In all the hubbub of police marching in riot gear and protestors fleeing, chroniclers of the Occupy Movement sometimes forget to remind us what's at the heart of the matter for the Occupiers.
So, here's a crib sheet for anyone writing about Occupy in 2012.
Income Inequality: Occupy by the Numbers
Percentage of our nation's wealth owned by the top 1% of earners: 33.8%
Percentage of U.S. wealth owned by the bottom 50% of Americans: 2.5%.
Percentage of investment assets (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.) owned by top 1%: over 50%
Percentage of investment assets owned by the bottom half: 0.5%
In two words the message of the Occupy movement is: distributive justice. When the top 1% of the population controls 24% of the annual income of the United States the consequences for democracy and a fair society are alarming. Peaceful protesters discovered this link between money and power when they found riot police pointing weapons at them and using them.
Among less mature Occupiers the response was to redefine the conflict as one between themselves and the police. This was an emotion-driven tactical mistake. Rank-and-file police officers have the same economic interests as the people they find themselves deployed against. Further, in taking on the police the naïve activist shifts the focus from economic justice while supplying opponents with negative images of the Occupy movement. Put crudely, an anarchist shouting in a police officer's face about tents is a corporate PR man's wet dream.
But what if there was a relatively easy (and nonviolent) way to turn state power against the vested economic interests that deployed the police against Occupy protesters? Follow me below the fold, and I'll show you how.
The Occupy Denver lawsuit is about Democratic Mayor Hancock using hundreds of police and very minor laws in a constant effort to drive away Occupy's supporters, who, in the main , come from the Democratic Party rank and file. The constant presence of multiple police cars there is a 24/7 warning to all supporters to stay away, Especially rank and file Democrats, who are the majority of attendees.
Actions against Occupy Denver by Democratic Mayor Hancock have caused the turnout by supporters to drop precipitously from nearly 3000 as reported by the Denver Post, to just a few hundred. If that isn't evidence of a planned effort to shut down the protest, what would be? Machine Gunning them, like at Ludlow, CO?
Today at the Occupy Denver rally, the Police decided to send out riot police to 'crack down' on the protesters and clear the square.
I filmed and photographed the people in attendance, people of all ages and walks of life - all there to peacefully protest and march. In fact as you can see in this video, the speakers spoke out forcefully about remaining non-violent. At the end of the video is a group of kids I included that were there to protest but also to have fun - expressing their freedom of speech and assembly -part of being a free American citizen.
I included them because, well, LMFAO is awesome, and these kids were near the front of the capitol where the Riot police were standing. I assume they were met with the same force. I hope they are OK. And watch the people in the video, young and old, including mothers with infants and Vets - were these people deserving of this?
This is part of a series of posts inspired by the courage and idealism of Occupy Denver and Occupy Auraria. What follows is a discussion of one of the key cases in company law: Aron Salomon v Salomon & Co., Ltd. [1897 AC 22]. In the United Kingdom Salomon is normally the first company law case law students encounter. If you understand Salomon, then you will understand the concepts of limited liability, corporate personhood, and why they are different things. The rationale behind limited liability and corporate personality is the same everywhere in the world.
Once there was a London shoemaker named Aron Salomon. He had a large family and a prosperous business. He had built-up his business over the course of 30 years having started with very little. His biggest customer was the British Army which bought boots, lots of boots. Aron Salomon wanted to retire, and his children who worked in the shoe factory wanted to be more than mere employees. So in the fall of 1892 Aron Salomon decided to incorporate.
Occupy Wall Street protesters chant, "If you pilfer $100, you are a thief. If you filch $100,000, you are an embezzler. If you steal $1 million, you are a financier." This cynical jab is aimed at investors who made gargantuan profits lending to unqualified buyers and then bundling these risky loans to other shady peddlers. After this real estate market plummeted, Wall Street's czars accepted Uncle Sam's bailouts and then rewarded themselves with fat bonuses.
Can you blame tax payers for slipping into cynicism, jamming cyberspace with this reminder: "Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither .... Pass it on."
Detractors of the Occupy Wall Street movement cavalierly dismiss them as left-over hippies from the 60s, Leftists who sport tattoos and bejewel their physiques with body piercings. Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain, when asked on October 5th about the anti-Wall Street protestors, quipped, "If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself."
Mitt Romney, the other Republican front-runner, initially dismissed the movement as "class warfare." He toned down such snarky chatter when campaigning in New Hampshire. Now he commiserates with the 99% who struggle in a lack-luster economy with employment hard to get and medical costs escalating. Meanwhile, Cain and Romney, part of the lucky 1%, continue their posh lifestyles.
Last week, concerned citizens gathered outside an EPA hearing in Denver to demand a change in the EPA's 'Haliburton' loophole.
Testifying with them, was
former EPA official Wes Wilson who filed a Whistleblower lawsuit against the EPA.
Mr. Wilson was there specifically to testify about the EPA allowing Oil and Gas companies to inject toxic chemicals into the ground for the purpose of Hydraulic Fracturing, without disclosing those chemicals for public review as required by the Safe Drinking Water Act. This is known as the 'Haliburton loophole' passed in 2005.
Wes Wilson, who was featured in Josh Fox's 'Gasland', had a lot of community groups with him including What the Frack and Food and Watch as well as families - many of whom have suffered directly from fracking fluid contamination on their land.
A local Occupy update:
I was surprised when I went downtown today to learn that the Occupy Denver rally has been going on for 10 days.
Surprised because according to my local news, there is no such thing as 'Occupy' anything.
What does make the news is that legislators - Democrats and Republicans - just voted to have 1.7 million dollars worth of gold re-plated on the Capitol's Dome.
It is the clearest example of what one 99 percenter described as a literal metaphor of the phrase
'let them eat cake'
Pictures and videos on the 10th night of Occupy Denver...
