Numbers, I Need Numbers

You want numbers, we got numbers.

Number of Americans close to starvation, i.e. dependent on foodstamps: 45.8 million (1 out of 8).

Number of Americans underwater on their mortages (i.e. are debt-serfs): 14 million homeowners (2 out of 7 homeowners with mortgages).

Employment-to population ratio has fallen from 63% to: 58%, the worst since the early 1980s.

The Great Recession destroyed 8 million jobs, but since the end of the recession, new jobs created amount to only 2 million, resulting in: Worst. Employment. Recovery. Ever.

New home sales: Lowest. Number. Ever.

Local and state deficits: still bleeding $100 billion.

Total amount US Federal government will waste on military-industrial boondoggles, rather than bailing out the states: between $1 trillion to $1.4 trillion.

Back in 1986, the top 1 percent received 12% of all income and owned 33% of all wealth. Last year, the top 1 percent received: 25% of all income and 40% of all wealth.

Student loan debt: $1 trillion and counting.

Total Wall Street bailout: $7.77 trillion. That's not a typo - we're talking eight trillion fricking-sharks-with-laser-beams dollars.

All Tomorrow's Uprisings

Hard drive expired today. All the technology I own is slowly expiring, circuit board by circuit board. In search of solace, I ran into Clave de Barrio's scintillating message to all tomorrow's uprisings. In other news,  neoliberalism's trillion-dollar crime spree continues unabated.

Egypt, Clock of the Revolution

The Children of Masrzilla know what time it is: time to take back their country from the 1%.
Sharif Kouddous reports on the latest.

More raw footage here.

Al Jazeera stream here.

Tahrir 2.0

Tunis inspired Cairo, Cairo inspired Benghazi, Benghazi inspired Zawiya, Zawiya inspired Misrata, Misrata inspired Tripoli, Tripoli inspired New York, and now New York has inspired Cairo.

In the words of a famous philosopher, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Wisdom of the Elders

A message from the Civil Rights generation to Occupy Wall Street: we struggle, we resist, we occupy!

Mask of Liberty

Predictably, the Wall Street billionaire who bought the NY mayoralty with spare change finally sent in the goon squad to disperse Occupy Wall Street's encampment in Zuccotti Park. RT has this excellent piece covering the madness of a collapsing empire, which has run out of enemies and is now turning its taxpayer-funded weapons against its own citizens. Really, the only surprise is that it took this long for the crackdown to happen.

But then something happened which the 1% did not expect -- precisely because they're so clueless, so corrupted by their overweening power, and completely devoid of the slightest drop of understanding of how we 99% live -- but which we, the people, knew would happen: WE CAME RIGHT BACK (live coverage is running here).

The live coverage is now showing something amazing: Americans are peacefully assembling, protesting the occupation of America by Wall Street in a public park open to all, while the police are occupying the center of Zucotti!

Look at the cold, empty pavement in between the officers, Americans. You see that emptiness?

That is the freedom Wall Street has given you.

It is the freedom to do nothing. It is the freedom to say nothing. It is the freedom to be nothing, because that's what Wall Street thinks of you: they own EVERYTHING and you are NOTHING to them.
 You are seeing, in Heiner Müller's immortal phrase, the iron face of Capital's freedom. It is the freedom of the 1% to take everything from the 99%.

  
Did the patriots of Bunker Hill die for this freedom?

Did the heroes of Gettysburg die for this freedom?

Did the soldiers of Iwo Jima die for this freedom?

Do we have less dignity and worth than the people of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, who struck down tyrants and plutocracies which oppressed them?

No. We have the same dignity. We have the same honor. And now we must bring justice back to our country.

The time is now, my fellow Americans.

It's time to take back our country.

It's a Metal Gear Planet

Jasiri X interviews true American patriot Sgt. Shamar Thomas. (Jasiri has this speech right here -- be sure to scroll down to read the description of the events behind the video. Also check out Jasiri's Real Gangstas video from 2010.)

Juan Cole shines a spotlight on Metal Gear Planet -- where we are all locked into struggle against the far-from-beautiful Beasts of Neoliberalism.

In Chile, the 99% are facing down a predatory billionaire.

This Revolution Can Dance

One of the little-known perks of the thankless, overworked, and underpaid job of being a transnational media scholar is that we get to document the tremors which eventually turn into geopolitical earthquakes. Behold, as the daughters of Bearzilla rock the transnational house.

The dance party spreads to this awesomeness from Turkey.

More remixes here and here. 

Ammo Re-Up

Check out Bill Moyers' scintillating keynote. 

William K. Black eviscerates the bankers.

Amy Goodman and Chris Hedges (who was just arrested protesting Goldman Sachs) weigh in on Charlie Rose.

Our UAW brothers and sisters are joining the struggle.

We're just getting started.

Bulletins

Shorter posts for awhile, because I'm writing the final chapter of the diss, but here's the latest:

Business Insider chronicles the (citizen-friendly) rampages of the Pirates of the Banksterium. Yarrr!

True American hero William K. Black, the scourge of the 1980s banksters, savages Bank of America for ripping off the public. (Visit Black's blog at New Economic Perspectives for an economic perspective founded on sanity and rationality).

And last but hardly least, Oakland gets busy.