Monday, October 24, 2011

Occupy Wall Street protestors want fairness and a future | NJ.com

Occupy Wall Street protestors want fairness and a future | NJ.com: "Some of the criticism has been downright silly. New York Times columnist David Brooks attempted to discredit the protesters because they don’t have position papers on educational reform, Medicare and tax reform. That’s ridiculous. Occupy Wall Street is a protest, not a political party."

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Assemblywoman: Occupy Wall Street gives voice to working class, poor | NJ.com

Assemblywoman: Occupy Wall Street gives voice to working class, poor | NJ.com: "I recently read the story of Nancy Pi-Sunyer, a 66-year-old retired teacher who joined the first protest of her life when she attended an Occupy Wall Street rally. She was too young for the civil rights movement, but now wanted to have her voice be heard."

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Sunday, October 23, 2011

Marc Lewis: Cain doesn't need to know a thing about the Constituti­on

Marc Lewis: Cain doesn't need to know a thing about the Constituti­on: "“Cain doesn't need to know a thing about the Constituti­on because he is running for "Mouth Piece of the Corporate States of the World" and "Dictator of the United Company of North America". Not the, soon to be defunct, USA.”"

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Over A Third Of Americans Support Occupy Wall Street Protests: Poll [LIVE UPDATES]

Over A Third Of Americans Support Occupy Wall Street Protests: Poll [LIVE UPDATES]: "Some 37 percent of people back the protests that have spread from New York to cities across the country and abroad, one of the first snapshots of how the public views the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. A majority of those protest supporters are Democrats, but the anger about politics in general is much more widespread, the poll indicates."

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Keith Boykin: Everything The Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong

Keith Boykin: Everything The Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong: "After 10 days out of town, I finally made it to Occupy Wall Street on Tuesday and had a chance to see for myself what's going on. My conclusion: almost everything the media told me about the protest is wrong."

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Naomi Wolf: The First Amendment and the Obligation to Peacefully Disrupt in a Free Society

Naomi Wolf: The First Amendment and the Obligation to Peacefully Disrupt in a Free Society: "Please, citizens of America -- please, OWS -- do not buy into this rhetorical framework: an absolute "right to be free of disruption" from First Amendment activity does not exist in a free republic. But the right to engage in peaceable disruption does exist.

Citizens who live or work near protest sites or marches have every right to be free of violence from protesters and they should never be subjected to destruction of property. This is why I am always saying to OWS and to anyone who wants to assemble: be PEACEFUL PEACEFUL PEACEFUL. Be respectful to police, do not yell at them; sing, don't chant; be civil to pedestrians and shop owners; don't escalate tensions; try to sit when there is tension rather than confront physically; be dignified and be nonviolent.

But the First Amendment means that it actually is not up to the mayor or the police of any municipality, or to the Parks Department, or to any local municipality to prohibit public assembly if the assembly is peaceful but disruptive in many ways."

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Crowd-pleasing study in capitalism conspiracy controversy • The Register

Crowd-pleasing study in capitalism conspiracy controversy • The Register: "Three complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich used the maths traditionally associated with modelling natural systems and applied it to comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).

The study, which will be published in the journal PLoS One, found that 40 per cent of the global operating revenues of 43,060 TNCs were ultimately in the control of just 147 companies, many of which were financial institutions.

The researchers sourced their list of TNCs from Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide. Using this data, the theorists constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with company's operating revenues, to map economic power.

Barclays, UBS, AXA and JP Morgan Chase were in the top 10 of those 147, and most of the top 50 were banks, insurance firms or other financial firms, apart from number 50 – which was China Petrochemical Group."

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