Britain: The Resurgence of the Student Occupation

Posted on February 12, 2009 by RagBlog

Oxford students demand the university condemns Israel’s attack on Gaza. Photo: Rex.

Students are revolting: The spirit of ’68 is reawakening
By Emily Dugan

Campus sit-ins began as a response to the Gaza attacks, but unrest is already spilling over to other issues.

They are the iPod generation of students: politically apathetic, absorbed by selfish consumerism, dedicated to a few years of hedonism before they land a lucrative job in the City. Not any more. A seismic change is taking place in British universities.

Around the UK, thousands of students have occupied lecture theatres, offices and other buildings at more than 20 universities in sit-down protests. It seems that the spirit of 1968 has returned to the campus.

While it was the situation in Gaza that triggered this mass protest, the beginnings of political enthusiasm have already spread to other issues.

John Rose, one of the original London School of Economics (LSE) students to mount the barricades alongside Tariq Ali in 1968, spent last week giving lectures on the situation in Gaza at 12 of the occupations.

“This is something different to anything we’ve seen for a long time,” he said. “There is genuine fury at what Israel did.

“I think it’s highly likely that this year will see more student action. What’s interesting is the nervousness of vice chancellors and their willingness to concede demands; it indicates this is something that could well turn into [another] ’68.”

Beginning with a 24-hour occupation at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) on 13 January, the sit-ins spread across the country. Now occupations have been held at the LSE, Essex, King’s College London, Birmingham, Sussex, Warwick, Manchester Metropolitan, Oxford, Leeds, Cambridge, Sheffield Hallam, Bradford, Nottingham, Queen Mary, Manchester, Strathclyde, Newcastle, Kingston, Goldsmiths and Glasgow.

Among the demands of students are disinvestment in the arms trade; the promise to provide scholarships for Palestinian students; a pledge to send books and unused computers to Palestine; and to condemn Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Technology has set these actions apart from those of previous generations, allowing a national momentum to grow with incredible speed. Through the linking up of internet blogs, news of successes spread quickly and protests grew nationwide.

Just three weeks after the first sit-in at SOAS, students gathered yesterday at Birkbeck College to draw up a national strategy. The meeting featured speeches from leaders in the Stop the War movement, such as Tony Benn, George Galloway MP and Jeremy Corbyn MP. There has also been an Early Day Motion tabled in Parliament in support of campus activism.

At the end of the month students from across the country will gather for a national demonstration calling for the abolition of tuition fees, an event that organisers say has rocketed in size following the success of the occupations over Gaza.

Vice chancellors and principals have been brought to the negotiating table and – in the majority of universities – bowed to at least one of the demands. The students’ success means that now there is a new round of protests. On Wednesday two new occupations began at Strathclyde and Manchester universities, and on Friday night students at the University of Glasgow also launched a sit-in.

Emily Dreyfus, a 21-year-old political activist in her third year of reading classics at Oxford, was one of around 80 students to occupy the historic Bodleian library building in the city and demand that the university issue a statement condemning the Gaza attacks and disinvest from the arms trade. She said: “I found Oxford politically very dead when I arrived, but it’s completely different now. There seem to be more and more people talking about politics, which is so exciting. It’s really been aided by the communication tools we’ve got, things like Facebook.”

Wes Streeting, the president of the National Union of Students, said: “What we’ve seen over the Gaza issue is a resurgence of a particular type of protest: the occupation. It’s a long time since we’ve seen student occupations on such a scale. It’s about time we got the student movement going again and had an impact.”

Establishments that have not previously been known for their activism have also become involved. Fran Legg was one of several students to set up the first Stop the War Coalition at Queen Mary, a research-focused university in London, a month ago. Now they are inundated with interest.

“Action on this scale among students hasn’t been seen since the Sixties and Seventies,” she said.

“This is going to go down in history as a new round of student mobilisation and it will set a precedent. Gaza is the main issue at the moment, but we’re looking beyond the occupation; we’re viewing it as a springboard for other protests and to set up a committee to make sure the university only invests ethically.”

As the first generation of students to pay substantial direct fees to universities, their negotiating power has also been strengthened. Their concern over their college’s investments have been given new legitimacy because it is partly their money.

Ms Legg said: “For the first time, you’ve got students getting principals to the negotiation table, saying they don’t want their tuition fees funding war. Everybody wants to know where their money is going.”

The activist: ‘Students will see they can take action’

Katan Alder, 22, student leader speaking from the occupation at Manchester University

“We’ve been occupying the university since Wednesday. More than 500 people came to an emergency Students’ Union meeting and we took the vice chancellor’s administration block that afternoon. Israel’s assault on Gaza made people angry, and we heard about the occupations at other universities through blogs. This is the biggest student campaign we’ve had and it’s also the most wide-reaching. We’ll stay until the university lets us meet with the vice chancellor. I think students will see they can take action on more issues, such as the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the education system; the Government’s refusal to stop the marketisation of education has provoked a lot of anger.”

The ’68 veteran: ‘It changed our lives’

John Rose, 63, former student organiser at the London School of Economics in 1968; now a lecturer and author on the Middle East

“I arrived at the LSE in ’66 as an extremely naive liberal student and I left in ’69 as a revolutionary socialist. It changed our lives. I was one of the student organisers with Tariq Ali and attended all the demonstrations and occupations. We did think a revolution was coming; we thought mass action of students might overthrow capitalism and bring genuine equality. It took us some time to realise that wasn’t going to happen.

“It wasn’t just about rioting and having fun, it was political argument that probed all the assumptions about the world. It was a highly intense period and the memory stays powerfully with anyone involved; it’s the memory of those times that has kept me going.

“It was a feeling of fantastic elation: we began to realise that mass action could change things. Once it started, we developed a taste for it and began to consider mass activity as a way of doing politics, which is what’s happening now. People are fed up with bankers, politicians and elite institutions. Hundreds of us thought the revolution was coming in ’69, but maybe the revolution is coming now.”

Source / The Independent / Posted on Feb. 8, 2009

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The Republican Taliban Are in the Cat Bird Seat

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Charge!: Republican Chairman Michael Steele calls forth the forces of reaction.

‘The price of determined obstructionism will be much higher for the nation, but the Republicans clearly care only about their own political fate.’

By Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / February 11, 2009

Representative Peter Sessions of Texas, head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, bragged that Senate Republicans had learned insurgency tactics from the Taliban. Republican columnist Jonah Goldberg has already registered his opinion that “The stimulus bill has failed. Barack Obama has failed.” Maybe he thought that his colleagues had successfully gutted it, but he limited his explanation of the failure to saying Barack Obama lost his opportunity to reduce the partisan climate, which was not a good idea in the first place in Goldberg’s view.

No one was surprised when Rush Limbaugh, the Republican ayatollah and enforcer of orthodoxy, said “I hope he [Obama] fails.” Limbaugh has spent two decades making racially “insensitive” remarks, and race was doubtless one important factor in the spinmeister’s motivation. It is difficult to say how many other conservatives have serious problems with President Obama’s race.

No Honeymoons for Clinton and Obama

Republicans refused to grant Bill Clinton a honeymoon in 1993, and now they have done the same to Barack Obama. Blocking Clinton programs paid off big time, and voters in 1994 restored Republicans to control of the House after decades in the wilderness. It looks like the GOP is looking to repeat this feat and profit handsomely in 2010. Willing to sacrifice the interests of the nation, the Republicans have put themselves in the cat bird seat. Heads they win; tails we the people lose.

But this time, the price of determined obstructionism will be much higher for the nation, but the Republicans clearly care only about their own political fate. Recently, a ranking international trade official predicted that this deep depression will lead to political instability in some countries. One of British Prime Minister Brown’s chief economic advisors is saying the world could be facing the worst economic crisis in 100 years.

Even Keynesian economists supporting the stimulus plan say things are bound to get much worse and that there will not be great improvement in 2010. Through delays, talking down the stimulus, and gutting important provisions, the Republicans have guaranteed that things will get much worse. Few doubt that the GOP base will hold firm, and there is a pattern of voters supporting the opposition in off years. Add to that impatient people who will want to punish Obama and the Democrats for not working economic miracles in less than two years, and there is the formula for huge GOP gains in 2010.

The Spin War is about a very difficult paradigm shift

So far, with the help of the corporate media, Republicans have run circles around Democrats in the spin war. All they are required to do is criticize and offer vague bumper sticker slogans. Most, like Party chairman Michael Steele, subscribe to Herbert Hoover economics, and want government to do nothing. Some back the three trillion tax cut plan offered in the Senate. Others are unhappy but have nothing to offer. It seems clear that they have greatly driven down public support for the stimulus and have reconverted many to the old, failed economic paradigm of tax breaks for the rich, deregulation, and opposition to spending to help the least advantaged.

Democrats mistakenly thought that the election results and illusory polls showed that there had been a paradigm shift away from the old model and toward modern economics. They should have read Thomas Kuhn, whose work shows that these shifts come slowly. Economic pain will get worse, and that will stimulate some to question the old assumptions. But there are no simple slogans and one minute soundbites to use in helping people understand our situation and seeing the merit of Keynesian solutions. In his first press conference, President Obama offered many good explanations. However, we must find ways to simplify them still more.

How the Democrats reeducate the public on economic matters is a problem. It is so much easier to sell people on misinformation. Correcting this propaganda requires two and three step reasoning. Congressional Democrats must harp on how Republican economics brought us this looming depression and they must harp on the inconsistency of Republican arguments.

There are many who insist that only tax cuts — especially for the rich — will do the job. They note that the Kennedy and Reagan cuts had some positive impact. But they do not tell us that studies of those two events show that we got far less than a dollar’s simulative value out of each dollar of tax cuts. Simple, untargeted spending yields $1.75 in stimulus for each dollar spent. It seems that the Bush tax cut went to fuel the financial services and housing bubbles, and the 2008 cash hand-out had no effect whatever.

The Gutted Stimulus Plan

The fact is that the world economy is going over the cliff. Keynesians know that this package is far too small and has the wrong ration between tax cuts and stimulus spending. If this first stimulus package prevents the bottom from completely falling out, it will have been a great success. We also know that the stimulus package was badly weakened in the Senate — all to pick up three votes. The child tax credit was changed to make certain that the very poorest children would be left out in the cold. Assistance to the states was sharply cut, assuring that many in state and municipal jobs will lose their jobs and be unable to spend at old levels. Medical assistance for the unemployed was practically left out. For no sensible reason, people who now own homes will get $39 billion in assistance so they can try to flip their houses at a profit. It is hard to see how all this damage can be repaired in conference committee as the votes of so-called centrists are needed to get it through the Senate.

After the conference bill passes, President Obama needs to lower expectations by pointing out all the damage that was done to the program. It will no longer produce four million jobs.

Let The Repugs Bring Buckets to the Senate

With the certainty of more obstruction down the road, Democrats have to either abandon large parts of their program or face up to doing something about the filibuster. It is unlikely that the rules can be changed, so they are left with letting the Republicans bring their buckets into the Senate chamber and start talking around the clock. The trick will be finding the right issue. It is probably health care, provided the Democrats submit a simple and clean bill that will not open the door for all sorts of outrageous claims about not being able to pick your own doctor, etc.

What NeoCons Want in 2013

If the Democrats cannot facilitate a paradigm shift, we could see gleeful NeoCons begin implementing Friedman’s Shock Doctrine in 2013, complete with a shredded safety net, all sorts of privatization, stripped away labor and environmental regulations, a return to casino capitalism, and a foreign policy designed to extend the power of Wall Street while alienating tens of millions abroad. Face it; if the American economy cannot generate great income for American investment capitalists, the Armed forces must do it abroad.

If things are bad enough, ordinary people might accept the kind of security state General Augusto Pinochet introduced to protect the Chicago School’s economic program in Chile. George W. Bush greatly improved upon the foundations laid by his father and Oliver North, and Barack Obama will not be able to dismantle all of that. Already, his administration has refused to back off Bush’s use of the state secret privilege.

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The Press Doesn’t Cover Nonviolence : A Cautionary Tale

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Creative nonviolence: street theater at the 2008 Republican Convention in St. Paul. Photo by Neal Reiter.

If you want nonviolence, report it

If newspaper editors are serious about wanting young people to choose nonviolence, then they must do more than pounce on stories about young people who use violence. They must report on the alternative.

By Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog / February 11, 2009

An editorial published recently by the Austin American-Statesman admonished readers to view a trial in Minnesota as a “cautionary tale for activists.” Two men from Austin were charged with making explosives intended for use during the Republican National Convention last September

Cautionary tales are important, and it’s fortunate that the explosives were never used. I wholeheartedly agree with the editorial that using violence to effect change is counterproductive. But this story, focusing only on these two “activists” (and, later, their former colleague-turned FBI informant) has given a false impression of what activism actually looked like at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

The case of the men from Austin was the only front-page news (Sept. 9, 10, 11, 25 and Jan. 9, 27, 28, 31) published in the Austin American-Statesman about any aspect of the demonstrations at either convention. The larger, unreported story was that an array of creative, nonviolent action was organized in Denver and St. Paul by committed people who had gathered there to exercise their First Amendment rights to assemble peacefully despite the restrictions placed on them. People whose message was essentially, “it’s counterproductive to use violence (invasion, occupation, torture, war) to effect change” were muffled by the police and the press.

I followed news about the demonstrations at both conventions mostly through independent media reports and eye-witness accounts from friends who were there. Events included parades, marches, permitted encampments, art displays, concerts, street theatre and public forums. In Denver, a group of hundreds of young people led by members of Iraq Veterans Against the War marched peacefully for several miles to deliver a statement to Obama campaign officials at the convention site. In St. Paul, a similar march was led by several hundred members of Veterans for Peace who had held their annual convention in St. Paul in order to coincide with the RNC. A group formed by Voices for Creative Nonviolence walked 450 miles from Chicago to St. Paul during the month ahead of the convention to speak in towns along the way about the ongoing occupation of Iraq. CodePink activists rode bicycles around the heavily barricaded convention sites to promote a “War is Not Green” message, and they used some spontaneous satire to dramatize corporate influence of politicians and to resist the provocative corralling of demonstrators by cordons of black-clad riot police and national guard troops.

If newspaper editors are serious about wanting young people to choose nonviolence, then they must do more than pounce on stories about young people who use violence. They must report on the alternative. Otherwise, part of the message young people get is that only violence warrants notice. Jurors have debated the influence of the FBI informant in the RNC case. Another discussion could reasonably ask whether the major media plays a role in “inducing” people to use violence by selling it so heavily in the news while downplaying or ignoring news about people who practice nonviolent resistance.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was rightly cited in the American-Statesman editorial as a powerful practitioner of nonviolence. His resistance was active, not “passive,” as the editorial termed it.

At Austin’s MLK Day celebration, and also in our public high schools this year, the Nonmilitary Options for Youth group that I work with has used a “peace wheel of fortune” that we made as a peace education tool. The wheel contains names and pictures of peacemakers past and present, including prominent figures like MLK and Gandhi, and others not as familiar. Students spin the wheel and, for a prize, are asked to tell us something about the person on the wheel where it stops. We are encouraged when we see how much students like the wheel, so we’re also saddened when we see how little they are being taught in school about even the most well-known nonviolent movements. If young people know only that MLK “had a dream,” but don’t know what he did to achieve it, and if they have never heard of Gandhi or Cesar Chavez, then they have little idea of what nonviolent resistance actually entails: the boycotts, labor strikes, fasts, sit-ins, teach-ins, mass marches, court cases, good faith negotiations and the long road made of many important steps. Tools and strategies evolve over time and adapt to different situations because nonviolence is a living history.

Don’t miss out on this history as it is being lived. Don’t cheat kids out of it. In this time of hopefulness and reform, I’d like to see the mainstream media commit to report more than the cautionary tales, and to tell the stories of the many creative ways that people are using nonviolent methods to defend our freedoms and bring about positive change. Do it because it will increase fairness and accuracy in reporting, and do it because it will save lives.

[Van Haitsma is active with Nonmilitary Options for Youth in Austin and writes as makingpeace on the Austin American-Statesman reader blogs.]

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Police in Texas : Property Seizure called ‘Highway Piracy’

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Beware all who enter here. Photo by MJW.

Highway robbery on the open roads of Texas

By Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / February 11, 2009

See ‘Property seizure by police called “highway piracy,”‘ by Lisa Sandberg, Below.

According to the Mayor of Tenaha, Texas, population 1,000, “It’s always helpful to have any kind of income to expand your police force.” Even, apparently, when it’s literally highway robbery. Police are enriching local coffers by abusing an overly vague law permitting the taking of property by those accused of committing a crime. In many instances people are pressured to sign a waiver giving up their property in exchange for not being charged.

Most of those caught in this kind of trap are black and from out of state. And, according to the Houston Chronicle, “some affidavits filed by officers relied on the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a crime had occurred.”

Laws permitting the seizure by police of property from drivers suspected of committing a crime, including their car and anything in it, have been abused for years.

The Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-Times have published an expose about this form of criminal misuse of power, Attorney David Guillory is suing officials in Tenaha and Shelby County on behalf of a client, and Texas state Sen. John Whitmire, who has pressed a number of admirable causes over the years, is pushing for action against this highly questionable practice that is frequently based on racial profiling and designed to enrich the coffers of municipal pirates like the police force of Tenaha, Texas.

Property seizure by police called ‘highway piracy’

Attorney David Guillory calls the roadside stops and seizures in Tenaha ‘highway piracy,’ undertaken by a couple of law enforcement officers whose agencies get to keep most of what is seized.

By Lisa Sandberg / February 7, 2009

TENAHA — A two-decade-old state law that grants authorities the power to seize property used in a crime is wielded by some agencies against people who are never charged with, much less convicted, of a crime.

Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town of 1,000 people seized property from at least 140 motorists between 2006 and 2008, and, to date, filed criminal charges against fewer than half, according to a San Antonio Express-News review of court documents.

Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash, cell phones, personal jewelry, a pair of sneakers, and often, the very car that was being driven through town. Some affidavits filed by officers relied on the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a crime had occurred.

Linda Dorman, a great-grandmother from Akron, Ohio, had $4,000 in cash taken from her by local authorities when she was stopped while driving through town after visiting Houston in April 2007. Court records make no mention that anything illegal was found in her van and show no criminal charges filed in the case. She is still waiting for the return of what she calls “her life savings.”

Dorman’s attorney, David Guillory, calls the roadside stops and seizures in Tenaha “highway piracy,” undertaken by a couple of law enforcement officers whose agencies get to keep most of what is seized.

Guillory is suing officials in Tenaha and Shelby County on behalf of Dorman and nine other clients who were stripped of their property. All were African-Americans driving either rentals or vehicles with out-of-state plates.

Lawsuit filed

Guillory alleges in the lawsuit that while his clients were detained, they were presented with an ultimatum: waive your rights to your property in exchange for a promise to be released and not be criminally charged. Guillory said most did as Dorman did, signing the waiver to avoid jail.

The state’s asset seizure law doesn’t require that law enforcement agencies file criminal charges in civil forfeiture cases.

It requires only a preponderance of evidence that the property was used in the commission of certain crimes, such as drug crimes, or bought with proceeds of those crimes. That’s a lesser burden than that required in a criminal case.

But Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said the state’s asset forfeiture law is being abused by enough jurisdictions across the state that he wants to rewrite major sections of it this year.

“The idea that people lose their property but are never charged and never get it back, that’s theft as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

Supporters tout the state’s forfeiture law, when used right, as an essential law enforcement tool, allowing state and local departments the ability to go after criminals using the criminals’ money. Law enforcement agencies last year captured tens of millions of dollars from such seizures statewide, according to records from Whitmire’s office.

But in Tenaha, a town of chicken farms that hugs the Louisiana border, critics say being a black out-of-towner passing through with anything of value is almost evidence of a crime.

Town needs revenue

Tenaha Mayor George Bowers, 80, defended the seizures, saying they allowed a cash-poor city the means to add a second police car in a two-policeman town and help pay for a new police station. “It’s always helpful to have any kind of income to expand your police force,” Bowers said.

Local police, he said, must take aggressive action to stem the drug trade that flows through town via U.S. 59. “No doubt about it. (Highway 59) is a thoroughfare that a lot of no-good people travel on. They take the drugs and sell it and take the money and go right back into Mexico,” said Bowers, who has been Tenaha’s mayor for 54 years.

Bowers said he would defer questions about whether innocent people were being stripped of their property to Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Russell.

Russell could not be reached for comment, and her attorney declined comment. Randy Whatley, a local constable who himself deposited $115,000 into the county’s seizure account for fiscal year 2007 — state records show $45,000 was eventually returned to their owners — also could not be reached for comment. Russell, Whatley and Bowers are named in Guillory’s lawsuit.

Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos said the state’s forfeiture law, which last year put millions in the coffers of local law enforcement agencies, including hers, takes some of the profit out of crime. “These ill-gotten gains are used to further the aims of law enforcement and public safety,” she said. “It’s kind of poetic justice, isn’t it?”

Lykos praises law

Lykos believes the law, if followed, provides citizens with adequate safeguards. Local police and attorneys in her office, she said, are well-versed in what constitutes adequate evidence for seizures. Rarely, she said, do seizures take place locally without the filing of criminal charges.

In Shelby County, the district attorney made legal agreements with some individuals that her office would not file criminal charges so long as the property owner waived all rights to the valuables.

“In exchange for (respondent) signing the agreed order of forfeiture, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office agrees to reject charges of money laundering pending at this time,” read one waiver, dated April 10, 2007.

The property owners named in the waiver had just signed over $7,342 in cash, their 1994 Chevrolet Suburban, a cell phone, a BlackBerry and a stone necklace.

The law, forbids a peace officer at the time of seizure to “request, require or in any manner induce any person . . . to execute a document purporting to waive the person’s interest in or rights to the property.”

Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

Source / Houston Chronicle

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We Won’t Pay for Your Crisis !!

Posted on February 11, 2009 by RagBlog

In December 2001 Argentina was caught by street protests when former President Fernando de la Rua froze bank accounts to pay off the country’s foreign debt. The continuing protests, street riots, and looting of shops caused De la Rua to resign as well as his successor Interim President Adolfo Rodriguez Saa. To end the country’s economic and political turmoil on New Year’s Day Argentina’s Legislative Assembly decided to appoint Eduardo Duhalde as Argentina’s new President until December 2003. Here Communistas throw rocks during a protest that turned into a riot between rival political parties. Photograph © 2002 Andrew Kaufman.

All of Them Must Go
By Naomi Klein / February 4, 2009

Watching the crowds in Iceland banging pots and pans until their government fell reminded me of a chant popular in anti-capitalist circles in 2002: “You are Enron. We are Argentina.”

Its message was simple enough. You–politicians and CEOs huddled at some trade summit–are like the reckless scamming execs at Enron (of course, we didn’t know the half of it). We–the rabble outside–are like the people of Argentina, who, in the midst of an economic crisis eerily similar to our own, took to the street banging pots and pans. They shouted, “¡Que se vayan todos!” (“All of them must go!”) and forced out a procession of four presidents in less than three weeks. What made Argentina’s 2001-02 uprising unique was that it wasn’t directed at a particular political party or even at corruption in the abstract. The target was the dominant economic model–this was the first national revolt against contemporary deregulated capitalism.

It’s taken a while, but from Iceland to Latvia, South Korea to Greece, the rest of the world is finally having its ¡Que se vayan todos! moment.

The stoic Icelandic matriarchs beating their pots flat even as their kids ransack the fridge for projectiles (eggs, sure, but yogurt?) echo the tactics made famous in Buenos Aires. So does the collective rage at elites who trashed a once thriving country and thought they could get away with it. As Gudrun Jonsdottir, a 36-year-old Icelandic office worker, put it: “I’ve just had enough of this whole thing. I don’t trust the government, I don’t trust the banks, I don’t trust the political parties and I don’t trust the IMF. We had a good country, and they ruined it.”

Another echo: in Reykjavik, the protesters clearly won’t be bought off by a mere change of face at the top (even if the new PM is a lesbian). They want aid for people, not just banks; criminal investigations into the debacle; and deep electoral reform.

Similar demands can be heard these days in Latvia, whose economy has contracted more sharply than any country in the EU, and where the government is teetering on the brink. For weeks the capital has been rocked by protests, including a full-blown, cobblestone-hurling riot on January 13. As in Iceland, Latvians are appalled by their leaders’ refusal to take any responsibility for the mess. Asked by Bloomberg TV what caused the crisis, Latvia’s finance minister shrugged: “Nothing special.”

But Latvia’s troubles are indeed special: the very policies that allowed the “Baltic Tiger” to grow at a rate of 12 percent in 2006 are also causing it to contract violently by a projected 10 percent this year: money, freed of all barriers, flows out as quickly as it flows in, with plenty being diverted to political pockets. (It is no coincidence that many of today’s basket cases are yesterday’s “miracles”: Ireland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia.)

Something else Argentina-esque is in the air. In 2001 Argentina’s leaders responded to the crisis with a brutal International Monetary Fund-prescribed austerity package: $9 billion in spending cuts, much of it hitting health and education. This proved to be a fatal mistake. Unions staged a general strike, teachers moved their classes to the streets and the protests never stopped.

This same bottom-up refusal to bear the brunt of the crisis unites many of today’s protests. In Latvia, much of the popular rage has focused on government austerity measures–mass layoffs, reduced social services and slashed public sector salaries–all to qualify for an IMF emergency loan (no, nothing has changed). In Greece, December’s riots followed a police shooting of a 15-year-old. But what’s kept them going, with farmers taking the lead from students, is widespread rage at the government’s crisis response: banks got a $36 billion bailout while workers got their pensions cut and farmers received next to nothing. Despite the inconvenience caused by tractors blocking roads, 78 percent of Greeks say the farmers’ demands are reasonable. Similarly, in France the recent general strike–triggered in part by President Sarkozy’s plans to reduce the number of teachers dramatically–inspired the support of 70 percent of the population.

Perhaps the sturdiest thread connecting this global backlash is a rejection of the logic of “extraordinary politics”–the phrase coined by Polish politician Leszek Balcerowicz to describe how, in a crisis, politicians can ignore legislative rules and rush through unpopular “reforms.” That trick is getting tired, as South Korea’s government recently discovered. In December, the ruling party tried to use the crisis to ram through a highly controversial free trade agreement with the United States. Taking closed-door politics to new extremes, legislators locked themselves in the chamber so they could vote in private, barricading the door with desks, chairs and couches.

Opposition politicians were having none of it: with sledgehammers and an electric saw, they broke in and staged a twelve-day sit-in of Parliament. The vote was delayed, allowing for more debate–a victory for a new kind of “extraordinary politics.”

Here in Canada, politics is markedly less YouTube-friendly–but it has still been surprisingly eventful. In October the Conservative Party won national elections on an unambitious platform. Six weeks later, our Tory prime minister found his inner ideologue, presenting a budget bill that stripped public sector workers of the right to strike, canceled public funding for political parties and contained no economic stimulus. Opposition parties responded by forming a historic coalition that was only prevented from taking power by an abrupt suspension of Parliament. The Tories have just come back with a revised budget: the pet right-wing policies have disappeared, and it is packed with economic stimulus.

The pattern is clear: governments that respond to a crisis created by free-market ideology with an acceleration of that same discredited agenda will not survive to tell the tale. As Italy’s students have taken to shouting in the streets: “We won’t pay for your crisis!”

[Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (September 2007); an earlier international best-seller, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies; and the collection Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (2002).]

Source / The Nation (This article appeared in the February 23, 2009 edition of The Nation.)

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James Howard Kunstler : ‘Economic Recovery’ and a Poverty of Imagination

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

James Howard Kunstler has a comprehensive and blistering view of the current crusade to stimulate the economy; he thinks it won’t work and that it’s based on obsolete and wrongheaded assumptions. He believes a basic change in attitude is required; and that we must swerve sharply from consumerism and “growth” in the direction of sustainability, genuine energy independence and a more manageable sense of scale.

Kunstler, however, fails to mention that among the dead is free market capitalism. Capitalism famously requires growth to survive. The future will require sustainability, not growth. That is inconsistent with capitalism. Hence, the objective conditions of the future will demand socialist organization. The alternative is societal disintegration and real class war.

— David Hamilton / The Rag Blog / February 10, 2009

‘The big question before the nation is: do we try to re-start the whole smoking, creaking hopeless, futureless machine? Or do we start behaving differently?’

By James Howard Kunstler / February 9, 2009

Venturing out each day into this land of strip malls, freeways, office parks, and McHousing pods, one can’t help but be impressed at how America looks the same as it did a few years ago, while seemingly overnight we have become another country. All the old mechanisms that enabled our way of life are broken, especially endless revolving credit, at every level, from household to business to the banks to the US Treasury.

Peak energy has combined with the diminishing returns of over-investments in complexity to pull the “kill switch” on our vaunted “way of life” — the set of arrangements that we won’t apologize for or negotiate. So, the big question before the nation is: do we try to re-start the whole smoking, creaking hopeless, futureless machine? Or do we start behaving differently?

The attempted re-start of revolving debt consumerism is an exercise in futility. We’ve reached the limit of being able to create additional debt at any level without causing further damage, additional distortions, and new perversities of economy (and of society, too). We can’t raise credit card ceilings for people with no ability make monthly payments. We can’t promote more mortgages for people with no income. We can’t crank up a home-building industry with our massive inventory of unsold, and over-priced houses built in the wrong places. We can’t ramp back up the blue light special shopping fiesta. We can’t return to the heyday of Happy Motoring, no matter how many bridges we fix or how many additional ring highways we build around our already-overblown and over-sprawled metroplexes. Mostly, we can’t return to the now-complete “growth” cycle of “economic expansion.” We’re done with all that. History is done with our doing that, for now.

So far — after two weeks in office — the Obama team seems bent on a campaign to sustain the unsustainable at all costs, to attempt to do all the impossible things listed above. Mr. Obama is not the only one, of course, who is invoking the quest for renewed “growth.” This is a tragic error in collective thinking. What we really face is a comprehensive contraction in our activities, especially the scale of our activities, and the pressing need to readjust the systems of everyday life to a level of decreased complexity.

For instance, the myth that we can become “energy independent and yet remain car-dependent is absurd. In terms of liquid fuels, we’re simply trapped. We import two-thirds of the oil we use and there is absolutely no chance that drill-drill-drilling (or any other scheme) will change that. The public and our leaders can not face the reality of this. The great wish for “alternative” liquid fuels (bio fuels, algae excreta) will never be anything more than a wish at the scales required, and the parallel wish to keep all our cars running by other means — hydrogen fuel cells, electric motors — is equally idle and foolish. We cannot face the mandate of reality, which is to do everything possible to make our living places walkable, and connect them with public transit. The stimulus bills in congress clearly illustrate our failure to understand the situation.

The attempt to restart “consumerism” will be equally disappointing. It was a manifestation of the short peak energy decades of history, and now that we’re past peak energy, it’s over. That seventy percent of the economy is over, especially the part that allowed people to buy stuff with no money. From now on people will have to buy stuff with money they earn and save, and they will be buying a lot less stuff. For a while, a lot of stuff will circulate through the yard sales and Craigslist, and some resourceful people will get busy fixing broken stuff that still has value. But the other infrastructure of shopping is toast, especially the malls, the strip malls, the real estate investment trusts that own it all, many of the banks that lent money to the REITs, the chain-stores and chain eateries, of course, and, alas, the non-chain mom-and-pop boutiques in these highway-oriented venues.

Washington is evidently seized by panic right now. I don’t know anyone who works in the White House, but I must suppose that they have learned in two weeks that these systems are absolutely tanking, that the previous way of life that everybody was so set on not apologizing for has reached the end of the line. We seem to be learning a new and interesting lesson: that even a team that promises change is actually petrified of too much change, especially change that they can’t really control.

The argument about “change” during the election was sufficiently vague that no one was really challenged to articulate a future that wasn’t, materially, more-of-the-same. I suppose the Obama team may have thought they would only administer it differently than the Bush team — but basically life in the USA would continue being about all those trips to the mall, and the cubicle jobs to support that, and the family safaris to visit Grandma in Lansing, and the vacations at Sea World, and Skipper’s $20,000 college loan, and Dad’s yearly junket to Las Vegas, and refinancing the house, and rolling over this loan and that loan… and that has all led to a very dead end in a dark place.

If this nation wants to survive without an intense political convulsion, there’s a lot we can do, but none of it is being voiced in any corner of Washington at this time. We have to get off of petro-agriculture and grow our food locally, at a smaller scale, with more people working on it and fewer machines. This is an enormous project, which implies change in everything from property allocation to farming methods to new social relations. But if we don’t focus on it right away, a lot of Americans will end up starving, and rather soon. We have to rebuild the railroad system in the US, and electrify it, and make it every bit as good as the system we once had that was the envy of the world. If we don’t get started on this right away, we’re screwed. We will have tremendous trouble moving people and goods around this continent-sized nation. We have to reactivate our small towns and cities because the metroplexes are going to fail at their current scale of operation. We have to prepare for manufacturing at a much smaller (and local) scale than the scale represented by General Motors.

The political theater of the moment in Washington is not focused on any of this, but on the illusion that we can find new ways of keeping the old ways going. Many observers have noted lately how passive the American public is in the face of their dreadful accelerating losses. It’s a tragic mistake to tell them that they can have it all back again. We’ll see a striking illustration of “phase change” as the public mood goes from cow-like incomprehension to grizzly bear-like rage. Not only will they discover the impossibility of getting back to where they were, but they will see the panicked actions of Washington drive what remains of our capital resources down a rat hole.

A consensus is firming up on each side of the “stimulus” question, largely along party lines — simply those who are for it and those who are against it, mostly by degrees. Nobody in either party — including supposed independents such as Bernie Sanders or John McCain, not to mention President Obama — has a position for directing public resources and effort at any of the things I mentioned above: future food security, future travel-and-transport security, or the future security of livable, walkable dwelling places based on local networks of economic interdependency. This striking poverty of imagination may lead to change that will tear the nation to pieces.

Source / Kunstler.com

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Obama Press Conference : What a Difference!

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Graphic by Larry Ray / The Rag Blog.

After eight years of George Bush’s evasive, sophomoric and defensive prattle it was energizing to hear a president who clearly knows what he is talking about and who can communicate it in a clear and understandable way.

By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / February 10, 2009

President Barack Obama’s first prime time press conference should be marked as another historic American moment. Because for the first time in decades we saw an American president patiently, intelligently and completely answer questions from the press.

He genuinely listened to questions from the assembled press corps. Unlike most other presidents since FDR, he took their loaded, presumptive questions and addressed them straight on, with no prepared notes, replying in great, logical detail. His manner was relaxed, persuasive and intelligent.

After eight years of George Bush’s evasive, sophomoric and defensive prattle it was energizing to hear a president who clearly knows what he is talking about and who can communicate it in a clear and understandable way. Never resorting to breezy slang, Obama reassuringly demonstrated his wide grasp of the issues and his ability to analyze them.

Again, it seems clear that the pundits and news guessers continue to underestimate Mr. Obama. Their cheap shots and shallow predictions are hollow. He is intellectually miles ahead of the prognosticators and nay sayers. In only 20 days in office he has shown impressive, thoughtful control after being thrown into in a maelstrom of inherited wars, the GOP’s massive budget deficit, and the prospect of an economic meltdown not seen since the 1930’s.

FDR reportedly had more than a thousand news conferences. Ike was skittish about doing live press conferences and had his recorded for later release. Reagan used his charm as an actor to create a halo effect with the press and public, but he all but stopped press conferences after the damaging heat he took from his Iran-Contra scandal. George Bush Senior became crankier and more confrontational with the press, the worse things got with his one term presidency. Bill Clinton was great with the press, dodging and weaving with long and passionate explanations, but alas, he too shut down his press contacts after the Monica tsunami washed over his desk.

And Little Bush was just a mess. He hated having to submit to actual unrehearsed questions from the press. With no teleprompter to read what someone else had written for him to say, he became twitchy and was likely to say any damned dumb thing. And he did. For eight long years.

That is why President Obama’s cool, sincere and informative responses to the press’s questions were reassuring at a time when America needs reassurance. Mr. Obama was clearly in control of his press conference. He referred to a carefully planned list of those upon whom he might choose to call. Even veteran White House correspondent, Helen Thomas, got a detailed answer to her rather rambling, whiny, loaded question, but she did not get to talk over Obama for a follow up. He nixed that with professional dignity and when it was over, it was over.

There was also an open offer from Obama to the wailing, recalcitrant conservative Republicans who still have not understood the clear message from the American people. His door remains open to talk when and if they ever come to their senses and start to pitch in with good ideas to correct the disaster their policies have largely caused our nation. They may be sorry they passed up the offer if Obama is forced to really play hard ball.

[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin television news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

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Homeowners Storm Gold Coast Mansions of ‘Predatory Lenders’

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America (NACA) members outside the home of Greenwich Financial’s William Frey on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009. Photo by Danielle Robinson / The Hour / AP.

Grab Your Torch ‘n Pitchfork!

‘Sporting bright yellow shirts that read, “Stop Loan Sharks,” protestors demanded more accountability from the CEOs of the financial institutions responsible for the millions of unaffordable mortgages in the state and across America.’

By Jennifer Millman / February 9, 2009

Hundreds of people trying to save their homes from foreclosure flocked to Connecticut’s wealthy Gold Coast this weekend to give financial kingpins a piece of their mind.

Stamford sits in the midst of one of the nation’s wealthiest areas, and among the regions particularly hard-hit by the housing market collapse. Nearby Greenwich and other suburbs are home to many of Wall Street’s wealthiest executives and financial managers.

Homeowners are fed up – and many are frustrated that those who lead the companies that gave them their subprime mortgages live in luxury while they struggle so hard to meet their loan payments and not fall behind.

On Sunday, hundreds of angry homeowners and volunteers traveled in vans and minibuses and protested outside Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack’s multi-million-dollar mansion to tell the wealthy finance czar how they really feel.

The group, led by Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), also went to Greenwich Finance CEO William Frey, among others, as part of what NACA calls the “Predator’s Tour.”

Sporting bright yellow shirts that read, “Stop Loan Sharks,” protestors demanded more accountability from the CEOs of the financial institutions responsible for the millions of unaffordable mortgages in the state and across America.

“We can’t let them live quietly in a lap of luxury while they throw hard working Americans out on the street,” NACA explains on its Web site. “This action is within our legal rights as Americans to peacefully protest and meet with those who control our family’s livelihood.”

NACA coordinated the protest as part of its “Save the Dream” forum – a weekend of workshops to counsel stressed-out homeowners on ways to refinance their mortgages amid the nation’s housing market meltdown.

Event organizers expected thousands to show up throughout the weekend for financial advice and mortgage assistance. NACA has helped restructure thousands of mortgages to arrangements homeowners can afford.

None of the protestors were arrested.

Copyright Associated Press / NBC New York

View a video of the demonstration and a slideshow featuring some of the financial CEOs that NACA says prey on homeowners here.

Source / NBC New York

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Biden in Munich : America’s Eurasian Empire Takes Shape

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Vice President Joe Biden addresses the participants of the International Conference on Security Policy in Munich, on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009. Photo by Frank Augstein / AP.

Biden was telling the waiting world that Washington would continue to pursue its own Eurasian sphere of influence, in part by expanding NATO ever closer to Russia.

‘Sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances,’ he declared, couching a nuclear threat in the cloak of freedom and democracy.

By Steve Weissman / The Rag Blog / February 10, 2009

Joe Biden set “a new tone” in his foreign policy speech in Munich over the weekend, breaking with the Bush administration and showing, as our founder said, “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.” But he also raised a banner that we will all come to regret.

“The United States will not — will not recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states,” he said. “We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence.”

His words carried a dangerously mixed message. Other than those eager for a new Cold War or neocon lobbyists paid by Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, few outsiders wanted to hear about the two breakaway provinces now under Russian tutelage. Nor should we wax nostalgic over spheres of influence, whether expressed in our own blood-splattered Monroe Doctrine or in the Russian idea of “the near-abroad,” where “friendship knows no frontiers.”

But Biden was telling the waiting world something far more significant – that Washington would continue to pursue its own Eurasian sphere of influence, in part by expanding NATO ever closer to Russia. “Sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances,” he declared, couching a nuclear threat in the cloak of freedom and democracy.

To realize what this could mean, think of the stark choice Washington and its allies would have faced last year if Georgia had been part of NATO when the hotheaded Saakashvili provoked the all-too-ready Russians into a shooting war. Would we have rushed to Georgia’s defense with military force as the NATO treaty would have committed us to do? Or would we have been obliged to tell the world that NATO protection was worthless?

Not a pretty prospect, and an incredibly backward-looking idea for a new American administration supposedly committed to change.

The dangers Biden was promoting in Munich go far beyond NATO membership. In the coded language of diplomacy, he signaled that Washington would do whatever it takes to hold sway over the energy resources of the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and the former Soviet Central Asia.

This was hardly new, but that’s just the point. The Obama administration may have a green and friendly tone, but it will still do business as usual when the business is oil, natural gas, uranium, and whatever else makes the world’s wheels go round.

Good bye Dick Cheney. Welcome back Scoop Jackson and the Realpolitik of traditional Democratic Party foreign policy recalling FDR’s World War II embrace of the Saudi royal family.

From the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf, the field of play has expanded into the Islamic “stans” of the ancient Silk Road and the bloody rivalry between the British and Czarist empires that romantics still call “the Great Game.” Only now the imperial conflicts pit the United States and its NATO allies against a resurgent Russia, the increasingly energy-starved Chinese, and to a lesser extent the Iranian mullahs as well.

These are the lands of the first global oil rush – in Baku, Azerbaijan – and of the latest global resource race, where former President Bill Clinton flew in September 2005 to help Canadian mining and oil magnate Frank Giustra close a multi-million dollar deal on Kazakhstan’s uranium.

And all of this provides the background to Obama’s call for a timeout to define a new rationale for American – and NATO – efforts in AfPak – the new Washington -speak for the concatenation of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The turbulence in Afghanistan and the Baluchi lands to the south has led the authoritative Energy Daily to dismiss the much- ballyhooed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan Pipeline as little more than “a pipe dream.” But any reassessment of our “mission” in AfPak will include the strategic importance of Pakistan and Afghanistan to the region as a whole, along with the mistaken belief that American and NATO military power can defeat the jihadi attacks and Taliban-like insurgencies that could one day endanger the vast treasure trove to the north.

Between endless imperial rivalries and propping up tin-pot dictators who make the Saudi royal family look humane, Biden was committing us to endless trouble in an effort to control global energy resources, most of which endanger the very future of our planet. I don’t think he knew what he was implying, but how apt that he ended his prophetic speech with a quote from the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, “All is changed, changed utterly: a terrible beauty has been born.”

Additional articles of interest by Steve Weissman:

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Dear Sen. Cornyn : You Have Pork for Brains

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). Image by Bill Narum / The Rag Blog.

Senator Cornyn: ‘Your political ambitions are clearly far more important to you than the well being of ordinary Americans who are losing their jobs in the millions.’

By Sarito Carol Neiman / The Rag Blog / February 9, 2009

I just sent Sen. John Cornyn [Very R-TX] an email to tell him the biggest piece of pork I saw in the neighborhood of the economic stimulus plan was the pork in the place where his brains should be, and mentioned that it’s called being “pigheaded.”



I told him:

Your political ambitions are clearly far more important to you than the well being of ordinary Americans who are losing their jobs in the millions. If you really want to fix everything with tax cuts and let the state budgets, education, alternative energy solutions, and affordable health care continue to be in the hands of the so-called “free market”. . .

Well. . . then I threatened to camp out on his lawn in a tent and hunt squirrels for dinner if it got to that point, and suggested if he gets his way he won’t be able to find a cop to throw me off his lawn because they’ll all be out preventing food riots.

It was fun, a kind of catharsis.

Being a gentleman, he wrote right back to thank me “for contacting his offices” and attached my letter in case I might have forgotten what I had just said. He closed with his “warmest regards.”

I sent KB Hutchinson a much nicer note, trying to shame her into looking at herself in the mirror and doing what she knows is the right thing. Girl talk, you know.

Geez, these people make me so mad!!

As an officially “unemployed” person, I wish we could’ve organized a “million-person unemployed vigil” on the mall today. Or at least a few people holding up a continuous string of paper dolls representing each of the 3.5 million unemployed plus their 2.5 (or whatever it is these days) children. The numbers don’t have faces and the Republicans don’t have any shame.

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Frank Shepard Fairey: Grafitti Legend Claims Arrest Before Big Show is Political

Posted on February 10, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Frank Shepard Fairey / Exopolis

Street artist Frank Shepard Fairey at Institute of Contemporary Art earlier this month. Photo by David L. Ryan / Boston Globe.

Police arrest Obama artist and ‘Andre the Giant’ tagger just before opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art

Frank Shepard Fairey: ‘They are suppressing an artist’s freedom of transformative expression.’

by John R. Ellement and Andrew Ryan / February 9, 2009

Artist Frank Shepard Fairey criticized Boston police today after he pleaded not guilty to graffiti-related charges, questioning the “motivation and the timing” of his arrest on Friday hours before his opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Police arrested Fairey at about 9:15 p.m. on Friday as he was heading to the “Experiment Night” event at the ICA, where more than 750 people were waiting for him to appear. The arrest was timed, Fairey said, “in a way that was designed to create as much inconvenience for me and the museum as possible.”

Police have said that warrants for Fairey’s arrest were issued on Jan. 24 for damage to property due to graffiti. A police spokesman did not immediately respond to a phone message when asked about Fairey’s comments about the timing of his arrest.

An arrest affidavit filed today described Fairey as an “idol to members of the graffiti subculture” who has been defacing property in Boston since 1989. Fairey’s signature tag is a stencil of the professional wrestler Andre the Giant and the words “Obey the Giant” or “Obey.”

When Fairey returned recently to Boston for his show at the ICA, he allegedly “victimized new properties while defiantly stating in media outlets that he will not stop his unauthorized posting of his tag,” according to the affidavit requesting a warrant for his arrest. “Suspect Fairey continues to engage in a constant and systemic assault on Boston Neighborhoods.”

In media interviews leading up to his ICA show, Fairey admitted, according to the affidavit, “illegally tagging property … recently in Boston.”

Fairey, 38, has gained prominence for his “Hope” image of President Barack Obama, which has been hung in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. The Los Angeles-based artist is locked in a dispute with The Associated Press over whether he illegally used a copyrighted AP photo to create the poster. Fairey told reporters today that he filed a counter suit against the AP today in federal court in New York.

“They are suppressing an artist’s freedom of transformative expression,” Fairey said.

As Fairey appeared in courts in Brighton and Roxbury today, his defense attorney said that additional graffiti-related charges are being filed against the artist.

The defense attorney, Jeffrey P. Wiesner, referenced the new charges today as he criticized Boston police in comments made after Fairey appeared in Brighton District Court. Wiesner said that police exercised “bad judgment” when they arrested his client for allegedly pasting art without permission.

“And I think it is bad judgment that they are now seeking further charges,” Wiesner said.

Boston police would not discuss any additional charges. “They have some other incidents in which the suspect has been implicated,” said Officer Eddie Crispin, who declined to provide specifics. “The investigation is still ongoing.”

According to the arrest affidavit filed today, Fairey has committed at least six acts of vandalism within the City of Boston. A hearing has been scheduled in Brighton on March 10 when a clerk magistrate will decide whether there is evidence to support additional charges, Wiesner said.

Fairey was released on personal recognizance after his brief hearings in Brighton and Roxbury. Dressed in a suit coat and dark collared shirt with no tie, Fairey appeared with four representatives from the ICA.

The Brighton charge dates to Sept. 16, 2000, when a police officer allegedly saw Fairey post a tag in Allston. At the time, Fairey was carrying “an ‘excessive’ amount of graffiti propaganda and stickers, according to the arrest affidavit filed today. Fairey never appeared in Brighton District Court to face the charge, which carries a possible fine of $100.

The case is Roxbury Municipal Court is much more recent. According to court documents, Fairey allegedly defaced a Massachusetts Turnpike Authority building at Massachusetts Avenue and Newbury Street. Fairey is accused of stenciling five images of a black-and-white face above the word “Obey.” The charge carries a maximum sentence of two years in the Suffolk House of Correction and could force Fairey to pay restitution and lose his driver’s license for year, according to his lawyer. Fairey has told the Globe he has been arrested 14 times.

© 2009 Boston Globe

Source / Boston Globe / Common Dreams

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Sen. Bernie Sanders : Socialist Strikes a Blow Against Wall Street Greed

Posted on February 9, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Socialist Senator-elect Bernie Sanders (I-VT): Way ahead of the curve on this one. Photo by Brian Snyder / Reuters.

Obama backs limit to executive compensation similar to Sanders’ Stop the Greed on Wall Street Act

‘We are on the verge of a depression that these people helped cause, so that helps wake people up,’ Sanders said, explaining the increased support for his proposal. ‘It should have been done years ago, of course.’

By Lisa Lerer / February 9, 2009

Chalk one up for the socialist.

In November, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, introduced the provocatively named Stop the Greed on Wall Street Act — a bill aimed at limiting executive compensation at banks receiving government bailout funds.

The measure was promptly ignored and died a quick death in committee.

But when President Barack Obama proposed a similar limit last week — his would cap pay at $500,000; Sanders would have put the lid on at $400,000 — the accolades came pouring in. Even the free market devotees at the conservative Cato Institute issued a press release applauding the idea, telling executives: “Sorry, guys, you asked for it.”

“We are on the verge of a depression that these people helped cause, so that helps wake people up,” Sanders said, explaining the increased support for his proposal. “It should have been done years ago, of course.”

Sanders is often dismissed as a novelty in two-party Washington. But the move toward heightened corporate regulation moves him a step closer to the political mainstream.

The Vermont independent spent 16 years in the House and has spent another two in the Senate railing against corporate greed and the rising income gap. “I occasionally quote some of the things I did 10 years ago,” he said.

While the current economic troubles limit Sanders’ sense of vindication, he’s quick to point out his earlier opposition to the deregulation that many believe allowed a mild downturn to sink into a severe recession.

“This is an issue that some of us have been onto for a number of years,” he said. “You didn’t have to be a Ph.D. in economics to figure this out.”

As a congressman, Sanders opposed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, a 1999 statute that repealed a Depression-era law prohibiting commercial banks from merging with investment banks. Clinton administration officials and then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan supported the bill over objections from more liberal critics who wanted to preserve regulatory walls between financial services companies.

“Greenspan had more influence than I did,” said Sanders.

Sanders wants to strengthen Obama’s executive compensation restrictions and enact a host of new and old proposals cracking down on hedge funds, banks and financial services firms.

“This should be seen as the beginning,” he said. “Wall Street has got to know that many of us believe a new day has got to come.”

Source / Politico

Thanks to Common Dreams / The Rag Blog

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