(5 comments) SHARE        Thursday, May 17, 2012
Occupy Has Changed the Discussion... and the Song Two artists from extremely different musical genres--alternative country and heavy metal rap--Soles of Passion and Prozak, respectively, provide examples of a focus on economic inequality coming into the popular discussion; this may be a result of or parallel to what social critics such as Noam Chomsky cite as the influence of the Occupy movement, a change in the national discussion from budget deficits to income inequality.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Ten Years of Elevated Military Spending, Still Near WW II Levels When comparing to an average of the highest spending war years, 1942 through 1945, we see that last year's Defense spending level was 86.3% of average World War II spending. We have now seen ten full years of elevated military spending, much of it during a time of national economic hardship. Last year was the third consecutive year that real spending was 85% of WW II levels.

(2 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The Next Drones: Autonomous Robotic Warriors We Robot 2012, a conference which took place last week at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, billed itself as 'the inaugural conference on legal and policy issues relating to robotics.' The focus of this article is on one particular conference panel regarding the use of robotics in military actions, and the next generation of lethal autonomous robots and how they will relate to International Humanitarian Law.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, April 16, 2012
Book Review – Truth And Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning
By Greg Mitchell and Kevin Gosztola Sinclair Books has published a book by Greg Mitchell of The Nation and Kevin Gosztola of FireDogLake entitled 'Truth And Consequences: The U.S. vs. Bradley Manning.' The detail and thinking that went into the work makes for extremely worthwhile political analysis.

SHARE        Saturday, March 31, 2012
Occupy Movement Supporters Consider Eminent Domain as a Tool to Help Homeowners in Foreclosure Activists working with the Occupy Wall Street movement have proposed eminent domain as a wide scale solution for keeping owners facing foreclosure in their homes; the proposed mechanism would have localities (or their appointed representatives) seize large batches of mortgage contracts at or below fair market value, allowing the homeowner to refinance at the fair market value.

SHARE        Tuesday, March 27, 2012
All People's Day Celebrates Diversity All People's Day, a 39-year old holiday celebrating diversity, will be held in Delray Beach, Florida Saturday, March 31st; the festival honors the similarities and differences among all the peoples of the world. Family activities, particularly those for kids, expose attendees to an array of arts-oriented cultural experiences.

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Jury Finds Chase 5 Not Guilty Because Defendants Had Reason to Believe They Weren't Breaking Trespass Law The Chase 5 were found not guilty of trespass by a jury in Seattle March 15. The five, members of Occupy Seattle, entered a Chase Bank branch in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle on November 2, 2011. A lawyer for the defendants explained that the deciding point in favor of the defendants was that they had some reason to believe their actions were lawful.

(2 comments) SHARE        Sunday, March 18, 2012
Nader Proposes $10 Minimum Wage to Jolt the Left and Advance the Occupy Movement Ralph Nader, speaking to an interoccupy.org conference call, called for the movement to create nationwide pressure for a $10 minimum wage. He sees this as an achievable goal that will win new support for the movement from the working class. He provided clear steps to achieve the goal, such as calling for the movement to "occupy" 535 local Congressional offices.

SHARE        Saturday, March 10, 2012
Citizens Fight to Save Library After Petition Signatures Invalidated Renton Washington residents will attempt to gather additional signatures to petition for an initiative or referendum to keep the Renton Downtown Library open, rather than close the building and move the library to a yet to be built, less desirable location. Statewide tax breaks for businesses have depleted local revenues, fueling a descent into barbarism.

(3 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Occupy Movement Discussion: Bringing About an Economy That Benefits Society David Korten has credited the Occupy Wall Street movement for calling attention to the root of the problem, namely, Wall Street. In an InterOccupy Conference call this past week, he called out economists for thinking that the economy is only about measuring money, rather than measuring the benefits that economic activities bring to people in the society. We also discussed the steps towards an economy that benefits society.

SHARE        Saturday, February 18, 2012
Back of Envelope Calculations on the Effect of Iran Sanctions on the Price of Gulf Oil Price elasticity of demand is "a measure of responsiveness of the quantity of a good or service demanded to changes in its price." Using projections of the effect of sanctions on Iranian oil exports, we calculated that the effect would be seemingly small from the simple drop in production, though the psychological effect upon the market, which cannot be calculated through a formula, could be much larger.

(8 comments) SHARE        Sunday, February 12, 2012
Occupy Movement and Libertarians, Tea Partiers Find Common Cause in Fight Against NDAA A coalition of three Southern Oregon Occupy Movements is joining forces with a local libertarian/Tea Party goup called Wake Up America Southern Oregon for a protest in Medford against the National Defense Authorization Act. This is one of the first cooperative efforts between such groups. Others have called for cooperation between the two groups in those areas where their interests overlap, such as 1st Amendment rights.

(3 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, February 7, 2012
An American Spring is in the Air In a conference call held two nights ago, Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, two of the movement's best known organizers, both very active in Occupy Washington DC, answered questions about "Occupy Phase 2," the directions that the movement should take in the Spring. The main point was that "Phase 2" should involve setting up alternate economic structures designed to weaken the "pillars of power."

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, January 30, 2012
Military "Cuts" Cement Expanded Procurement Budget Much has been made of the so called "defense cuts," though the corporate media has generally failed to note that the cuts are only to projected growth. By reducing personnel to pre-9/11 levels but maintaining the post 9/11 overall spending level, it clearly illustrates U.S. defense priorities are skewed towards weapons programs and production... which are which are highly profitable.

(2 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Has the Army Placed a Poor Joke in the "Joint and National Intelligence Support to Military Operations" Document? An update to the "Joint and National Intelligence Support to Military Operations" document includes a graphic entitled "Link Diagram." At the highest level of this chart is an activity labelled "assassination." Given the single usage of the word within the document, it is possible the chart may have been placed there as a tasteless joke. Or perhaps it is a suggested slide for use as a template in documenting future operation.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, January 16, 2012
China's Foreign Reserves Decline While the U.S. Believes China Trade is Unfair China's foreign exchange reserves declined in the fourth quarter of 2011. Recent public opinion polls indicate that nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of Americans believe China practices unfair trade. Of China's top ten trade partners in 2010, only the U.S., Hong Kong, and India had trade deficits. Developed countries, including Japan, Germany, South Korea and Taiwan, enjoyed sizable trade with surpluses.

(5 comments) SHARE        Thursday, December 22, 2011
Congress Deletes Two Words in the National Security Act of 1947 Congress recently made a small change in the law that established not only the C.I.A. but the Department of Defense. The change to the wording appears to increase in power of the Director of National Intelligence. He appears to now be the next-to-final arbiter of the C.I.A. budget, before the President. The National Security Act of 1947 now provides for "Intelligence," as opposed to "Foreign Intelligence."

(4 comments) SHARE        Thursday, December 8, 2011
OWS' Goals, Strategies and Tactics -- in the Movement's Own Words I've had occasion recently to review several Declarations of Occupation from U.S. cities large and small. Many are straight copies of Occupy Wall Street's Declaration. The ones that differ provide additional explanation and perspective upon the national messaging and plan of action of the movement. I extract the Goals, Strategies, and Tactics, summarize them, and present a bibliography of the Declarations.

(2 comments) SHARE        Sunday, November 27, 2011
Measuring Corporate Tax Dodgers by Industry A recent article entitled "Over Half of All U.S. Tax Subsidies Go to Four Industries. Guess Which Ones?" caught my eye. With a little work, I was able to roughly extrapolate data and graph out the specific industries that have dodged the most corporate taxes. Have school and library cutbacks in your town? You probably already know why, but this might help focus a bit more on the "who."

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, November 20, 2011
Anti-War and Anti-Wall-Street: Ever the Twain Shall Meet How does the Occupy Wall Street movement fit in with the anti-war movement? Important OWS documents state that war is one of the means by which the government redistributes wealth to the richest 1%. Recent occupy movement events indicate further awareness of the costs of war, paid for by the 99%. The anti-war movement has embraced the popularity of OWS, picking up tactics and terms, and even merging with them in one location.