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“Occupy Tokyo:” Nuclear Power and Protest in Japan — The Yale Globalist

25 Oct

Though initially focused on a very unique American institution—Wall Street—the movement, with its simple but compelling call for social and economic justice, found a global audience. In Japan, where two decades of economic stagnation have provided a fertile ground for class-based discontent, the protests in Tokyo this past week took on a unique character in light of March’s tsunami and nuclear catastrophe.

For many Japanese, these Occupy protests come only as a continuation of earlier, much more intense anti-nuclear agitation throughout the past few months. Obvious concerns with the safety of nuclear power usage in a country so often plagued by earthquakes had combined with outrage over the clear failure of corporations and government alike to properly regulate the source of 29% of Japan’s energy inspired mass protests this past September, with over 60,000 taking to the streets in Tokyo.

via “Occupy Tokyo:” Nuclear Power and Protest in Japan — The Yale Globalist.

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Governor Andrew Cuomo failed to get aid in shutting down the Albany version of Occupy Wall Street – NYPOST.com

24 Oct

About 200 mainly young, hippie-like demonstrators “occupied’’ Albany’s Academy Park across from the Capitol on Friday night, pitching some 30 tents, claiming solidarity with Zuccotti Park protesters, and chanting for, among other things, higher taxes on the wealthy.

Cuomo, fearful the action could spark a larger protest that would carry over and potentially disrupt the next legislative session — where his continued opposition to a “millionaire’s tax’’ will be highly controversial — demanded that Mayor Jerry Jennings, a longtime friend, enforce a city ordinance closing parks at 11 p.m. … ” we had allowed this before . . . and my counsel said we’d be opening ourselves up to civil liability if we forced them out,’’ Jennings told The Post. But there was another reason as well, he conceded.

Albany’s leftist-oriented and highly political district attorney, David Soares, told city officials he wouldn’t prosecute demonstrators who were arrested by Albany police.

via Governor Andrew Cuomo failed to get aid in shutting down the Albany version of Occupy Wall Street – NYPOST.com.

How I Learned to Love the Goddamn Hippies – The Daily Beast

24 Oct

And in a strange kind of way, Occupy Wall Street made me think more fondly of the Tea Party as well.

The theme that connects them all is disenfranchisement, the sense that the world is shifting deeply and inexorably beyond our ability to control it through our democratic institutions. You can call this many things, but a “democratic deficit” gets to the nub of it. Democracy means rule by the people—however rough-edged, however blunted by representative government, however imperfect. But everywhere, the people feel as if someone else is now ruling them—and see no way to regain control. In Europe, you see millions unemployed because of a financial crisis that began thousands of miles away in the U.S. real-estate market—and grim austerity being imposed to save a currency union that never truly won mass democratic support in the first place. In the U.S., the hefty majority for sweeping reform behind Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 has been stopped in its tracks by slightly more than half of one House in the Congress and by a historically unprecedented filibuster in the Senate. Even when it is perfectly clear what the only politically viable, long-term solution is to our debt crisis—a mix of defense and entitlement cuts and tax increases—it is beyond our democratically elected leaders to reach a deal.

via How I Learned to Love the Goddamn Hippies – The Daily Beast.

At OccupyDC, Egypt’s revolutionaries chide U.S. – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com

24 Oct

Three of Egypt’s so-called Facebook revolutionaries told a crowd of 100 people who gathered Sunday afternoon in Washington’s Freedom Plaza that the U.S. government has abandoned their peaceful revolution in favor of an alliance with the country’s still-powerful military. (Video here.)

“We hoped U.S. policy would change” said Esraa Abdel Fatah, known as the Facebook girl for creating a social media page that helped mobilize a general strike over workers rights in 2008. “We hope they would support the people, not the government. But U.S. policy supports the military now, the same way it was supporting Mubarak.”

via At OccupyDC, Egypt’s revolutionaries chide U.S. – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.

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Pete Seeger Leads Protesters in New York, on Foot and in Song – NYTimes.com

22 Oct

Shortly before 1 a.m. the crowd streamed into the center of Columbus Circle. There, surrounded by gushing fountains, musicians that included Arlo Guthrie, Tom Chapin and David Amram, joined Mr. Seeger on the base of the Christopher Columbus monument.

The crowd quieted. Guitars began strumming as Mr. Seeger began singing “We Shall Overcome,” a song that he introduced to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

via Pete Seeger Leads Protesters in New York, on Foot and in Song – NYTimes.com.

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Neoliberalism and OWS — Crooked Timber

22 Oct

… once upon a time, there were debates about trade ‘liberalization’ – globalization – that used to divide neoliberals and liberals and progressives. Basically, the neoliberals were gung-ho for trade on the grounds that the alternative was protectionism that amounted to shooting your own foot, and didn’t do any good for the poor in the Third World. And the progressives saw jobs being outsourced, labor unions weakening. Liberals were those caught in the squishy middle, per usual. We’ve had some debates on Crooked Timber of late about what ‘neoliberalism’ means. I’ve not participated because, honestly, term’s more trouble than it’s worth, worrying what it means. (I have other terms that are more trouble than they’re worth to worry about that I worry about. As a philosopher, I need to limit the number of such that infest my mental life.) The thing is: in the current situation, there is not – and should not be – anything analogous to the neoliberal side of the trade debate. No one sane thinks that this whole 99/1 business might be like NAFTA, i.e. something we have to go for, in an end-justifies-the-means spirit.

via Neoliberalism and OWS — Crooked Timber.

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Cornel West arrested as OWS spreads to Harlem – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com

22 Oct

Occupy Wall Street headed to Harlem Friday afternoon in a solidarity march that ended with the arrests of a few dozen protesters including Princeton professor Cornel West — just days after his arrest in Washington, D.C., at another demonstration. . . .

The march, which was planned by existing left-wing groups but was also endorsed Thursday by the general assembly at Zuccotti Park, focused on the NYPD’s practice of “stop and frisk.” That refers to the controversial – and, critics argue, unconstitutional — practice of officers stopping city residents on the street and searching them.

via Cornel West arrested as OWS spreads to Harlem – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.

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How they get away with obstruction – Opening Shot – Salon.com

21 Oct

The most recent data shows that 75 percent of voters say they want the federal government to send money to the states so that they can hire teachers and first responders. … At the same time, 76 percent of voters — and 54 percent of Republicans — favor increasing tax rates on Americans with incomes over $1 million.

So you might think that all 47 Republicans in the U.S. Senate and the three Democrats who joined with them late last night are going to be in some seriously hot political water for killing a plan that would have sent $35 billion to state governments to create or preserve about 400,000 jobs for teachers and firefighters and that would have paid for it with a 0.5 percent tax on millionaires.

If only it were that easy.

The measure, which represents a slice of the $447 billion jobs bill that President Obama proposed last month and that was derailed in the Senate last week, died because Democrats didn’t have the 60 votes needed to end a GOP-initiated filibuster aimed at preventing it from being debated.

via How they get away with obstruction – Opening Shot – Salon.com.

Party of Pollution – NYTimes.com

21 Oct

A new study by researchers at Yale and Middlebury College brings together data from a variety of sources to put a dollar value on the environmental damage various industries inflict. The estimates are far from comprehensive, since they only consider air pollution, and they make no effort to address longer-term issues such as climate change. Even so, the results are stunning.

For it turns out that there are a number of industries inflicting environmental damage that’s worth more than the sum of the wages they pay and the profits they earn — which means, in effect, that they destroy value rather than create it. High on the list, by the way, is coal-fired electricity generation, which the Mitt Romney-that-was used to stand up to.

via Party of Pollution – NYTimes.com.

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Nine Ideas Up for Grabs

20 Oct

Economist Robert Reich (Secretary of Labor under Clinton) has nine suggestions for specific reforms (from Salon magazine).

One, Anger (cf Occupy America and Change History):

What’s needed isn’t just big ideas. It’s people fulminating for them – making enough of a ruckus that the ideas can’t be ignored. They become part of the debate because the public demands it.

Two, jobs:

The nation needs a real jobs plan, one of sufficient size and scope to do the job – including a WPA and a Civilian Conservation Corps, to put the millions of long-term unemployed and young unemployed to work rebuilding America.

Three, to address long-term debt, raise money by:

What about halving the military budget …? It doubled after 9/11, and military contractors are intent on keeping it in the stratosphere. . . .

And what about really raising taxes on the rich to finance what the nation should be doing to create a world-class workforce with world-class wages? . . . Incomes of more than $5 million should be subject to a 70 percent rate. (The top marginal rate was never below 70 percent between 1940 and 1980.) And these rates should apply to all income regardless of source, including capital gains. . . .

And a tax on financial transactions. Even a tiny one of one-half of one percent would generate $200 billion a year. That’s enough to make a major contribution toward early childhood education for every American toddler. Continue reading →

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