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Saturday, February 4, 2012

99%-Occupy Information Card - To be air-dropped at upcoming political conventions



                                                99% InfoCard                                         
(For distribution at the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions)

1.)  Wealth is untenably concentrated "at the top." “In 1985, the top five percent of the households – the wealthiest five percent – had net worth of $8 trillion – which is a lot. Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top five per cent have net worth of $40 trillion. The top five percent have gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.” Reagan budget director, David Stockman.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009217n&tag=contentMain;contentAux
"Of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1%" by Nobel laureate, Joseph Stiglitz:
http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105 
Michael Ferguson's Oscar-winning documentary, “Inside Job.”  
Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk   
Feature length movie: http://vimeo.com/23086688   
Charlie Rose interviews “Inside Job” director, Charles Ferguson. 
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11321
Print Interview with Charles Ferguson (New York Times).  
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/the-filmmaker-who-does-a-job-on-wall-street/   

2.) The precipitous depletion of wealth at the bottom of The American Pyramid.
http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html

3.) Inability to "grow the economy" without more purchasing power distributed “at the bottom." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03reich.html

4.) The moral bankruptcy of Wall Street banking. 
 “This Is Why They Hate You and Want You To Die” 
http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2011/10/09/this-is-why-they-hate-you-and-want-you-to-die/
"Inside Job" Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk   
Feature length movie: http://vimeo.com/23086688 

5.) The traitorousness of Cowboy Capitalism, which – in keeping with its "nature" -- throws America under the bus to pursue higher profit margins abroad. Consider Newt Gingrich's view:
http://open.salon.com/blog/ted_frier/2012/01/11/so_should_we_start_calling_gingrich_a_socialist

6.)  The detriment of "too big to fail."
http://www.amazon.com/Too-Big-Fail-Washington-System/dp/0670021253  
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-Machine/dp/0393338827/ref=pd_vtp_b_1  
(The successful breakup of The Bell System, a company that was "too big to fail." Despite doomsday scenarios by naysayers, Bell's breakup elicited unprecedented competition and vigor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_System_divestiture)

7.) Payment of adequate tax as "the price of civilization." See Ben Franklin's views on "Property and Taxes" at http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html 

8.) “Socialism for the Rich: Capitalism for the Poor.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_for_the_rich_and_capitalism_for_the_poor    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatizing_profits_and_socializing_losses

9.) The destructive privatization of "The Commons."  
http://www.amazon.com/All-That-Share-Environment-Communities/dp/1595584994
10.) The re-definition of sub-soil resources as national patrimony rather than private property. Sarah Palin leads the way:  
http://www.democrats.com/all-americans-deserve-sarah-palins-oil-profits-windfall-tax http://socialistsarahpalin.homestead.com/
http://www.economist.com/node/16064047      

11.) The permanent destruction of jobs by industrial automation and software-based-productivity-enhancement... and how to insure the well-being of workers made redundant by these ongoing processes.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/07/17/the-threat-of-automation-robots-threaten-american-jobs.html

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED241743&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED241743

12.) Mandatory National Service for everyone, including the children of The 1%.  Public servants will be able to choose between military service and social service. (In Mexico, recently graduated physicians complete one year's service in remote public health clinics before receiving their formal certification: http://diogenes.hubpages.com/hub/Mexican-Doctors-May-Sleep-Better-at-Night Recently graduated engineers are similarly obligated.)

13.) The unworkability of democratic process when "corporations are people."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-citizens-united-catastrophe/2012/02/05/gIQATOEfsQ_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

14.) The primacy of labor in the relationship between "labor" and "capital." (Key-word search Lincoln's 1861 State of the Union Address for the phrase "In my present position."
http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/state-of-the-union/73.html    http://www.publicwatchdog.org/archives/2011/09/05/labor-and-capital-day-2011/ 

15.) Enactment of Rick Perry's proposal to re-form The Supreme Court.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/01/30/120130taco_talk_hertzberg  

16.) The myopia of American business at a time when long-term planning is needed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17krugman.html

17.) The deployment of (government-coordinated) state-of-the-art, infra-structure to provide "the tool kit" for national "success." 
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17krugman.html

18.) The active investigation, prosecution and imprisonment of Wall Street felons.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

19.) The wastefulness of foreign swashbuckling.

***

Protesters will fill the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, snd Tampa, Florida, on the occasion of the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. These protesters might wisely carry an ample supply of "information cards" summarizing core Occupy-99% "positions." Perhaps the foremost function of Occupy-99% is instructional and such cards would "get the word out."

A useful publicity "stunt" that would insure national publication of card contents (or at least publication of a web-link to card contents) would be to air-drop "99% of a million cards." (It worked in Milagro Beanfield War... )

Since Occupy-99% is an extraordinarily decentralized, highly-democratic nature, agreement on the contents of an InfoCard is unlikely. 

In light of this difficulty, perhaps printing and distribution could be undertaken by a a dedicated subset of movement members.


(For simplicity's sake, a 99% InfoCard could be printed without weblinks, referencing them instead at a single-source website.)


***
Related:

Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris

25 December, 1783

"The Remissness of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the People's Money out of their Pockets, tho' only to pay the Interest and Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money, justly due from the People, is their Creditors' Money, and no longer the Money of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell'd to pay by some Law.

All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."

***
Reagan Budget Director, David Stockman, who oversaw the biggest tax cut in the history of humankind: “In 1985, the top five percent of the households – the wealthiest five percent – had net worth of $8 trillion – which is a lot. Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top five per cent have net worth of $40 trillion. The top five percent have gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.” Elsewhere in this same CBS “60 Minutes” interview, Mr. Stockman describes America's obsession with tax cuts as "religion, something embedded in the catechism," "rank demagoguery, we should call it what it is," and "We've demonized taxes. We've created... the idea that they're a metaphysical evil." And finally, this encompassing observation: "The Republican Party, as much as it pains me to say this, should be ashamed of themselves."  - http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009217n&tag=contentMain;contentAux   ///  http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/obama-gop-agree-to-tax-breaks-but-%22we-need-major-tax-increases%22-david-stockman-says-535688.html?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,GLD,DIA,TBT,TLT,UUP   ///  http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/david-stockman-lack-of-middle-class-jobs-low-growth-alleged-recovery-yftt_535691.html  ///   http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009246n&tag=contentBody;housing  (There is a self-resolving glitch near the beginning of this final clip.)    

***

Teddy Roosevelt: “Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are curses to the country." Theodore Roosevelt - February, 1895 -  http://books.google.com/books?id=2wIoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=%E2%80%9CToo+much+cannot+be+said+against+the+men+of+wealth+who+sacrifice+everything+to+getting+wealth.+%22&source=bl&ots=tlzVCZMAuz&sig=DZ9KUKiPiBTUlThoSVs6KzQTvF4&hl=en&ei=OxibTcHrCIGdgQev_o2eBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CToo%20much%20cannot%20be%20said%20against%20the%20men%20of%20wealth%20who%20sacrifice%20everything%20to%20getting%20wealth.%20%22&f=false  

***

Abraham Lincoln: "In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism. It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life. Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless. Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."  Read more: State of the Union Address: Abraham Lincoln (December 3, 1861) — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/state-of-the-union/73.html#ixzz17XlRsbev

***

Political and Economic Reading List:

1.) “The American Dream” by foul-mouthed (but brilliant) George Carlin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q 

2.) Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, "Of the 1%, by the 1%, and for the 1%" - http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105 

3.) "Our Banana Republic" by Nicholas Kristof - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html 

4.) "A Hedge Fund Republic" by Nicholas Kristof - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/opinion/18kristof.html 

5.) "How to End the Great Recession" by Robert Reich - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03reich.html 

6.) “A Dogma to Wreck the Country” by Thatcherite conservative, Niall Ferguson - http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/07/24/gop-antitax-dogma-endangers-the-country.html

7.)  See “Inside Job.”  Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk   ///  Full length movie: http://vimeo.com/23086688  ///  Charlie Rose interviews “Inside Job” director, Charles Ferguson:  http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11321  ///  Reviews by Wikipedia, IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Job_(film)  ///  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/  ///  http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inside_job_2010/  Print Interview (New York Times):  http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/the-filmmaker-who-does-a-job-on-wall-street/

9.) Ronald Reagan’s Budget Director David Stockman on America's inconceivable wealth inequality - http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009217n

10.) “War is a Racket,” by Smedley Butler - http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm

11.) Benjamin Franklin  “on Property and Taxes” - http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html

12.) What Would Reagan Really Do? (Newsweek): http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/07/09/what-would-reagan-really-do.html 

***

War is a Racket
Major General Smedley Butler
United States Marine Corps Commandant 
In his lifetime, Major General Butler was the most decorated Marine ever.
                              In retirement, General Butler, a life-long Republican, ran for a Pennsylvania.

         A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. 
         I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns six percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. 
         I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes, and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. 
There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. 
         It may seem off for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. 
         I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. Thus I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the raping of half-a-dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers and Co. in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras 'right' for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. "During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, and promotion. Looking back on it, I feel that I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three city districts. The Marines operated on three continents."  Excerpt from 1933 speech. 

For all five chapters of Butler's "War is a Racket," please see: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm 

***



Thomas Merton: "The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton

G.K. Chesterton: The merely rich are not rich enough to rule the modern market. The things that change modern history, the big national and international loans, the big educational and philanthropic foundations, the purchase of numberless newspapers, the big prices paid for peerages, the big expenses often incurred in elections - these are getting too big for everybody except the misers; the men with the largest of earthly fortunes and the smallest of earthly aims. There are two other odd and rather important things to be said about them. The first is this: that with this aristocracy we do not have the chance of a lucky variety in types which belongs to larger and looser aristocracies. The moderately rich include all kinds of people even good people. Even priests are sometimes saints; and even soldiers are sometimes heroes. Some doctors have really grown wealthy by curing their patients and not by flattering them; some brewers have been known to sell beer. But among the Very Rich you will never find a really generous man, even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egoistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.   


G. K. Chesterton, Toronto, 1930:  The coming peril is the intellectual, educational, psychological and artistic overproduction, which, equally with economic overproduction, threatens the wellbeing of contemporary civilisation. People are inundated, blinded, deafened, and mentally paralysed by a flood of vulgar and tasteless externals, leaving them no time for leisure, thought, or creation from within themselves. 


Denis de Rougemont: There are two ways of lying, as there are two ways of deceiving customers. If the scale registers 15 ounces, you can say: "It's a pound." Your lie will remain relative to an invariable measure of the true. If customers check it, they can see that they are being robbed, and you know by how much you are robbing them: a truth remains as a judge between you. But if the demon induces you to tamper with the scale itself, it is the criterion of the true which is denatured, there is no longer any possible control. And little by little you will forget that you are cheating.

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous “class warfare” speech in Madison Square Garden. October 31, 1936. 4 minute audio clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9yoZHs6PsU                                                                                                              Entire text of the 30 minute speech is at http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od2ndst.html   


Adolf Hitler: "All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true within itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying." Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X [1]

 

***


The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement and distribution of anxiety.” Eric Sevareid, American news commentator (1912-1992) http://totherow.tripod.com/index-7.html
***
                                                                                                                  

“The truth is we live in an economic system which is heartless.” Woodrow Wilson






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