Tag Archives: Occupy Wall Street

InCity Letters, InCity Voices

MASSUNITING ‘Economic Crime Unit’ launches investigation of State Street Bank

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StopEconomicCrime.org, new video shine a light on State Street’s “economic crimes against the 99%” on eve of annual shareholder meeting

 BOSTON – MASSUNITING today launched the Economic Crime Unit (ECU) [homepage screenshot attached], a new initiative that will shine a light on the abuses of major corporations and Wall Street banks. ECU investigations will employ a creative mix of video, online ads, new media tools and in-the-streets action to expose what it calls “economic crimes against the 99%” – a set of offenses which may be legally undefined, but are no less harmful to our communities. ECU’s inaugural investigation, targeting Massachusetts-based State Street Bank (NYSE: STT), comes on the eve of the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Boston.

View the Economic Crime Unit’s “State Street” video here.

Though it has managed to avoid the intense scrutiny applied to other big-name corporate offenders, State Street Bank has engaged in many of the same “economic crimes” as General Electric, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – exploiting loopholes to avoid taxation, killing thousands of jobs through outsourcing and offshoring, and investing tens of millions of dollars in private, for-profit prisons and detention centers. In addition, State  Street Bank has been investigated, sued or fined by the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators for allegedly misleading investors and defrauding pensions – including a recent $5 million fine from Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, William Galvin.

A group of State Street shareholders has attempted to raise and demand action on these issues with company executives and board members in advance of the annual shareholder meeting scheduled for Wednesday, May 16. After weeks of no response, a delegation was invited to meet with State Street staff, who offered neither apologies nor redress for the serious concerns raised by shareholders. Left with few other options, the delegation will take their demands directly to fellow shareholders at Wednesday’s meeting – in addition to the public investigation launched by the Economic Crimes Unit.

“State Street’s business practices have harmed our community and our entire economy for far too long – and it’s time they were held accountable,” said Chandra Richardson, a State Street shareholder from South Boston. “From job killing to tax dodging to prison profiteering, State Street Bank has committed serious economic crimes against the 99%, and we won’t be silent anymore.”

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The tribulations of Occupy Worcester

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By anonymous

Where are they? Been searching high and low. Where’s Worcester Occupy Wall Street camping out? Got a box of donuts to drop off.

So who would have thought, Occupy Worcester KO’d not by a mob of 1%-ers, but by a single person – a priest no less: The Rev. Robert Bachelder of the Worcester Area Mission Society, part of the liberal United Church of Christ, stopped them dead in their tracks, based on a misunderstanding. Allegedly his flock’s parking spaces were in peril. Yes, parking spaces.

I wonder if the reverend got 30 pieces of silver in exchange for handing over OWS? One of Jesus’ own selling out. Biblical history does repeat itself. I think there’s more to it than parking spots. I may be wrong.

What strikes me as hypocritical is that an avowed disciple of Jesus Christ turned his back on a handful of youths and by extension, the most critical issue affecting our society today – the subjugation of the masses by the Wall St. cabal and their Washington henchmen.

So why did he do it? Someone forced him? His irate flock? The property owners, The New England Dream Center, an obscure non-profit housed in a former church on Chestnut Street, trying to snuff out OWS for ideological reasons? Wall Street’s agents got to him? Who knows.

An aside here. I always get an strange feeling when I see the Dream Center’s vans, filled with kids. Their apathetic expressions, their listless eyes staring out into a void. Certainly not dreaming.

Anyone know what the Dream Center does, except give away toys to the needy every Christmas? I’ll answer that: Help the needy. Like Bachelder’s Mission Society is supposed to do. If the mission of the Worcester Area Mission Society is to help the homeless and inner-city youth, then why not our OWS. I’m being factious of course. Obviously they have other priorities – protecting parking spaces from filthy heathens.

OWS has of course made for interesting news in our so called local media: The T&G cackled over its demise, WOMAG bemoaned a story, and InCity Times [covered it from a national perspective via filmmaker Michael Moore]. Even Jordan Levy did a radio interview with an OWS participant – his contempt couldn’t have been more palatable. And local bible-thumper Mike Benedetti tried to transform it into a journalistic coup touting himself. Mike milked it for all he could – gave everyone the impression he was Occupy Worcester. But once the spotlight dimmed, he pretended it never existed. Reminds me of Nicole Apostola’s antics not too long ago: No spotlight. No Nicole. How superficial.

The question I have is, why didn’t power-Christian Mike Benedetti rally the enlightened Christian-bloggers to save Wusta’s OWS? Yet not a soul stepped forward. Not a hand extended. It’s ironic that Mike Benedetti fills the Barnard Blogroll with Christian-blogs espousing their enlightened values, yet not one came forward, or even gave OWS lip-service. Not a peep. Geez… I wonder what Jesus would say?

Funny, why do I get the feeling that organized religion is part of the 1%? Considering their enormous financial wealth they have a vested interest in defending the status quo. No Wall St. No corrupt politicians. No church. No job.

Obviously Occupy Worcester needs to rethink its strategy – more marketing, more presence. Another incident like this could obliterate OWS.

I’m sure spring will sprout a new improved OWS. And beware of false prophets.

InCity Letters, InCity Voices, Uncategorized

Campaign finance reform NOW!

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By Michael Moore

The New York Times this week had a story about how nearly half of all members of Congress are millionaires — and many of them got that way after getting elected to Congress. This is a disgrace. Congress’s wealth has gone up 15% in 7 years while the average American’s has gone down. Congress is bought and paid for by the 1%. Instead of the rich having just 1% of the influence in Congress, they have 100% of the say. This has to stop now.

Friends, I have many things I’m planning to do in the New Year — walk three miles a day, use an eco-friendly laundry detergent, write fewer anonymous letters to Wolf Blitzer — but I want to declare, right here, that one of my top priorities in 2012 will be to spearhead a drive to remove ALL money from our electoral process, period. Nothing — and I mean NOTHING — we want to accomplish, from creating jobs to protecting the environment to preventing wars, will happen as long as those who hold the purse strings are the ones who own our Congress.

This destruction of our democracy can only be stopped if the majority of us make it clear that we will ONLY vote for those candidates who sign a pledge to make it their TOP legislative priority to push for a constitutional amendment prohibiting any person or entity from donating ANY money to a candidate’s campaign (and that includes a millionaire candidate buying his own election).

Plus, they must pledge to back a law banning elected officials from working as lobbyists after they leave office.

The majority of Americans already support strong campaign finance reform and lobbying bans. So what are we waiting for? Now is the time to act!

Here is the wording to the constitutional amendment we need:

Section 1. All elections for President and members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate shall be publicly financed. No political contributions shall be permitted to any federal candidate, from any other source, including the candidate. No political expenditures shall be permitted in support of any federal candidate, or in opposition to any federal candidate, from any other source, including the candidate. Nothing in this Section shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.

Section 2. The Congress shall, by statute, provide limitations on the amounts and timing of the expenditures of such public funds and provide criminal penalties for any violation of this section.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) has already introduced a “Plan for Washington Reform” that, among other great things, creates a lifetime ban on any member of Congress becoming a lobbyist.

So here is the copy of the pledge we expect those running for office to sign this year:

“I, (name of candidate), promise to make it one of my TOP priorities to introduce and vote for a constitutional amendment that bans all financial contributions to all candidates running for office. I will support legislation that publicly funds all elections and legislation that bans lawmakers from working as lobbyists after they leave office. If I do not do this, I promise not to run for re-election.”

One of the first candidates running for Congress to sign the pledge removing money from politics this year is in my hometown Congressional district of Flint, Michigan! His name is Dan Kildee. He not only wants the money out of the electoral process, he wants corporations declared as NOT people. Dan is already refusing to take any corporate PAC money or any money connected to Wall Street or the banks.

And how have the people in Michigan responded to a candidate like this? The early polls show Dan in the lead — because the voters are sick and tired of the way it’s been for so long.

But, until Dan (and others like him) get elected so they can overturn the rule of the 1%, none of this will change. And under the current system — irony alert — they can’t get elected without money. Wouldn’t it be great if this were the last election I’d have to write a sentence like that?

Will you help me show how powerful the public’s support is for cleaning up Congress by backing the only person running for Congress from Flint who is on our side? This is not just some symbolic cause. I believe Dan will get elected — especially if he has our grassroots support.

Please take a minute to click here and donate $10, $25 or more to Dan’s campaign. He’s pro-peace, pro-choice, and ahead in the polls. He will fight to tax the rich and the corporations like General Electric and Bank of America who pay no taxes at all. I have known this man since he was 18 — when he first won a seat on the Flint School Board. He comes from the working class and he has been a local public servant his entire life.

I’m asking you to do this also as a personal favor to my hometown which is still suffering from crushing unemployment. More people per capita live in poverty in Flint than any other city (100,000+ population) in America. They have no money to donate to a fighter like Dan. That’s why I’m asking you to help in their stead.

Many of you have been writing to ask me what “practical” things you can do to be part of the movement sweeping the country. Well, here’s your chance to do something tangible, even if it’s just kicking in five bucks. Send Dan Kildee to Congress!

And insist that those running for Congress in YOUR district sign the pledge and commit to removing money from politics. We have to start somewhere — and I guess Flint, Michigan, is as good a place as any to begin! Please join me in doing so.

InCity Feature, InCity Letters, InCity Voices, Uncategorized

Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here? A proposal from Michael Moore

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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Friends,

This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement. It was attended by 40+ people and the discussion was both inspiring and invigorating. Here is what we ended up proposing as the movement’s “vision statement” to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

We Envision: [1] a truly free, democratic, and just society; [2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus; [3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making; [4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others; [5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments; [6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few; [7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings; [8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible; [9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.

The next step will be to develop a specific list of goals and demands. As one of the millions of people who are participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, I would like to respectfully offer my suggestions of what we can all get behind now to wrestle the control of our country out of the hands of the 1% and place it squarely with the 99% majority.

Here is what I will propose to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:

10 Things We Want
A Proposal for Occupy Wall Street
Submitted by Michael Moore 

1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).

2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.

3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.

4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.

6. Reorder our nation’s spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.

7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.

8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.

9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. (For any U.S. businesspeople freaking out at this idea because you think workers can’t run a successful company: Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world’s leading manufacturing exporter.)

10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have. These include:

a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.

b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.

c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a “second bill of rights” as proposed by President Frankin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.

Let me know what you think. Occupy Wall Street enjoys the support of millions. It is a movement that cannot be stopped. Become part of it by sharing your thoughts with me or online (at OccupyWallSt.org). Get involved in (or start!) your own local Occupy movement. Make some noise. You don’t have to pitch a tent in lower Manhattan to be an Occupier. You are one just by saying you are. This movement has no singular leader or spokesperson; every participant is a leader in their neighborhood, their school, their place of work. Each of you is a spokesperson to those whom you encounter. There are no dues to pay, no permission to seek in order to create an action.

We are but ten weeks old, yet we have already changed the national conversation. This is our moment, the one we’ve been hoping for, waiting for. If it’s going to happen it has to happen now. Don’t sit this one out. This is the real deal. This is it.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Yours,
Michael Moore

InCity Letters, InCity Voices, Uncategorized

The 99% wake up … Post a sign in solidarity!

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Thursday, thousands of Americans stood together on our failing bridges and roads.

They had a clear message to Congress: deal with the economic emergency facing the 99% by creating good jobs.

Today, we are asking readers to stand up to Wall Street, to their supporters in Congress and to the 1% – wherever they are.

The 99% refuse to have our American Dream deferred, derailed or traded away any longer and we’re speaking out.

You don’t need to go to a rally to be heard. You can print this sign: “We Are The 99%,” and post it anywhere that people will see it. In the window of your home, in business store fronts, in your car windows or on bulletin boards.

http://action.seiu.org/99sign

Prefer Facebook or Twitter? You can update your profile photo to show that you stand with the 99%.

http://action.seiu.org/99sign

Let’s tell our leaders that we won’t stand for this economic injustice any longer. Let’s tell our neighbors that they’re not alone, it’s all right to speak out. Let’s show the 1% that there is nowhere they can hide, that we are everywhere, and we are not going away.

We refuse to sit silently as Congress plays political games to avoid creating jobs, but can always find the time to cut taxes for their friends in the 1%.

With your help, we can realize the dream of an America that works for everyone.

In solidarity,

Jon Youngdahl
Chief of Staff, Service Employees International Union

InCity Letters, InCity Voices, Uncategorized

Life among the 1%

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By Michael Moore, filmmaker

October 27, 2011

Friends,

Twenty-two years ago this coming Tuesday, I stood with a group of factory workers, students and the unemployed in the middle of the downtown of my birthplace, Flint, Michigan, to announce that the Hollywood studio, Warner Bros., had purchased the world rights to distribute my first movie, ‘Roger & Me.’ A reporter asked me, “How much did you sell it for?”

“Three million dollars!” I proudly exclaimed. A cheer went up from the union guys surrounding me. It was absolutely unheard of for one of us in the working class of Flint (or anywhere) to receive such a sum of money unless one of us had either robbed a bank or, by luck, won the Michigan lottery. On that sunny November day in 1989, it was like I had won the lottery — and the people I had lived and struggled with in Michigan were thrilled with my success. It was like, one of us had made it, one of us finally had good fortune smile upon us. The day was filled with high-fives and “Way-ta-go Mike!”s. When you are from the working class you root for each other, and when one of you does well, the others are beaming with pride — not just for that one person’s success, but for the fact that the team had somehow won, beating the system that was brutal and unforgiving and which ran a game that was rigged against us. We knew the rules, and those rules said that we factory town rats do not get to make movies or be on TV talk shows or have our voice heard on any national stage. We were to shut up, keep our heads down, and get back to work. If by some miracle one of us escaped and commandeered a mass audience and some loot to boot — well, holy mother of God, watch out! A bully pulpit and enough cash to raise a ruckus — that was an incendiary combination, and it only spelled trouble for those at the top.

Until that point I had been barely getting by on unemployment, collecting $98 a week. Welfare. The dole. My car had died back in April so I had gone seven months with no vehicle. Friends would take me out to dinner, always coming up with an excuse to celebrate or commemorate something and then picking up the check so I would not have to feel the shame of not being able to afford it.

And now, all of a sudden, I had three million bucks! What would I do with it? There were men in suits making many suggestions to me, and I could see how those without a strong moral sense of social responsibility could be easily lead down the “ME” path and quickly forget about the “WE.”

So I made some easy decisions back in 1989:

1. I would first pay all my taxes. I told the guy who did my 1040 not to declare any deductions other than the mortgage and to pay the full federal, state and city tax rate. I proudly contributed nearly 1 million dollars for the privilege of being a citizen of this great country.

2. Of the remaining $2 million, I decided to divide it up the way I once heard the folksinger/activist Harry Chapin tell me how he lived: “One for me, one for the other guy.” So I took half the money — $1 million — and established a foundation to give it all away.

3. The remaining million went like this: I paid off all my debts, paid off the debts of some friends and family members, bought my parents a new refrigerator, set up college funds for our nieces and nephews, helped rebuild a black church that had been burned down in Flint, gave out a thousand turkeys at Thanksgiving, bought filmmaking equipment to send to the Vietnamese (my own personal reparations for a country we had ravaged), annually bought 10,000 toys to give to Toys for Tots at Christmas, got myself a new American-made Honda, and took out a mortgage on an apartment above a Baby Gap in New York City.

4. What remained went into a simple, low-interest savings account. I made the decision that I would never buy a share of stock (I didn’t understand the casino known as the New York Stock Exchange and I did not believe in investing in a system I did not agree with).

5. Finally, I believed the concept of making money off your money had created a greedy, lazy class who didn’t produce any product, just misery and fear among the populace. They invented ways to buy out companies and then shut them down. They dreamed up schemes to play with people’s pension funds as if it were their own money. They demanded companies keep posting record profits (which was accomplished by firing thousands and eliminating health benefits for those who remained). I made the decision that if I was going to earn a living, it would be done from my own sweat and ideas and creativity. I would produce something tangible, something others could own or be entertained by or learn from. My work would create employment for others, good employment with middle class wages and full health benefits.

I went on to make more movies, produce TV series and write books. I never started a project with the thought, “I wonder how much money I can make at this?” And by never letting money be the motivating force for anything, I simply did exactly what I wanted to do. That attitude kept the work honest and unflinching — and that, in turn I believe, resulted in millions of people buying tickets to these films, tuning in to my TV shows, and buying my books.

Which is exactly what has driven the Right crazy when it comes to me. How did someone from the left get such a wide mainstream audience?! This just isn’t supposed to happen (Noam Chomsky, sadly, will not be booked on The View today, and Howard Zinn, shockingly, didn’t make the New York Times bestseller list until after he died). That’s how the media machine is rigged — you are not supposed to hear from those who would completely change the system to something much better. Only wimpy liberals who urge caution and compromise and mild reforms get to have their say on the op-ed pages or Sunday morning chat shows.

Somehow, I found a crack through the wall and made it through. I feel very blessed that I have this life — and I take none of it for granted. I believe in the lessons I was taught back in Catholic school — that if you end up doing well, you have an even greater responsibility to those who don’t fare the same. “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” Kinda commie, I know, but the idea was that the human family was supposed to divide up the earth’s riches in a fair manner so that all of God’s children would have a life with less suffering.

I do very well — and for a documentary filmmaker, I do extremely well. That, too, drives conservatives bonkers. “You’re rich because of capitalism!” they scream at me. Um, no. Didn’t you take Econ 101? Capitalism is a system, a pyramid scheme of sorts, that exploits the vast majority so that the few at the top can enrich themselves more. I make my money the old school, honest way by making things. Some years I earn a boatload of cash. Other years, like last year, I don’t have a job (no movie, no book) and so I make a lot less. “How can you claim to be for the poor when you are the opposite of poor?!” It’s like asking: “You’ve never had sex with another man — how can you be for gay marriage?!” I guess the same way that an all-male Congress voted to give women the vote, or scores of white people marched with Martin Luther Ling, Jr. (I can hear these righties yelling back through history: “Hey! You’re not black! You’re not being lynched! Why are you with the blacks?!”). It is precisely this disconnect that prevents Republicans from understanding why anyone would give of their time or money to help out those less fortunate. It is simply something their brain cannot process. “Kanye West makes millions! What’s he doing at Occupy Wall Street?!” Exactly — he’s down there demanding that his taxes be raised. That, to a right-winger, is the definition of insanity. To everyone else, we are grateful that people like him stand up, even if and especially because it is against his own personal financial interest. It is specifically what that Bible those conservatives wave around demands of those who are well off.

Back on that November day in 1989 when I sold my first film, a good friend of mine said this to me: “They have made a huge mistake giving someone like you a big check. This will make you a very dangerous man. And it proves that old saying right: ‘The capitalist will sell you the rope to hang himself with if he thinks he can make a buck off it.'”