Monthly Archives: January 2014

Papers, Please…

Image By BarackObamaLongFormBirth Certificate.jpg: State of Hawaii derivative work: TUFKAAP (BarackObamaLongFormBirth Certificate.jpg) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Every citizen of the United States is issued a social security number in order to work, live, conduct business, pay taxes and enter into agreements recognized by legal authorities. To obtain this social security number, a certificate of live birth must be provided to the government that validates the individual identity of each of its citizens.

When the 2010 SCOTUS decision of Citizen’s United declared that corporations are people, no provision was made for these “corporate personhoods” to provide the American people with a copy of their LIVE BIRTH CERTIFICATE that distinguishes them as a valid citizen with all the rights and privileges afforded them through the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Most corporations have a document called an Article of Incorporation, which serves as a set of policies and legal requirements whereby the officers in a corporation are guided toward a common goal or purpose. One of these things is not like the other.

This is the 6th year of Barack Obama’s two-term presidency. In the background noise of the country’s conversation, we still hear those that deny his birth certificate to be valid. Why are the American people not asking to see the live birth certificates of corporations? When were they born? Where? Who were the parents? Who delivered them? Were there any witnesses (birth certificates require two signatures to be valid)? What county jurisdiction retains those records, and when were they filed? How do we know they were not falsified if we do not ever see the original? If these are all questions we can ask in relation to the office of the president, and questions we are obligated to answer as citizens, is it not discriminatory to exclude one sect of the “population” from these requirements?

Occupy World Writes encourages all Americans to ask these questions not only of the corporations, but also of their state and national representatives and, most pointedly, of the Supreme Court of the United States members who wrote favorable opinions in the Citizen’s United decision. We do not expect to actually see any birth certificates, but we do believe the validity of the argument speaks for itself when combined with critical, reasonable thought.

SCOTUS has not made that illegal – yet.

Progress vs. Congress via Wall Street

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White House photo by Susan Sterner (President Delivers “State of the Union”) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

For every homeless person in America, there are seven empty homes, vacated in most cases by foreclosure action. Underwater loans are so common they don’t even raise an eyebrow in conversation anymore. This way of doing business would be preferred by Wall Street and mortgage lenders, whose hugely profitable lending practices contributed to the mortgage and lending crisis.

The city of Richmond, CA, wants this to change. They see an opportunity to resolve some of the problem by enacting eminent domain laws to secure underwater mortgages that could then be rewritten at realistic market values and terms the borrower qualifies to be able to repay.

But not so fast, says Wall Street, investors and lenders, who object because of the profit they could lose if this plan were to be put in effect. Filing lawsuits and charging that their losses would be too great, they are also filling the pockets of Congress in advance to be sure laws and restrictions can be erected to prevent this type of solution from moving forward.

Richmond’s rules: Why one California town is keeping Wall Street up at night

Ironically, the “bubble” over mortgage values was created through the deregulation of lending practices, resulting in undocumented loans and debt traps that the majority of borrowers were unable to maintain payments on. As the American people seek a resolution to the problem, any solution that threatens the massive profits the banks have become accustomed to is soundly rejected before it has any opportunity for full consideration.

When we find solutions that actually work for the benefit of the people rather than big business, it seems contrary to the purpose of their posts for any member of Congress to prefer the profits of corporations over the life and liberty of the American people.

Corporations are not people, and money is not speech.

It appears Congress, and perhaps members of the Supreme Court, are being paid very well by lobbyists to change that.

Save the Last Dance For Me

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Photo by Kelley Kossan, ©2012 All Rights Reserved

On Monday, ,January 6, 2014, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper assured the Vancouver Board of Trade that the Keystone XL pipeline would be approved, according to a report in the The Guardian. “I am confident that in due course – I can’t put a timeline on it – the project will one way or another proceed,” he said. This follows his comments to a New York audience last September when he stated “”you don’t take no for an answer.”

How does he speak with such confidence? Consider the following people who have investments directly or indirectly that would greatly benefit from them once Enbridge’s Keystone XL pipeline is approved: Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Advisor Dr. Susan Rice, Speaker of the House John Boehner, nearly every member of both the House and the Senate, and last, but most definitely not least, President Barack Obama.

As the debate about approval continues to distract us like ceiling fabric and lights at a party, what we aren’t supposed to see is the carefully orchestrated dance of money and politicians. By “debating” and “studying” the issues, these elected members of our government collect money from lobbyists to buy their vote, invest in the companies begging for their favors, and then approve laws and regulations to allow the profits to be reaped from the investment side as well.

And the band will play on…

Honor and Dignity

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Exhibit Organizer with photos of Anfal genocide survivors.
Photo by Adam Jones, Ph.D. (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Iraq Army Day was Monday, January 6. The day was celebrated by the Iraqi military, but a growing murmur filled the air as the people of Kurdistan rejected the holiday and instead honored their own Peshmarga forces by opening a photographic exhibition of anti-Kurdish atrocities committed by the military under Saddam Hussein.

Genocide is the manifestation of hell on earth. Since the 1960’s, the Kurdish people have lived in terror when a systematic and brutal campaign for their extinction began. During the height of Saddam Hussein’s regime, he launched the Anfal campaign, resulting in varied reports of the actual numbers of civilians killed. More than 5,000 civilians were killed in one attack, while hundreds of thousands more are believed to have died throughout the bloody regime of Saddam Hussein. To date, we know over a million people are missing, over 50,000 deaths have been documented by Human Rights Watch and this does not include all of the dead.

Additionally, the Kurdish people have become dispersed when many fled the area as a matter of survival. Of these people, many will not be able or willing to return, taking with them portions of the cultural fabric which has woven the people together. As these people resettle in various parts of the world, they are no longer able to participate in the traditional community appreciated by their ancestors.

Occupy World Writes stands in solidarity with the people of Kurdistan who have suffered beyond measure. Their honor and dignity as a people should remain a lesson to the world that the human spirit will not be defeated.

If they wanted our opinion, they’d give it to us!

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Image by Charles Atkeison (Flickr: CNN Atlanta Newsroom) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Did you know…

…Congress recently passed financial reform regulations written by CitiGroup?

…That one of America’s current ongoing oil spills has leaked thousands of barrels into an Arkansas community and there is no end in sight?

…Is a game-changing birth control injection and HIV inhibitor being blocked for testing in the US, perhaps by the very pharmaceutical companies who would lose profits from current medications if it were approved?

There’s a lot more our media has not covered, or covered up – for very good reason.

In 1983, over 50 companies owned 90% of news outlets in the United States. The populace had choices and enjoyed being well informed, if they chose to, about issues that would affect their lives. In 2014, the media in our country is controlled by only six corporations, all of which have a vested interest to serve their largest source of revenue, their advertisers.

As a population, we barely read newspapers any more. We get our news from the same place we get our sports and entertainment; the television. Since these media sources are all conglomerated, we no longer receive unbiased, balanced and relevant news. Our agenda is decided, the stories are hand-picked and the journalists who attempt to disrupt this arrangement quickly join the unemployed ranks they just reported on last week.

Current trends in getting real, uncensored news is through internet research from credible sources. Claiming copyright and intellectual property protection, international agreements such as TPP and TTIP devote entire chapters to how this freedom of information needs to be limited to corporate control. Is it any wonder these stories are not covered in your evening news?

Get informed. Stay informed. Help others become informed!

For a list of the top 25 US headlines most people didn’t hear about in 2012/1013, click here!

The People Will Only Take So Much…

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Photo by RAHurd (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The conversations in our nation lead to one conclusion: we are creating an ideological inequality which will be painful to emerge from. The working definition of “ideological inequality” we are using is the outcome realized when people are led to believe others are not equal to them in ideas and are, therefore, less deserving.

Think of this situation by visualizing the shape of a horseshoe magnet. At each end, we have polarized points of view entrenched in camps of thought which will not be moved. The vast majority of Americans understand that these extremes are unacceptable, from either side. They do not believe they have an African-born communist, Muslim president, nor do they believe redistribution of wealth to be the solution to the economic crisis. As each end of the magnet tries to pull them toward one direction, they become agitated and their anger and frustration will become intensified.

The Occupy movement brought the beginning of a reasonable dialogue about the changes the vast majority of Americans could agree with. Affordable health care and education, social justice, income equality, the belief that corporations are not people and that money is not speech, the need for living-wage jobs and the removal of big money from our political process are among the topics brought to the forefront that remain part of the conversation today.

Eventually, the magnet will burst from the pressure. A resurgence of the Occupy movement’s message will be that which will be heard as all the king’s horses and all the king’s men try to put the magnet back together again.

Horses need new shoes from time to time.

Affordable Care Act(ion)

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By Gretschman for Occupy World Writes

The great debates raging in our media in regards to the pros and cons of the ACA bring back a memory from decades gone by. An IBEW local union wanted to provide an alternative for its local membership for their dental coverage. The details of coverage and funding were worked out with great care and the general membership was given the ability to opt in to the coverage that would start to be provided 12 months from the start of funding the insurance plan.

When the insurance plan went live 12 months after the funding process started, the members who had signed up started taking advantage of this plan they had so carefully funded on such a great scale that the plan was bankrupt in 9 months.

What happened? Well, thanks to human nature, the membership had held off on using their existing coverage for that year, or waited until they HAD coverage under the new plan, and the amount of claims overwhelmed the coffers of the union dental plan.

The Affordable Care Act WILL see a great amount of claims from people who have not had insurance or have only had major medical coverage before being able to sign up for the insurance provided under the ACA. There will also be a large number of claims from people who had to wait until the pre-existing condition exclusion was lifted in 2014.

The true measure of success will be how many fewer uninsured people visit this country’s Emergency Rooms and how many people who have gone without coverage will now have a better quality of life thanks to their medical conditions being managed and not ignored.

That measure of success will also be debated in coming days, weeks, months and years.

Samuel Clemens (alias Mark Twain) would remind us that figures don’t lie, but liars figure.

When Science and Politics Collide, Corporations Win

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In Azle, Texas, residents gathered for a town meeting to voice concerns about the escalation of earthquakes in their area. Since November 1 of 2013, 28 earthquakes in north Texas have been recorded. The epi centers of the majority of these earthquakes are between two fracking sites.

Image by Mikenorton (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The state officials are relying on plausible deniability. One must remember these people were elected after their campaign coffers were filled with contributions from oil and gas companies. The representatives at the meeting in Azle claimed no evidence of a correlation exists between the earthquakes and fracking.

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Defenseless

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Sanaz Nezami is seen in a photo provided by her sister, Sara Nezami.

There are those in our society that turn a blind eye to domestic violence. There is nowhere in the world where women can feel truly safe from violence against them.

The most insidious of this violence is when it is delivered by the hand of someone the victim trusts and loves – their spouse.

So imagine, if you dare, the nightmare of a family who recently celebrated their daughter’s marriage and moving to a foreign country. Then, to find out she has been beaten fatally – and with only hours of life left, your only means of providing her comfort is through an internet connection and asking a nursing staff to act on your behalf. Seem unlikely?

Woman dies in Michigan as Iran family weeps while watching over Internet

What is wrong with society when any person can beat another to death? What have we as a society sunk to, when outrage is not our first reaction? What if it were your daughter? Sister? Mother? Friend? How do we stop the madness?

Editorial Note: There are times when the stories we read hit home more than others. As a survivor of domestic abuse, I could not help but conclude that this could have been me. I live with a disability as a result of the violence. But at least I get to live. Others, like this beautiful, bright and promising young woman, do not survive. Sanaz will never be forgotten. It is her story that gives determination to all of us, that this MUST STOP.

Weapons Of Mass Destruction

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Photo by Boksi (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

60 years ago, a plane named the Enola Gay left the island of Tinian to drop its payload on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The first atomic weapon used in wartime, little was understood about the consequences of radiation when used on a civilian population. The devastation and atrocities suffered were unimaginable as much then as they are today.

As such, our “civilized” societies and governments have signed treaties and agreements that use of these types of weapons are seen as crimes against humanity. We are horrified as we study nuclear disasters and comprehend the magnitude of radiation and depleted uranium contamination on the human body.

Depleted uranium (DU) is actually uranium 238, left over after the fissionable element uranium 235 is extracted to be used as fuel for weapons and nuclear reactors. The US has accumulated 700,000 tons of depleted uranium over the last 60 years. It did not take long to implement a way to get rid of this unwanted material, once it was discovered that DU is so dense it can be used to pierce through the armor of tanks.

Deployment was never a question. The US military and coalition forces used these lethal weapons in both Iraq wars, dumping 350 tons of DU during Operation Desert Storm, and added 2000 tons of DU shells, bullets, and bombs during the 2003 to 2011 campaigns.

Democracy Now aired a graphic and compelling report that documented the reality of DU contamination and the effects it has had on the people of Iraq. In October, The Guardian published a report documenting the suspicion that the World Health Organization has worked toward covering up the nightmare unfolding in Iraq. Ignoring MOH reports from within Iraq and falsifying scientific reports are just the beginning.

Clearly, the US military and allied forces are using DU in weaponry today. DU has properties that, according to governments, are acceptable to use in wartime to pierce the enemy tanks and other equipment. We are just beginning to understand the long term effects DU is having, and clearly it presents as atrocious a result as the first atomic weapon did in 1945. The difference is that in 1945, all of humanity was horrified and vowed “Never Again.” Now, only the victims are horrified, and we claim this is done in the name of “peace keeping.”

How is using DU not a war crime?

The US claims to have entered Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction – yet the US and coalition forces are the ones who deployed tons of radioactive weaponry, left the fallout and now are covering it up to avoid admitting the action and paying the measly $34 million it would cost to clean up the Iraqi landscape.