Occupy Everywhere - Sept 17th - Day of Rage Against Wall Street and what it stands for!

[Peter Lemkin]

A Message Of Solidarity From Archbishop Desmond Tutu


Posted 11 hours ago on Dec. 15, 2011, 7:37 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

Sisters and Brothers, I greet you in the Name of Our Lord and in the bonds of common friendship and struggle from my homeland of South Africa. I know of your own challenges and of this appeal to Trinity Church for the shelter of a new home and I am with you! May God bless this appeal of yours and may the good people of that noble parish heed your plea, if not for ease of access, then at least for a stay on any violence or arrests.

Yours is a voice for the world not just the neighborhood of Duarte Park. Injustice, unfairness, and the strangle hold of greed which has beset humanity in our times must be answered with a resounding, "No!" You are that answer. I write this to you not many miles away from the houses of the poor in my country. It pains me despite all the progress we have made. You see, the heartbeat of what you are asking for--that those who have too much must wake up to the cries of their brothers and sisters who have so little--beats in me and all South Africans who believe in justice.

Trinity Church is an esteemed and valued old friend of mine; from the earliest days when I was a young Deacon. Theirs was the consistent and supportive voice I heard when no one else supported me or our beloved brother Nelson Mandela. That is why it is especially painful for me to hear of the impasse you are experiencing with the parish. I appeal to them to find a way to help you. I appeal to them to embrace the higher calling of Our Lord Jesus Christ--which they live so well in all other ways--but now to do so in this instance...can we not rearrange our affairs for justice sake? Just as history watched as South Africa was reborn in promise and fairness so it is watching you now.

In closing, be assured of my thoughts and prayers, they are with you at this very hour.

God bless you,

+Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town

ay ago on Dec. 16, 2011, 9:43 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt



December 16, 2011
Dear Rev. Dr. James Cooper,

We are veterans of the Civil Rights, Women's, Peace, Environmental, LGBTQ, Immigrant Justice, labor rights and other movements of the last 60 years. Many of us have been or continue to be leaders of religious congregations and organizations, so we are deeply understanding of the need to protect the spaces and buildings that generations of the faithful have transmitted to us.

We are also deeply committed to using the share of God's abundance that has been entrusted to us for the help and healing of those "least of these" the poor, the humiliated, the hungry, the homeless, the dis-empowered whom God has called us to protect.

We have special understandings of both of those commitments because as leaders of the social-change movements of the 20th century we have been called to deploy resources for the sake of racial and social justice and the cause of peace. Today we see the Occupy movement as efforts by a new generation of (mostly young) people to move forward as we did toward fuller justice and democracy for the diverse peoples in our nation.

We are concerned to hear that Occupy Wall Street has asked Trinity Church for use of the Lent-Space on 6th and Canal to gather, and has been refused.

We are especially moved to hear that the Episcopal Cathedral of Boston has invited the Occupy movement there to gather in its space.

We know that some question the need for Occupy to continue to occupy physical space but we have witnessed the impact of communal, inspirational, face-to-face contact in which people can be visible to the world and to one another. We have also been challenged to respond to the question from Occupy, Where can you go if you don't own something? Does a public even exist if it has no space? And finally, like visionaries before them, many Occupiers have chosen to give up everything to invest in a future that does not exist except in their dreams and visions. In a world where the majority of our nation is oppressed by economic and racial inequality, experiencing isolation and dehumanization at every turn, the Occupy movement in its public presence has provided hope and purpose and a pressing challenge to us all.

We urge you to reexamine the possibilities in the light of the importance of Occupy Wall Street as a spark of God's "Burning Bush" in this moment of deep social crisis. We urge you to approve the use of this sacred space for a sacred purpose the pursuit of justice in America.

With blessings,
Organizing Committee
Council of Elders
cc Vestry Members


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[Magda Hassan]

Occupy the London Stock Exchange

For a Christmas full of learning and resistance Occupy highly recommends the "Rebel Reel Cocktail".

Ingredients: 'No Logo' and 'Shock Doctrine' - book or documentary. Throw in a bit of 'Manufacturing Consent' again book/documentary, possibly add some 'War on Democracy' and 'Occupation 101' for good measure and mull it over. If there is time then 'Flow', 'Earthlings' and 'Addicted to Plastic' are highly recommended!

.. When ready put on your boots and then march to Vodafone, Topshop, Barclays or your other nearest high street oppressor and protest with UK Uncut! When finished come down to Occupy at St Pauls, Finsbury Square or Bank of Ideas and learn about/be involved in anti-capitalist resistance first hand. Next, spread the word and organise, speak to local campaigns and don't forget, 'For evil to triumph all that is needed is for good people to do nothing.'

Spread Peace and Keep Loving!

[Peter Lemkin]

Presenting the Ten Greediest Americans of 2011

You don't have to make a million to rate as an all-star greedster. You do have to be ruthless, self-absorbed and grossly insensitive.
December 13, 2011 |




The greediest among us in 2011 probably haven't been any greedier, as a gang, than any greedy of the recent past. They just seem that way.
Why so? We have a whole new frame of reference. This fall's sudden and exhilarating rise of the Occupy movement has helped us remember what we, as a society, had sadly forgotten: that decent, smart societies never let the few grab away rewards that ought to be shared among the many.
Who grabbed most greedily in 2011? We have no statistical yardstick to help us make that call. You don't, after all, have to make a million to rate as an all-star greedster. You do have to be ruthless, self-absorbed, and grossly insensitive.
That description, we'll admit, fits far more folks than our ten dis-honorees below. Maybe next year, we can hope, we'll have a harder time filling out our top ten.

10. Paul Hoolahan: Skimming the Sugar

Greed has never been a stranger to professional sports. But this year's most avaricious sports character works for a nonprofit. Meet Paul Hoolahan, the chief exec at the Sugar Bowl, one of four annual college football postseason games that rotate hosting the national collegiate championship.
The Sugar Bowl enjoys tax-exempt status and regularly touts its contributions to good causes. But Hoolahan's favorite good cause may be his own. He took home just under $600,000 in 2009, the latest year with figures available,almost quadruple his $160,500 paycheck for the same job 13 years earlier.
Hoolahan and his two top aides are skimming off $1 of every $10 the Sugar Bowl generates, a Washington Post analysis recently noted. At the same time, adds thet Arizona Republic, the Sugar Bowl and its three "Bowl Championship Series" partners are donating to charity only 20 cents from every $10 in revenue.
The Sugar Bowl disputes those figures. Hoolahan's aides say their bowl never bothers to report many donations "as charitable giving."
This past September, one of those unreported "donations" came to light. The Sugar Bowl hadspent, a Hoolahan flack had to acknowledge, at least $3,000 on political contributions to the governor of Louisiana, a nonprofit tax law no-no.

9. Michael Duke: Shifting the Goalposts

How do CEOs end up making so much? Ask Michael Duke, the chief exec at retail colossus Wal-Mart. Duke takes home his millions $18.7 million in his company's latest fiscal year alone the old-fashioned way. He squeezes workers.
But sometimes squeezing just can't get the job done. No big deal for Michael Duke. He just moves the goal posts that determine his "pay for performance."
Duke moved into Wal-Mart's CEO suite in 2009. Since then, he has ended"premium pay" for hours worked on Sundays, eliminated profit-sharing,sheared health care benefits, and cut staffing so low, Retailing Today reports, that customers sometimes can't find shopping carts because the store where they're shopping has no employees available to collect carts from the parking lot.
This sort of chronic understaffing may help explain why Wal-Mart's "same-store sales" the business "metric" that compares a retail chain's sales at the same group of stores from one quarter to the next started tumbling soon after Duke took over as CEO and didn't stop sinking until this past fall.
This same-store nosedive should have cost CEO Duke big time at pay time, since same-store sales, explains a New York Times analysis, accounted for 30 percent of the factors that Wal-Mart used to calculate Duke's bonus.
But lo and behold, all of a sudden this past spring, Wal-Mart's board of directors compensation committee eliminated same-store sales from Duke's bonus calculations. The immediate result: Duke would receive $16 million in "performance" pay despite Wal-Mart's stunning same-store sales tailspin.
Duke's total $18.7 million paycheck for the year would represent 750 times the annual pay of a Wal-Mart worker making $12 an hour, working 40 hours a week.
Some 75 percent of Wal-Mart workers make less than $12 an hour, notes a new report on Wal-Mart's business model, and few Wal-Mart workers get 40 hours.

8. Robert Iger: Impersonating Uncle Walt

Imagine if you could live in "the happiest place on earth." Even better, imagine you ran it! Then you'd be Robert Iger, the CEO of the Disney entertainment empire.
Iger became Disney's numero uno back in 2005, and this year has been one of his best. In January, Disney announced that Iger's latest annual compensation topped $28 million, a neat 35 percent increase over the year before.
In October, Iger picked up a new pay deal that extends his CEO contract into 2015 and adds on a cushy final year as Disney "executive chairman" at $2.5 million to help him make the transition into fantasyland retirement.
Not enough to make you happy? How about this: This fall Iger became the newest member of the Apple computer board of directors. He'll get a six-figure tip for the gig, plus a free copy of any new Apple product he wants. Happy, happy, happy.
Unfortunately, some housekeepers who work at the hotels in Disneyland have been raining on Bob Iger's Disney parade. They went almost four years without a contract because they refused to accept Disney demands they feared would force them to pay hundreds of dollars a year extra for health care.
These spoilsport housekeepers testified earlier this year at a community forum that made poor Bob Iger seem the reincarnation of Uncle Scrooge McDuck. The original Walt Disney, the hotel workers union pointed out, made 108 times what his housekeepers were making in 1966. Iger now makes 781 times as much.
Those housekeepers just don't understand. Uncle Walt could always whip out a pencil and draw Mickey Mouse when he wanted to feel happy. Robert Iger can only count his money.
Iger may now have to be content with a teeny bit less. Disney officials and hotel workers finally agreed on a new contract the first week in December.

7. Doug Oberhelman: Threatening an Exit

Lawmakers in Illinois, early in 2011, modestly raised their state's corporate income tax rate to help fill a gaping state budget shortfall. That modest hike soon had the CEO at the Peoria-based Caterpillar strongly "suggesting" that his Fortune 500 firm might have to exit the state.
Mused Caterpillar chief exec Doug Oberhelman: "I have to do what's right for Caterpillar."
And maybe himself, too. In 2009, a year that saw only three U.S. corporationslay off more workers than Caterpillar, Oberhelman took home just under $3 million. His last year's paycheck: $10.4 million.
Caterpillar workers, meanwhile, have a new six-year contract that, one news report notes, includes no wage raises and a big boost in health care premiums.
Caterpillar seems to exploit tax loopholes as systematically as employees. From 2004 to 2009, the company paid in Illinois income tax only 1.04 percent of its $30.4 billion in earnings.

6. William Weldon: Seeing No Evil

Contact lenses. Hip implants. Over-the-counter children's medicines. You name it, Johnson & Johnson the world's second-largest health care products company has recalled it over the past three years.
That's one reason J&J sales have failed to increase the past two years for the first time since the Great Depression. Jobs at J&J have fallen, too. The company has announced nearly 10,000 layoffs since 2004, the Institute for Policy Studies reports, despite $49.6 billion in profits the last three years alone.
Could any of this profiteering, job cutting, and chronic recalling be related? Absolutely not, says Johnson & Johnson CEO William Weldon. He declaredlast year that J&J had no "systemic problem."
That may be right. Johnson & Johnson's prime problem may be Weldon's personal greed. In 2007, the CEO "restructured" the company and slashed J&J's corporate quality control operation by 35 percent. The next two years, a hiring freeze made replacing newly vacant quality positions almost impossible.
These moves were soon paying big dividends for Weldon. He took home $25.6 million in 2009. Then came the flood of recalls and assorted other scandals from kickbacks to illegal drug marketing. The Johnson & Johnson board response? The company dropped Weldon's annual pay to $23.2 million.
This past summer, a special J&J board member investigative panel cleared Weldon and his management buddies of any blame for the company's recall disasters. Explained the panel: "Senior management never issued any directives to the effect that quality should be sacrificed for production."
Weldon, notes an Associated Press analysis, also serves as chairman of the Johnson & Johnson board and, as such, has nominated a host of J&J board members to their current positions.

5. Lloyd Blankfein: Stiffing the Sisters

Back two years ago, Wall Street's most powerful banker Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein impishly told a British journalist he was "doing God's work."
God apparently pays well. In 2007, on the eve of the financial meltdown banks like Goldman did so much to fire up, Blankfein collected a $68 million bonus, the largest in Wall Street history. The year before, his bonus hit $54 million.
In other words, Blankfein has done more than his share to help make New York one of the world's most unequal cities. In 2011, Blankfein had a chance to hit the restart button. He didn't.
In April, a Goldman Sachs required filing revealed that Blankfein, after going two years without taking a cash bonus, had gobbled up $5.4 million in bonus cash for the bank's latest fiscal year. And plenty more in stock awards and salary. His total pay for the year: $19 million, about double his total pay the year before.
In May, at the Goldman Sachs annual meeting, Blankfein faced a shareholder resolution brought by four groups of nuns that would have initiated an investigation into whether executive pay at the firm rated as "excessive."
Blankfein didn't seem to think that investigation would be a good idea. At the time, he held a stash of Goldman shares worth $527.6 million. Blankfein and his allies would go on to have the nuns' resolution crushed in shareholder voting.

4. Alan Mulally: Shrinking to Riches

Alan Mulally took the Ford Motor CEO reins in 2006. Over his first three years, Ford lost $30 billion. Over his last two, Ford has gained back $9.3 billion, and that gain has become cause for corporate celebration and a windfall for Mulally.
In March Ford handed the chief exec $56.5 million in stock and then, a month later, announced that Mulally last year pulled down an additional $26.5 million in annual pay. That amounted to 910 times the pay of entry-level Ford workers. They had been making, ever since a 2007 concessions pact, just $14 an hour.
United Auto Workers president Bob King calling Mulally's spring-time take-home bonanza "morally wrong."
Added another UAW leader representing Ford's Canadian workers: "It's unconscionable that a CEO gets paid this much money as a result, quite frankly, of shrinking a company into profit."

3. Larry Ellison: Loving that Real Estate

How much more incentive to "perform" does Larry Ellison, the top exec at business software giant Oracle, need? Apparently, $77.6 million. That's how much Ellison collected for the Oracle fiscal year that ended this past May 31.
That piece of change added less than two-tenths of 1 percent to Ellison's $39.5 billion personal fortune, the world's fifth largest.
Why does Oracle, at this point, bother ladling still more loot on Ellison? His continuing rewards, says the Oracle board compensation committee, rest on a "subjective evaluation of Mr. Ellison's performance, the unique contributions he makes to Oracle as its founder and various other factors."
Among those "various other factors" may be the annual upkeep of the at least 15 personal residences Ellison owns. That upkeep may be getting to the billionaire. Or maybe just boredom. This past fall Ellison put up for sale a 6.9-acre home and horse farm combo he owns in Northern California.
Ellison is asking $19 million for the property. He paid $23 million for it in 2005. But the $4 million haircut he's now facing won't be a big deal. The loss amounts to around one-hundredth of 1 percent of his fortune.

2. Don Blankenship: Prepping for a Comeback

This past May, West Virginia state investigators found Massey Energy directly to blame for the 2010 blast that left 29 miners dead at the company's Upper Big Branch coal mine. Massey CEO Don Blankenship's management team, probers charged, had nurtured a "culture bent on production at the expense of safety."
Earlier this month, federal regulators agreed. They found "systematic, intentional, and aggressive efforts" to flout basic safety regulations. Under Blankenship, Massey managers kept two sets of books, one accurate for internal use and another fake for regulators.
Says the top federal mine safety official: "Every time Massey sent miners into the UBB Mine, Massey put those miners' lives at risk."
That risk taking paid off handsomely for Blankenship. He pocketed $38.2 million from 2007 through 2009, after $34 million in 2005, and retired this past December with a $5.7 million pension, $12 million in severance, another $27.2 million in deferred pay, and a lush consulting agreement.
What about the families of the lost miners? Federal prosecutors have just reached a settlement with Alpha Natural Resources the company that bought out Massey this past June that will provide $1.5 million to each family.
Blankenship could still face criminal charges. But we'll more likely see him back in the mine business. The mega millionaire retiree has signed Kentucky state incorporation papers that identify him as the president of a new company that calls itself the McCoy Coal Group Inc. Who says Blankenship has no heart? "McCoy" turns out to be his mom's family name.

1. Mark Pincus: Reaping What He Sows in FarmVille

Mark Pincus, the venture capitalist who runs the Zynga online gaming goliath, wants it all. Money and power. Pincus appeared, early in 2011, on track to get them both.
The 45-year-old Pincus had spent the previous four years building up Zynga and an awesome buzz on Wall Street. Analysts were predicting that Zynga's initial public stock offering might be the biggest IPO blockbuster since Google.
Some analysts even floated a $20 billion figure for Zynga's total corporate net value. The Pincus personal net worth? Forbes put that at $2 billion.
This past March, in a preview of the IPO bonanza to come, Pincus would sell off a chunk of his Zynga shares and clear a neat $110 million.
This lucrative sale in no way loosened the Pincus lock-grip over Zynga. The Harvard MBA had structured the company's stock to make him the only owner of Zynga's "Class C shares," stock that has 70 times more voting power than Zynga's regular shares. Elsewhere in the high-tech industry, special shares typically carry only ten times the voting power of regular shares.
But then this fall things started unraveling.
High tech start-ups typically attract talent by offering shares of stock in their new concern, and Pincus had done just that with Zynga. But Pincus had apparently concluded, with the big IPO pending, that he had given away too many shares.
In early November, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Zynga management had demandedthat various employees "give back" their stock "or face termination."
Pincus, in response to the Journal story, sent out what amounted to a non-denial denial. But follow-up news reports would soon reinforce the image of Zynga as more shark tank than romper room of inspired gamers.
The New York Times would describe a "messy and ruthless" Zynga workplace chock-full of "loud outbursts from Mr. Pincus, threats from senior leaders, and moments when colleagues broke down into tears."
This coverage would come on top of news that the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal watchdog over Wall Street, had told Zynga to stop using certain "non-traditional accounting measures" that could mislead investors.
Industry insiders were also starting to question Pincus' supposed strategic business genius. The online future of gaming, analysts pointed out, rests in the mobile market. Other companies in that market were eating Zynga's lunch.
And those other companies wanted nothing to do with Pincus. Several, including the maker of Angry Birds, rejected Zynga's offers to buy them up, fearing that "Pincus' hard-driving personality and iron-fisted control" was going to make keeping talent a constant uphill battle.
Early in December, amid the torrent of negative news, Pincus and Zynga signaled that the company would be asking no more than $10 per share in its upcoming IPO. That put the company's total value at about $7 billion, only a little more than a third the estimated value that had floated around earlier in the year.
Pincus, our greediest American of 2011, still insists he's only creating a "meritocracy" at Zynga. The question he can't answer: What has he or anyone, for that matter ever done to merita billion dollars?

[Peter Lemkin]

http://www.occupydream.org/
Members of the African-American faith community have joined forces with Occupy Wall Street to launch a new campaign for economic justice inspired by the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Faithful to its philosophical origin, the "Occupy the Dream" coalition has called for a National Day of Action on Martin Luther King Day Monday, January 16, 2012 to focus attention on the gross injustice visited upon the 99% by the financial elite.

Occupy the Dream Press Release

Press Contact:
Nicole Kirby
301-440-6542
nkirby@empowermenttemple.org
www.occupydream.org

~NEWS ~ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE~
December 14, 2011
"HISTORIC ALLIANCE GATHERS AT NATIONAL PRESS CLUB HONORING THE LEGACY OF REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., JOINS FORCES WITH OCCUPY WALL STREET AND ANNOUNCES "OCCUPY THE DREAM"
Washington, DC-
As the Occupy Wall Street Movement gains momentum, leaders of the African-American faith community, who nationally comprise the historic cradle of the Civil Rights Movement, gather today at the National Press Club in order to formalize their support for the Occupy Movement and announce the launch of "Occupy the Dream."
Led by the North Carolina State Youth Coordinator of SCLC under Dr. King - Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. - and Rev. Dr. Jamal Bryant of the Empowerment Temple Church, clergy and faith leaders from across the nation will travel to the nation's capital, site of the historic "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" to once again proclaim their moral responsibility to join the front line of the struggle against poverty and economic injustice.
Faith Leaders will be joined by representatives of Occupy Wall Street and community allies such as cultural icon and social entrepreneur Russell Simmons, of the Hip Hop Action Network.
Says Rev. Jamal Bryant of the Empowerment Temple Church - " The joining of church communities with Occupy Wall Street blends history with our energy"
Faithful to its philosophical origin, the coalition will call for a National Day of Action on Martin Luther King Day - Monday, January 16, 2012 - when they will hold demonstrations in multiple cities nationwide, focusing attention on the gross injustice visited upon the 99% by a narrow financial elite.
Statements will be read by clergy and occupy representatives, announcing a unification between the inheritors of Dr. King's legacy and the present day Occupy movement.
While amplifying the critical work of Dr. King and his contemporaries in identifying and alleviating economic injustice, the coalition will call upon their congregations, communities, and Americans nationwide to "share their dreams" for a better future, just as Rev. King's seminal "I Have a Dream" speech challenged the younger generation of community leaders to step up and work toward a shared "promised land".
Occupy the Dream will make effective use of online organizing through the OccupyDream.org website and partner site StudioOccupy.org. The conference will also be streamed live at: globalrevolution.tv
In attendance at the Press Club:

• Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., President and CEO of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network & National Director, Occupy the Dream
  
• Rev. Dr. Jamal Bryant, Pastor of Empowerment Temple in Baltimore, MD & National Spokesperson, Occupy the Dream
  
• Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr., Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Hyattsville, MD
  
• Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller, Senior Pastor, Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church in Philadelphia, PA
  
• Rev. Dr. John J. Hunter, Senior Pastor, First AME Church of Los Angeles, CA
  
• Rev. Dr. Harold R. Mayberry, Senior Pastor, First AME Church in Oakland, CA
  
• Bishop Millicent Hunter, Worship Center Worldwide Fellowship of Churches & Senior Pastor, The Baptist Worship Center in Philadelphia, PA
  
• Rev. Dr. Carroll A. Baltimore, Sr., President of the Progressive National Baptist Convention & Senior Pastor, International Community Baptist Churches, Gainesville, VA
  
• Steven Green, Student, Morehouse College (Dr. King's Alma Mater)
  
• David DeGraw, Occupy Wall Street
  
• Sgt. Shamar Thomas, Occupy Wall Street
  
• Russell Simmons (via video address)
  
• Lynn Richardson, Financial Literacy Advisory Council Chair for Rush Communications
  
• Special Guests, TBD
  

For more information visit: www.occupydream.org

[Albert Doyle]

Occupy went to the streets in Manhattan and the police are doing a mass-arrest.


Live now on Michael Moore livestream.


Looks like we're going to need a bigger revolution.

[Peter Lemkin]

Occupy went to the streets in Manhattan and the police are doing a mass-arrest.


Live now on Michael Moore livestream.


Looks like we're going to need a bigger revolution.

Few arrests...Police kettled everyone, but the protestors just pushed past and knocked down the kettle net and pushed the police aside. Now heading to Times Square. Day a total victory, IMO. Several of the people who went into the Trinity Park [over the fence] and arrested were clergy! Now Police trying to stop any they think are protesters from getting near Times Square. One person just tazed. They did manage, with a few picked off by random grab and arrests to make it to Times Square for a General Assembly. Mostly, the demonstrators walked in the middle of the streets, against traffic and between the cars. The Police were thwarted by less than 1000 people, who were only about 250 by the time they reached Times Square. Imagine what 10.000 could do! The GA in Times Square was amazingly powerful. Each person said why they were there in a mic check. They were surrounded by riot police, who did nothing. Meanwhile the NYPD had five police and several cars protecting their sacred 'Bull' of Wall St. Pathetic how that is a sacred symbol for them and the city. When I went to sleep, the group was headed to Liberty Park. I've yet to see what happened there. OWS is alive and well and growing. I still feel, for all of its deficiencies, this movement may be our last hope. It is amorphous, in that anyone with similar basic ideals can join it, join a fringe group of it, or try to steer it one way or another.... It was a movement who's time had come...perhaps long overdue. [GA is here]
Happy three months old OWS! Expect us! :dancingman:

[Peter Lemkin]

Even the Ancient Roman Empire Wasn't as Unequal as America

By Gus Lubin

17 December 11

ome 1,500 years after the fall of the Roman Empire, the supposedly advanced and progressive United States of America is plagued by even worse income inequality.

Tim De Chant at Per Square Mile reached this conclusion based on a study by historians Walter Schiedel and Steven Friesen.

Rome's top 1% controlled 16 percent of the wealth, compared to modern America where the top 1% controls 40 percent of the wealth.

Looking at the Gini coefficient, where 0 means perfect equality and 1 means perfect inequality, Rome measured between 0.42 and 0.44. Modern America scores worse at 0.45, and some areas are much worse like Fairfield County, Conn. with an alarming 0.54.

De Chant comments on a telling line from the essay by Shiedel and Friesen:

At the end, they make a point that's difficult to parse, yet provocative. They point out that the majority of extant Roman ruins resulted from the economic activities of the top 10 percent. "Yet the disproportionate visibility of this 'fortunate decile' must not let us forget the vast but - to us - inconspicuous majority that failed even to begin to share in the moderate amount of economic growth associated with large-scale formation in the ancient Mediterranean and its hinterlands."

In other words, what we see as the glory of Rome is really just the rubble of the rich, built on the backs of poor farmers and laborers, traces of whom have all but vanished. It's as though Rome's 99 percent never existed. Which makes me wonder, what will future civilizations think of us?

[Peter Lemkin]

Capitalism Is the Enemy of Democracy

by: David Kristjanson-Gural

Occupy Wall Street, October 21, 2011

The most significant accomplishment for Occupy Wall Street (OWS) to date is that the Occupiers have managed to poke a hole in the legitimacy of neoliberal capitalism and its central claim that unregulated markets provide opportunity and freedom.

The Occupiers have accomplished this feat in a surprising way, peacefully, with home-made signs, signs that say things like, "If I had a lobbyist, I wouldn't need this sign."

OWS has punctured the neoliberal façade simply by having the audacity to gather in public, in bold defiance of the police and to bear witness, by their solidarity and cooperation, to the idea that the Washington Consensus has long denied - that a different world is possible.

Phil Rockstroh puts it this way: "the walls of the neoliberal prison are cracking ... We are no longer isolated, enclosed in our alienation, imprisoned by a concretized sense of powerlessness; daylight is beginning to pierce the darkness of our desolate cells."

At the core of this neoliberal ideology is a simple assertion - economic exchanges promote freedom because they are voluntary and, thus, they only occur if both parties believe they will benefit. Unregulated market exchanges thus allow individuals to engage with others in complex social arrangements without coercion, without impinging on individual liberty. Government is needed, but only to define and enforce property rights and to create and regulate the currency individuals need to undertake market exchanges.

As the world rises up against economic injustice, Truthout brings you the latest news and analysis, free of corporate influence. Help support this work with a tax-deductible donation today.

Liberal Keynesians, who argue for expanding government in order to regulate or oversee individual exchange, are denigrated because they seek to interrupt these free and voluntary agreements and they, therefore, undermine individual liberty. Reagan, who ushered in the neoliberal era, said it this way: "Government is not the solution to the problem; Government is the problem." In this extreme libertarian view, capitalism is the champion of democracy, the champion of freedom.

The flaw in this neoliberal reasoning is not hard to see. Ownership of wealth obviously confers power; it gives some individuals an upper hand in the "voluntary" exchanges they make with others. Lacking the means otherwise to support ourselves, most of us must hire out our ability to do work in exchange for wages. We might do quite well if we are educated and talented, lucky or white, but even so, we ultimately produce more value than we are paid - that is, after all, the reason we are hired.

Wealth ownership, thus, gives an upper hand to employers in these voluntary exchanges with working people. The extra value we create flows steadily into the hands of wealth holders and we don't have a say over what it is used for.

This upper hand in these so-called voluntary exchanges provides an ongoing and increasing source of wealth accumulation that is self-reinforcing. Money begets money. That is after all what capital is, money advanced for the purpose of making more money.

Excluding people from having a say over what happens to the wealth we create is the first and the most fundamental way that any capitalist system undermines democracy. We are fundamentally disenfranchised in the places we work. Wealth owners control the levers of investment and, thus, the "needs" of capital trump those of workers when it comes to making decisions about what gets produced, how and for whom.

Beyond this, neoliberal capitalism goes further - it uses the value you and I create to enforce a virtual dictatorship by wealth in the political sphere. The most obvious manifestation of this dictatorship by wealth is the unlimited corporate financing of our elected representatives.

But this financing is only the tip of the iceberg. Not only must candidates pander to corporate interests to successfully raise the funds needed to run for office, once they are in office, they are plied and courted with unrelenting advances designed to ensure that they do not lose their focus and begin to think about something other that promoting a favorable business climate.

Even deeper in the subsoil of this treasonous takeover of our democracy is the ownership and influence over the main vehicle of public discourse, the news media. The manufacture of consent is accomplished by narrowing the acceptable range of debate to the question of how best to support economic growth (read profits) and American imperialism (read war).

Where do the millions, or billions, that candidates raise end up? Primarily, this money ends up in the coffers of the corporate media - campaign advertising is the single most important source of revenue for the corporate media.

So, it is an odd fact of American life that capitalism is equated with democracy while, at the same time, acting as democracy's most corrosive force. But think about it, if capitalism really supported democracy, if it really welcomed open, honest, wide-ranging debate about the values and practices of corporations and their elected representatives, why would they be sending their police in with bats and pepper spray to prevent the free, open exchange of ideas? Why would they not be handing out microphones, providing open access to the airwaves, organizing televised debates?

If capitalism really were the champion of democracy, the Occupiers and their many allies would be celebrated. Instead we are disdained. The corporate elites fear and resist any questioning of their core beliefs because their ideas do not hold up to scrutiny and reasoned debate. That's how we all know - capitalism is the enemy of democracy.

But is there any alternative? It is tempting to think that if we can only regulate capitalism effectively, we can harness its virtues and contain its vices. In fact, there is some evidence to support this view.

The 99 percent were much better served in the post-war era in the United States, and they continue to benefit from efforts to rein in capitalism's excesses in Scandinavia and Northern Europe. But these efforts to regulate are under constant attack and a return to regulations is ultimately a brief inconvenience to the corporate elites.

As Richard D. Wolff and others have noted, as long as the value you and I create is credited to the owners of capital, these owners have both the means and, given their distorted values, the incentive to undermine and neutralize any effective regulation and oversight we attempt to impose.



Capital will continue to corrode democracy, as certainly as oxygen corrodes iron, as long as a few hold sway over investment and jobs and are committed to using the wealth that we generate to undermine the will of the people. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, "You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or you can have democracy; you cannot have both."

Fortunately, a proven alternative to corporate capitalism already exists. For over 50 years, it has provided a practical example of how we can extend democracy to the workplace as a means of preserving democracy in our political lives. The basic idea of this experiment is to address the root of the problem, to uncover the means by which capitalism undermines democracy and to provide new institutional rules governing how we organize our economic lives.

Over 50 years ago, the Mondragon Cooperatives in northern Spain developed their poverty-stricken regional economy by developing worker-owned and managed cooperatives. Co-ops place the ownership of wealth and the decisions concerning how wealth is invested in the hands of the people who produce the wealth.

These institutions recognize that the wealth generated by an enterprise is the result of the collective efforts of all, and that those most affected by the decisions of the enterprise, workers and community members, ought to have the principal say in what happens to the wealth, how it is distributed and the purposes to which it is put.

Many people argue that co-ops are impractical, but this simple, democratic principle rests at the heart of this highly successful, internationally competitive, stable and flourishing regional economy. It is an economy based on democratic management, worker ownership and democratic oversight and it faces its own challenges, yes, but has certainly proven the lie that there is no alternative to corporate capitalism. It shows that people, acting together, can use democratic principles to imbue their economic lives and their political lives with agency and meaning.

And this effort is spreading to America's heartland. The Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland have successfully applied the principles of the Mondragon experiment to develop a thriving urban development project. As Gar Alperovitz argues, the linking of large anchor institutions with worker-owned enterprises offers a practical economic development strategy that is politically feasible in the context of our current economic crisis.

Many people are uncomfortable with the idea that working people can do without their corporate bosses. Quite a bit of time and energy has been spent trying to convince us that the idea that workers can manage themselves is preposterous. OWS has provided the opening for us to consider, debate and discuss what has previously been off the table.

Economic democracy is not only possible; it is essential. As Bill McKibben and others have shown us, we cannot afford to continue on the trajectory of neoliberal capitalism. By democratizing the economy, we are taking the first necessary step toward a sustainable future. We are also taking a step toward reclaiming that peculiar American Dream of a government of, by and for the people.

So, let's grasp the significance of what OWS is doing. We need to step boldly through the hole they have opened in the shiny façade of our glad-handled, Madison Avenue, faux democracy. We need to take up the challenge of creating a real, substantive democracy, right here and now, in the very heart of America. We need to create an economic and a political democracy as a means of reclaiming our own dignity as working people, our own liberty as citizens and to ensure a livable world for those who come next.

[Peter Lemkin]

Top 100 Corporate Crime Stories of 2011
Corporate Crime Reporter 1, December 16, 2011

Here's the other difference between the one percent and the rest of us

The crimes of the one percent inflict far more damage on society than those of the 99 percent.

And they tend to get away with their crimes.

While we tend to get nailed.

The big multinational corporations, which are the primary delivery systems of wealth to the 99 percent, have rigged the justice system so that when they get in trouble with the law, they either aren't prosecuted for their crimes, of if they are, they get special treatment non prosecution or deferred prosecution agreements.

If they end up in the civil courts, they also get special deals like neither admit nor deny consent decrees.

True, they pay fines, often in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, but this is pocket change to them the equivalent of a parking ticket for serious wrongdoing.

They marinate the halls of power with campaign cash, flood them with lobbyists, and lubricate the revolving door all to undermine our system of justice.

Out of the more than 500 stories we've written for Corporate Crime Reporter this year, here are the Top 100 selected by our crack editorial team.

Just scan the the headlines, and you'll get a sense of the enormity of the corporate crime wave.

And remember Corporate Crime Reporter is only a weekly newsletter. We publish 48 times a year.

We're considering making it a daily just to keep up.

Top 100 Corporate Crime Stories of 2011

100. SEC Delivers First Non Pros Baby
99. Simon Johnson: Break Up the Big Banks
98. Grassley Asks: Why are Health Care Fraud Cases Stagnating?
97. Guidant to Pay $296 Million for FDA Crimes
96. Former Chase Bank Official Convicted of Taking Bribes
95. Oregon Sues Johnson & Johnson for Phatom Recall of Motrin
94. Grain Elevator Deaths Due to Lax OSHA Enforcement
93. Insider Trading Defendants Avoid Jail in 44 Percent of Cases
92. Lockheed to Pay $2 Million to Resolve False Claims Charge
91. Grossman Drafts Legislation to Criminalize the Corporate Form

90. Pentagon Spent Billions on Companies that Committed Fraud
89. Legal Challenge to Blanket Immunity in BAE Settlement
88. Maxwell Gets FCPA Prosecution Deferred, Pays $8 Million Criminal Fine
87. Nader Calls Jeep Grand Cherokee Modern Day Pinto for Soccer Moms
86. Oracle to Pay $46 Million To Settle False Claims Charge
85. Coalition: Negligent Doctors and Big Pharma Should Not Be Shielded
84. Chevron Found Guilty in Ecuador, Fined $9 Billion
83. Tyson Foods Gets Prosecution Deferred, Pays $4 Million FCPA Fine
82. Rolling Stone: Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?
81. Criminal Investigation Against Mozilo Closed

80. Horizon Lines to Plead Guilty, Pay $45 Million Criminal Fine
79. Walmart State and Local Tax Avoidance Exceeds $400 Million Annually
78. Wheelchair Fraud Results in $6 Million Fine
77. Feds Intervene in False Claims Case against KBR
76. Jack Abramoff, Whipping Boy
75. HHS Fines Cignet Health $4.3 Million
74. Arch Coal to Pay $4 Million
73. Forest Pharma Hit with $145 in Criminal Penalties
72. Goldman Sachs Board Member Charged with Insider Trading
71. CSPI Urges Feds to Ban Caramel Color from Sodas

70. Avaya and CIT Group Pay over $16.5 Million To Settle False Claims Case
69. Two NY York Lawmakers, Albany Lobbyist, Hospital CEOs Busted in Corruption Probe
68. USA Today: Fines Not Being Collected
67. The Dark Side of the Cruise Ship Industry and the Silence of The Nation Magazine
66. Audit Firms: Too Few to Fail?
65. Astrazeneca to Pay $68.5 to Settle Anti-Psychotic Drug Case
64. Japan Nuclear Reactor Design Caused GE Scientist to Quit in Protest
63. Chamber Hires Mukasey to Weaken FCPA
62. Consol to Pay $5.5 Pollution Fine
61. French Judge Charges Airbus with Manslaughter

60. Heart Association Endorses Stomach Surgery after $100K Gift from Lap-Band Maker
59. IBM to Pay $10 Million to Settle FCPA Action
58. Samsung SDI to Pay $32 Million Criminal Fine
57. PG&E to Pay $6 Million Criminal Fine
56. Occidental Oil to Pay $2 Million in False Claims Case
55. HHS Launches Health Care Fraud Fugitive List
54. How Milton Friedman and Chicago Economics Undermined America
53. Rakoff Rips Neither Admit Nor Deny SEC Settlements
52. Insider Trading Scandal Hits Congress
51. Antitrust Institute: T Mobile/AT&T Merger Anti-Competitive

50. Cell Phones, Brain Cancer and Devra Davis
49. JGC Gets FCPA Prosecution Deferred, Will Pay $218.8 Million Criminal Penalty
48. Verizon Pays $93.5 Million To Resolve False Claim Charge
47. Comverse Technology Gets Non Prosecution FCPA Agreement
46. Johnson & Johnson Gets FCPA Prosecution Deferred, to Pay $21.4 Million Criminal Penalty
45. Spitzer Calls on Holder to Prosecute Goldman Sachs or Resign
44. Stokes Sours on Obama's Antitrust Effort
43. Honeywell Pleads Guilty, to Pay $11.8 Million
42. NPR, Electric Trolleys and Corporate Crime
41. Warren: Banks Want to Knife Consumer Bureau in the Ribs

40. DynCorp to Pay $8.7 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
39. Serono Pays $44 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
38. UBS Gets Non Pros Agreement, to Pay $160 Million
37. 29 Coal Miners Dead and Alpha Gets Non Prosecution Agreement
36. FedEx to Pay $8 Million to Settle False Claims Probe
35. Andy Cochran and the Coming War Between Constitutionalists and Corporatists
34. Quest Diagnostics in $241 Settlement
33. Wall Street Analyst: Goldman Too Big to Prosecute
32. Fresenius Ordered To Pay $82.6 Million
31. Friedrichs Baffled by NYT's Claim That Major Crimes are in Decline (Answer: NYT Didn't Look at Corporate Crime)

30. Novo Nordisk to Pay $25 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
29. Still No Criminal Charge in 2007 Utah Mine Disaster
28. Whistleblowers Call on Public Interest Groups to Rescind Obama Transparency Award
29. Fluor Corporation to Pay $4 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
28. Anadarko, Kerr-McGee To Pay $17 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
27. JP Morgan to Pay $153.6 Million To Settle SEC Probe
26. 60 Minutes: Why No Wall Street Prosecutions?
25. Boeing Overcharged Army Millions for Spare Helicopter Parts
24. MHSA: Massey Kept Two Sets of Books
23. State AGs Settle with Glaxo for $40 Million
22. Antitrust Activists Feel Sucker Punched as Varney Leaves to Cravath
21. JP Morgan Chase to Pay $92 Million in Bid Rigging Case

20. Armor Holdings Gets Non Pros FCPA Agreement, to Pay $10 Million Criminal Penalty
19. Kentucky Nursing Home Accused in Deaths of Five Residents
18. Richard Grossman 1943-2011
17. Dickie Scruggs, Huey Long and the Politics of Crime in Mississippi
16. SEC Charges Liquor Giant Diego with FCPA Violations
15. Pew Report Hits Water Pollution from Chicken Plants
14. Wachovia Gets Non Pros Agreement, to Pay $148 Million
13. Taibbi: Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?
12. Jane Barrett on the Need for a Federal Workplace Homicide Statute
11. Gary Aguirre Says Shut Down the SEC, Start Over

10. Chevron to Pay $24 Million to Settle SEC Lawsuit
9. Maxim Healthcare Gets Prosecution Deferred, to Pay $150 Million
8. Accenture to Pay $68 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
7. Amoco to Pay $20 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
6. Oracle to Pay $199 Million to Resolve False Claims Charge
5. Activists Draft Law to Criminalize Fracking
4. Judge Rakoff Throws Out SEC/Citigroup Settlement
3. Pfizer to Pay $14 Million to Settle False Claims Charge
2. UMW Says UBB Mine Disaster Was Industrial Homicide
1. Glaxo to Pay $3 Billion to Settle False Claims Charge

[Peter Lemkin]

Occupy 2.0: One Month After Raid, Protesters Look Beyond Zuccotti

Shortly before the New York Police Department forcefully evicted Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park on Nov. 15, The Huffington Post spent 24 hours surveying life in their tent city. One month later, with the tents long since slashed open and thrown away and almost every sign of what happened there erased from the park, HuffPost surveyed those same protesters to see whose occupation continues and who has moved on.
But as protesters gear up for Saturday's "Occupy 2.0" and the three-month anniversary of OWS, they're also looking beyond Zuccotti. And most still say the movement is more than a moment.
'IT'S NOT GOING ANYWHERE'
On a bright, brisk Saturday morning in November, Katy Ryan, 35, marched with hundreds of Occupy protesters from Zuccotti up Broadway, beyond City Hall to Foley Square. Ryan's 8-year-old daughter, Mary Jane Thorne, held her hand and marched alongside.
They'd traveled from Jersey City to take part in the march, organized in conjunction with a campaign to encourage people to transfer their savings from large financial institutions to community banks and credit unions.
"I want her to see what it is to be an active citizen of her country," Ryan said during a quick break. When asked what she thought about the march, Mary Jane looked bashfully at her mother, then at the ground. She did voice her opinions on another matter, however, when they resumed walking. "My sock is so annoying," she said, yanking at the offending footwear. "It won't stay up."
The marchers spilled over the sidewalks of lower Manhattan, stalling traffic. The driver of a paralyzed SUV honked his horn, while passengers stuck their hands out from beyond tinted windows and made peace signs.
It was the first protest for Mary Jane, whom her mother calls MJ. "I put everything to her in the simplest of terms," Ryan said of her daughter. "I did tell her about the bailouts, and how the average person is suffering more due to irresponsibility by the banks and our government." Later in the day, MJ appeared on the OWS video livestream, sticking her tongue out at each bank as she marched by.
Little over a week before the NYPD raid on Zuccotti Park, Ryan speculated about the future of Occupy Wall Street. "Of course, I hope something more tangible comes of it," she said. "I think we've only seen the beginning. It's not going anywhere, even if they did come in and dismantle the park."
In the month since police did just that, slashing tents, trashing books and arresting bus-loads of protesters, Ryan has become more involved in OWS. She says she visited the park the morning after the raid to see what was left and found herself galvanized.
Ryan has since joined Occupy Wall Street's "direct action" working group, which currently meets in community spaces and office buildings within a few blocks' radius of Zuccotti -- which she and other protesters call "Liberty Square."
The NYPD raid may have provided the jolt that Occupy Wall Street needed, Ryan said. A month ago, she had grown frustrated with what she saw as stagnation: a packed, stifling encampment beset by people more interested in photo ops than protest. "They made what we were all passionate about look ridiculous from the outside," she said.
With those hangers-on mostly gone, Ryan said, it's been easier to focus on "day of action" events. Most recently, she and her daughter visited Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood as part of a protest that occupied a foreclosed home.
But for Ryan, those events have been fewer and farther between as the holiday season has approached. A freelance makeup artist and hair colorist, she still manages to make meetings two or three times a week during "mom-allotted hours." Mary Jane spends half the week with her father -- Ryan used to spend those nights in the park.
"This time last year I was working at a salon for the 1 percent 10-12hrs a day," Ryan said in an email Friday. "My old schedule wouldn't have allowed for this, and who knows how my old employer would have responded considering the clientele."
Still, she plans to make time for Occupy 2.0, the next major OWS event, scheduled for Saturday.
"We are re-occupying," Ryan said in an email. "I'm glad I didn't put my sleeping bag and tent back in storage yet too!"
Ryan said Friday that MJ will be attending the new occupation, carrying a yellow balloon identifying children of Occupiers and wearing a beloved T-shirt she made at an art station in Zuccotti. It features two scenes, as Ryan describes them: "In the first scene it was the banks stealing our money. The second scene was her strongest Pokemon taking it back and giving it to people."





Zuccotti Park as photographed on Nov. 5 during a protest -- 10 days before a midnight raid changed the face of the Occupy Wall Street movement.










SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS
Some Occupiers are part of the movement more in mind than body, and have been less focused on protest in the month since the raid on Zuccotti, a key access point for both originators and onlookers.
Desiree Frias, 18, a student at Bard College at Simon's Rock, was a casual Occupier in November. She and her fiance, Hector Acevedo, 22, who studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, attended rallies on weekends when they weren't busy studying.
Frias was arrested after the OWS Move Your Money protest arrived at Foley Square. Hundreds of protesters flooded the square, which is usually a deserted public space surrounded by mammoth government buildings, and began an hours-long standoff with police who tried to disperse them.
Uniformed NYPD officers lined up across the street on the steps of the New York State Supreme Court building. After a couple of failed attempts to shoo the protesters away via megaphone -- "We don't want nobody to get hurt!" was the last such warning -- police unfurled orange netting and began pushing the crowd, including a HuffPost reporter, back off the sidewalk. Others shoved protesters who resisted.
In the chaos, the police made an example of Frias, dragging her, sobbing, up the courthouse steps and cuffing her beneath the words of George Washington etched into its edifice: "The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government."
"I just want to go back to college," Frias cried as officers walked her back down the steps and beyond the barricade. She asked for help finding her fiance.
At the Manhattan Criminal Court Building, where Frias was expected to be arraigned, a security officer barred HuffPost from entering. Occupy Wall Street protesters had arrived to decry the arrests of Frias and at least 21 others, according to figures later provided by Moira Meltzer of the National Lawyers Guild. Authorities had the court building on lockdown until the crowd dispersed back to Zuccotti.
According to the court clerk, Frias was charged with assaulting an officer, a felony, as well as with obstructing government administration and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors.
"She's freaking out, keeps saying over and over, 'I want to get out of here,'" her fiance Acevedo told HuffPost that night, back at the OWS kitchen in Zuccotti. "She doesn't even know what happened ... I'm just staying here for the night, because that's what we were going to do. If she doesn't get out tomorrow, I don't know what I'll do."
That was the only night Acevedo spent in Zuccotti. Frias spent it in jail. Since then, they've had to worry more about finals, work -- Acevedo holds a full-time job -- and Frias' legal issues.
"Her trial isn't over," Acevedo said in an email. "We're both still not completely over all that has happened." He said he and Frias could not comment any further, given the pending court decision.
The crash course in political protest has not thwarted their interest in Occupy Wall Street. "If anything, it just made us want to do more than we already were," Acevedo said.
In the last few weeks, he has switched majors, from criminal justice to political science.


BIG ISSUES, BIG MONEY
Upon returning from the protest of Frias' arraignment, tempers ran high. A man who entered the camp's "information tent" angrily questioned HuffPost about available bathroom facilities before two Occupy Wall Street organizers stepped in.
After shooing him off, one of the organizers, Darrell Prince, dismissed the incident and similar confrontations as "plant issues," or attempts by opponents to undermine Occupy Wall Street. More serious cases of violence and drug use had arisen at Zuccotti, but Prince and other organizers likewise attributed such problems to malefactors from outside the Occupy movement.
Prince himself spent years in what he calls a "thankless job in finance." Burrowed into his coat on a cold stone bench, he said he had been looking to claim a cause for his own at the same time that OWS started to receive donations on a scale that organizers had difficulty processing. Prince, who describes himself as a "rights person," said he came to Zuccotti every day in the first week of the occupation and then most days after that.
When he first arrived, he said, a member of the finance committee was keeping $10,000 in cash in the park. "I made her go to the bank," he said, shaking his head. They switched the money to the Amalgamated Bank owned by the Workers United labor union.
Like Katy Ryan, Prince, 35, said he's been frustrated by the trouble OWS has had in managing its growth, though he cited the formation of a "spokes council" as the sign of an evolution toward centralized authority.
"Look, we wouldn't be in Iraq right now if George Bush had to come in front of the [GA]," he said. "But it's idealistic to think that everybody talking about everything at the same time will get you anywhere."
On the night of the NYPD raid, Prince was at a media team meeting when he heard screaming, then saw the thousand-plus police when the NYPD trucks hit the park with their lights.
To prevent such surprises in the future, Prince said he's now developing the OWS Transparency Act, an internal road map for Occupy communications. "Trying to keep abreast of what is going on is a full-time job," he said. "There should have been ongoing negotiations with the city."
A secondary goal is to increase transparency around the movement's working budget, currently allocated by a new incarnation of the financial working group that Prince joined early on. It's now called the accounting working group, and another member said the NYPD's destruction of the Zuccotti encampment spiked donations to Occupy Wall Street, which have risen above $600,000 in total since September.
Prince also helped organize last week's anti-foreclosure day of action, Occupy Our Homes, which some protesters saw as a new focus. He's helping Occupy Wall Street itself look for a new, more permanent home.
During the day, however, he answers to a different boss. Back in early November, Prince said that he was back in sales and marketing. When asked where, he pointed toward the darkened skyscrapers of the financial district but declined to elaborate. His LinkedIn page lists his current occupation as marketing and operations consulting for Maria's Cup, Inc., a private coffee company, but it does not appear to have been recently updated.
"Of course I see the irony, but I'm kind of looking to do something else," he said of his time in business, which has included a stint at pharmaceutical giant Merck. "I've basically avoided it during the time I've been in New York. I don't have a good feeling about the stuff they've done."
Asked in November whether the Occupy movement can survive, Prince said, "Well, I hope so," with some reservation. "We need an alternative voice."
In an interview last week, he didn't hesitate. "There are big issues, big problems," he said, "and most people seem incapable of speaking about it."
A CALLING
John Friesen has no trouble speaking, but he takes a different view. "By its own actions, the existing power structure has exposed itself as illegitimate," he said last week. "These institutions and structures must be dismantled, and a more humane society must be built from the ground up."
As night settled in after the arrest of Frias and others, Friesen began his "community watch" around the Zuccotti encampment with a stroll past a cluster of police officers. In pairs, community watch volunteers would spend several hours per night surveying the park for security concerns, both internal and external. Circling the park, however, gave them no forewarning of the thousand-plus riot cops headed their way a week later.
Many of the watch volunteers had not been trained for reconnaissance or security work, although some said at the time that they were taking mediation classes. Friesen, 27, described himself primarily as an activist from Berkeley, Calif., who had been involved in protests for years. He hasn't held a "traditional job" since 2007, Friesen said, but "I have become extremely resourceful. I live more or less without money."

He said he had been visiting New York to observe the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks when Occupy Wall Street began in earnest, and once he visited Zuccotti, he couldn't imagine leaving.
Rumors of an impending NYPD raid had circulated through the OWS encampment in the weeks leading up to the police action. While the tents still stood, Friesen said he thought an "inevitable" police crackdown would only strengthen the Occupy movement.
When it finally began, Friesen was wrapping up a planning meeting in a small park nearby for a later Occupy day of action. He and other OWS organizers made it back through the police cordon and clustered around the kitchen at the heart of the park.
"They could not stand the direct critique, the nascent counterpoint of a free society, the explosive expressions of authentic freedom and humanity," Friesen said of the police. "Though the raid physically scattered us, it also allows us the opportunity -- compels us, really -- to collect ourselves, re-evaluate and refocus, using the experience of these miraculous months."

Friesen and many other OWS protesters still spend some days at Zuccotti, while at night they stay with hosts throughout the city. But he says he and other organizers have become more interested in actions that they believe will have a more direct impact, such Occupy Our Homes and a march to Goldman Sachs' New York offices in solidarity with sister protests out west.
Friesen believes that many OWS protesters have been freed up to participate in more actions, now that they are no longer obliged to worry about maintaining the Zuccotti camp. "We're attempting to reach out to marginalized communities that we haven't yet passed the mike to," he says, "and crank up the volume."
THE EVERYMAN
One part of maintaining the camp consisted of maintaining order and good behavior. A sign headed "Good Neighbor Policy," posted on the marble wall surrounding Zuccotti, listed the OWS rules:
"Following respectful and good faith dialogue / zero tolerance for drugs or alcohol anywhere in Liberty Square / zero tolerance for verbal abuse / abuse of personal or public property."
Around midnight following the Move Your Money march, a protester standing atop the wall joined in a game of "Marco Polo." Roy Sharkey, 51, read under a streetlamp nearby.
Sharkey has been many things, including a musician -- "it's schizophrenic, partly Jimmy Hendrix and part James Brown" -- and a writer. A native New Yorker, he got involved in OWS after he saw the mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge, the first OWS event that really got his attention. Before that, he says, "I thought it had been 'Occupy for a Day.'"
After that, he spent most nights at Zuccotti, finding it harder and harder to return home to Long Island to sleep or shower. In the park, "even the young kids are knowledgeable," he said, "and you really learn from people when you sleep shoulder to shoulder."
Priort to the raid, Sharkey said, "I think I'll be living here the rest of my life."
Even the police stationed along the edge of the park offered lessons. Up the sidewalk from where Sharkey was reading, NYPD Officer Sun talked casually with a member of OWS. Both said such chats were common during the mostly-quiet night hours.
Sun said he and other police recognized the frustrations of Occupiers. "It's like they have $100 bill in his pocket and are shoplifting a shirt," he said as he gazed around the financial district. "We get it."
At the time of the raid, however, Sharkey had made one of his infrequent trips home. Since then, he's been in Florida visiting his two young daughters and largely "out of touch" with the movement. But Sharkey has never thought of OWS in terms of weeks or months. "I think it's long-term, not a 'this year' or a '2012 election' thing," he said in November.
A month later, he restated his conviction, suggesting that Occupy protesters ought to lobby members of Congress and perhaps form a third party. "The response since the raid has been to re-evaluate the movement and try to decide the best way to increase support from the American people."
In an email, Sharkey said he was still determined to fight for the rights of all Americans, including those he derides as "pathetic scared rabbits whose heads are stuck in the sand waiting for everything to be calm and blissful."


KEEPING THE MOVEMENT ALIVE
Zuccotti is almost as quiet in the early hours as it was on that chilly morning in early November when the medical tents that marked an early victory for Occupy Wall Street were still standing.
Then, Pauly Kostora, 27, a trained nurse with a bullring in his nose and a stethoscope around his neck, described his role in the Occupy Wall Street medical group as "AIC -- Asshole in Charge."
His mission, he said, was simple: "make sure people stay alive."
"It's not our responsibility to give you everything you want," he added. "It's our responsibility to make sure this movement goes on."
Kostora, who is also a photojournalist, was on a five-month cross-continental road trip with his dog, Zephyr, getting by on dwindling savings and whatever his guitar could earn him when friends at home in New Mexico told him he should check out what was happening in New York.
In Montreal at the time, he headed south, intending to stay a few nights in Zuccotti and take photos, but the weeks passed quickly. "Time gets clumped here," he said.
While on watch, he swapped war stories with the other medical volunteers, some who arrived after full-time jobs where they had daily rotations of eight to 12 hours. They wore red crosses made from electrical tape, which matched the larger crosses on the tents.
In a case that is still fresh in Kostora's mind, a patient came in with osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone marrow. "That foot was like a well-done barbecue," said Alex Homolind, 20, another medical volunteer.
"We've had a few heart attacks, saved a few lives," said Maxine Dade, 17, a self-styled "street medic." Despite the fact that Dade was more than a few years away from a medical degree, patients didn't hold that against her. "There are a lot of people who come to see us who haven't seen a doctor in years," she said, "who wouldn't be cared for otherwise."
At the other end of the spectrum, retired New York doctor David Stead, 69, graduated from medical school decades before Dade was born. Stead came down to Zuccotti after seeing it on the news, and upon arriving, he volunteered for the medical team.
"I just believe in the cause," he said. "I think there should be more equity and distribution of money, and more health care for anyone. It should be something people should be able to expect, because the U.S. really has the money."
The night of the raid, Kostora was visiting a bathroom away from the park when riot police began to advance. He barely made it back to the medical tents, where one patient was being treated and another protester with heart problems was seeking protection.
According to Kostora, police dragged him and the woman with heart problems across the street and threw them to the ground. Dr. Stead stayed behind to attend the other patient, even as cops slashed open the medical tents, he said.
"I went up to every high-ranking officer I could find and told them we have patients in there, we have medical records in there, and they can't -- it's illegal for them to enter without a court order, and they just ignored me," Kostora recounted a month later.
Since the raid, Kostora has focused on "rebuilding." His team has been making the rounds to sites throughout the city where Occupy protesters have gathered. This Saturday, they'll debut four "mobile clinics," which Kostora described as suitcases of medical equipment that the team can use during demonstrations. Other plans are in development for a more permanent, registered clinic "that will offer free health care to everybody, 100 percent," and a medical observation team, currently seeking volunteers, that will attend protests to respond to -- and document -- protesters' injuries.
On the whole, "I think that the leadership within the Occupy movement is starting to come out," Kostora said. "We don't have a park to manage anymore, so now we can actually focus on where we take the movement."
But Kostora said Friday that he's more or less run through his savings, now relying on OWS food and the generosity of friends. "I don't really require too much," he said, "besides dog food."
He's been looking for jobs but says his work with the OWS medical team is a full-time position.
"Don't think I'm going back to New Mexico soon," Kostora added, "or anywhere for that matter. I'm too deep."
'PEOPLE AREN'T GOING TO STOP'
Across from the medical tents, at the heart of the park, was the people's kitchen, run almost entirely on an impressive stockpile of donated supplies and some cash from the finance working group.
The kitchen feed thousands daily, said volunteer Patrick O'Black, 24, back in November, seated on an overturned bucket in the kitchen while a large man -- "Just Ice, from Jamaica, Queens, baby" -- washed dishes in plastic tubs.
A truck driver from Morristown, N.J., O'Black quickly became enmeshed in Occupy Wall Street after seeing the same reports of the Brooklyn Bridge arrests that mobilized Roy Sharkey. His job has him on call around the clock to make deliveries across the tri-state area -- "Basically, I just listen to NPR all day," he said -- but had been able to spend most subsequent nights in the park.
"I went from, 'I'm gonna stay the night' to 'I'm gonna live here,'" he said.
Before the raid, O'Black said he believed the Zuccotti encampment was there to stay. When it was destroyed, he and his fellow marchers had just arrived at Occupy Philadelphia, en route to Washington, D.C, and they spent the rest of the night watching streaming video of the melee in New York.
"We knew the raids would happen eventually," O'Black said. "The state responds to any threat with violence. We can see this repeating throughout modern history."
Once the marchers completed their 240-mile trek to the nation's capital, some extended their route another roughly 700 miles to Atlanta.
In the wake of continued crackdowns at other Occupy sites, some of those protesters took the raid as a challenge, pledging to "occupy the road" in lieu of an encampment.
O'Black, however, returned to Zuccotti, and has taken part in Occupy Our Homes and other "day of action" events.
"My role in the park now is very similar," he said last week. "I still work, delivering clothing and food to those in need. We just don't have a home base right now."
Wherever it eventually goes, O'Black expressed confidence that the Occupy movement will endure. "People aren't going to stop being upset about the current state of affairs in this country," he said, echoing his call to action from a month earlier: "Why would you possibly sit there and let things get worse? How could you live with yourself?"