Take 'Em to Task: Occupy Obama

[Smiley and West]

		A listener from Occupy Seattle takes West to task about his openness to voting for Barack Obama in this year’s election. Read Mark Taylor-Canfield’s Open Letter to Dr. Cornel West, originally published on dailykos.com. Occupy Seattle website

[Jon Raymond]

Nice Mark.

I really don't get why local governments cannot provide parks or some facilites for occupy people, especially in light of The Rich and the Rest of Us. What's the problem? Why is America so insensitive to human needs? What does it hurt to allow them to canmp and organize. A threat to a government that has to use force to control its people? Is the government afraid people could get along without them?

Support the Re-Occupation.

[Mark Taylor-Canfield]

They arrested protesters sleeping outside the park in NYC yesterday.

OWS attorneys are filing for an injunction against this.

As in Seattle, apparently

it is illegal to sleep in public...

The police here used to walk around all night waking people up and/or arresting them at Westlake Park.

It's really weird...

[Candace McCarty]

There won't be enough jails, nor police to hold back " We the people..."

[Kevin Potts]

Hi Candace :-) http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-roBx2r_kg5g/T4cphrfSwkI/AAAAAAAAE70/0rePY...
 
Candace McCarty said:

There won't be enough jails, nor police to hold back " We the people..."

[Candace McCarty]

AWESOME!

[Jon Raymond]

The fallacy in this logic is that only a few will actually strike, probably numbering a few thousand or tens of thousands at very best. This is effectively a way to root out troublemakers and throw them in jail. Although, every time they do that the numbers increase and tens of thousands would be a big problem to deal with. I don't think police confrontation gets people anywhere. Yet I do support the occupy movement to take over public areas. It's interesting that after the camps were destroyed we still see plenty of homeless walking around and living in public places. It's not the fact they live in public that bothers them. It's the fact they are organized and live outside government control. Occupy is feared by the one percent, kind of like how an elephant fears a mouse.

[Ricardo Jones]

We are fighting to close the EEOC. Why should taxpayers pay almost a half billion dollars a year to prop up a criminal enterprise just to hand out Right to sue letters. Please take a look at the links below that proves it. These videos name names, reveal payoffs and you see the media civil rights leaders, big businesses and politicians that includes the president helping to cover it up. I am beginning to cut up the original of the interview with former Senior EEOC Investigator Ricardo Jones who was fired for standing up against the illegal practices. As a victim I and thousands of others will come forward. You I will be adding selected cuts daily. The last link is the entire 1 and a half hour. Please help us raise awareness of this by directing these videos.
My resource:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p0KUF4ZcVM&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIk5XqQ_uvU&feature=channel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqyrvRaY4Ks

[Ricardo Jones]

The truth from a White Man with moral courage:

http://youtu.be/z2ghdirLe7w

[Kevin Potts]

 

( Reposted from “Real Time with Bill Maher” Occupy Wall Street Forum )

"a few weeks ago when OWS tried to reoccupy Zucotti Park, among other terrors, a journalist was beaten bloody by a cop with a billy club and had to be hospitalized. Previously corporate would just have journalists arrested, by the dozens, but now that the movement is resurfacing, corporate is sending in the troops to double down on the violence." - G. Gzndhyt

"I do not think you understand me. I believe that many are going to die to change a system that removes the 1% and give everyone a true chance at enough income to live. If OWS does find a solution and a plan to make this solution possible then I will be there. To make this happen I will lose my job and most likely everything else I have worked for over 30 years. My wife will die if we become homeless, she is too sick to be homeless and live. I doubt after that I will stick around for long. I am more then willing to risk this and more to change the system. And you can trust me, for the system to be change there have to be 10's of millions willing to risk losing it all and hundreds of thousands who do.

With the amount I will risk and the cost to me and mine, I will make the attempt for change only if there is at least some hope and plan for success. Walking through several protest camps and picking out the under cover cops, I do not think people are taking this protest serious enough yet for me to risk my life and the life of my wife." -Joe F151

"Joe, thank you for your reply. I *have* misunderstood you and I sincerely apologize. I have *a lot* of anger built up inside against the social-Darwinian mentality of those who want this movement to fail -against the greedy self-centered mentality of those who would *prefer* that I (along with millions of others) spend the rest of "my life" as a minimum-wage slave working to support the very cruel system that I despise. I mistook you for one of those "people" and again I apologize. When I say that the answers to the world's problems are simple, I'm only referring to how simple it *could* be if everyone lived like decent human beings who respected each other and valued compassion and human happiness over greed and materialism (Peace on Earth and Good-will toward humankind).  I understand this is not the reality that we live in. We are trained to cheer for war like it's a football game -to be greedy, self-centered control freaks -not much different than apes where the strongest male dominates the group like a childish bully. And I find it amazing that any of us are able to escape this type of mentality at all, considering how prevalent it has always been and continues to be. But despite all of this, good people *do* exist. Somehow, someway, humanity manages to shine through occasionally like a bright beacon of hope amidst all of the cruelty and the suffering and the despair. And for some strange reason, the ones who shine through the most are the ones who end up getting shot in the head, tortured to death or persecuted and imprisoned. But in those of us who value their legacy -their legacy lives on." -Kevin Potts

 

"We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught. He can be killed and forgotten. But four hundred years later an idea can still change the world.

 I've witnessed firsthand the power of ideas. I've seen people kill in the name of them; and die defending them. But you cannot kill an idea." -V

 

"A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him."

 "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

-George Orwell

 

"Joe--yes, thanks for hanging in there.  Now we're getting somewhere.

What vexes me tho is that you're under the impression that OWS is unaware of planted moles that only you can see?  They are trained to be friendly to everyone, but that doesn't mean they're unaware of constant surveillance by paid infiltrators. 

Or that you think they're shielded from potential violence that they see documented all over the Internet, the glowing flame igniting the movement?   Most of them are already victims of economic violence of the kind you imagine for yourself and your wife. We all know there's nothing more dangerous than people with nothing to lose.

Politicians and high-profile sympathizers live under the pall of death threats. Arab Spring and OWS erupted via social networking, which, in retrospect, is likely the major reason behind the 1%'s relentless pursuit to shut it down." -G. Gzndhyt

 

"A quote:

Vengeance stems from a love of justice and a desire to redress wrongs. But revenge is damning. Three faces has the Night Angel, the avatar of Retribution: Vengeance, Justice, Mercy.

I have a hard time with justice and vengeance, they keep turning into revenge for me. This is why I need to have a plan to build a new society before beginning the destruction of the old. The temptation to just destroy the bad and let what will be, be; lays heavy on me. Anger, fear and revenge lead to the destruction of the 1% but they can not build anything to restore balance. What is the point of punishing the bad if the punishment is so large as to kill the innocent? This I try to always keep in my mind because I find it so easy to sink into vengeance and ignore justice and mercy." -Joe F151

 

"Revenge is not justice. And violence is not the only way to *fight*. Violence is a cop with a loaded gun beating the sh** out of an unarmed elderly lady and pepper-spraying her in the face because she showed up at a protest to speak her mind about the horrendous conditions she is forced to live in. We don't want to stoop to that level." -Kevin Potts

 

"In the face of cruelty and sorrow, there is a form of love that can propel people past feelings of bitterness and revenge and into the desire to promote justice -for Cornel West this force is embodied in the blues."

http://bigthink.com/ideas/17240

"The situation of poor people is catastrophic. Black people had slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow, catastrophic. What was the response? It wasn't to create a black al Qaida. It wasn't counterterroristic. In the face of slavery, Frederick Douglas said what? With a smile and wounds, we want freedom for everybody. We don't want to enslave others just because we're enslaved. Jim Crow -- we have no rights and liberties; we're civically dead -- we want rights and liberties for everybody. We don't want to Jim Crow somebody else. The blues responds to the catastrophic with compassion, without drinking from the cup of bitterness -- not with revenge but with justice. That's the best of the blues, you see.

And so the blues people in America have been the leaven in the democratic loaf, because black people could have chosen counterterroristic tactics when they were lynched over and over and over again. They said no, we're not going to go out and lynch white folk. We would rather be defeated for the moment, with integrity, than win and be a gangster like them. That's a blues sensibility. That's a blues sensibility. So you let that love inside of you be expressed even though it's hard for it to be translated into love or justice on the ground."

-Dr. Cornel West

 

 

[Kevin Potts]

 

The Revolution is now. And it does not require that we *all* give up everything to go get beat up and arrested in the streets. This is a revolution of the mind...of ideas...of a craving to promote justice and a better way of life for us all. And it's going on right here...right now. We do what we can. Those protesters have been out there putting their lives on the line for us. Thousands of peaceful protesters getting the sh** beat out of them, pepper-sprayed in the face and thrown into jail cells -for what? For the "crime" of demanding to be heard! For sounding the alarm when the building is on fire! For demanding democracy in a land that prides itself on democracy! For demanding fairness and dignity in the richest most powerful nation on Earth! To anyone who is of the spirit of the movement: You Are The Movement! Each and every one of us. The place is always here and the time is always now.

[Ricardo Jones]

We can pretend that obama has a handle on the country and his adminstration but its a lie. The government has more scandles then under Bush. The question is why are there so many scandles going on with this adminstration? Who's the BOSS obama. Who's his chief of staff? Daly from chicago was replaced by Lew. The EEOC is out of control which affects people of color the most. The Dept of labor Wage and Hour Div is out of control. The Dept of Justice Civil Rights Div is doing nothing. Black unemployment is the lowest ever. Ledbetter Executive order for Civil Rights was pandering to Whites and Gays for votes. Where is the Black Agenda in this country? Going down the drane with the president. Where is the accountability the president promissed. The econmy is in a trail spine. We are in 2 wars and a possibility of 3. So we are proud of the first black looking president. A slick talking harvard law professor. Where's the beef??? No concern for the Black community that supported him. Support for Gays, Hispanic's and Whites from the white house. What about the people who look like you Mr. President? http://youtu.be/z2ghdirLe7w

[Ricardo Jones]

Highest levels of unemployment for Black people and obama adminstration supports discrimination against Black people at the EEOC.

The mission of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is to eradicate employment discrimination at the workplace. However, it has been reported that the EEOC fails to investigate the complaints of Black people who file race discriminaton complaints. According to former EEOC investigator (Mr. Ricardo Jones, Sr.) and the EEOC stats, the EEOC dismisses the majority of its race complaint workload. EEOC found reasonable cause that discrimination occurred only 3.5% of the time in FY 2010 and 3.1% for FY 2011. Great job obama. See link/stat's at EEOC Dismisses The Majority of Race Based Complaints.