Brian Stelter wrote a  terrific piece on the Occupy movement in Thursday’s NY Times.

Most of the biggest Occupy Wall Street camps are gone. But their slogan still stands.

Whatever the long-term effects of the Occupy movement, protesters have succeeded in implanting “We are the 99 percent,” referring to the vast majority of Americans (and its implied opposite, “You are the one percent” referring to the tiny proportion of Americans with a vastly disproportionate share of wealth), into the cultural and political lexicon.

First chanted and blogged about in mid-September in New York, the slogan become a national shorthand for the income disparity. Easily grasped in its simplicity and Twitter-friendly in its brevity, the slogan has practically dared listeners to pick a side.

“We are getting nothing,” read the Tumblr blog “We Are the 99 Percent” that helped popularize the percentages, “while the other one percent is getting everything.”

Stelter’s article provides a perfect lead-in to Yes We Can! Long Island‘s most recent position statement.

By this time you are likely aware that our organization’s membership has contributed money, cold weather gear, and tents to the group at Zuccotti Park.  We did this, despite having not taken an official position at the time, because we realized that the people putting their bodies on the line for the working middle class deserved our immediate attention. Unfortunately, many of the Occupy locations are being shut down.  However, it is our strong, strong sense that, come warmer weather, the legions will return in greater force, even greater spirit, and,  perhaps, a more focused statement of purpose.

In anticipation of a growing movement representative of, and standing up for, the 99 percent, YWC!LI offers its position on the movement:

The Occupy movement has shined a spotlight on some of the most critical issues confronting our country and threatening our democracy, including social and economic inequality, high unemployment, greed, as well as corruption and undue influence of corporations on government. Its peaceful, non-hierarchal, inclusive approach has lit a fire under many, including the apathetic, the sick and poor without voice and the young who once thought selfishly of themselves rather than of the whole community.  The issues OWS has raised cannot – and will not – be ignored; the disenfranchised must have their opportunity to be heard.

Yes We Can! Long Island, an organization formed to advocate and work for progressive change, stands in solidarity with the aims of the OWS movement and is committed to keeping these issues in the forefront of our national conversation and working to restore fairness to the lives of the American people.

On one hand, it is so awful that a presidential campaign in America has so much in common with a menagerie.  On the other hand, it is great theater (farce. by any standard).

Rather than a circus sideshow, substitute a baseball metaphor for the capably-challenged GOP team.  Baseball aficionados may debate my choices.  Applying my criteria (their collective failure was enduring and laughable) this team would never win a game.  Hence the metaphor: none of the GOP can win either.

Here’s the All-Time Worst Major League Baseball Lineup:

1B-Marv Throneberry

2B-Mario Mendoza

SS-Dal Maxvill

3B-Craig Paquette

LF-Pete Grey (okay, so he had one arm)

CF-Darren Lewis

RF-Brian Hunter

C-Bob Uecker

P-Bob Kammeyer and Tommy LaSorda

Umpire-Max Patkin (clown prince of baseball)
It’s actually a pleasure watching Mute and Newt go at it.  The people on the street neither like nor trust Mute.  The people in Congress are repulsed by Newt, starting with Boehner who was a force in the removal of Newt as Speaker and whose contempt for the man remains barely beneath the surface.  I had to guffaw when it was said by one analyst that people know Newt is mean and gruff; it will play out that Mute is meaner and less capable of sloughing off his negativity.

I kind of miss Cain already.  He brought a certain something (don’t know what) to the menagerie. Maybe he can get together with Sandusky and run as an independent.  Wondering how that would go over?

Fortunately, Trump has reemerged to add a distinct odor to the GOP campaign.  The buffoon-apprentice is shallow and few respect him unless they are sucking up to him for obviously political reasons.  My sense is that his ‘debate’ will not come off and he will have some explaining to do. His arrogance will then lead him to get back in the mix as an independent, going after both sides with a similar vengeance.

Mute has come out in support of extending payroll taxes and jobless benefits. Unfortunately Mute remains mute when asked how he proposes the pay-for. What a guy.  Terrific candidate.  I hear those visiting the Javits Center and Rockefeller Institute feel the ground beneath them rumbling Jake and Rocky turn over and over in their graves..

Here’s the Teapublican Lineup:

1B-Rick Perry (first class idiot)

2B-Mitt Romney (second is fitting)

SS-Michele Bachmann (shortest run of the group)

3B-Sarah Palin (the hot corner)

LF-Rick Santorum (left out of debates)

CF-Jon Huntsman (center of this group)

RF-Ron Paul (who’s more right?)

C-Herman Cain (likely caught something from a lady)

P-Newt Gingrich (screwball pitcher)

Umpire-Grover Norquist (clown prince of pledges)

To call the slew of ephemeral Teapublican candidates ‘clowns’ is unfair to clowns.  Clowns by design and by temperament are funny and entertaining.  That group should bring about a class action suit for defamation of character.

Gingrich is hardly a clown.  He is neither funny nor engaging.  He is, by design and by temperament, thoroughly unfunny.  His potential candidacy is sad.

So, while we watch a seemingly endless vignette of GOP candidates emerging from a Volkswagen (for those of you old enough to have seen this famous circus clown stunt), their routine is unamusing, melancholy, and tragic.

Gingrich, currently ascending, is no fool. That doesn’t mean he is not foolish.  In the past week alone he has managed to offend every sound-minded American who has been listening.  For those of you who may not have known Gingrich prior to his recent reincarnation, here’s a brief history of Newt based upon just a few of his more inane, bizarre, and offensive utterings.  I used to think Gingrich was a sinister character who patrolled the halls of Congress having been thrust out by his own party.  Now I view him as a sinister character who is lurking to control the White House.

Take him at his word and see why he remains the pioneer of incivility:

• I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [my grandchildren are] my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American. [Address to Cornerstone Church in Texas, March 2011]
• The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument. [To Mother Jones magazine,October 1989]
• It doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live. – [Newt's explanation for why his multiple affairs won't damage his political fortunes, as told to his jilted wife).
• This is one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration. The more successful they've been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we're in danger.... It's almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us. [At a book talk in Huntington, NY, April 2008]
• How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn’t get out of the way of a hurricane. [Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, March 2007]

Now the reincarnate has jumped back into his bizarro world with new proclamations that reflect his continued melancholy belligerence.  Within just the past week or so, Gingrich has said any number for of vapid, offensive and cruel things.  Tell me this man is presidential in any manner, shape, or form.

He has painted a picture of a second class of Americans–red carded illegal immigrants who may remain in this country to work but never to be able to gain citizenship. All they need to have done to deserve this honor is live here for a couple decades, raise families, pay taxes, send kids to school, attend church, and (I extrapolate) continue to work for below the minimum wage.

Put the remainder of illegal immigrants on buses back ‘home’ (several million people by any count–that’s a lot of buses) ignoring that our government, our culture, has (wink-wink) welcomed them to perform work that others had not wanted to do.

Fire school janitors.  Replace them with children who can mop and sweep as well as any union worker.  Apparently, there are no child labor laws in Newt’s world.  He’s never seen a union worker he’d not like to fire on the spot and with no provocation.

The poor have no working habits. Hence, by Gingrich’s extrapolation, their offspring have no sense of how, when, or where to work to make money–unless it is cash for illegal activities.

Much of what is happening in Congress today, the polarizing of our two great political parties, is rooted in Gingrich’ earlier go-round.  Here we go again.

Staying with a theme, there are always a handful of people who are at the top of my list at any given time.  The five who top my list this week are: (Share your favorites and brief share your reason below.  I’ll keep this going as long as interest is shown).

Barack Obama continues his pitch for extending and expanding the temporary cut in the Social Security payroll tax that was the biggest item in his $447 billion jobs proposal which has been blocked by Republicans in Congress.

Elizabeth Warren is our best hope for fairness.  She’ll likely remain in my ‘top five’ for the duration. Watch this: Elizabeth Warren on Healthcare and Families

Jed Rakoff for putting CitiCorp on notice, aptly labeling them recidivists, and putting the financial corps on notice that there are rules that need to be followed. Pay up! If you haven’t Moved Your Money from Citibank, despite the inconvenience this entails, perhaps this will provide the necessary motivation.

General R F Amos, the highest ranking Marine, opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell last year.  He now says of the change in policy: “I’m very pleased with how it has gone.”

Senator Dick Durbin excoriated Bank of America. His support of  Move Your Money has made this a very successful grass roots action. People fed up with the power and influence of the big banks continue to move their accounts to credit unions and local banks.  Tens of millions of dollars have been moved over the past months despite the major inconveniences to banking customers that changing banks presents.

Who makes your top five? My Top Five (December 1 2011)

It’s time to return to the plus side of the things. Too much focus (myself included) on the Teapublican disaster unfolding before our eyes.  Imagine President Gingrich. . . uh, that’s precisely what I promised myself I would not do (so long as I can impose personal restraint).

With the Teapublican debates and soon-to-be primaries consuming far too much of the oxygen, the rhetoric will move toward a crescendo, ‘What has Obama done?’  I would love to see the media focus on the positives.  There has been so much accomplished it is necessary to look back in small doses.  I’ll be listing ten-at-a-time over the next twelve newsletters just to keep abreast of what the Obama administration has achieved.

Rachel Maddow:  If you would go on to tell them that after one year Obama would lose his 60 vote majority in the Senate, and would still pass major legislation, the experts would have told you to seek mental help, but this is exactly what President Obama has accomplished.

So far Obama has done most of what he said he would do when elected president–and there’s a year to go in his first term. Imagine if Americans had elected a Congress not hell-bent on denying Obama and the country all that is deserved.  For those who take reality seriously, there’s no real question as to whether the country is better off now than in January 2009.

If we were to list the achievements of the Roosevelt and Kennedy administrations side-by-side with Obama’s, this administration would be more than holding its own. If he (by extension ‘we’) is to win the 2012 election progressives need to demonstrably throw their support behind the president.There can be no talk of a third party. We have to talk up what has been accomplished–even if means carrying around 3 x 5 cards as prompts.  The pros bring notes, why can’t we?

The list is not intended to be either hierarchical nor chronological. Actually, it is randomly presented so that it mixes more recent items and earlier ones, domestic and international, budget and regulatory, etc. It is intended to be representative of major achievements for which the president and his administration receive too little respect and appreciation.

Ten-at-a-Time:

• Saved the collapse of the American automotive industry by making GM restructure before bailing them out, and putting incentive money to help the industry
• Ended previous practice of having White House aides rewrite scientific and environmental rules, regulations, and reports.
• Ended previous policy on torture; the US now has a no torture policy and is in compliance with the Geneva Convention standards.
• Ended previous practice of forbidding Medicare from negotiating with drug manufacturers for cheaper drugs; the federal government is now realizing hundreds of millions in savings.
• Expanded the SCHIP program to cover health care for 4 million more children.
• Supported increased allocations for stem-cell and new biomedical research.
• Improved conditions at Walter Reed Military Hospital and other military hospitals.
• Provided tax credits to first-time home buyers through the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 to revitalize the U.S. housing market.
• Increased student loans.
• Negotiated deal with Swiss banks to permit US government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals.

So why isn’t Obama’s political standing higher? Todd Purdam (Vanity Fair, 12/20/10)cites: Precisely because of the raft of legislative victories he’s achieved. Obama has pushed through large and complicated new government initiatives at a time of record-low public trust in government (and in institutions of any sort, for that matter), and he has suffered not because he hasn’t “done” anything but because he’s done so much-way, way too much in the eyes of his most conservative critics. With each victory, Obama’s opponents grow more frustrated, filling the airwaves and what passes for political discourse with fulminations about some supposed sin or another. Is it any wonder the guy is bleeding a bit? For his part, Obama resists the pugilistic impulse. To him, the merit of all these programs has been self-evident, and he has been the first to acknowledge that he has not always done all he could to explain them, sensibly and simply, to the American public.

The lists will, hopefully, trigger your recollection of the Obama administration’s greatest achievements. It would be real helpful if you would share them with me to be shared:

Your favorite Obama achievements

Everyday, we see hard-working families struggling to survive.That is why we are marching this Thursday afternoon, December 1, 4 p.m.)

It’s not just for the labor movement, but for everyone who is frustrated and worried about the growing economic disparity in this country. It’s for anyone who has ever agonized about finding a job, paying for college, meeting a mortgage payment, or how to buy enough food for dinner.

The March for Jobs and Economic Fairness is a call to action and a show of unity — we want to march down Broadway from Herald Square to Union Square and fill the street from curb to curb so government and big business get our message: enough is enough.It’s time to end the unfair economic policies in this country that benefit too few, and leave everyone else behind.

Assembly Area: 31st, 32nd Sts – b/t Broadway and 5 Ave. Enter Assembly area from 5 Ave.

March Route – Broadway from 32nd St to Union Square. Stepping off at 4pm.

Dispersal at Union Square

Come after work. Come when you can.

Join working people from NYC and beyond.

Ending around 6 p.m.

This march is our call to action.

NO rally. NO speeches. It’s all been said before.

Your participation in this march will be our statement.

For more information

When I put pen to rest, expecting to follow suit for the Thanksgiving weekend, I had been unaware of two exciting proposals that merit your attention.

Perhaps it’s the magic of the Thanksgiving spirit. Maybe it’s the ghost of JFK. Whatever.

In the past couple of days two inspiring proposals have been seen light of day. First, I learned of Congressman McGovern’s proposal of a constitutional amendment (to stand the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision on its head).   Soon after, I read Michael Moore’s suggested framework and demands for the Occupy movement.

Both of these proposals make energizing reading for the holiday weekend.  They not be fiction. Making them real is up to each of us, individually and collectively.  To me, that’s the meaning of the Kennedy quote above.

It’s like I just stepped onto Plymouth Rock and am finding myself in a new world of promise and hope–a Thanksgiving story in the making if there ever was one.  JFK would be so proud at this moment.

That these two proposals are being offered at this time is hardly coincidental. The Occupy movement has brought new life into the spirit of working middle class Americans and of those who aspire to attain that status.

The next time someone says ‘I don’t get OWS‘ the ideas outlined below are precisely what needs to roll off our lips:

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CONGRESSMAN JIM MCGOVERN INTRODUCES CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BILL TO OVERTURN CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to clarify

the authority of Congress and the States to regulate corporations, limited

liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws

of any state, the United States, or any foreign state.

McGovern’s proposed amendment reads:

Section 1. We the people who ordain and establish this Constitution intend the rights protected by this Constitution to be the rights of natural persons.

Section 2. The words people, person, or citizen as used in this Constitution do not include corporations, limited liability companies or other corporate entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state, and such corporate entities are subject to such regulation as the people, through their elected State and Federal representatives, deem reasonable and are otherwise consistent with the powers of Congress and the States under this Constitution.

Section 3. Nothing contained herein shall be construed to limit the people’s rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, freedom of association and all such other rights of the people, which rights are inalienable.’.

Go to: CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BILL TO OVERTURN CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

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Michael Moore’s Proposal: Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here?

This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement. It was attended by 40+ people and the discussion was both inspiring and invigorating.

Here is what we ended up proposing as the movement’s vision statement to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

We envision: [1] a truly free, democratic, and just society; [2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus; [3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making; [4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others; [5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments; [6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few; [7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings; [8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible; [9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.

The next step will be to develop a specific list of goals and demands. As one of the millions of people who are participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, I would like to respectfully offer my suggestions of what we can all get behind now to wrestle the control of our country out of the hands of the 1% and place it squarely with the 99% majority.

Here is what I will propose to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

10 Things We Want

A Proposal for Occupy Wall Street

Submitted by Michael Moore

1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).

2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.

3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.

4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.

6. Reorder our nation’s spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.

7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.

8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.

9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. (For any U.S. business people freaking out at this idea because you think workers can’t run a successful company: Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world’s leading manufacturing exporter.)

10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have. These include:

a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.

b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.

c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a “second bill of rights” as proposed by President Frankin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.

Share your thoughts on this glorious Thanksgiving weekend:  On the McGovern and Moore proposals

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‘Ample Reason to Be Thankful’

This past week marks the forty-eighth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As a ‘boomer’ he remains at or near the top of my list of heroes.  Take a moment to read the words he shared with Americans on Thanksgiving Day, 1962. How true they remain to this day. This year, as the harvest draws near its close and the year approaches its end, awesome perils again remain to be faced. Yet we have, as in the past, ample reason to be thankful for the abundance of our blessings. We are grateful for the blessings of faith and health and strength and for the imperishable spiritual gifts of love and hope. We give thanks, too, for our freedom as a nation; for the strength of our arms and the faith of our friends; for the beliefs and confidence we share; for our determination to stand firmly for what we believe to be right and to resist mightily what we believe to be base; and for the heritage of liberty bequeathed by our ancestors which we are privileged to preserve for our children and our children’s children. It is right that we should be grateful for the plenty amidst which we (some of  us–my addition) live; the productivity of our farms, the output of our factories, the skill of our artisans, and the ingenuity of our investors. But in the midst of our thanksgiving, let us not be unmindful of the plight of those in many parts of the world to whom hunger is no stranger and the plight of those millions more who live without the blessings of liberty and freedom. With some we are able to share our material abundance through our Food-for-Peace Program and through our support of the United Nations Freedom-from-Hunger Campaign. To all we can offer the sustenance of hope that we shall not fail in our unceasing efforts to make this a peaceful and prosperous world for all mankind. I urge all citizens to make this Thanksgiving not merely a holiday from their labors, but rather a day of contemplation. I ask the head of each family to recount to his children the story of the first New England thanksgiving, thus to impress upon future generations the heritage of this nation born in toil, in danger, in purpose, and in the conviction that right and justice and freedom can through man’s efforts persevere and come to fruition with the blessing of God. What would you say to John Kennedy were he alive to meet with you a half-century later? Your thoughts: What would you say to John Kennedy were you meet him today?