This will be one to watch...

Via:

A high-ranking cop who pepper-sprayed penned-in Occupy Wall Street protesters has been zapped with a lawsuit by two women who were in the line of fire.

Chelsea Elliott and Jeanne Mansfield are suing Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna in Manhattan Federal Court for blasting them in the face with pepper-spray during a protest last Sept. 24 near Union Square.

The incident was caught on video, and 1.5 million people watched it on YouTube, prompting outrage and drawing attention to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Bologna was docked 10 days of vacation for violating NYPD regulations.

The lawsuit claims Bologna violated the women's civil rights, and is seeking unspecified damages from Bologna and NYC for "physical pain and mental suffering."

On February 29th, Occupy Portland calls for a national day of non-violent direct action challenge society's obsession with profit and greed by shutting down the corporations.

We are rejecting a society that does not allow us control of our future. We will reclaim our ability to shape our world in a democratic, cooperative, just and sustainable direction.

We call on people to target corporations that are part of the American Legislative Exchange Council which is a prime example of the way corporations buy off legislators and craft legislation that serves the interests of corporations and not people. They used it to create the anti-labor legislation in Wisconsin and the racist bill SB 1070 in Arizona among so many others. They use ALEC to spread pro big business laws around the country.

For more information visit:

Portland Action Lab

[Caution: Contains some images that may be disturbing.]

The 23rd self-immolation in the last year, and the 2nd teenager to do so in the last three days. The other was an 18-year-old Tibetan nun.

Via:

Lobsang Gyatso, a 19-year-old monk from the Kirti monastery in Sichuan province's Aba prefecture, set himself ablaze on Aba's main street Monday afternoon, the London-based International Campaign for Tibet said.

Security forces beat Gyatso while extinguishing the flames, then took him away, the group said in an online statement posted late Monday. It was not immediately clear whether he survived.

Two Tibetans who tried to help Gyatso were severely beaten by police, ICT's statement said.

Also Via:

Protests by self-immolation have become more common in Tibet and in ethnic Tibetan regions of China, and at least 15 Tibetans are believed to have died from their injuries. Exiled Tibetan leaders say they fear a crackdown in the region to coincide with the Tibetan new year on February 22nd. The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has blamed the self-immolations on "cultural genocide" by the Chinese but he has not called for them to stop.

The video above contains rare recent footage of the Tibetan protests obtained by Guardian journalist Jonathan Watts, who managed to gain entry to a region of China that is off-limits to journalists.

Surprising is how large the protests really are, and the military presence kept by the Chinese to attempt to quash them. Yet even under these extremely oppressive conditions, the Tibetans continue their protests with banners calling for religious and other freedoms, as well as the return of the Dalai Lama.

Watts also tells that the people in China - with their government-controlled media - remain completely unaware of the strife in Tibet.

China considers those protesters who self-immolate to be "terrorists."

Protestor Tazed at Santorum Rally from www.gayusathemovie.com on Vimeo.

[This article was edited to correct previous reports that the two bloggers were arrested during the rally, that information turned out to be inaccurate.]

Two bloggers from Gay U.S.A. attended a rally for Rick Santorum in Tacoma on Monday evening to see what the GOP presidential contender had to say about the same-sex marriage bill signed into law by Washington state's governor earlier in the day.

Three protesters were arrested during the event, including one protester who later in the evening glitter-bombed Santorum as he shook hands with supporters. Other reports tie the protesters to the Occupy Tacoma group. Here is a snippet of their account of the evening:
.

About four police officers approached the group. Nathan left the group to turn the GAY U.S.A. camera spotlight rig away from Santorum and to focus the light onto the crowd, as Lapinski filmed the mayhem.

Just then the police dragged one of the protestors out of the group. Santorum all the while continued talking from the elevated podium stage, high above and well away from the crowd. He was nowhere near the fracas and was never close to any protestors. The crowd was relatively calm as the protestors chanted, yet the police saw fit to grab two of them.

Nathan cast the spotlight down on the man being tazed so Lapinski could keep filming. The Santorum campaign personnel kept trying to pull the spotlight out of Nathan’s hand. But she kept plugging it back in.

About four police dragged one unnamed young man to the ground and while the man’s hands were behind his back they started to drag him and tazed him. It did not seem necessary to taze him as he was not resisting. He was well apprehended at the time of the tazing. They put the cuffs on him and dragged him along the floor away from the venue, while the crowd of Santorum supporters were chanting U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A.

Just then, the Santorum supporters started to grab Lapinski and Nathan and their camera equipment and were yelling at them. They were calling them names “you filth, you filth.” One woman shouted “when you lay dying you will think about this and you will know you are going to hell.” One man put his hand in his pocket as if to indicate he had a weapon. People in the crowd started to pull on both Lapinski and Nathan.

Yikes! The remark about "dying" I'm almost certain I've heard in a horror film, maybe "Children of the Corn"? Not sure, it could've been a past report about another Santorum gathering.

Continue reading »

Lawmakers backed drastic cuts in wages, pensions and jobs on Sunday as the price of a 130 billion euro ($170 billion) bailout by the European Union and International Monetary Fund to avert a messy default that would send shockwaves through the euro zone.

The cuts include a 22 percent reduction in the minimum wage and 150,000 jobs from the public sector workforce by 2015.

Scenes of running battles between police and rioters and flames engulfing cinemas, shops and banks underscored a sense of deepening turmoil in the country after more than four years of recession and two of punishing austerity.

The riots spread to Greece's second city of Thessaloniki, towns across the country and the islands of Crete and Corfu. In all, 150 shops were looted in the capital and 93 buildings set ablaze, wrecked or seriously damaged.

Occupy United claimed that 15 of the burned buildings were banks.

About 100 people - including 68 police - were wounded and 130 detained.

Athens city authorities said some of the wrecked buildings were of particular cultural, historic and architectural value.

The Attikon cinema, housed in a neo-classical building dating from 1870, was left a blackened shell.

The rioters were a minority, say various reports, yet others claim they numbered over 100,000 and spoke to the groundswell of anger among Greeks who say their living standards are already collapsing and more austerity will only deepen their misery.

Unemployment in Greece reached 20.9 percent in November, and half of young Greeks are jobless.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, photographs began circulating that identify several members of Greek parliament who were relaxing and watching a football game allegedly as the city of Athens burned.

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As we already saw with the "class act" of Dana Loesch's husband Chris and Fox contributor Steven Crowder and their sorry, racist excuse for what's supposed to pass for a "rap" video, the real wingnuttery at CPAC this year was with the panel segments as opposed to just the general contempt for liberals and horrid policy prescriptions being offered by the headliners.

Case in point, this panel as described by the CPAC web site -- Tea Party versus Occupy:

Unlike their leftist counterparts in the “Occupy” movement, Tea Party activists do not need to be paid or coerced into advancing their ideas, free market activists said during one of the closing panels at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Dana Loesch, Editor-in-Chief of BigJournalism.com, told audience members that progressives operate from a false assumption that says Tea Party activists will not demonstrate without offered some kind of inducement. In reality, she said, they actually describing themselves. Occupy members who were demonstrating outside of the CPAC conference in D.C. acknowledged that were being paid $60 to be there.

“It always amazes me how progressives think that conservatives can’t get organized or demonstrate without getting paid,” Loesch said. “They do it for free because they believe in it.”

Amy Kremer, chair of the Tea Party express, said that the movement she was identified with has more staying power because it has the right ideas. By contrast, the “Occupy” movement has resorted to unsavory tactics and has already lost credibility with the American people.

There's a bit more there, but they somehow forgot to mention this gem from panelist and Americans for Prosperity Pennsylvania State Director Jennifer Stefano:

STEFANO: The one thing I get asked is, what is the difference between the tea party and Occupiers... but I always say one thing. If you're standing in a room and you're not sure how to separate the tea partiers from the Occupiers, do one thing. Raise an American flag. The tea party will stand and put their hands over their heart and pledge to it while the Occupiers deficate on it.

I find that really humorous since the only person I seem to remember being proud of "dropping trou" lately, was her cohort on that panel, Dana Loesch.

Continue reading »

Anonymous released yet another video message today, this time his intended audience is the unemployed population in America.

Greetings Citizens of the United States,

We are Anonymous, We are all perfectly aware of the economic crises and job shortages in this country. We are aware that many of us are still without jobs and many have had to take lesser jobs for less pay outside of our chosen professions and educational training. We sympathize with you and your families and friends in this great time of need. We support you for you are also Anonymous. We are all one and the same and we are all in this together. We are all aware that our government and the corporate controlled media are lying to us about the actual number of unemployed Americans in this country. The numbers are skewed and the information that they feed to us, we the public is false. We are tired of telling them of what we need and what we have to have to keep our families and our communities together. Now is the time to show them.

On April First through the Fifteenth 2012, we are asking for every citizen to mail in and to fax our resume and job applications to the White House of United States and to our states Governor's office. Whether we are unemployed, under employed or unsatisfied in our current job placement, we are with you and are please to stand with you in this form of peaceful demonstration.

Continue reading »

A group of Occupiers attempted to “mic check” Sarah Palin's keynote speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Saturday.The audience drowned out the occupiers with boos, chants of “U.S.A.” and “Sarah!” before they were escorted away.

“See? You just won. You see how easy that is?” Palin asked as the protesters were removed from the room.

Not sure what Palin thinks they "won," but happy to leave it at that. I wouldn't want to have to listen to her explain it.

Thousands of people in Japan marched on Saturday to protest against nuclear power. Common Dreams has the details.

California Democrats held their annual convention in San Diego on Saturday, and about 100 Occupy members showed up for the event, too.

The Occupy movement is beginning to move into universities around the country. One professor in Chicago is teaching an "Occupy Everywhere" course and says that a third of the political science majors are enrolled in his class.

Two Occupy Oakland protesters were arrested after a march on Saturday. A woman was arrested for allegedly kicking a police officer, and a male protester who tried to pull her from officers was arrested for "attempting to unlawfully intervene." When he gets out of jail, I suppose he will have to allow the woman to kick away next time?

[Photo of the Year: Samuel Aranda - New York Times via Reuters]

2012 World Press Photo of the Year

The winning photo was taken inside a mosque in Sanaa, Yemen, that was being used as a field hospital by demonstrators against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. It's an extraordinarily powerful image, showing a woman holding a wounded relative in her arms.

1,000 Rally at Meeting over Two Dozen School Closings

More than one thousand students, parents, teachers and Occupy Wall Street protesters rallied in New York City on Thursday at a vote over the closing of two dozen public schools. The protesters, under the umbrella group Occupy the DOE, tried to stop the vote from happening. Using the human microphone, the protesters disrupted the meeting at times but were unsuccessful in stopping the closing of 23 schools. New York public school teacher Brian Jones and high school student Tafador Saurov helped organize the protests.

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This just in from Andrew Metcalf. Around 150 or so Occupy members were protesting outside of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this evening when hotel security came outside with shields to keep the group away from the hotel.

Emily Crockett of Campus Progress was standing right next to Andrew (Metcalf) and began filming. (Thanks, Emily!)

The Occupy protesters are repeatedly chanting "Hey, hey! Ho, Ho! CPAC has got to go!" Suddenly, Andrew Breitbart jumps out from behind some shrubs and decides to take it upon himself to take the occupiers to task, and starts shouting "Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Behave yourself!" Before security escorts him away he continues screaming "Behave yourself! You're freaks! You're freaks and animals! Stop raping the people! You freaks! Stop raping the people!"

In response the occupiers start chanting "Racist! Sexist! Anti-gay! Rightwing bigot, go away!" As Breitbart disappears in the distance, you can hear a soft little female voice say "I've never raped anyone in my life!"

That's Andrew Breitbart, always on his best behavior.

[I'm sharing this note from Michael Moore]

Friends,

On this day 25 years ago, in 1987, I became a filmmaker. It was around ten in the morning and the first-ever roll of Kodak 16mm film for my first-ever movie was loaded into my friend's camera to shoot the very first scene of 'Roger & Me.' I had no idea on that morning in Flint, Michigan what my life would be like after that, or what would happen to Flint, or to General Motors. It all felt fairly ominous, though -- after all, GM, which was posting record profits at the time, was closing its first Flint factory (the first of what would become many) and unemployment in Flint had officially been listed as high as 29%. Surely things couldn't get much worse.

That morning, 25 years ago today, a group of autoworkers had come together on the lawn of the soon-to-be-closed Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac assembly plant to raise their voices against the closing -- and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Great Flint Sit-Down Strike, which had begun at that very factory. That strike, in 1936-37, was actually an occupation. Hundreds of workers took over the factories in Flint and refused to leave for 44 days until GM capitulated and recognized their union. The strike inspired thousands of other workers across the country to stage their own occupations and, before you knew it, in the years to follow, factory workers were paid a living wage, with benefits, vacations, and a safe working place.

The middle class and the American Dream were born 75 years ago today, on February 11, 1937, the day the Flint workers won their struggle. And for the next 44 years, working people everywhere got to own their own homes, send their kids to college and never worry about going broke if they got sick. That belief, that life would be good if you were a good citizen and a hard worker, now seems out of reach for nearly half the country which is either living in or near poverty. Perhaps people wouldn't mind it as much if the burden were being evenly shared. But everyone knows that's not the case. In a time of record personal bankruptcies, record home foreclosures, record family and student debt, there are a group of people having the best years of wealth and profit ever recorded in human history. And it is those very people who have made the decisions to export our jobs, to decimate unions, to make college unaffordable, to start wars and to pay themselves with gluttonous joy while paying little or no tax -- this is the 1% that has created the burden so many Americans (and people around the world) now share.

And so, 75 years after the victory in Flint, the battle is now being fought all over again. But this time it's not just about getting paid a dollar an hour, or having Sunday off, or reducing the chance of your hand being crushed in the metal stamping machine. This time, the stakes are even greater: Who is going to own America and control the basic functions of our democracy -- the richest 1% who buy the politicians to get what they want, or the 99% who don't have much these days and live in anxiety or fear of what's around the bend.

I believe that justice will win out again, in the end, just as it did 75 years ago today in Flint in 1937.

I have no special plans to mark this day of anniversaries other than to post a short story I wrote called 'Gratitude.' You may have read it in my book, but if not, here it is to freely download and enjoy:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/gratitude

If you'd like to hear me read it in my own voice, click here:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/gratitude-audio

It tells, in part, the story of that day I first placed that roll of Kodak film into a movie camera. I am proud of the town I was born in, and I'm proud of my uncle who participated in the Sit-Down Strike. I am grateful to those of you who have gone to my movies over the years, and I thank all of you who have been inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement to speak up on behalf of the 99%.

There's no turning back now. Onward!

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com
@MMFlint
MichaelMoore.com