Politics Plus

Occupy Wall Street and the 99% movement went global yesterday with demonstrations all over the world.  Almost all were peaceful.  There was so much going on that to cover it all would be impossible, but this excerpt and these three video clips should help bring you up to date.

Linking up with the Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York, tens of thousands of people around the world took to the streets Saturday to reiterate their anger at the global financial system, corporate greed and government cutbacks.

Rallies were held in more than 900 cities in Europe, Africa and Asia, as well as in the United States, with some of the largest taking place in Europe. The demonstration in Rome turned violent, but crowds elsewhere were largely peaceful.

“What’s exciting about what’s happening is a sense of international solidarity,” said Ben Walker, 33, a university teacher from Norwich, England, who was carrying a tent and planning on camping overnight near the London Stock Exchange.

Organizers of the global demonstration said on their Web site that they were demanding a “true democracy.”

“United in one voice, we will let politicians, and the financial elites they serve, know it is up to us, the people, to decide our future,” they said.

The global demonstrations came on the same day that finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 nations met in Paris to discuss solutions to the debt crises engulfing Europe.

Television images from Rome showed police launching tear-gas grenades and firing water cannons as a breakaway group clad in black set cars on fire and smashed bank machines and shop windows… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Washington Post>

In the first video clip, we have news from London and Brussels.

There was no sign of violence in either.

In the second, we have news from Rome, where violence did break out.

Note, that the 99% demonstrators were completely peaceful.  The violence came at the hands of a separate group of demonstrators, who used the demonstration as an occasion for havoc.  From what little I know of Berlusconi, I would not be at all surprised if the second group was a black flag operation, set off by agent provocateurs.

In the last, a friend from Vancouver expressed concern because of previous violence in demonstrations there, so here is some video of those rampaging Canucks in action. 😉

Weren’t they scary?

Thank you to all the peaceful demonstrators who put themselves on the line everywhere.

House Republicans still have no jobs plan.  Obama has a jobs plan designed to appeal to centrist voters, and it is acceptable but not ideal.  However there is a jobs plan that has all the elements America needs, with none of the down side in other plans.  It is brought to you by the Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) today sent policy proposals to Senator Patty Murray and Congressman Jeb Hensarling, Co-Chairs of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, recommending that the work of the committee focus on creating jobs, raising revenues through fair taxation and protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The CPC identified more than $4 trillion in savings, which would increase to more than $7 trillion if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire on schedule. The recommendations direct the savings toward job creation, the single most important means to reduce the deficit.

“It’s way past time to talk big or think big – it’s time to govern big and do what needs doing,” CPC co-chair Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) said. “The American people are sick and tired of feeling too few in the government are responsive to their needs. While Republicans dither about cutting corporate taxes and dismantling Medicare, people are losing their homes, losing their jobs and losing their savings through no fault of their own. As a government, we need to look at ourselves and offer the country solutions that match the scope of the problems we face. Anything less is a waste of time.”

“While Republican politicians are busy slashing good paying American jobs from our economy, the Progressive Caucus continues to put job creation first with serious proposals to rebuild America,” said CPC Co-Chair Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN). “The most effective way to reduce the deficit is to put America back to work. Creating good jobs, making sure that everyone pays their fair share and protecting Social Security Medicare and Medicaid, are the best ways to ensure that all Americans are put on the path to prosperity, not just the wealthiest 1 percent,” Ellison concluded.

The proposals would reduce the nation’s deficit by trillions of dollars, put Americans back to work and protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Key recommendations include a responsible end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saving $1.6 trillion; enacting the Fairness in Taxation Act, creating a millionaire tax that generates $872.5 billion; and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, saving $157.9 billion.

“With the Super Committee, the Republicans have manufactured yet another budget crisis,” said CPC Budget Task Force Chair Rep. Michael Honda. “We can ‘go big’ and address our budget deficits by allowing the unpaid-for Bush tax cuts to expire and ending our unpaid-for wars on schedule. Anyone who says we need to cut education, cut the social safety net, cut Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare or provide more tax cuts to the rich, is pushing a political agenda, not sound fiscal policy.”

Full text of the proposals is available here… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Representative Raul Grijalva>

Note that Republicans have not proposed this plan.  Democrats have, proving once again that claims of equivalence between the parties are false.

Throughout American history, the 1% and the politicians they own have been there.  We did not always call them Republicans.  In fact, when the Republican party was initially founded, they were the progressive party, and Democrats represented the 1%.  Nevertheless, the attitudes expressed by these people has remained unchanged over the years, as this article by Mike Lux demonstrates.

…conservatives throughout our history have always echoed each other on these subjects no matter what the era. Here’s a sampling:

1. Written in 1776 by a pro-British Anglican Bishop: “If I must be enslaved let it be by a King at least, and not by a parcel of upstart lawless Committeemen. If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin.”
2. In the 1790s, friend of the big New York bankers of his day Alexander Hamilton was at a dinner party, and yelled at a pro-democracy advocate: “Your people, sir – your people is a great beast.” An ally of Hamilton’s wrote: “A democracy is scarcely tolerable at any period of natural history. Its omens are always sinister. … It is always on trial here, and the issue will be civil war, desolation, and anarchy. No wise man but discerns its imperfections, no good man but shudders at its miseries. No honest man but proclaims its frauds, and no brave man but draws his sword against its farce.”
3. In the 1830s, conservative hero John C. Calhoun (who first forged the bond between the idea of states’ rights and conservative politics) wrote: “The will of the majority is the will of a rabble. Progressive democracy is incompatible with liberty.”
4. In the post-Civil War era, where the right-wing philosophy of Social Darwinism reigned supreme, conservatives were distressed about the idea of poor and working people voting and then taking from the rich. Charles Adams wrote, “Universal suffrage can only mean in plain English, the government of ignorance and vice – it means a European, and especially Celtic, proletariat on the Atlantic Coast; an African proletariat on the shores of the Gulf, and a Chinese proletariat on the Pacific.” And his contemporary Francis Parkman added, “There is probably no sweeter experience in the world than that of a penniless laborer … when he learns that by casting his vote in the right way, he can strip the rich merchant … of a portion of his gains.”
5. These anti-democratic sentiments certainly did not cease in the modern era — all you have to do is look at all the Republican efforts to deny the right to vote to so many citizens to understand that. And their fears of demonstrators are vivid. Look at this quote, which certainly reflected the views of people in power like Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, from conservative author Samuel Huntington in a report he wrote in the 1970s: “Some of the problems of governance in the United States today stem from an excess of democracy. … A democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and non-involvement on the part of some individuals and groups.”

From the anti-American Revolution Tories of the 1770s to the Glenn Beck/Eric Cantor conservatives of today, conservatives always have been on the side of the wealthiest and most powerful in society, and always have been absolutely panic stricken when people get out in the streets to protest the abuses of the rest of us by the economic elites… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

There have been two periods in the last hundred years where millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals have run the show.  The first was the Roaring Twenties.  Unregulated excessive greed brought us the Great Depression.  The second began in 1980, the Republican Revolution, and unregulated excessive greed brought us the Republican Recession.  We stand at a crossroads in history.  The first step in restoring America must be to remove the party that most fully represents the interests of the 1%, the Republicans.  Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!