Truthout: 28 October 2011

Just Three Corporate Front Groups Spent 13 Times as Much as the Entire Labor Movement to Buy Judicial Elections
Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress: "After the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate money in American elections, the decision's defenders claimed this wasn't such a big deal because unions could also take advantage of the decision. A new report by three leading voting rights and judicial independence groups gives the lie to this claim. According to the report, just three corporate interest groups spent more than 13 times as much trying to influence state supreme court elections as the entire labor movement."
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Department of Justice Balks at Turning Over Guantanamo Detainee's "Power-of-Attorney" Document to His Lawyers
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "Attorneys for Abu Zubaydah say they have been trying to mount a meaningful defense for the 'high-value' detainee, who has been in the custody of the US government since March 2002, and have also sought legal remedies outside of the United States to hold accountable those who were complicit in his rendition and torture. But the attorneys claim their efforts have been stymied by the Justice Department (DOJ), which refuses to turn over to them critical documents they need to press forward with Zubaydah's case."
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North Carolina Considers Constitutionally Banning Same-Sex Marriage
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Gay marriage is already illegal in North Carolina, but last month, the state's Republican-controlled legislature put a proposal to amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage on a May 8, 2012, primary ballot ... The amendment would strip several cities of the ability to provide benefits to tens of thousands of public employees in domestic partnerships ... Thirty states have language in their constitutions that make same-sex marriage illegal, and North Carolina is the only state in the southeast without a constitutional ban."
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Why a Mortgage Cramdown Bill Is Still the Best Bet to Save the Economy
Alex Ulam, The Nation: "Many Americans believe that the financial crisis stems from the Bush administration's running up the federal debt and out-of-control spending by the American consumer. But much of the blame for the country's current economic woes lies with the Obama administration's failure to forcefully tackle the biggest threat to the American economy today: the housing crisis."
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Robert Scheer | Thirty Years of Unleashed Greed
Robert Scheer, Truthdig: "Between 1979 and 2007, as the Congressional Budget Office reported this week, the average real income of the top 1 percent grew by an astounding 275 percent. And that's after payment of the taxes that the super-rich and their Republican apologists find so onerous. Those three decades of rampant upper-crust greed unleashed by the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s will be well-marked by future historians recording the death of the American dream."
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Occupy Oakland Regroups in Frank Ogawa Plaza
David Bacon, Truthout: "Three thousand grassroots people and political activists resume the rally and occupation in Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of City Hall, the evening after police tore down the tents of occupiers and fired tear gas and rubber bullets to try to disperse the demonstrators. Occupiers discussed in small groups the actions they intend to take to keep their movement growing."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Republicans Killed Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs, and More
In today's On the News segment: Majority of millionaires want higher taxes for themselves, Occupy Oakland calls for a general strike, PETA to sue Sea World for slavery, and more.
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Occupy Oakland Protesters Remain in Legal Limbo After Release From Jail
Elise Ackerman, Oakland Local: "According to the National Lawyers Guild, nearly 100 people were arrested Tuesday morning and illegally booked in Alameda County's Glenn Dyer Facility in downtown Oakland and the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. For reasons that are still unclear, some protestors were held for more than 12 hours after the mass arrest before being booked on charges ranging from disorderly conduct related to loitering to remaining on the scene of a riot, obstructing a police officer and battery on a law enforcement officer."
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Gandhi's Wings: Occupy Wall Street and the Redistribution of Anxiety
Robert Johnson, AlterNet: "Occupy Wall Street is about anxiety, and the courage of young people to fly into conflict on Gandhi's wings. This is the noble legacy of civil disobedience on display at Zuccotti Park. We are seeing that anxiety channeled by courage can transform a society ... You can see this drama played out as the demonstrators meditate surrounded by police whose anxiety is palpable, perhaps because the police cannot figure out which side they should really be on."
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A Dose of Reality for MTV, or the 1 Percent Monetizes Protest Against the 1 Percent
J.A. Myerson, Truthout: "MTV has put the word out that it is casting a 'Real World' season to be set at Occupy Wall Street, the primary force that currently gives the network's target demographic meaning and direction ... Don't be surprised if MTV's cameras are greeted with underwhelming warmth at Liberty Plaza Park. Protesters there have already shouted down camera crews - not just from Fox News, which was predictable, but even that of the sympathetic Cenk Uygur, of the 'Young Turks,' whose broadcast one protester insisted on disrupting, accusing the host of producing 'protest porn.'"
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"Blood on the Tracks": Brian Willson's Memoir of Transformation from Vietnam Vet to Radical Pacifist (Video)
Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW: "Today we spend the hour with a man who put his life on the line twice: once when he served in the Vietnam War and again when he came back. On September 1, 1987, Brian Willson took part in a nonviolent political action outside the Concord Naval Weapons Station in California. He sat down on the train tracks along with two other veterans to try to stop a U.S. government munitions train sending weapons to Central America during the time of the Contra wars. The train didn't stop. Willson suffered 19 broken bones, a fractured skull and lost both of his legs."
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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

As the medical condition of Marine Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen appears to have improved, he is becoming the Neda Agha-Soltan - the martyr of the Iranian Green Revolution - of the "Occupy" struggle for economic justice.

What occurred this week in Oakland - including the wounding of Olsen - shouldn't have happened. In June of 2004, the Oakland Police Department reached an agreement to refrain from using the kind of bloody and militarized tactics that they employed earlier this week.

According to a November 2004 San Francisco Chronicle article:

Oakland police will no longer indiscriminately use wooden or rubber bullets, Taser stun guns, pepper spray and motorcycles to break up crowds, under an agreement announced Friday....

The new policy settles part of a federal class-action lawsuit filed by 52 people who claimed their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly were violated as they targeted two shipping companies with contracts tied to the war in Iraq.

"What we've done is create a comprehensive policy that really provides a much more sensible, reasoned approach to managing demonstrations and crowds," said Rachel Lederman of the National Lawyers Guild in San Francisco.

Obviously, as Olsen's situation demonstrates, the Oakland Police did not adhere to the letter or spirit of the 2004 agreement on Tuesday night. Lederman told the San Francisco Chronicle that when the policy was negotiated, "these projectile weapons are very dangerous. It was only a matter of luck that someone wasn't killed on April 7, 2003, in Oakland. That's what we're trying to prevent."

Lederman is referring to a 2003 Oakland police riot against anti-Iraq war demonstrators that resulted in the serious wounding of many protesters. In fact, according to ThinkProgress, "the demonstrators were not without recourse. They took the city to court, and Oakland eventually awarded $2 million to 58 demonstrators for police abuses."

You would think that after signing an agreement and paying out taxpayer money to "compensate" for abusive police practices, the Oakland Police Department would learn how to behave in a civilized fashion when dealing with people exercising their First Amendment rights.

Meanwhile, the Oakland School Board voted on Wednesday night, this week, to close five elementary schools, in large part due to budget constraints. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Oakland school district officials say that the school closings will save about $2 million a year, about what the Oakland Police Department paid out to protesters it abused in 2003.

Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout

Perhaps the Best Way to Occupy Wall Street Is by Pulling Our Money Out of Big Banks
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

New York Firefighters Removes Gasoline, Generators From Downtown Protest Site
Read the Article at Businessweek

It's Time for Debt Forgiveness, American-Style
Read the Article at The Nation

Pro-Israel Organization Chooses to Honor Anti-Semitic Stereotype Peddler Glenn Beck, While Condemning Occupy Wall Street
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

House GOP's "Job Creating" Spending Cuts Destroyed 370,000 Jobs
Read the Article at ThinkProgress

Rick Perry: The Best Little Whore in Texas
Read the Article at Rolling Stone

Wall Street Protesters Prepare for Winter Weather
Read the Article at The Associated Press

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