The State of the Unions

In order for this ad to become more than sentiment, Unions are going to have to decouple themselves from the Democratic Party-- especially in light of the fact that Chicago Mayor, and former White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, is looking to throw the Teachers Union under the (school) bus by laying off thousands of teachers, closing schools, and bringing in privately run charter schools.

It's a GOP wet dream, and yet it's a Democrat who is going to get it done. Just another example of how it's always the Democratic Party that advances the GOP agenda.

Do You Eat Ethically? #BehindTheKitchenDoor

Jill Stein: She's got gravitas

CPAC has thoughts on #OWS; but #OWS has thoughts on CPAC

So the Conservative Political Action Committee had a panel in which they discussed the Occupy Movement vs the Tea Party.

It's on C-SPAN, and is currently not available for embedded playing. So here's a link: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/304376-8

I would say, "Enjoy!" but I think you're going to have a REALLY hard time doing so. It's extremely cringeworthy.

Thankfully:

The Occupy Movement Shared Their Thoughts about CPAC

via Teamster Nation

The annual corporate greedfest known as CPAC was turned upside down today by thousands upon thousands of union members, community activists, unemployed workers and our good friend the giant Fat Cat. Dozens of reporters trained cameras on the sprited Washington, D.C. scene. Union banners waved as throngs of marchers surged into the street and up the hill to the hotel entrance. Protesters chanted, sang, drummed and danced while grandmothers sat down in the street to protest attacks on Medicare.


Police gave up trying to keep the huge crowd on the sidewalks. They blocked off the street as the peaceful protesters vented their thoughts about greed, tax dodging, unemployment and the war waged on working families.


Teamsters with "Stop the War on Worker" signs joined autoworkers, sheetmetal workers, firefighters, elevator constructors, UFCW, SEIU, AFSCME, UNITE. Community groups from as far away as Baltimore showed up by the busload.

Some of the entitled jerks attending CPAC had gleefully predicted violence, the way they always do, then did their best to provoke it. With expensive suits and camera equipment, they waded into the crowd hurling belligerent questions at the protesters. A security official -- was it a Secret Service agent -- took one entitled jerk away from the group he was badgering and gave him a talking-to.

The rally got off to a slow start around noon, as steelworkers, UAW members and Teamsters formed a picket line around the Fat Cat chanting, "Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Union busting's got to go." But at 12:30 someone shouted "Oh my God, thousands of marchers!" Led by drummers they filled the street, waving signs and banners as cars honked and police officers tried to herd them onto the sidewalks. "Our DC" and "We Are The 99%" signs joined "Recall Walker" and "Greed is Good--Romney-Gekko."

Soon the huge crowd surged up the hill, past the police and security, bellowing, "The People United Will Never Be Defeated!" Then they peacefully marched down again and regrouped in the street. Two women sat down on the pavement, soon to be joined by many more. Some gave speeches, some chanted and some sang along with pro-movement songs made up on the spot.

The CPAC one percenters had some charming things to say: @BossyMother called them "mutant scum." The delightful @stephenww tweeted, "I think we all can agree that the #OccupyCPAC crowd should get free contraception." @JimForbes_Pasco refers to the peaceful protesters as "OccupyCPAC goons."

Joey Quits

This is a slow burn. Worth the wait.




Visit JoeyQuits.com if you're a hotel worker who wants to make public your story of an unjust workplace!

Write to joeyquits@gmail.com for info on submitting your story.

YOU COULD PROBABLY BUY THIS SHIRT AND WEAR IT AND STUFF:

Thanksgiving Message to the Occupy Movement

Occupy Wall Street: What do they want?

I think its obvious what we want. Any idiot who spends 15 minutes at any occupation talking with the people at it can come away with a sense of what our demands are.

The economic mode upon which our society is based, by whatever name you want to call it, is a homicidal machine, which requires us to ignore the connections between the way we live, and the problems in the world. For the machine to continue working, requires us to devalue the lives of others-- the lives of people we will never meet, either because they live far away in another state or another country, or because we will not live to see them born.

For the machine to continue working, requires us to ignore the fact that the lights are on in your house right now are powered most likely by coal, and that extracting that coal from the ground means that there are people in Pennsylvannia and West Virginia are going to die of cancer and mercury poisoning.

For the machine to continue working, requires us not to think about the fact that your cell phone or laptop’s wifi is made possible through the rape and forced labor of women in central africa, who are brutalized and forced to work in mines to extract the rare earth minerals used in wireless devices.

For the machine to continue working, requires us to ignore that our grandchildren’s grandchildren will inherit an earth characterized more by toxic chemicals and poisoned air, water, and soil, and less by unspoiled wilderness than the one we were born into.

For the machine to continue working, requires us to ignore the fact that we are killing the very planet that sustains us. Requires us to ignore the fact that human beings are so in control of the elements of nature, that we have fundamentally altered the chemistry of the ocean, causing massive dieoffs of coral reefs. We have filled the ocean with garbage. There is an island the size of Texas, made of garbage, floating in the Pacific Gyre.

We all know that this is wrong. We all know that there is a better way to do things, though we may not be sure how to get there from here.

The machine must be stopped. The homicidal machine that is western crony capitalism, it’s made of all of us. When we comply with the roles that the system has set for us, when we “do what we’re supposed to” we become more and more trapped by it.

But we cannot simply walk away. The grip of the machine on our lives is too great.

If the machine has a brain, the center of that machine is in Washington DC.
If the machine has a heart, it’s the Stock Exchange on Wall Street.

I would like to revitalize the call of the Occuppy Wall Street movement. This is not about sleeping outside. That is not what the movement is about. It’s about creating a new world. That new world is in its infancy right now, and the old world has been trying to crush it before it even has a chance to take hold. But this new world has taken hold. Now that it is in its infancy, the machine is going to try to destroy it. This new world is a direct threat to the old world’s existence.

In order to make this new world possible, we must stop the machine from working. We must shut down the heart and brain of the homicidal machine.

There is a prophesy by the elders of the indigenous people who live now where the Keystone XL pipeline will soon be. This prophesy says, that one day, the ways of mankind will be so wrong, and so dangerous to the earth, that mother earth will rise up to correct things, and that the people of the world must either rise up with Mother Earth, or face extermination.

Those of us in the Occupy Movement, we are like White Blood Cells.

Our world has been infected by a homicidal mode of economy, a homicidal mode of thought.

We must heal the earth, we must heal ourselves.

We must clog the New York Stock Exchange with our bodies and prevent it from functioning, we must clog the halls of congress with our bodies and prevent it from functioning. We must remain there, like white blood cells attacking an infection, until the homicidal machine is dismantled.

Have you ever been surfing?

Right now there is a wave of energy gathering. When a large wave gathers energy, the ocean pulls backwards away from the shore. The ocean becomes thin and shallow. There is a lull. The larger the wave, the greater the lull.

This winter will most likely prove to be the lull before that next wave.

At the point before things turn in the other direction, the draw out to sea is strong, and it looks like you are being pulled away from the shore. But if, during this low point, you are able to look around and position yourself well, you can ride the coming surge all the way in to the shore.

So occupiers, this winter, stay strong. Hold your ground, but don’t worry too much about short term direct action this winter. It’s cold. It’s time to focus our energy inward, to focus on staying warm, and on survival. This spring, during the week of the Vernal Equinox, when the earth’s life force surges forward, let us surge with it. Let us descend by the hundreds of thousands on both Wall Street and DC, and shut the machine down.

A homeless man came up to me while I was at the Occupation of Freedom Plaza in DC, and he said to me out of the blue, “I’m going to say this to you, because you seem like the kind of person who can appreciate this-- Being here in this space, I don’t have to say anything to be heard. I have power that comes from simply being here.”

That’s turned out to be true for the entire occupy movement.

While I spent time on Wall Street, and in Washington, DC, I’ve seen how scared the machine is of us.
At the Chamber of Commerce, all we had to do was show up, and they shut the building down.

At the Hart Senate office building, we showed up, and they shut the building down.

At the Rayburn House offices, 15 people showed up, and they shut down the hallways, not even allowing congressional staffers through.

Our power comes from simply being there. The machine is used to us misdirecting our anger into online petitions, facebook groups, rallies, symbolic protests. But if we simply SHOW UP to the scene where the crime is happening, suddenly the homicidal machine is exposed for exactly how powerless, naked, and illegitimate it really is.

It’s true. You want to stop the machine? All you have to do is show up, and the machine, which knows exactly how weak and frail it is, will go into self-preservation mode. At that point, the only thing we need to do is wait. If we scare the machine into shutting itself down out of fear, every day, for weeks on end, the machine will starve itself to death. If the machine lashes out with violence, it only betrays the total lack of legitimacy that this machine has a right to exist. It does not. The homicidal machine must be stopped for the sake of all of humanity.

On this vernal equinox, March 20th, let’s simultaneously, invade the New York Stock Exchange in, and the halls of Congress in DC and bring the gears of the machine to a halt.

Will I see you there? I hope so.

Walk Away From Student Debt: STUDENT DEBTORS UNION

FUCK THE BANKS-- DEFAULT EN MASSE TOGETHER -- TANK THE ECONOMY!

Excessive student debt is your problem right now. But it's not something you should have to deal with. So make it their problem again. Default. On purpose.

MORE INFO on the EDU HERE : http://edudebtorsunion.org

---

Here's a homework assignment I called for on this same subject back in March of this year:



Responses so far, by viewers --though no economic professors yet:

From YouTube user zigzigerblat:



From Libertarian Alex Merced:

#OWS is Creating a New World on the Ruins of the Old

Sorry about the little watermarks, I used my new p2 media setup, and I had to use a workaround to get it to work in Vegas.

As far as the dingy light quality, I just didn't pay close enough attention to the iris adjustment on the lens. Something I will deal with in the future.

Support the show! Please visit the donate or subscribe button over there --->

Which Side Are You On?

This song goes out to the policemen on Wall Street:



Come all of you humans,

Good news to you I'll tell,

Of how that revolution

Has come in here to dwell.

CHORUS:
Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

My daddy was a union man,

And I'm my father's son,

And I'll stick with the union,

Till every battle's won.

They say down on Wall Street,

No human can relax.

You'll either be with anonymous,

Or a thug for Goldman Sachs.

Oh, Policemen can you stand it?

Oh, tell me how you can.

Will you be a hired thug,

Or will you be a man ?

Don't scab for the bosses,

Don't listen to their lies.

Us poor folks haven't got a chance,

Unless we organize.

Fascism, Democracy, and the Workplace

[Music] The Whole F**king Thing Is Coming Down

Lyrics:

Hedge funds, derivatives, tea pot dome
wall street gambling, using your home
congress isn't gonna do a single fucking thing
because their campaign contributions all come attached to strings
The Democratic Party is a failing institution
what we need now is a real revolution

The United States is a global empire
The Factory owner is a fucking vampire
sucking wealth from the poor
committing wage theft
who will work for you when we've starved to death?

CHORUS: And the whole fucking thing is coming down x4

I work full time in a factory
but that doesn't mean I can afford to eat
I've got student loans, but no degree
so I'm gonna die working at a machine
No health insurance, we're all temporary hires
so if we get sick we'll just hurry up and die

wages so low we can't afford the rent
so we have to rely on the government
but the rich man doesn't want to pay his taxes
so the social programs, they'll all get the axe
we don't complain, we don't bitch
the only thing we've got left to eat is the rich

CHORUS: and the whole fucking thing is coming down x4

Knocking Doors in Wisconsin!

The past four days at Netroots Nation has been a total whirlwind.

I thought we'd have internet access in our hotel rooms, but sadly, no- the Hilton doesn't consider internet access an amenity. I personally think that internet access in this day and age should be viewed like access to potable water.

I've got a bunch of footage that I will be editing on the train home, and will be uploading on the DownEaster train on the way back home. I'm actually on a Union run busline provided by Democracy For America on my way back from a canvassing session in Hudson, Wisconsin in support of the recall effort against incumbent republican Sheila Horsdof.

I'm a little dissapointed with the Netroots crowd. Out of 2,500+ attendees, only 41 signed up for this canvass. Of the 41 who signed up, only 17 showed up. But with these 17 people, we knocked 1,200 doors -- the ENTIRE TOWN OF HUDSON in just under 2 hours. We are a powerhouse! Also, we had the help of a group of Hudson locals who knew the area, put together the walk lists, and drove us to our turf, which was a huge help.

Things were a little weird at a few points though-- As we were out canvassing, we were being followed by people driving black cars, and they were filming us with camcorders the entire time. I assume they are people from the Right Online conference and are going to post this online and smear us as being "outside agitators."

Forgetting the goons with the camcorders for a second, the people of Hudson were really friendly-- even the Republicans. One of our volunteers was actually invited into a Horsdorf supporter's home, something made even more hilarious by the fact the Harsdorf supporter in question was unsettled by the goons in black cars following and filming this volunteer. He asked her if the goons were with her, she said no. He mentioned that they were filming her and asked if she wanted to come inside to get away from them. And so she did, and they had a nice conversation. Another canvasser had a Shelly Moore pamphlet thrown back into his face and was told, "You get out of here! Please." You just can't beat that midwestern politeness.

I personally was surprised by how quick and easy the canvass was. If you've done voter ID in the past, you know about the 1-5 rating system. Those who are for your candidate are 1s, those who are opposed are 5s, and those who are undecided or unidentified are 3s.

On this canvass, those who were for Horsdorf were solidly for Horsdorf. Those who were for Shelly Moore were solidly for Shelly Moore. And those who were undecided had no clue about either candidate, though they often leaned towards Shelly Moore, asking "Who's the Democrat?"

While the majority of the people I talked to were solidly in support of the recall, the biggest obstacle for this campaign is twofold: First, people don't seem to understand how big a deal this recall election is. They view it as just another local race. Second, while the recall effort has solid backing in sentiment, many voters I talked to aren't sure if they're going to bother to vote in the upcoming primary on July 12th, nor in the general election on August 4th. While we may disagree with the right, we have to admire their sense of civic duty. This also lends credibility to my hunch that most of these terrible and shocking election outcomes of late are caused mostly by the fact that people on the left didn't bother to vote, because they assumed their issue/candidate would have their win in the bag.

I'm really excited about the prospects of this recall effort. Despite the fact that there are national organizations like DFA that are coming in to help coordinate things, they wouldn't matter for beans if it weren't for the strong grassroots support that's already on the ground in Wisconsin. Community after community is organizing themselves, or with the help of We Are Wisconsin and Democracy For America.

The difference in this election is going to be getting people out to vote. If people get to the polls, we can win this. If you'd like to help with the GOTV effort, you can go to CallOutTheVote.com

Your help is needed.

SOLIDARITY!

Maine Green Independent Party 2011 State Convention: Sarah Bigney of the AFL-CIO

Dennis Kucinich gets Gov Scott Walker to Admit It

via NoCureForThat

Washington D.C. (April 14, 2011) — Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today scored an admission from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker that his decision to strip the rights of public workers to bargain collectively “doesn’t save any” money for the Wisconsin taxpayers.

KILL ALL ART

Advert for a shirt which you can get here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/punkpatriot

Only $10 (plus shipping)

Labor Mural revised to better suit Capitalists

via MaddowBlog

April 4th WE ARE ONE rally in Augusta ME

First video. More to come.

Jim HIghtower: STOP PISSING ON WORKING PEOPLE

I <3 Jim Hightower. He's got such a way with words!

Punk Patriot video Remix

By OilWellian.

This is twenty times better than what I'd done on my own. BRAVO!

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

We are racing to the bottom.
History is repeating itself.
Unless we put our foot down, we will go backwards beyond slavery.