there is Mark Madoff’s widow, Stephanie Madoff Mack’s memoir on the effects of her father-in-law’s conviction in her new book “The End of Normal. A Wife’s Anguish, A Widow’s New Life” and her interview with Chris Cuomo on ABC.  These selfish book worms seem to have rather ironic if not coincidental timing doing their TV and book tours the same week.

Is the media being pitched by the  public relations representative and their personal lawyers operating in the shadows  in an effort to rehabilitate socially members of the MCF who thus far have evaded prosecution, avoided being suicided just like Deborah Jeane Palfrey or ‘found hanged with a dog’s leash from a living room pipe’ ? Or is there something more sinister at play?  How do you think this plays with Madoff Victims and the general public?  I am sure many of them wonder Why is the Elite Class [being] protected [still] under America’s Justice system?

What I find most troubling is the mainstream media’s continuing need to sell public empathy for a despicable man and a criminal family enterprise with leadership of that enterprise still at large, largely evading prosecution. Andrew Madoff, a Wharton MBA and his ’suicided’ brother Mark Madoff, a highly educated duo who ran the firm’s trading operation never noticed their father’s lack of a foot print in trades on the street? Despite the ignorance claimed by the Madoff sons,  more significant commentators than me have raised issues about the surreal bonuses and overall compensation packages that these two received and raised very real issues about their responsibility and complicity in the Madoff family fraud. And yet that they never stopped to consider what was funding their lavish lifestyles? It certainly was not the profits that they generated.  In the not so distant recent past, the Wall Street Journal offered up a puff piece on Andrew Madoff’s challenges in his new life ‘after the fall’. The ‘poor guy’ is  holed up in a luxury apartment in a fancy doorman building in one of the most exclusive zip codes on the Upper East Side working under the Black Umbrella with the hot young girlfriend, Catherine Hooper, he dumped his wife for. Further he has to weekends cycling around Greenwich, CT. I feel for the poor chap.

Peter Madoff, brother of Bernie Madoff, who served as the chief compliance officer for its investment advisor and broker dealer businesses is reportedly the target of a criminal probe. Peter has been selling off assets in recent months, including his estates in Old Westbury, Long Island and Palm Beach. Meanwhile Shana Madoff, Peter’s daughter and Bernard’s niece, the formerly fantabulous socialite shopaholic was a rules-compliance attorney for its market-making arm on the broker-dealer side, is now living a less ostentatious life some where in Lower Manhattan in another exclusive enclave in Soho/Tribeca with her husband a ‘Veteran SEC Attorney’. The media informs us that the former rules-compliance attorney who is reportedly represented by attorney Mark Smith, lost a substantial portion of her assets. Gee, that really sucks. That makes her just like those defrauded by their family right? She is just another victim. Oy vey!  And then there is Bernies wife poor Ruth Madoff getting buy on the good will of friends/family in Palm Beach with only $2.5 million left to her name.  Shall I go on?

Madoff complicitor or ‘Frenemy’, “Philanthropist” Jeffrey Picower who was in the Forbes 400 Mad[e]-off with over $7-8 Billion dollars and was found just a couple of years ago in what a appears to have been a mysterious drowning in the pool at his Palm Beach mansion. His poor wife, in a complex deal struck by Jeffery Picower’s long time personal attorney, William Zabel of Schulte Roth & Zabel, agreed to forfeit $7.2 billion to the Department of Justice.  Picower’s ‘poor wife’ was forced to return all but $200 million that was earned in her husband’s involvement in the Madoff Fraud, to the Department of Justice so that Barbara Picower could continue on in her “Philanthropic” works.  Really, many individuals and family members lost their retirement savings and were bankrupted, despite the media created appearance that most Madoff victims will receive restitution (not  true), but the widow of a suspected criminal is left in tact so she can host luncheons with her gals in Palm Beach? How charming. Any institution with the name Picower on it ought to change the name of that entity to the ‘Victims of Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Picower Center for Medical Research’ because that’s whose funds he used to extend his own false philanthropic brand.  Bernie Madoff and his criminal family enterprise make  OJ Simpson, an un-convicted murderer seem like a relatively sympathetic figure.

Anecdotal Evidence of Ruth’s Complicity in the Fraud

Andrew Madoff’s choice upon the exposure of the Madoff criminal family enterprise and what many still believe is his complicity in the crimes of his father was to ‘Take a long hot bath like Frankie ‘Five Angels’ Pentangeli’. Ruth may want to join him if they intend to go to the grave with the family secrets. For if they do, in my estimation they cannot get there fast enough.

Ruth Madoff and Andrew Madoff tipped their hand in their 60 Minutes interview.  Ruth allegedly asked her son Andrew Madoff  ‘What’s a “Ponzi scheme?’ Ruth was a math wiz who graduated from Queens College where she majored in Business Administration & Finance. She was working on Wall Street before Bernie Madoff. Bernie was studying law at Brooklyn Law School before he dropped out to join his ambitious young wife on the street.  Ruthie went to Wall Street because like Willie Sutton who was once asked why he robbed banks, famously answered, “Because That’s Where The Money Is.”  Let’s just say Ruthie knew where the money was.  According to reports, she was her husband’s bookkeeper, which it turns out required one to be a Chef as well.  Queens College may not be Harvard but it is a fine institution, hence I find it very hard to believe that the little mathematical wiz managing/cooking her husband’s books had no idea what was a Ponzi Scheme.

Full interview at 60 Minutes website

The attempt to socially rehabilitate rather despicable figures makes you wonder, especially in these times, do Insiders in the MCF have knowledge of or information about individuals more powerful than themselves pertaining to the economic crisis?  If not, then why else are elements of our corporate owned media expending so much energy trying to smooth over rough spots in how the criminal clan is perceived by the public at large?  If you are at all cynical, you may consider or perhaps recognize that  the Madoff Family Fraud did not end with the sons ‘turning in’ their father who confessed to be solely responsible for the fraud, but that only commenced the second chapter of that fraud in earnest, a fraud that continues to this day and which the mainstream media is complicit in fostering. Why?

“There is a Chinese curse which says ‘May he live in interesting times.’ Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history.”     –Robert F. Kennedy

The Occupy Wall Street Movement along with the other planned and spontaneous uprisings across America presents our leaders with new challenges. America seems poised to engage in a vigorous debate about what is right, moral and just in our society in terms of its economic policy and the existing system by which we capitalize society.

One might wish to consider that those who demonstrate are not all anarchists seeking to bring down this country.  Likewise, it is also critical to remember that not every individual working in the financial sector is a mini-Madoff like Ken Starr or white collar criminal in a suit who deserves to have his or her life work and credibility or success challenged or stained in this process for playing the game by the rules established for the game. And this is true even if a casino mentality was fostered on Wall Street due to a lax regulatory environment. This is so even if the rules of the Wall Street Casino might need to be tweaked or rewritten. There are legitimate and honorable people working in the financial community who work to build the wealth of a nation and its investors.

In the words of Nicholas Kristof:

I don’t share the antimarket sentiments of many of the protesters. Banks are invaluable institutions that, when functioning properly, move capital to its best use and raise living standards. But it’s also true that soaring leverage not only nurtured soaring bank profits in good years, but also soaring risks for the public in bad years.

In effect, the banks socialized risk and privatized profits. Securitizing mortgages, for example, made many bankers wealthy while ultimately leaving governments indebted and citizens homeless.

There is, however, something terribly awry when things are so bad that it necessitates the pitchfork wielding crowd of college educated citizens protesting in the streets in Lower Manhattan. How many more of us or them (depending on your perception) are but a paycheck or two away from having nothing to lose and taking it to the street? Do you take that gamble and double down against the current protesters? I hope not for pete sakes. Do you know how many others are out there now prepared to follow suit?

Do you know how many are angry that members of the Madoff Crime Family like Andrew Madoff and Shana Madoff are still at large, securely ensconced in relative luxury on the Upper East Side, Tribeca and in Palm Beach? What kind of message are we sending to our citizens when members of a criminal syndicate that destroyed the lives of thousands roam free?  Poor Ruthie left with a couple million bucks. Oy vey! And how many more are angry that they see our leaders more consumed with protecting the uber elite at the expense of average citizen?

There is a very real danger that this will spread when inequality grows, the elite seem oblivious at best and selfish at worst and a “let them eat cake” mentality is pervasive in our policy. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman dissected the false narrative being fostered by forces on the right. They postulate falsely that the reason for our stagnant economy is that business are suffering under a burden of taxes and regulations and President Obama’s socialist policies which are stifling economic growth. He goes on to point out the rather curious fact that businesses are making large profits and sitting on a lot of cash but aren’t spending that cash to expand capacity and employment. But why?

As stated by Paul Krugman on The Phony Fear Factor:

…..but what stands out now is a surge in the number of businesses citing poor sales — which strongly suggests that lack of demand, not fear of government, is holding business back.

So Republican assertions about what ails the economy are pure fantasy, at odds with all the evidence. Should we be surprised? At one level, of course not. Politicians who always cater to wealthy business interests say that economic recovery requires catering to wealthy business interests. Who could have imagined it?

And it also, of course, reflects the political need of the right to make everything bad in America President Obama’s fault. Never mind the fact that the housing bubble, the debt explosion and the financial crisis took place on the watch of a conservative, free-market-praising president; it’s that Democrat in the White House now who gets the blame.

But good politics can be very bad policy. The truth is that we’re in this mess because we had too little regulation, not too much. And now one of our two major parties is determined to double down on the mistakes that caused the disaster.

Partly, no doubt, this reflects the party’s broader slide into its own insular intellectual universe. Large segments of the G.O.P. reject climate science and even the theory of evolution, so why expect evidence to matter for the party’s economic views?

The Choice: A Real Revolution or Rebuild the American Dream

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. “
–President John F. Kennedy.

NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg is quite right when he warns that the jobs crisis could spark riots here. According to NPR in June 2011 over 25 million Americans were unemployed while famed economist Nouriel Roubini suggests that the real number is as high as 16% unemployment. The system is broken. We must get our nation’s house in order. And frankly if we do not get our house in order and the prostitute­s (err politico’s­) posing as our leaders in Washington, DC don’t begin to recognize that they represent the citizens of this entire country and not exclusively those who have lined their pockets, they will surely bring about ‘the end of America’.  They must recognize that a nation starving, with a rapidly eroding middle class  will turn on and ultimately consume itself along with them.  What are peaceful demonstrations now could morph into something else entirely. The choice is a real revolution or to rebuild the American Dream by making a deep commitment to rebuild, in earnest, the nation’s infrastructure and manufacturing base. Many economists think that may be the best alternative.

HELPFUL LINKS

Occupy Wall Street

-Occupy Wall Street
-Occupy Together
-Occupy Youtoube: Anonymous documents what the media blacks out.
-Anonymous Occupy Youtoube blog
-WaVe Movement (Facebook Page)
-Naomi Klein:  ”This is not the time  to be looking for ways to dismiss a nascent movement against the power of capital, but to do the opposite: find ways to embrace it, support it and help it grow into its enormous potential. With so much at stake, cynicism is a luxury we simply cannot afford.” read more about what the author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” had to say at Moveon.org, Rachel Maddow Show and on Huffington Post
-‘A New Shift in Power’: Documentary entitled “Nobody Can Predict the Moment of Revolution”Offers an Intimate Look at Occupy Wall Street
-Elizabeth Warren: “The People on Wall Street Broke this Country”: Elizabeth Warren is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She served as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She is running for the U.S. Senate against Scott Brown. See also the Brad Blog for Elizabeth Warren’s commentary on ‘Debt Crisis’ & ‘Class Warfare’

Rebuild America

-Building America’s Future
-Our Future
-Rebuild the American Dream
-RAI
-Fareed’s Take: Obama should declare a jobs emergency
-Van Jones on Rebuilding the American Dream (see also: Van Jones)

Inequality in America

-Inequality.org: The Program on Inequality and the Common Good focuses on the dangers that growing inequality pose for U.S. democracy, economic health and civic life. It is a project of theInstitute for Policy Studies and based in Boston, MA
-The United States of Inequality
-Who Rules America?
-Vanity Fair by Joseph E. Stiglitz: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
-The Economist: The rich, the poor and the growing gap between them
-PBS, In Perspective: Tricia Rose on America’s growing inequality
-Robert Reich: Growing Inequality Is The Central Problem Of Our Age
-The Nation magazine:  Inequality in America
-The Nation Magazine by Robert Reich: Unjust Spoils
-Mother Jones: It’s the Inequality, Stupid

The American  System

-Nouriel Roubini: Marx was right about self-destruction of capitalism
-Vice Chairman of China’s CIC Says It’s Become Harder to Defend the U.S. Model

The Danger

-The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (book) by Naomi Wolf
-The End of America (Trailer)
-“The End of America” Full Length HQ Film
-Bloomberg: Jobs crisis could spark riots here
-Kent State Massacre (Video): Could this happen in NYC? Will history repeat itself?

The Uprising

-Occupy Wall Street
-Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan: must-see site of the demonstrations
-Chris Hedges: [The Criminal Class that has seized power is scared but the]  Occupy Wall Street is ‘where the hope of America lies’
-My Great Depression (video)
-Nader, Ron Paul, Kucinich Speak to Occupy Wall Street
-The Huffington Post – Occupy Wall Street: NYPD Arrests 700 Protesters On Brooklyn Bridge
-The Guardian: Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination: The young people protesting in Wall Street and beyond reject this vain economic order. They have come to reclaim the future
-Truthout: Wall Street Occupation Live Stream
-Occupy Wall St, SlutWalk, Hot Chicks, Van Jones by Zennie Abraham
-RT: Open-ended Wall Street occupation
-NPR by Joel Rose:  Wall Street Protests Stretch On, Reasons Vary
-Gothamist: Anonymous’s Occupation Of Wall Street
-UPI: Wall Street protesters morale ‘high’
-Michael Moore: The media ignores Wall Street occupation
-The Guardian, Occupy Wall Street: inquiries launched as new pepper-spray video emerges: NYPD officer Anthony Bologna faces two investigations as video emerges of a second pepper-spray incident
-NY Daily News: Pepper-spray videos spark furor as NYPD launches probe of Wall Street protest incidents
-Salon: Jon Stewart on the Wall Street pepper-spray attack
-Occupy Wall Street: ‘Pepper-spray’ officer named in Bush protest claim
-The Huffington Post: Anthony Bologna, NYPD Officer Who Pepper-Sprayed Protester, Had Role In 2004 Incidents
-JP Morgan gave NYPD $4.6 million to strengthen security
-Truthout: Got Class Warfare? Occupy Wall Street Now!
-Greg Palast | Uber-Vultures: The Billionaires Who Would Pick Our President
-Trumka: AFL-CIO Will Support Occupy Wall St. Protest ‘In Every Way’ It Can

“You say you want a revolution. Well, you know. We all want to change the world … But when you talk about destruction. Don’t you know that you can count me out.”   -Lennon/McCartney (1968)

Barbarians at the Gate

The Occupy Wall Street Movement has placed some new ‘Barbarians at the Gate’ of the financial elite; that is if you can refer to peaceful protesters as “barbarians.” As many will recall, President Obama in early 2009 in a meeting at the White House with Bankers whose institutions received TARP Funds famously stated that “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”  The President no longer stands between the bankers and the “pitchforks”, and perhaps I mean that metaphorically speaking because it does not  seem that the protestors have come with pitchforks or weapons of any kind.  As the Occupy Wall Street anti-greed protests spread on the eve of the Rebuild The American Dream march on Washington, DC which is scheduled for the week of October 10-16 it is important to recognize and understand it for what it is.  Our people, the conscience of a nation is speaking to us in a rather uncomfortable way, reminding us that in this system we live in and under, we are all connected in some way.

The painful growing inequality in America is more than a transactional externality that can be ignored, dismissed or otherwise managed safely.   This is true whether you stand in support of these movements or think that these folks are seriously misguided and their mission unclear or disingenuous. The simple reality is that it is happening. You cannot ignore that. We simply just can’t lock everyone up and think that things will be ok. Capische?

One need be careful in misinterpreting the undercurrent in this wave formation before another false narrative develops. Whether you believe that the protestors are misguided, clueless, or even silly as does Nicholas Kristof (see: The Bankers and the Revolutionaries by Nicholas Kristof in the NY Times) because they have a less than clear or perfect understanding of how our capitalist system operates and who or what are to blame does not really matter. For I am sure that at these demonstrations you can find those who literally don’t have a clue about what truly got America into this mess and the solutions necessary for us to climb out of it. But why should that surprise anyone?

America: The Age of Disenlightement

We have created a culture of distraction feeding our citizens a steady diet of misinformation to baffle, confuse, fill and otherwise pollute the heads of our befuddled masses. Our media assists in creating false narratives, pseudo news and Reality TV programming. As a result our citizens are so drugged up on bad art and culture that as consuming automatons wide swaths cannot distinguish between a Chocolate Soufflé and manure. Many of our citizens are thus cajoled into voting against their own best interests and more importantly, the interests of our nation because they literally have no comprehension of what is truly happening here in America or around the world.

In a piece on the Daily Beast discussing Obama’s strategy to go after some traditionally Republican states in 2012, the GOP Strategy for 2012 (as summed up by the Daily Beast) is as follows: “Republicans, meanwhile, are looking to states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin in the hope of capitalizing on Obama’s low support among lower-income, less-educated white voters.”

Does this not tell you all you need to know about the cynicism and the disingenuous posture of our political leaders? The people are seen as prey. If our elections have devolved into feeding red meat to the stupid unenlightened masses, that itself will be what brings about the end of our nation. And those dark forces that foster an un-enlightenment movement should be exposed in broad daylight by more than Lawrence O’Donnell and Jon Stewart. Is not our greatest challenge then in lifting all boats to make sure that all of us have the actual ability to drive the boat or at least have a basic understanding of how it is being driven? If we continue to allow for wide swaths of this country to decay structurally and intellectually, especially in places like Appalachia, we will reap what we sow. And whether you are a Democrat (Progressive or Centrist) or Republican (Right Wing or Moderate) you should keep that in mind. Our system is frayed and corrupted and those that protect the corrupt will perish peacefully or they will die in pain in the street. Pick your poison. Or stated more eloquently  by President John F. Kennedy in a speech at the White House in 1962: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. “

Zeitgeist Turning

The Zeitgeist may be turning. What is happening on Wall Street is an awakening that will have profound ramifications not just for the ruling classes but the future of America. It is grassroots.  It is Liberty. It is not Anarchy. It is Democracy in Action much in the same way that Ron Paul’s Revolution of ideas is.

As I heard one anonymous commentator state: “Real revolutions are always sad things. In the beginning the aristocrats laugh and the police arrest as many as they can. In the end the aristocrats lose their property and their heads? and the police become the hunted.”

Sure as the famed street remains the symbol of American power and American Greed, truth told the institution we know as Wall Street has been dispersed from downtown to midtown to Hedge Fund Row in Greenwich, Connecticut to the Upper East Side of Manhattan to Denver, Colorado.  Wall Street or the idea of it still represents many things to many people, but in the post 9/11 world, it is also an increasingly residential community. Nevertheless the symbolism of those marching in Lower Manhattan and occupying Wall Street can not and should not be lost on anyone. The opportunity lays in rebuilding the foundation of American commerce, not in destroying it. Let the dialogue begin. To read Part II, click here.

HELPFUL LINKS

Occupy Wall Street Movement

-Occupy Wall Street
-Occupy Together
-Occupy Youtoube: Anonymous documents what the media blacks out.
-AnonOps Communicati0ns
-Anonymous Occupy Youtoube blog
-Global Revolution
-Adbusters
-OWS on Facebook
-OWS Livestream
-WaVe Movement (Facebook Page)
-Think Progress: The 99 Percent Movement
-Fair News & Opinion Portals: Truthout, Truthdig, Common Dreams, Think Progress, Mother Jones, The Nation, Media Watch, Media Matters, Countdown with Keith Olberman, The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur
-Paul Krugman: Panic of the Plutocrats, Fear the Oligarchs, not the Protesters, The Social Contract
-Cenk Uygur: “Washington is infested”
-Glenn Greenwald, “With Liberty & Justice for Some”

Key Editorial Perspective
-CBS News Coverage
-Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Winning Economist with the NY Times
-Naomi Klein:  ”This is not the time  to be looking for ways to dismiss a nascent movement against the power of capital, but to do the opposite: find ways to embrace it, support it and help it grow into its enormous potential. With so much at stake, cynicism is a luxury we simply cannot afford.” read more about what the author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” had to say at Moveon.org, Rachel Maddow Show and on Huffington Post
-NY Times, Protesters Against Wall Street: “It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That’s the job of the nation’s leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies. Because they have not, the public airing of grievances is a legitimate and important end in itself. It is also the first line of defense against a return to the Wall Street ways that plunged the nation into an economic crisis from which it has yet to emerge.”
-‘A New Shift in Power’: Documentary entitled “Nobody Can Predict the Moment of Revolution”Offers an Intimate Look at Occupy Wall Street
-Elizabeth Warren: “The People on Wall Street Broke this Country”: Elizabeth Warren is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She served as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She is running for the U.S. Senate against Scott Brown. See also the Brad Blog for Elizabeth Warren’s commentary on ‘Debt Crisis’ & ‘Class Warfare’ and Vanity Fair: The Woman Who Knew Too Much.
-Chris Hedges, Truthdig: Why the Elites Are in Trouble / Truthout: Why the Elites are in Trouble
-Truthout News Analysis (Dean Baker): When Being Rich Makes Us Poor, People Should Occupy Wall Street
-New York Observer: Jesse LaGreca Continues to Destroy Media Bias of Occupy Wall Street on ABC’s This Week.
-Firedoglake, Kevin Gosztola: Why Establishment Media & Power Elite Loathe Occupy Wall Street
-Raw Story (Kate Wickman): WATCH: ‘I Am Not Moving’ compares Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street
-The Guardian, Occupy Wall Street: if banks are too big to fail, are people too small to matter?

Rebuild America: The Solution? Or one of them?

-Building America’s Future
-Our Future
-Rebuild the American Dream
-RAI
-Fareed’s Take: Obama should declare a jobs emergency
-Van Jones on Rebuilding the American Dream (see also: Van Jones)

Inequality in America: Basis for Revolt

-Inequality.org: The Program on Inequality and the Common Good focuses on the dangers that growing inequality pose for U.S. democracy, economic health and civic life. It is a project of the Institute for Policy Studies and based in Boston, MA
-The United States of Inequality
-Who Rules America?
-Vanity Fair by Joseph E. Stiglitz: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
-The Economist: The rich, the poor and the growing gap between them
-PBS, In Perspective: Tricia Rose on America’s growing inequality
-Robert Reich: Growing Inequality Is The Central Problem Of Our Age
-The Nation magazine:  Inequality in America
-The Nation Magazine by Robert Reich: Unjust Spoils
-Mother Jones: It’s the Inequality, Stupid

The American  System

-Nouriel Roubini: Marx was right about self-destruction of capitalism
-Vice Chairman of China’s CIC Says It’s Become Harder to Defend the U.S. Model
-Inside Job (trailer)
-Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (trailer)

The Danger

-The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (book) by Naomi Wolf
-The End of America (Trailer)
-“The End of America” Full Length HQ Film
-Bloomberg: Jobs crisis could spark riots here
-Kent State Massacre (Video): Could this happen in NYC? Will history repeat itself?

The Uprising

-Occupy Wall Street
-Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan: must-see site of the demonstrations
-In Protest the Power of Place (NY Times): As stated by Joe Mercurio on Facebook: “Just for background. Zuccotti Park, ironically formerly called Liberty Plaza Park was equally ironically renamed after John Zuccotti (Weil Gotshal & Manges) who was a deputy mayor under a Republican mayor of New York and company chairman of the owners Brookfield Office Properties on whose board the girlfriend of the current Republican mayor serves.”
-Global mass protests 15th October 2011
-Chris Hedges: [The Criminal Class that has seized power is scared but the]  Occupy Wall Street is ‘where the hope of America lies’
-My Great Depression (video)
-Nader, Ron Paul, Kucinich Speak to Occupy Wall Street
-The Huffington Post – Occupy Wall Street: NYPD Arrests 700 Protesters On Brooklyn Bridge
-The Guardian: Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination: The young people protesting in Wall Street and beyond reject this vain economic order. They have come to reclaim the future
-Truthout: Wall Street Occupation Live Stream
-Occupy Wall St, SlutWalk, Hot Chicks, Van Jones by Zennie Abraham
-RT: Open-ended Wall Street occupation
-NPR by Joel Rose:  Wall Street Protests Stretch On, Reasons Vary
-Gothamist: Anonymous’s Occupation Of Wall Street
-UPI: Wall Street protesters morale ‘high’
-Michael Moore: The media ignores Wall Street occupation
-The Guardian, Occupy Wall Street: inquiries launched as new pepper-spray video emerges: NYPD officer Anthony Bologna faces two investigations as video emerges of a second pepper-spray incident
-NY Daily News: Pepper-spray videos spark furor as NYPD launches probe of Wall Street protest incidents
-Salon: Jon Stewart on the Wall Street pepper-spray attack
-Occupy Wall Street: ‘Pepper-spray’ officer named in Bush protest claim
-The Huffington Post: Anthony Bologna, NYPD Officer Who Pepper-Sprayed Protester, Had Role In 2004 Incidents
-JP Morgan gave NYPD $4.6 million to strengthen security
-Truthout: Got Class Warfare? Occupy Wall Street Now!
-Greg Palast | Uber-Vultures: The Billionaires Who Would Pick Our President
-Trumka: AFL-CIO Will Support Occupy Wall St. Protest ‘In Every Way’ It Can

POLICE ACTION vs. OCCUPY WALL STREET: Evidence of Police Brutality: Premeditated and Orchestrated Assaults on Peaceful Protesters

-MSNBC on NYPD: Police Brutality during Occupy Wall Street Lawrence O’Donnell with “The Last Word”
-Keith Olbermann: “Police brutality” at Occupy Wall Street
-Shameful Police Action & Brutality at Occupy Wall Street
-BRAVE Occupy Wall Street Protester Speaks Out
-NYPD Violently Elbow Peaceful Female OccupyWallStreet Protestor Knocking Her To The Ground
-NYPD Caught On Camera Punching OccupyWallStreet Protestor In The Face
-NYPD officers give peaceful protester a concussion during OCCUPY WALL STREET
-Cops turn Violent: NYPD drag girl across the street at OccupyWallStreet
-Anonymous WARNING to NYPD
-Police Brutality? Like 100 NYPD Cops Slam Some 100 Year-Old Asian Man To The Concrete And Arrest
-Occupy Wall Street Brutality
-“I CAN’T BREATHE!” – Police Shoving at 10:30AM at Liberty Plaza Occupy Wall Street
-Police Arrest Protester for Drawing with Sidewalk Chalk @ Occupy Wall Street 9/19/11
-‘Occupy Wall Street’ – Young man brutally knocked down and arrested for talking to an officer
-NYC Citibank Occupation Arrests Customers for Closing their accounts.

SILENCING THE TRUTH

-THE SILENCING OF BANK WHISTLEBLOWERS:  Occupy Wall Street Sept 17: Protester speaks out
-Florida Congressman Alan Grayson on Occupy Wall Street
-Florida congressman Alan Grayson laughs in Ben Bernanke’s face
-Eliot Spitzer on Occupy Wall Street and fraudulent banking activities (on Olbermann’s show)
-OccupyWallStreet talks to Fox News & Crushes Them
-CNN Wants This Video Banned SEE WHY
-Nader, Ron Paul, Kucinich Speak to Occupy Wall Street – Original

Freedom to Fascism

-OccupyWallStreet George Carlin - Spreading The Truth!
-Charlie Chaplin
The Whole World Is Watching – Charlie Chaplin on Occupy Wall Street: Let Us All Unite!
Charlie Chaplin Speech – Occupy Wall Street! (Inception Soundtrack); see also United We Rise
-Aaron Russo: See Aaron Russo Memorial and Freedom to Fascism (Aaron’s last film)
-Anonymous Group: “We are Anonymous.  We are Legion.  We do not forgive.  We do not forget.  Expect us.” Yale Law refers to the group as an ‘Internet Subculture’. See: AnonNews.org, Why We Protest, AnonOps Communicati0ns
-Anonymous Educational Series: Freedom to Fascism (part 1)
-Anonymous Educational Series: Freedom to Fascism (part 2)
-Anonymous: Message to Ron Paul

So, I started thinking even more deeply. What kind of lawyer is or was President Obama? What set of skills or perspective does he bring to his view of the world?  As a Summer Associate he hooked Michelle, then an Associate at Sidley & Austin–nabbing your mentor slick. As a mentor to some brilliant and charming young Summer Associates, I wish someone had nabbed me. I was not so slick. I was just trying to tread water in the brilliance around me. And Weil Gotshal’s Bankruptcy Department had some great minds.

America hates lawyers but I LOVE em, if only because you can tell a lot about their persona and philosophy by which craft they choose. Did America get a Transactional Lawyer such as an M&A Lawyer, a Venture Capital Lawyer or a Litigator or perhaps even a Trial Lawyer?  I know he is not a Real Estate Lawyer. We have those, in the name of Privatization everything is sold off to a foreign entity.  He is not a Bankruptcy or Restructuring Lawyer because if he had the skills of Harvey Miller we would be out of this Chapter 11 by now.

Then it hit me. We have a series of legislative victories from Stimulus Act, Health Care and now Financial Reform which have been panned by critics on the left and the right for a variety of reasons, including specifically that the assault on capitalism has not put anybody back to work yet. And what kind of symbolism is there that Jamie Dimon who is as responsible as anyone for saving Wall Street will not be there when the Financial Regulatory Reform bill is signed today?  Maybe that is not entirely fair but “Smart money” in America remains on the sidelines not sure where they should place their bets, entrepreneurs frozen in their tracks not sure if this game is even one they want to play as the outcome is far from certain.

It became clear:  Obama is a Trial Lawyer selling America on his victories on the court house steps, while engaged in a Motions practice, which inch by inch seems to give his case for rebuilding America some forward momentum. But the rest of us are scratching our heads because yes, he has won some procedural motions allowing him to frame the debate but the case is not yet won, testimony has not yet been heard nor have any jury deliberations been held,  resulted in a vote much less a verdict.

If America’s case is still being held back in a Motions Practice in 2012, many may be fooled but ultimately we as a people, all LOSE. In the alternative, American Citizens may file a motion to dismiss or for summary judgment against him.

Note: The author is “currently” a Registered Democrat who voted for and supported President Obama. But in terms of full disclosure, he has voted for members of both parties, including Independents like Mike Bloomberg at the local and national level. He wishes to note that he has no issues with lawyers being President but just believes that maybe in retrospect, if we were going to elect a lawyer to rebuild America, we should have elected a transactional lawyer instead of a litigator.