Breaking up Occupy Protests and the Constitution

Gone to my good friend Wikipedia again (have a think on the bold parts):

“In the United States, inalienable rights are derived from the people themselves and are protected primarily by the enumerated articles to the US Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. Persons may also have inalienable rights protected by the state. Since the United States Constitution is a design of limited and restricted government and has absolutely nothing to do with the private state citizen, then it stands to reason that all inalienable Rights are guaranteed either by nature or by the Creator.

The provisions providing for rights under the Bill of Rights were originally binding upon only the federal government. In time, most of these provisions became binding upon the states through selective incorporation into the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. When a provision is made binding on a state, a state can no longer restrict the rights guaranteed in that provision.

Examples of provisions made binding upon the states are the 6th Amendment's guarantee of a right to confrontation of witnesses, known as the Confrontation Clause, and the various provisions of the 1st Article, guaranteeing the freedoms of speech, the press, religion, and assembly.”

This may be a question that should be answered: reading the above, I would think that the 1^st amendment takes precedence over local law (e.g. park is closed between 11pm and 6am, in those times you’ll be trespassing). If so, then right now all arrests made in Chicago, Denver, etc etc would be illegal.

At the same time, New York’s plans to change the law to make protests illegal under local law would then also not give the result that is looked for.

By the way: I signed a petition asking Chicago’s mayor to stop arrests, and gave it the same reasoning: 1^st amendment in my view takes precedence over local law.

Again, I am looking in from the outside, and I understand that current protests do threaten the power positions of a group of people. Naturally, they will fight, as happened in Egypt (applauded by USA government), Tunesia (also applauded, they are now having free elections as we speak), as is happening in Yemen (USA govt with protesters), Syria (ditto), Libya (well…), etc etc

Only at home, the government (local, federal) seems to not appreciate protests even as the root causes are clear: USA is in many ways a 3^rd world country where the Bill of Rights is no longer guaranteed to its citizens. Though the right to bear arms (or arm bears) is vehemently defended, most citizens live in fear of their lives because of it. Rights to education, counsel, vote, privacy and assemble are no longer defended by the government, unless you have money.

And 99% of the people who are supposed to vote for a government that defends their rights don’t have the money.

More Strands of a Tangled Web: Student Loan Debt

This is a nasty one…

Fact is, not every student qualifies for a scholarship at university. That is fine, and a country needs a well-trained work force in order to compete in the market, especially in this time where knowledge comes at a premium.

The interesting deal that corporate America seems to have made with the banks and educational systems is this:

·         Educational systems charge top dollar for an education that will bring ‘the great paying job’

·         Banks lend the money to the student to pay top dollar… and charge a hefty interest from the first day after graduation. This is where the pressure cooker is slammed shut and the heat is on.

·         Corporate America hires well-trained employees at bottom dollar. This is where the descent into slavery starts.

The gamble by the student was that taking out a loan of tens of thousands of dollars would lead to a situation where the student could easily repay the loan. How different does this play out in reality…

Leaving aside the personal misery this puts people in, it also hits government finances:

·         Health: people walk around uninsured (let’s leave health insurance for a future episode). Once they get sick, what are you going to do? Let them die (well, this option is sometimes taken; yet another episode)? Or treat them, at the public expense?

·         Society: how do people deal with a society where their friends from one day to the other are say, 60,000 Dollars in debt, with a Master’s degree in engineering, and forced to work as a cash teller at the bank that holds their debt? Now, for a time, fear of going bankrupt will keep people quiet (has done so far the past decades) but that bubble (like any bubble) will burst.

·         Crime: under the strain of heavy debt people are more likely to join the dark side, if only because it pays better than McD’s. this then again increases the cost of police (which I believe were recently voted out of a job), increases society’s sense of insecurity (but then, we have all these heavily armed contractors from Iraq that will at some point be looking for a job)… Sorry, I do tend to have an overactive imagination.

·         Drugs: Nancy Reagan used to ‘just say no’ but her situation was a bit different. If there is one thing that we have learned over the past decades (internationally): if you want people to turn to drugs, make them poor, make them feel helpless, grind them down and use them.

I just named three perspectives only of what this system has done to people. What is great is that people have not turned to drugs, or crime, and are still healthy enough to march.

But the government must take action, and this delivery street of wage slaves should be closed down.

Why this Blog?

This blog is not about how Wall Street got occupied. There are other blogs that give you better pictures, better timelines, better live feeds, and then: Wall Street is just one location, and this is global.
It is not about the pros and cons, the reactions (my favorite tweet: “heckler to #OWS: get a job! #OWS: I had one but you outsourced it…” It still makes me giggle), the emotions, the studies… though I will link to some excellent articles to make my point. Why reinvent the wheel if others already provide sustainable electric cars (Photo by kind permission of @frans_vd_putte)?
This blog is me having some thoughts and questions about the things that have become apparent in the past months, and the possible consequences they may have for me, us, our children and our parents.
As such, these views are my own, and you are free to agree or disagree as long as you can do so in a civilized way. For this reason comments are free but monitored.

None of My Bees Wax

Was the first comment I’ve had so far (before even starting this blog). True, I am not a US citizen.

However, the fun part of globalization is that US issues rapidly become my issues, like India’s or China’s or Europe’s issues become the United States issues. On top of that, the fun part of Social Media is that anybody on this globe can have a pretty direct view into local US politics.

Hence, I consider #OWS my bees wax, I wish I could be there in Melbourne to protest the way police have engaged the Occupy movement there, and I do reserve the right to put situations worldwide under a microscope, and have thoughts and questions.

Hopefully even answers.

Well, we’ll see. My blog will be a bit twitter like, stuff will pop up and I will write something about it. If I have anything to say. I may even just give a link with no comment if no comment is warranted (believe me I have seen some examples in the past days!).

I may even write some well thought out articles about stuff that popped up. If you like them, let me know. If you don’t, well… they’re out there and I will only retract them if somebody can show me that I was factually wrong. In which case I will retract.

Will I change the world? I doubt it. The world is usually changed by ordinary people who take an extraordinary view and implement it. A mother standing up to Melbourne police might be such a person, or a ‘hippy freak’ (not my words) in Liberty Park. You never know, but that’s the beauty of people. They will surprise you! I just need to get things off my chest.

Am I biased? Hell yeah, or I wouldn’t be writing. But I will listen, and I will try to understand all sides. I know this may be seen as weak but well, that’s me. Be yourself, as the world is full of other people.

First Piece of a Tangled Web: Bankers

Looking at the 1-99% discussion going on at this time, the first thing I realized was that this is a tangled web of dependencies en conditioned behaviors that is impossible to describe in one go. So I will haphazardly jump around and touch upon topics that I find. And I would like to start with the word on everybody’s lips: bankers. I warned you that this blog has no real organization…

The question that has been playing through my mind lately is: if it is proven that Wall Street actually runs the government, what are the implications?

Let’s start with our favorite: Goldman Sachs (my HTC phone has spelling help and will spell this name correctly, including capital G and S… isn’t this the type of influence we all look for?). Here’s what Wikipedia has to say (I left the notes links where they are):

“Personnel "revolving-door" with U.S. government

During 2008 Goldman Sachs received criticism for an apparent revolving door relationship, in which its employees and consultants have moved in and out of high level U.S. Government positions, creating the potential for conflicts of interest. Former Treasury Secretary Paulson was a former CEO of Goldman Sachs. Additional controversy attended the selection of former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson as chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, despite President Barack Obama's campaign promise that he would limit the influence of lobbyists in his administration.^[74] In February 2011, the Washington Examiner reported that Goldman Sachs was "the company from which Obama raised the most money in 2008" and that its "CEO Lloyd Blankfein has visited the White House 10 times."^[75]”

Wait a minute: Goldman Sachs received criticism? Not the Bush government for allowing (let alone inviting) this? Not the Congress for allowing it? Where they (the People) aware? If not, why not? Same for Obama (believe me, great guy and done a lot for US): it’s great to make the promise to limit the influence of lobbyists, but that promise goes sour if it means you appoint the lobbyist’s stakeholders into your government. Now, maybe this was the offer you had to make in order to get the funds (from Goldman Sachs) to get elected and this was the choice you had to make. I am just not happy I did not have to make the choice. I am also happy I don’t have to work with Paulson, but that’s personal.

And we all know: if you want to dine with the devil you better bring a long spoon.

But this is then not about Obama or Democrats or GOP. This is about why they are even here.

If Wall Street campaign funding decides who will win, then the existing political parties have one function (and I quote somebody from Twitter): “they (i.e. Wall Street firm; BD) need a middle man when the shit goes down. They aren't going to jail.”

Had to think again about a tweet I have seen regularly over the past weeks:  “number of bankers arrested for financial crimes: 0, number of people arrested for protesting those crimes >1000”

Not a single prosecution has come down from the U.S. Department of Justice for any of Wall Street’s casino capitalists. It seems that Justice and Police have also become infected (BD: this will need to be checked but was interested to find the same article twice).

And this will worry people, now that they are starting to find out, and are no longer living the good life. Do you remember Pinocchio? One of his adventures has him lured into a garden of plenty, no work just play, candy all over the place… and because he stays too long in that garden, he turns into a donkey and becomes property of a cruel brute who works him until he bleeds.

I guess this is where we now find ourselves. Were we dumb? Quite. Should we accept our current situation? Hell no. Fun thing about situations is that they can be changed. It won’t be easy with such a tangled web. A worldwide tangled web. Again, Wikipedia:

“Greece and European sovereign debt crisis

Goldman was criticized for its involvement in the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis. Goldman Sachs is reported to have systematically helped the Greek government mask the true facts concerning its national debt between the years 1998 and 2009.^[76] In September 2009, Goldman Sachs, among others, created a special credit default swap (CDS) index to cover of high risk of Greece's national debt.^[77] The interest-rates of Greek national bonds have soared to a very high level, leading the Greek economy very close to bankruptcy in March and May 2010 and again in June 2011.^[78]”

You know, if I had done anything close like this, like trade illegally with money from my bank without telling my superior (wait, didn’t we have regulations for that? Oh no, dissolved to enable the trickle down economy…), I would have been lynched like Ghadaffi.

Sheesh, and I promised myself not to get worked up.

Back to the question: what are the implications of Banks running governments? And what should we do to get things back to a workable state?

I am looking forward to suggestions.