January 29, 2012

Irony Free, Corporate Bi-Partisanship

This was a real ad. It's supposed to be an advert for Coca-Cola, but it seems more like an ad for the Green Party or Occupy Movement:



Yup. The Democrats and Republicans get together to celebrate their loyalty to corporate America.

Not only that, but a corporation that HIRED ASSASSINS TO MURDER UNION LEADERS.

It's like a political cartoon, except... it's not.

Oakland Police start shit again: Firing grenades at a peaceful protest


No Sound

more



Journalists kettled and arrested, via FDL's Kevin Gosztola

Photos of Oakland's Move-In Day via Len Tsou

Paramedics remove a pregnant woman from Occupy Oakland after Police Assault her, jabbing her in the kidney with a baton. via Mercury News

January 28, 2012

I answer Viewer Mail!



This is all possible because of YOU.

To those of you who buy t-shirts- THANK YOU.
To those of you who donate a dollar a month to support the show - THANK YOU.
To those of you who donate 10, 20, 30 dollars a month to support the show - THANK YOU.

January 27, 2012

Occupy Atlanta - "The class war has been brought to us"

"We no longer have a choice between resistance and complacency; the choice is now between resistance and annihilation."


"The nights are cold and hostile to those without homes, many of whom are swallowed by the city. These deaths should be seen as casualties of war.

"Every man woman and child who freezes to death on the streets that run through the shadows of the Marriot, Georgia Power, Coca-Cola Plaza, and Georgia Pacific, are being murdered..."

January 25, 2012

Acronym TV: Top 10 Subtextual statements in Obama's SOTU

The State of the Union- Occupy Wall Street Style



Here we have a group of Occupy DC people from Freedom Plaza and McPherson Square protesting the Presidents speech. To summarize: Words from the President usually do not reach the average individual on the street. The neglect of this nation needs courage, leadership, and committment... Obama in his first 3 years displays none of these qualities.

[Infographic] The Student Loan Bubble

Created By: Education News

Occupy The SEC


This video is currently uploading on non-broadband internet. It will take 30 min. If you would like to help me upload content faster, please donate by clicking in the sidebar, and once I get enough monthly subscribers, I'll be able to purchase a faster internet connection.

Also, here's an online petition form to the SEC from Public Citizen you can use in the short term.

And while that's nice and all, you should really get your ass down to DC and complain in person.

So the SEC, if they had done their job, Wall Street would not have fucked up the entire world economy. Or at least not as badly as they did.

The Newsletter Version

The SEC, charged with regulating wall street, has largely not done their job, or worse, actively helped to cover up the crimes of wall street.

The SEC is a lynchpin intersection between Washington, DC and Wall Street.

On March 30th, there is a mass mobilization in DC that I'm sure you all know about. We should start planning now to occupy the SEC in March, and begin shining a light on how corrupt they are.

This is a critical target, and is a good target to utilize the "identity triangle" method of contrasting who our target is, and what they say they are, the conflict between what they say they do, and what they actually do. The conflict between what they say reality is, and what actual reality is.

If we can weaken the collusion at this juncture between Washington DC and Wall Street, we can start really making a massive dent in the power structure.






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January 19, 2012

Some random footage of #j17 Occupy Congress

I've got a ton of footage that I can't even begin to sort through, so I'm uploading stuff raw and uncut from my FlipCam to the FreeChangeCollective's channel:

Here's what's up so far. Updates to come.

Om meditation circle in front of the White House. Illegal.


Putting up hearts with our hopes and wishes on them, and tying them to the gate of the whitehouse. Also illegal.

Once again, thank you to everybody who has signed up for sustaining donations, and all of you who purchase t-shirts. You make this stuff possible.




UPDATE:

Occupation of Carl Levin's office:



Crowds gather:



The March Leaves:



The March Takes the Supreme Court Stairs (illegal):


March stops to read the 1st Ammnt on the NEWSEUM:


Headed to the Whitehouse:


Passing Freedom Plaza and DC City Hall:



Putting up paper hearts on the White House gates:




Somebody familiar doing something illegal:

AnnoyYour Congresspeople from Home



You know how annoying it is to get robocalls from presidential, congressional, etc campaigns? Well, since your congresspeople like robocalls so much, why not use their own most annoying fundraising tool to call congress?

You can record a message ahead of time, and then send it to every member of congress. It's like being able to be here to lobby, without ever having to leave home, get time off from work, or find a sitter for the kids.

ReverseRoboCall.com

January 12, 2012

Santorum's Staff and NH Police Assault Occupy NH and Vermin Supreme

In Case You Missed It:


via Flux Rostrum

"After answering the same questions over and over here in New Hampshire, Sen. Santorum has become a pullstring homophobic speak'n'say." - Vermin Supreme

Vermin Supreme - Lesser Known Candidates Forum



I love that Randal Terry had to share this panel with Vermin Supreme.

This is worth watching until the very very very last second.

Occupy NH floods primaries with "Get Money Out of Politics" placards

In Case You Missed it:

Occupy NH drops banner outside GOP debate

In case you missed it:

#OWS birddoggers ask Newt Gingrich about Corporate Money Polluting our Election System



NH Primary - where you can talk BACK to the candidates and hold them accountable on their bullshit.

January 11, 2012

GET STUFF- FOR FREE!



Send an SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) to:

The Punk Patriot
PO Box 771
Standish, ME
04084

January 10, 2012

Our Government Sucks, Because You Suck (pt 2)



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NYCLU weighs in on rules used against OWS

New York Civil Liberties Union
125 Broad Street, New York, NY 10004
www.nyclu.org

CONTACT:
Jennifer Carnig, 212.607.3363 / jcarnig@nyclu.org
NLG Contact, Gideon Orion Oliver, 212.766.8050

Rights Groups Urge City to Halt Illegal Restrictions at Zuccotti Park

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 9, 2012 - Arbitrary and inconsistently applied rules and security
measures restricting the public's access to Zuccotti Park violate city
zoning laws, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Center for
Constitutional Rights, and the New York City chapter of the National
Lawyers Guild argued today in a letter to the New York City Department of
Buildings.

The groups urge Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri to promptly address
the violations and ensure that Zuccotti Park is open and accessible to all
members of the public on an equal basis.

"Right now, Zuccotti Park is a public space in name only," said NYCLU
Executive Director Donna Lieberman. "The metal barricades, security
checkpoints and selectively enforced rules not only raise serious
constitutional concerns, they violate city zoning laws. We expect the city
to ensure that the park is managed in a manner consistent with its own
laws."

Metal barricades have encircled Zuccotti Park since the NYPD cleared the
Occupy Wall Street encampment there on Nov. 16. The public can only enter
the park through two gaps where security personnel selectively subject
people to searches.

The groups maintain that these security measures and the constantly
changing, selectively enforced and unwritten park rules violate zoning
laws, longstanding city policies, and park-owner Brookfield Properties'
legal obligations under a 1968 special zoning permit that established the
park as a "permanently open park" for "the public benefit."

In its letter, the groups present a list of these violations. Among them:

* The metal barricades encircling the park violate a city voting law
requiring at least 50 percent of the plaza's frontage be unobstructed with
unrestricted access to all walkways through the park.

* The barricades and checkpoints interfere with the public's use and
enjoyment of the park, in violation of Brookfield's legal obligation to
maintain the space as a "permanent open park." People are reluctant to
enter an area encircled by metal police barricades.

* The barricades constitute a major design modification to the park.
Under zoning law, such modifications must go through a city approval
process, which has not occurred.

* Security personnel have prohibited individuals from bringing an
ever-changing list of items into the park, including food, cardboard signs,
musical instruments and yoga mats even though the park's written rules do
not prohibit any particular items from entering the park. The written rules
only apply to prohibited conduct.

"In a statement issued by Mayor Bloomberg explaining his decision to evict
peaceful protesters from Zuccotti Park, the mayor noted that 'we must never
be afraid to insist on compliance with our laws,'" said NYCLU Senior Staff
Attorney Taylor Pendergrass. "That is precisely what we are asking the City
to do now-comply with its own laws and restore the park to its role as a
functioning public space open to all New Yorkers."

"First Amendment freedoms are particularly vulnerable to selective
enforcement by the government," said Baher Azmy, legal director of the
Center for Constitutional Rights. "Like the constitution, City zoning law
also recognizes that in New York City's public plazas, members of the
public cannot be selectively targeted for the enforcement of patently
unreasonable restrictions."

"Brookfield and the City must remove these restrictions and restore Liberty
Park to the people immediately," said Gideon Orion Oliver, president of the
National Lawyers Guild - New York City Chapter. "Every day they refuse to
do so, they compound the irreparable harm they have done - and continue to
do - to our First Amendment freedoms."

In addition to the complaint filed today, others have made similar
complaints to the Department of Buildings. The Department of Buildings'
online complaint website shows an open complaint regarding the barricades
at Zuccotti Park, and the group "whOWNSspace" states that nearly 100
additional complaints have been filed by other individuals asking the
Department of Buildings to investigate the ongoing zoning law violations at
the park.

To read the full letter, visit
http://www.nyclu.org/files/releases/NYCLU_letter_to_LiMandri_1.9.12.pdf.

GET FREE STUFF- FOR FREE

If you want something cool for free do the following:

1) take an envelope address it to yourself,
2) put some 1st class postage on it.
3) Then put that envelope in another envelope, and send THAT envelope to:

The Punk Patriot
PO Box 771
Standish, ME
04084


I'll put some cool stuff in the envelope you send me (the one with your address on it), and send it back to you.

This is how SASE's work. The last attempt to get this to work were not successful, because some people didn't seem to understand how mail works.

Lee Camp: The Secret to How Our Society's Owners Get Away w/ Everything



The average American spends over 15 years of their life watching television. Has escapism swamped and destroyed rational thought?

It's VIRAL! --The Movement to Overturn Citizens United Swamps the Internet




Comedian Lee Camp ("Moment of Clarity") helps democracy advocates take their message about the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision "viral." Starring Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, Jim Hightower, Laura Flanders, Cenk Uygar of The Young Turks, and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's. Cute cats, babies, Mentos and More! Concept/Produced by Negin Farsad, Justin Krebs, Vaguely Qualified Productions, and Living Liberally. Exec produced by the We the People Campaign.

Directed by Negin Farsad
Produced by Justin Krebs/Living Liberally & Negin Farsad/Vaguely Qualified Productions in collaboration with the We the People Campaign
Edited by Mark Lechner
Written by Lee Camp with Negin Farsad
Concept by Negin Farsad, Justin Krebs, Lee Camp, Katie Halper
Cinematography by Adam Barton and Blair Johnson
Music by Gaby Alter & Paris, Ontario

ACRONYM: Mitt Romney Believes in CAPITALISM

ACRONYM: because you stand for ... something.

January 9, 2012

OccupyCongress: Petition for Redress of Grievances

As part of the schedule of events for Occupy Congress on January 17th, some members of the Occupy movement, perhaps including you, will have meetings with their congressional representatives and congressional staff.

This is an opportunity to take a message directly to members of Congress without having to deal with the corporate media distortion of what Occupy is about.

If you would like to meet with your member(s) of Congress it is best if you request to schedule the meeting. Folks who are doing logistics for Occupy Congress are available to help, but the most powerful tool to help get a meeting is the fact that you are the constituent and the member of Congress theoretically represents you.

It is best to schedule congressional meetings sometime between 9AM and noon on January 17th since that is the time period specifically set aside in the Occupy Congress schedule for direct congressional meetings. The House of Representatives begins its session on January 17th, but the Senate does not reconvene until the following week, so it may be wise to try to meet with your Representative rather than your Senators if you plan to meet with only one office

If you cannot get a meeting scheduled through the instructions below, as a last resort you can go prepared and walk directly into your congressional office in Washington, D.C.

Step 1: Please click here: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/ to look up your congressional representatives by entering your zipcode or street address. Click on your Representative and/or Senator. Their office address, phone number, and additional information will appear.

Step 2: To schedule a meeting with a staffer or member of Congress, it is best to first call the office and explain that you will visiting Washington, D.C. and want to schedule a meeting. Keep in mind that you may need to provide your postal address that verifies that you are a constituent. Call the DC office number you found at http://www.contactingthecongress.org/ and say,
“Hello, my name is [___________] and I am calling from [your city and state]. As a constituent and member of the Occupy movement, I would like to schedule a time in the morning of January 17th to come in and talk about issues that are important to [your city, county, neighborhood, local community etc]……. Thank you.

Explain that you would like to meet with the Congressperson, but that you would also like to schedule a meeting with a staffer just in case the member of Congress is unavailable. The receptionist will then transfer you to the appropriate staffer or the scheduler. You should ask for the email address(s), A short email is a surprisingly effective way to correspond with Congress. Sometimes, they will refer you to the congressional website to put in a scheduling request.

If you are transferred to a staffers voicemail, simply say the above text, and add:
You can contact me at 555-555-5555 or [emailaddress@gmail.com] Thank you.

Step 3: Get a confirmation of the meeting time and perhaps who you will meet with. You may get a confirmation of the meeting time while on the phone or the scheduler will call or email you back later. If you do not get confirmation within a few days, sent a followup email. Short emails are received by staffers immediately to their mobile phones. The email address is generally Firstname.Lastname@mail.house.gov. The email should say something very much like the above script. You can also include any links, such as any recent news articles, your local occupy website, or links to relevant information.

Getting a meeting with your Representative himself or herself is difficult, especially since you will not be giving much notice in advance. You may end up meeting with a someone on the Representative’s staff, but members of Congress rely heavily on their staff to inform them about their constituents’ views.

Step 4: If you get an email, please contact us at representativemeetings@occupyyourcongress.info and let us know. We can help connect you with other Occupiers in your congressional district and we are working on having a short “training” conference call for folks who will be having meetings.

We are working on creating congressional accountability handouts having information on each Representative’s voting records, corporate campaign contributions, and similar information. Check the website for this information soon but information of this sort can be found online at http://www.govtrack.us , http://www.opensecrets.org/ , and http://sunlightfoundation.com/
More Information Available Here:
Petitioning for a Redress of Grievances and Congressional Communication

January 7, 2012

Occupy Congress Plan of Action

So I've written a plan of action combining the techniques of lobbying, theater activism, direct action, and electoral activism, and how we can use each stage to escalate to the next stage, leading ultimately to either successful demands for resignation, or successful electoral challenges. Or both. All with the goal of achieving a narrow policy goal of election reform.

Also Posted at the Occupy Congress Wiki

1) Create a series of demands that will work in the favor of the 99% that the bought congress cannot agree to without systemically and radically altering the way that politics works in the US.

2) To avoid the appearance of being unhinged or radical or fringe, do “what we're supposed to” and arrange for meetings with every member of congress over a period of two or so days, centered on getting binding agreements to those demands a la Grover Norquists pledge to never raise taxes.

Those demands must strike a root problems, and be both short term (commitment to introduce legislation within weeks, such as: mandatory clean elections modeled on Maine's original clean election system, a repeal of the NDAA sections that regard indefinite detention, a constitutional amendment stating clearly that corporations are not people) as well as longer term (pledging to run on clean elections funds in the next election).

Long term beyond the next election is unnecessary. This is where we will differ from groups like Friends of the Earth, who get pledges for things like dropping the keystone pipeline, and then are continually disappointed when their issue gets sold out on one election cycle later. We are interested in systemic change, right now, not next election cycle. If they do not comply by the time they adjourn for the next election season, we will nonviolently remove them from office either through electoral activism or demands for resignation (or both). But they don't know that. We will give them the opportunity to fail. Their arrogance will only make our case for their removal even stronger in the public's eye.

3) those who refuse to make a binding agreement to any part of our demands, or those who do not make good on their promises within the timeline we set, we follow up with them, confronting them directly and openly (and on tape).

4) we take direct action demanding they make good on their promises. This includes, but is not limited to, occupations of their office buildings.

5) when that fails, we shift from filling legislative demands to demanding immediate resignation. Special elections be held in their home districts if they do resign. This part is fun and sexy, and raises a ton of media attention around our issues.

6) from local Occupy Movements in those congressperson's districts, sevb>eral people are chosen to challenge our target congressperson in the primaries, in ALL parties, so that both major party must face challangers from within, as well as from outside (libertarian party, green party, reform party, etc, depending on what third party has ballot access-- OR running as independents.)

During this stage, there must be a real effort on the part of all Occupy candidates to demonstrate solidarity across transpartisan lines, and the focus MUST be exclusively on the narrow demands for electoral reform.

Both primary and general election challengers who abides by the narrowly focused Occupy demands for electoral reform.

The Occupy delegate to congress must also, (obviously) make a binding agreement to:
a) run using clean election money
b) make their first act in office creating legislation that meets whatever other demand there is (amendment to the constitution declaring that corporations are not people and that money is not speech, a law to make clean elections funds [based on Maine's original clean elections law] the ONLY way to run for office, etc)
c) as soon as their narrow policy goal is achieved, resign.

7) local occupations work their asses off electing their delegates in every party, and then in the general election as well.

This is the transpartisan electoral strategy by which our democracy has been slowly stolen from us by the 1%. We must employ a transpartisan stragey as well if we're going to create a real systemic change.

Cheri Honkala - The People's Sheriff

Cheri Honkala to build the Philadelphia chapter of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. Cheri is working with several families fighting to stay in their homes. She continues to give educational talks and workshops on housing takeovers and organizing against poverty. In the spring PPEHRC will re-establish an urban farm in Kensington to provide food, initiate a time bank to help provide much needed tutoring and day care, and continue to build a multiracial intergenerational movement against poverty.

For over 25 years Cheri has been a leading figure nationwide in fighting poverty. Here's a video of her work from 2007



Cheri needs our help right now and on January 12th is her birthday and for a gift she is asking folks to make a financial contribution to the Philadelphia chapter of PPEHRC. The money will immediately go towards; rent at the new office, Cheri's cell phone bill (Cheri's phone is pretty much a hotline for hundreds if not thousands of struggling people in Philadelphia and across the country), Cheri's court fines (from her arrest last month), and other daily costs associated with running PPEHRC.

Let's honor Cheri and her tireless work against poverty by helping to sustain it.

To make a tax-deductable donation to PPEHRC make a check payable to "Liberty Resources" and in the subject line write PPEHRC donation. Send it to 174 W. Diamond St., Philadelphia, PA 19122

PPHERC's website is http://www.economichumanrights.org/ and is presently being redesigned.

Do some research on Cheri. You'll be blown away. There's a really great book called "The Myth of the Welfare Queen" that reveals what she's about.

And help spread the word if you feel so inclined.

#OWS protesters arrested at Grand Central Terminal for protesting #NDAA

via gothamist




Two protesters mic check about the loss of freedom brought about by the passage of the NDAA and both are promptly arrested and whisked out of public sight.

Sounds more like Communist Poland than the USA, land of the free, home of the brave.

The two protesters who were arrested were Lauren Digioia from OWS's sanitation working group, and her boyfriend Zach Kamel, who I have never met (but I assume is also on Sanitation working group.)

Says Zach Kamel to Gothamist via phone:

I find it extremely disturbing the way that protesters are being treated in the United States, especially considering how this country was founded. You have the founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson, who is always quoted as saying that if you don't like what the government is doing in America, you can change it. And when we try to do that, look what happens: we're getting beaten. Lauren was beaten by several police officers at Zuccotti Park on New Year's Eve, and she still has bruises.
I don't blame the officers, even though there are a lot of bad ones out there who are clearly enjoying this. I saw the look in one of the officer's eyes while I was in custody at Grand Central, and I could tell he was shaken. And I took that as an opportunity to talk to him, and I could see he was ashamed. I told him that I understood he has his family to feed and he's following orders, and he said, "You know I can't talk to you." So I said, "Just listen, then." Because I know it's not his fault; it's the fault of the white shirts, the higher-ranking officers like Lieutenant Lakeram, who you can see shoving me in that video. It's the fault of Ray Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg, who sees the police as his personal army.
Honestly, I'm scared for my unborn children and their unborn grandchildren, because the United States is no longer the bastion of freedom it's been purported to be. This American myth is all bullshit, and what's going to happen to our country as we start to turn into what we hate? I'm sure it's been happening for a long time, but now we're seeing it out there in the open, in places like Grand Central Station and Zuccotti Park. You can't turn away from things like this.

January 6, 2012

Turns out you CAN eat money.

But it has no nutritional value.

RIP broken window

Now, I don't advocate property destruction.
But it is not violence. It's vandalism.
It's still arguably wrong.

But it's not violence.

Shooting somebody in the face with a tear gas canister and sending them into a COMA, as the OPD did... that's violence.
Beating protesters over the head with batons for simply sitting down in a park. That's violence.
Spraying protesters with chemical weapons for sitting down on the sidewalk. That's violence.

Breaking a window? That's property destruction.



Tactically, it's stupid.

It turns people away from the movement. It marginalizes the movement, so that the 99% who don't know that they should be part of this movement, they become more reluctant to join.

We need the drones to wake up and join us, to go on strike, to unionize, to go on wildcat strikes, to stop allowing themselves to be used as mindless gears in a system that grinds the poor like hamburger meat.

Property destruction is not sexy to anybody but the "aesthetic anarchists" -- those who prefer the appearance of anarchy to the substance of it. It's not a good move, as it weakens us and turns people off.

The way forward is through overwhelming love and joy. We have no enemies. We have only two groups of people in our movement-- those are aware that they are part of the movement, and those who are not yet aware that they are part of the movement.

We're still in the nacent stages of movement building. Let's continue recruiting, through joy, exuberance, and taking the moral high ground through non-compliance and non-participation.

January 5, 2012

I get weird emails

So, I don't know what to make of this. Bullshit? An honest warning? Conspiracy theory crap to scare people into fearful submission, so that they are afraid to take part in protests? Nothing?

I figured I'd post it just the same, and see what you think of it:

Your safety (and mine)
Hello, you and I are literally talking the same talk, I'm doing mine on twitter. I think we are probably generating lots of attention, I currently work in law enforcement (local cop, not fed) and I see the public service memos. You have NO idea (even though you seem too) how prepared they are. The 'plan' was made YEARS ago. To be quite specific, I am a 'reserve' officer, non-commissioned law enforcement officer, does that not sound odd to you? I have never attended an academy, just in-house training. I joined to help the community but now I perform actual law enforcement functions.

When the order is given to initiate domestic tyranny, law enforcement will go under FEMA / DHS authority with a regional commander in charge, probably military but who knows. The FEMA camps are real as well. One is being built about 20 miles south of me.

I have weapons, months and months of supplies that I have acquired over a long stretch of time, I'd rather not hurt anyone even my enemy but if need be I am obviously ready to do what I have to do.

I suggest that you make plans if you haven't, the term civil unrest is being thrown around A LOT! And this is within local police departments (I'm not even in a large city!) Rights haven't existed for quite some time. We are all slaves and the government "MUST CONTINUE" at ALL costs.

If you want ANY advice, tips or tricks, please by all means let me know.

I don't want to know your name, where you live or anything more about you other than your youtube username, it is for your safety and mine.

Be safe, be prepared to duck out at a moments notice. Listen to the police scanner and also listen to hiband transmissions typically encrypted but in the 4.9 MHz spectrum.

Don't get dead, the new america needs you...

-Me

"A John Brown Moment"



This video leaves me... inspired? I'm actually not entirely sure how to feel.

Here's the scene: somebody with an iPhone video is taping police beating on a man of African descent. Nothing out of the ordinary. This happens all the time, especially in low-income communities. Police abuse their power all the time, especially against already marginalized groups. They can't afford lawyers.

While I have no idea what brought the situation to this point, I'm assuming it's the typical abuse of force, as somebody off camera asks, "did you get this shit from the beginning?"

To which the cameraman responds, "no, but they're going down because I got this on tape." Little does he know, that one of them is about to ACTUALLY go down.

Then enters this stranger from across the street. He approaches slowly, having seen what's going on, stands over the man on the ground, and then RAILS on the cop, and performs a citizen arrest on him, holding him to the ground.

The Man who was being brutalized by the cops, gets up and I assume, escapes.

The cop and the stranger lay on the ground together, the stranger on top. The cop flails trying to punch the stranger in the head, but fails, as the stranger appears to be using a police subduing technique for holding persons of interest to the ground.

A third cop enters and kicks the stranger in the teeth, and seems super pissed at the cameraman when he declares "I got that on tape!"

The stranger lays down, and willingly submits to arrest, knowing full well that he will be charged with assault on a police officer.

Is he a hero?

It's foolish to pretend that race isn't an issue here. This stranger, because he is white, is less likely to be arrested for low level crime, will- unlike his colored counterpart- probably never be stop & frisked, and when facing trial this white man will most likely be charged with crimes less severe than he would if he were black.

Is he aware of his white privilege and using it to make a potent point about inequality? Is he just somebody who saw something wrong happening and decided he didn't want to stand on the sidelines? Did he let somebody who was actually committing a crime get away? Was he wrong to use violence to intervene against those who were using violence?

I don't know.

But is he a hero?

I can only answer... "I think so?"

If you have any more information about where this happened, or what the outcome was, please email me at Punkpatriot411@gmail.com or leave a comment below.



UPDATE: It appears that this takes place in Baltimore. The rest of the details are still fuzzy.

SOLIDARITY patch

Limited run of 5






It's exactly what it sounds like.




Limited run of 5. Each is slightly different.



Printed on reclaimed canvass.

You want one?
It's only $5!

[infographic] OWS over time

via Visual Economics

ACRONYM: Low Testosterone, OWS, and Lloyd Dobler

Occupy NH takes Mitt Romney to task on Corporate Personhood

via DemocracyNow.org


90% of stocks ARE owned by the richest 10% of Americans. To say that profits go to pensions confuses the issue, as most pensions are underfunded - on purpose, to pad the exorbitant executive bonuses that the CEOs and their boards grant themselves.

I love the faux heartfelt tone in Mitt's voice, trying to evoke sympathy for the poor 1% who own everything.

January 20th - OCCUPY THE COURTS



David Cobb was the Green Party candidate for President in 2004.

January 4, 2012

MIchael Moore - Debtor's Prison

via


Instead of you going off into the real world, we send you immediately into a debtor’s prison…And at 22 you are in prison. Because now you have $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 worth of STUDENT LOAN DEBT that you are going to spend the next 20-30 years paying off! Why would we do this to our children?!? We didn’t have that! Those of you who are in here that are my age and older, what did it cost us to go to school here in Michigan? Let me tell you how we paid- if you didn’t get a scholarship, the way you paid for Michigan State was you worked at Dairy Queen for the summer!

Cindy Sheehan - The Anti-war movement was co-opted by the DNC

The Government We Deserve



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In the meantime, check out WhatINtheFUCKhasObamaDoneSoFar.com

So there’s this “chicken and the egg” argument that I’m constantly bouncing back and forth in my head:

Which is it? Is it that our government doesn’t represent us?
Or is it that our government represents us perfectly, and Americans, on the whole, are just terrible people?

I ask this because despite the slew of things you can find over at whatinthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com, such as:
* Sucessfully protecting Bush officials from prosecution for torture,
* pushed for a 5 year prison term for a medical marijana dispensary that was legally being run under California Law,
* argued that widespread use of Predator drone missiles is a justifiable form of self-defence,
* argued that the executive branch has the authority to assassinate US citizens,
* reversed his promise to close guantanomo,
* reaffirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage,
* announced $8 billion in loan guarantees to promote nuclear power,
* increased military aid to Israel to $30 billion over the next 10 years,
* prosecuted Omar Khadr using evidence obtained through torture,
* granted 27 waivers to oil companies drilling in the weeks prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster and then dragged his feet for months in doing anything to hold BP accountable,
* has done nothing to prosecute wall street criminals,
* actively blocked the prosecution of wall street crimes by forcing out-of-court settlements in sub-prime mortgage fraud class action suit,
* oversaw operation of a CIA black site at Bagram airbase where Red Cross observers reported abuse of detainees,
* fought for and won the right to deny people the writ of habeas corpus,
* blocked UN human rights investigations at Guantanamo,
* launched FBI raids against antiwar groups in Chicago and Minneapolis,
* dropped charges against the CIA for destroying evidence of torture, deported more immigrants than George W Bush,
* continued the Bush policy of kidnapping people and moving them to countries where torture is legal so that detainees can be tortured,
* blocked the release of photos documenting torture and abuse of detainees by the US military, ordered a media blackout on a flooding nuclear power plant in Iowa,
* continues the practice of indefinite detention, refused to sign a treaty banning the use of landmines, made government less transparant than ever,
* blocking more FOIA requests per year than George W Bush,
* cut a secret deal with the GOP to kill the public option despite campaigning publicly for it, defended the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell provisions from legal challenges,
* used the “State Secrets” defense to protect the Bush Administration from prosecution for war crimes,
* extended the USAPATRIOT act without making any changes to it,

and then had the nerve to complain to his staff that his activist base were a bunch of whiners...

YET DESPITE ALL OF THIS: progressives still cling to this fantasy that Obama is somehow ON THEIR SIDE. That is the TEXTBOOK DEFINITION of delusional fantasy. If this isn’t evidence of voters having a mental disorder, I don’t know what it.

And so now the people who advocate not voting are all standing up and cheering. But you’re equally part of the problem.

Instead of getting out there to gather the signatures required to get better candidates like Ralph Nader, or the Green Party on the ballot, you just sit at home and curse them all, because intellectually it’s easier to just be a cynic than actually doing any fucking work.

Most Americans don’t vote, and so they leave it up to the idiots who vote against their own interests to decide things. Of the eligible voting population, only 40% vote, and consistently, they vote 20% for the Dems, and 20% for the GOP. The eligible non-voting Americans make up the majority with 60% of the eligible voting population! But they don’t vote.

Armchair activists like Noam Chomsky keep advocating for this dichotomy that your choice is either voting for the Democrat, or sitting at home and not voting. Not Voting has been used in soviet bloc countries to protest elections as being illegitimate, but that’s only effective there because there were laws on the books stating that if voter turnout was below a certain amount, it would be taken as a vote of no-confidence in all the candidates, and a new slate of candidates would need to be picked and voted on. There are no such laws in the USA. If everybody but one person voted in the next election, that ONE PERSON would decide the election for everybody else. Not voting is the fucking dumbest thing you could possibly do in the USA.

If the cynics could band together around voting for somebody who “could never win” that person would win in a landslide!

So on the one hand, we have idiots who vote for terrible people in both parties, and on the other hand, we have people who don’t like the terrible people who are running, but are unwilling to do any work to get better people on the ballot.

So you know what? Whether you keep voting for fascist assholes and suffer from partisan stockholm syndrome, or if you’re an intellectually lazy cynic, either way, you have the government you deserve. Your government sucks, because YOU SUCK.

I’m the punk patriot. To life, liberty, and pursuit of a less fucked up government.






TYT on NDAA: Obama Defenders are wrong - here's why



President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, a decision being defended by some partisan Democrats. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks down specifics in the bill to refute the claims made by the defenders of Obama and the NDAA.