The Predator Class is in full panic mode over the populist Occupy Wall Street movement

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The über-rich Predator Class is in full panic mode over the populist Occupy Wall Street movement. They have their millionaire media villagers, Beltway bloviators and pundits out in force trying to frame America's working class as "a bunch of f#&king dirty hippies!" Apparently they are stuck in a time warp from 1968.

Billo the Clown on FAUX News promoted this latest right-wing meme. Bill O'Reilly Says Wall Street Occupiers are Infested with Rats, Drugs and Outdoor Sex | Crooks and Liars:

Bill O'Reilly had his wingnut mojo working Thursday night. He tries to paint Occupy Wall Street protesters as drug trafficking potheads who are also boffing each other outdoors in the squalid conditions of Zuccotti Park.

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O'Reilly:…three weeks is enough. It's dirty and filthy, there's rats running all over, there's dope all over the place. They're having sex outside at night around. (inaudible) Does that say anything about the entire movement?

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OK, that's Billo's fantasy minus loofahs and Andrea Mackris so what's he all bothered about?

The Tea Party was a corporate media invention that began with CNBC reporter (and derivatives trader) Rick Santelli ranting on CNBC's Squawk Box from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in February 2009. Oh, the poor Predator Class who created casino capitalism and nearly destroyed the World's financial system and economy with their reckless gambling greed. They got bailed out by us, the U.S. taxpayers, and also got to keep all their ill-gotten gains and exorbitant bonuses. And nobody was ever prosecuted for their crimes. Boo-freakin'-hoo, Rick.

The evil billionaire bastard Koch brothers had their FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity front groups provide the corporate funding for the allegedly "populist" Tea Party groups, and corporate media, in particular Rupert Murdoch's FAUX News Fraudcasting, provided the made-for-TV political "movement" that all the media villagers and Beltway bloviators and pundits bought into. It was reminiscent of the movie Wag the Dog (1997) in which a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to "fabricate" a war in order to cover-up a presidential sex scandal.

The right-wing desperately wants to maintain its fiction that the Tea Party is a legitimate populist movement, while delegitimizing the Occupy Wall Street movement as "a bunch of f#&king dirty hippies!" Only the corporate media, which served their corporate masters so well with their Tea Party fabrication, are still buying into this. The American people have rejected the Tea Party and strongly support the Occupy Wall Street populist movement.

Greg Sargent writes at The Plum Line – The Washington Post:

Despite nonstop GOP and conservative disparagement of the Wall Street protests, the most detailed polling yet on Occupy Wall Street suggests that the public holds a broadly favorable view of the movement — and, crucially, the positions it holds.

Time released a new poll this morning finding that 54 percent view the Wall Street protests favorably, versus only 23 percent who think the opposite. Interestingly, only 23 percent say they don’t have an opinion, suggesting the protests have succeeded in punching through to the mainstream. Also: The most populist positions espoused by Occupy Wall Street — that the gap between rich and poor has grown too large; that taxes should be raised on the rich; that execs responsible for the meltdown should be prosecuted — all have strong support.

Meanwhile, the poll found that only 27 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party. My handy Plum Line calculator tells me that this amounts to half the number of those who view Occupy Wall Street favorably.

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Occupy Wall Street is just getting started. But it does seem clear that a confluence of events — the protests, Obama’s jobs push, Elizabeth Warren’s Senate candidacy, and the national backlash from the right all these things have provoked — are pushing populist issues such as fair taxation and income inequality to the forefront of the national conversation.

It turns out we don’t live in Tea Party Nation, after all.

So with this context in mind, imagine my surprise when I heard a radio spot for KGUN9 News last night on the commute home. Guy Atchley breathlessly reported that Republican Tucson City Council Member Steve Kozachik said the Occupy Tucson event planned for Armory Park is tresspassing and he is opposed to the event taking place this weekend. Here is the synopsis of the report online. Occupy Tucson gears up with signs and lawyers:

[T]here’s concern by a city council member that a government protest, also taking place downtown this weekend, will interfere with the festivities.

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Tucson Council Member, Steve Kozachik, wants Occupy Tucson to hold off on protesting downtown until Tucson Meet Yourself ends on Sunday.

“The Tucson Meet Yourself is a real upbeat come and be a part of the festivity event.  It will just be unfortunate if the Occupy Tucson people come and step into that with a blatantly political message,” said Kozachik.

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“I think that TPD is probably going to stand down and not do anything and they’re going to be made to look bad,” said Kozachik. 

He says it will make the Tucson Police look as though they favor the protest, since he says; other event organizers always have to go by the book.

When KGUN9 contacted the Tucson Police Department, a spokesperson said they won’t get involved unless an altercation requires them to or if the protest interferes with traffic.

Ah, poor baby. The Koz has his panties in a twist over Occupy Tucson, but he welcomed the support of the Koch brothers' corporate-funded Tea Party groups in his council race two years ago. Could The Koz just be parroting words for local Tea Party organizer Trent Humphries who posted this rant? “Occupy” Tucson? We ARE Tucson! | Tucson Tea Party Daily.

I am going to suggest that the Tucson City Council take a stand, as the Los Angeles City Council did on Wednesday, when it unanimously approved a joint resolution to officially "support" the Occupy L.A. demonstration and "demand accountability and results from the banks we invest taxpayer dollars in." City Council Unanimously Passes Occupy L.A. Resolution.

This is America, a country born out of protest against the ruling class (monarchy) and forged in the fire of revolution. The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the rights of all Americans — not just corporate media pre-approved Americans –to freedom of speech, the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. No one has the right to deny these constitutional rights and cherished American values. It is our birthright as American citizens.

Full text of L.A. Resolution after the jump.

WHEREAS, Angelenos, like citizens across the United States, are reeling from a continuing economic crisis that threatens our fiscal stability and our quality of life; and

WHEREAS, "Occupy Los Angeles" is fueled by Angelenos from all walks of life who have come together in a demonstration of solidarity with and support for the national movement started by the "Occupy Wall Street" protests that began 17 days ago; and

WHEREAS, on Saturday, October 1S 2011, "Occupy Los Angeles" started a peaceful protest on the Lawn of Los Angeles City Hall that continues through this day, and "Occupy Los Angeles" demonstrators are working to secure permits to continue the protest; and

WHEREAS, over 70 additional "Occupy" protests have taken root across the Country, from large demonstrations in Boston and San Francisco, to dozens of smaller ones in between, with many more being planned every hour, including a large-scale "Occupy Colleges" movement set to begin at 12 noon today on college campuses across the United States; and

WHEREAS, the protest in Liberty Plaza called "Occupy Wall Street" released its first official Resolution on September so", 2011, available at http://occupywallst.org/forum/first-official-release-from-occupywall-street/, providing an overview of the goals and unifying principles of the "Occupy" movement; and

WHEREAS, the "Occupy" demonstrations are a rapidly growing movement with the shared goal of urging U.S. citizens to peaceably assemble and occupy public space in order to create a shared dialogue by which to address the problems and generate solutions for economically distressed Americans; and

WHEREAS, the causes and consequences of the economic crisis are eroding the very social contract upon which the Constitution that the United States of America was founded; namely, the ability of Americans to come together and form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense of, promote the general welfare of, and secure the blessings of liberty for all, allowing every American to strive for and share in the prosperity of our nation through cooperation and hard work; and

WHEREAS, today corporations hold undue influence and power in our country, and the key to this power is the corporate claim to "personhood," an opinion both U.S. Supreme COUl1 Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas declared should be reversed; and

WHEREAS, our economic system can only be called broken when one considers that currently, over 25 million Americans who seek work are unemployed; more than 50 million Americans are forced to live without health insurance; and, even using our current poverty measure that is widely recognized to be inadequate and outdated, more than 1 in 5 American children are growing up poor in households that lack access to resources that provide basic survival needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter; and

WHEREAS, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a "CDC Health Disparities & Inequalities Report- United States, 2011" revealing that income inequality in the United States is the highest in the world among any advanced industrialized nation, with wide-spread inequities in U.S. health outcomes by income, race, and gender; and

WHEREAS, over the past 30 years, both the average and the median wage in America has remained almost stagnant while the average individual worker contribution to GDP has soared to 59% and the economy has doubled, all after adjusting for inflation; and highest in the world among any advanced industrialized nation, with wide-spread inequities in U.S. health outcomes by income, race, and gender; and

WHEREAS, over the past 30 years, almost all the gains to the economy have accrued to the very top income earners-largely the top 1%, who now control 40% of the wealth in the United States, in great part as a result of policy changes that are reversible such as taxation; and

WHEREAS, the Institute for Policy Studies indicates that the top 1 percent of Americans own half of the country's stocks, bonds and mutual funds; and

WHEREAS, the 400 richest Americans at the top control more wealth than the 180 million Americans at the bottom; and

WHEREAS, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has officially endorsed "Occupy Los Angeles" and "Occupy Wall Street" in a statement of support saying: "The Los Angeles labor movement stands with its sisters and brothers occupying Wall Street, downtown Los Angeles, and cities and towns across the country who are fed up with an unfair economy that works for 1% of Americans while the vast majority of people struggle to pay the bills, get an education and raise their families;" and

WHEREAS, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor statement of endorsement continues: "The Occupy Wall Street movement is mobilizing for a fair economy across the country including in Los Angeles. This movement is taking a stand against the corporate bullies, banks and investment firms that not only created our economic collapse in 2008, but continue to take advantage of it today, making billions in profits while demanding further wage and benefit cuts from American workers;" and

WHEREAS, Americans must resolve some of the divisive economic and social realities facing our nation in a peaceful way to avoid the further deterioration of our greatest asset -our human capital-and;

WHEREAS, in cognizance that one of the factors spurring recent violent revolutionary protests in the Middle East is high income inequality, though the sobering reality is that income inequality in the United States is even higher than that of some of the countries torn asunder by violent revolution; for instance, according to the C.I.A. World Fact Book, the United States Gini coefficient, which is used to measure inequality, is higher than that of Egypt's pre-Revolution; and

WHEREAS, the fiscal impact of the continuing economic crisis is disastrous to education, public services, infrastructure and essential safety-net services that have historically made America successful, with school class sizes growing while teachers are laid off and forcing Cities and States to make sobering choices that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable, such as how to cut hours and services from public safety provision, delaying or neglecting to maintain essential physical infrastructure including roads, sewers, and water and power delivery; and cutting services provided by our libraries, recreation, and park facilities; and

WHEREAS, one of the largest problems causing our economy to continue to flounder is the foreclosure crisis, with some banks continuing the use of flawed, and in some cases fraudulent, procedures to flood the housing market with foreclosures, such as the recent revelations of widespread foreclosure mismanagement by mortgage servicers who fail to properly document the seizure and sale of homes, in some cases foreclosing without the legal authority to do so, prompting the 50-state Attorney General investigation of foreclosure practices; and

WHEREAS, California has been particularly hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis, with:
• 1 in 5 U.S. foreclosures in California; and
• 1.2 million foreclosures in California since 2008, with a projection of a total of 2 million
California foreclosures by the end of 2012; and
• More than a third of California homeowners locked in an underwater mortgage, with few banks offering any type of principal reduction modification, even given Federal, State and City programs offering to split the balance of a modification with the bank; and

WHEREAS, the costs of the foreclosure crisis to California taxpayers includes:
• Property tax revenue losses estimated at $4 billion; and
• Local, county and state government losses to respond to foreclosure-related costs estimated at $17 billion –including costs such as the maintenance of blighted properties, sheriff evictions, inspections, public safety, trash removal, and other costs at $19,229 for every foreclosure; and

WHEREAS, on March 5th, 2010, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed the Responsible Banking measure, CF 09-0234 (Alarcon-Garcetti-Hahn-Parks-Reyes), which would create a Responsible Banking program for the City of Los Angeles, scoring financial institutions that the City pays to conduct City business along a Los Angeles-specific "Community Reinvestment Score" that measures the institution's Los Angeles investments in an objective, data-driven manner, for example, by measuring the amount of home loan modifications extended to Los Angeles homeowners, the amount and location of bank branches maintained throughout the City, and the amount of affordable housing dollars invested in the City; and

WHEREAS, the Responsible Banking program, a practical approach to ensuring accountability, would therefore provide an important financial incentive for banking institutions to 1) Invest more in our City and our citizens, particularly by stabilizing the housing market; 2) Provide our community development institutions and nonprofits with increased affordable housing funds, and 3) Provide incentive for additional economic development drivers to spur increased fair lending and equitable investment in Los Angeles, by leveraging a model similar to the federal Community Reinvestment Act;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, with the concurrence of the Mayor, that by the adoption of this Resolution, the City of Los Angeles hereby stands in SUPPORT for the continuation of the peaceful and vibrant exercise in First Amendment Rights carried out by "Occupy Los Angeles" and urges the City Departments responsible for completing the implementation plan associated with the Responsible Banking measure (CF 09-0234) that was approved by the Council on March 5th, 2010, which would address some of the concerns of the "Occupy Los Angeles" demonstrators by demanding accountability and results from the Banks we invest taxpayer dollars in, to bring the Responsible Banking measure for a final vote to the Council by October 28th, 2011.