Great Recession for the Poor, GreatProfit for the Rich

So much for all that talk about "shared sacrifice"...

Large Businesses Benefit from the Great Recession 
(via Time Magazine)

On the Ground Report from Occupy Congress

Two very important observations from this article:

One, while they were loud outside to get attention they knew to speak softly inside such that their message is actually heard.

"They chanted and cheered and hollered...then all stood in line patiently to get through building security. Once inside the building, the previously boisterous group split apart, becoming suddenly deferential inside congressional offices. Raucous on the outside; concerned average citizen on the inside. One California Occupier I followed walked into his congresswoman's office and asked quietly, "We're doing this correctly right? Asking these people to represent us?" He then went on to tell the staffers that his parents cannot retire and will have to work until they die."

Two, the "disorganized" style of the Occupy protests has some clear advantages.

"And Occupy Congress did manage to pull off a massive protest on the steps of the Supreme Court. This was not planned and had it been, it likely wouldn't have happened. It's illegal to demonstrate on the steps of the highest court in the nation. In October, Cornel West, on the day of the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, held a sign reading, "Poverty is the worst form of violence" and was swiftly arrested in "solidarity with the Occupy Movement." Tuesday, with only a handful of Capitol Police around over a thousand Occupiers rushed the steps of the Supreme Court. There was no way for the police to arrest that many people in a massive act of civil disobedience. The protesters then stood on the steps, cheering and chanting for a few moments, before just as swiftly leaving for the White House.


Had they known what they pulled off by accident was so unusual in the post-9/11 world, they might have stayed longer on the steps of the building where Citizens United was decided, facing arrest and forcing a point about the Court. Instead, the "leaderless" movement traipsed down Pennsylvania Avenue to the current home of President Obama."



On the Ground Report from Occupy Congress 
(via The Atlantic Magazine)

They Only Call It Class War When We Fight Back

"Everything the conservative movement stands for is a massive transfer of wealth and power from the poor and working class to the super rich and their wealthy special interests. They only call it class war when the working class and poor fight back. I plan to fight like hell because my dad wasn't a rich Governor like Romney's dad, my dad was a union carpenter who served in Vietnam, and the fact that my dad paid a higher tax rate than Mitt Romney does is fucking obscene."

I didn't come to start a class war, I came to end one
(via Daily KOS)

Did Psychopaths Take Over Wall Street?

"How do people with such obvious personality flaws make it to the top of seemingly successful corporations? Boddy says psychopaths take advantage of the “relative chaotic nature of the modern corporation,” including “rapid change, constant renewal” and high turnover of “key personnel.” Such circumstances allow them to ascend through a combination of “charm” and “charisma,” which makes “their behaviour invisible” and “makes them appear normal and even to be ideal leaders.”

This reminds me of many people I know who get promoted and hired away to new and better paying jobs. How about you?


Did Psychopaths Take Over Wall Street?
(via Bloomberg)

The Coming War on General Computation

"The last 20 years of Internet policy have been dominated by the copyright war, but the war turns out only to have been a skirmish. The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race.

The problem is twofold: first, there is no known general-purpose computer that can execute all the programs we can think of except the naughty ones; second, general-purpose computers have replaced every other device in our world. There are no airplanes, only computers that fly. There are no cars, only computers we sit in. There are no hearing aids, only computers we put in our ears. There are no 3D printers, only computers that drive peripherals. There are no radios, only computers with fast ADCs and DACs and phased-array antennas. Consequently anything you do to "secure" anything with a computer in it ends up undermining the capabilities and security of every other corner of modern human society.

And general purpose computers can cause harm -- whether it's printing out AR15 components, causing mid-air collisions, or snarling traffic. So the number of parties with legitimate grievances against computers are going to continue to multiply, as will the cries to regulate PCs.

The primary regulatory impulse is to use combinations of code-signing and other "trust" mechanisms to create computers that run programs that users can't inspect or terminate, that run without users' consent or knowledge, and that run even when users don't want them to.

The upshot: a world of ubiquitous malware, where everything we do to make things better only makes it worse, where the tools of liberation become tools of oppression.

Our duty and challenge is to devise systems for mitigating the harm of general purpose computing without recourse to spyware, first to keep ourselves safe, and second to keep computers safe from the regulatory impulse."

Cory Doctorow

(via the Chaos Communication Congress - 2011)

Chicago to Outlaw Protest

Here's a free history lesson. Anytime someone in power tells you something is "temporary" or "one time only" call them a liar and immediate begin plans to remove them from office.

"Not even a month has passed since Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, requested that the Chicago city council enact what he termed “temporary” and “one-time only” anti-protest measures in advance of the overlapping NATO and G-8 summits that will be held in the city from May 15-22. During a press conference held on January 4, Emanuel claimed that he “misspoke,” and that many of the proposed antidemocratic ordinances will in fact be permanent."



Proposed Chicago anti-protest laws to become permanent 
 

Republicans Attempt to Stop Students from Voting

"William O’Brien, the speaker of the New Hampshire State House, told a Tea Party group earlier this year that students are “foolish” and tend to “vote their feelings” because they lack life experience. “Voting as a liberal,” he said, “that’s what kids do.” And that’s why, he said, he supported measures to prohibit students from voting from their college addresses and to end same-day registration."

 If you are a student who lives out of state plan early to either vote as an absentee or get your driver's license updated to reflect your local college address before election season 2012.


Keeping College Students From the Polls