Occupy!

Alison Sandler at Occupy Ft. Lauderdale 10-15-11

I’m headed over to guest host the Randi Rhodes Show today!  (Listen live 3-6pm ET)  In the meantime… here’s what happened on my show this morning:

I recounted my experience on Saturday,  joining in the global day of occupation with my daughter at Occupy Ft. Lauderdale.

Kevin Zeese joined me from Freedom Plaza in Washington DC to talk about the october2011.org movement and yesterday’s march to the US Supreme Court, where Dr. Cornel West and 18 others were arrested...

Austin Guest of ALIGN and Olivia Leirer of NYCC are two of the people responsible for this weekend’s launch of Occupy the Boardroom, and joined in to talk about all aspects of the action.

And, if it’s Monday, Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars chimes in for “Fools on the Hill” in which we dissect the Sunday talking head shows…

So we’re nearing the one month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street protests, with little indication that the protests are slowing down at all. In fact, over the weekend almost 1,000 rallies were held in three different continents fighting for economic equality. It is truly a worldwide movement now.

 

So of course, that means that the Sunday shows will avoid talking about the protests at all costs. Can’t let the viewers of corporate media feel that this is a movement with legs and strength of numbers. Crooks and Liar contributers are attending protests near them and reporting back, so check C&L for video and photos from various protests. We’re asking for people to give us more videos and photos and reports from the rallies they attend as well.

One of the subjects that was covered was this Iranian terrorist plot that was allegedly thwarted this past week. Christiane Amanpour spoke to Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers and NY Times journalist David Sanger. Mike Rogers said that such an obvious act of aggression on American soil DEMANDS action and even a military strike is not off the table. The only problem is that as experts like Juan Cole and Col Pat Lang point out, the story that the State Department wants us to believe really reads like a Tom Clancy novel and stretches credibility quite a bit.

Eric Cantor also got a nice uninterrupted platform to lie to the American people again. He actually flashed his 10 page GOP-authored “America’s Job Creators” in front of Chris Wallace, which is (surprise, surprise!) yet another rehash of the same tactics that have put this country in the straits we’ve been in. Hasn’t worked for the last ten…no, the last thirty years, why are we supposed to believe it will work now?

Meanwhile, the current flavor of the month for the Republican presidential race, Herman Cain, decided to prove just how out of step he is with the majority of the country. First, he told David Gregory that he doesn’t believe in women having a right to an abortion, even in the case of incest or rape, but take heart, if a woman’s life is on the line, then that’s a decision the family—not the woman herself, mind you—has to make. Then he told Gregory that his idea of a great Supreme Court nominee is…Clarence Thomas. That alone should make any Democrat angry at Obama remember the stakes of not voting. But that wasn’t enough proof that this is a man who does not belong in the White House. No, no…if that wasn’t enough, Cain reiterated that he absolutely believes that liberals are trying to destroy the country. And this guy is leading in the polls.

Chris Hayes talked about a disturbing new trend in reaction to the Occupy Wall Street protests. Apparently, you can’t be a protester and a customer of Bank of America at the same time. If you try to close your account, you get locked out of the bank and risk arrest.

In the clip, Sam Seder mentions a new online protest that anyone can participate in “Occupy The Boardroom” in which we can explain why we feel the system is so rigged against the 99%. Here is what one of our C&L fans sent:

My parents, Randal Duane and Frances Marie, have worked hard their entire lives to care for my brother and I and to build a life. They own a modest house and two modest cars and have a minor savings account that they had hoped to grow a little more now that they are in their mid-fifties.

Frances lost her job over two years ago in customer service at a national carpet manufacturer because of cut backs related to the depressed housing market.

Randal lost his job a year ago as a manager of an branch of a company that provided temporary workers for construction and local city and county government.

They made modest salaries and never benefited from the boom times. They literally saved their pennies to pay off their home and their cars early and to help my grandmother pay for her medications.

Now they spend nearly $2000 a month out of their 30-year-old Bank of America accounts to maintain their COBRA insurance. The savings they worked for over 40 years falls away moment by moment. They seek out cheaper and cheaper foods, clean their devalued home over and over as “entertainment” because they can’t afford the gas to go anywhere.

My father is applying for progressively more degrading jobs in the hopes of keeping at least their current austere life. So far he’s been virtually ignored because the few available jobs (even at the lowest level) are being given to the younger and equally overqualified applicants.

My parents paid for your inflated salaries, they paid for your speculation, they paid for your bail out, and now they are paying for you to sit on a trillion dollars with their short future. A future that they sweated and saved for now looks like it will be a series of cheap bulk hamburger meat dinners, punctuated by window washing and heat waves with no air conditioning.

They are the 99% I protest for.