via Sarah Jaffe:

To make a mess that another person will have to deal with—the dropped socks, the toothpaste sprayed on the bathroom mirror, the dirty dishes left from a late-night snack—is to exert domination in one of its more silent and intimate forms. -Barbara Ehrenreich, in “Made to Order,” an essay from the anthology Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, co-edited with Arlie Russell Hochschild

[This quote is] relevant to an argument I just had about “disruptive” protest at Walmart in supposed solidarity with the Black Friday strikes. Picket, protest, march and rally all you want, hold a sit-in, but please, before you do things like deliberately create a mess in the store or leave a full cart in the checkout line, consider who’s going to have to clean up the mess that you make. It’s not going to be Rob Walton or any of the other multibillionaires. It won’t even be the assistant manager. It’ll be the same low-wage worker who maybe wanted to go on strike but wasn’t quite convinced, or who was threatened by their boss, who’s working an extra-long shift on the worst shopping day of the year.

Solidarity doesn’t mean you decide for yourself what is best for the workers. It means showing up in the ways they need and want you to and letting them decide how to build worker power.

We ask you to reflect on the statement issued by workers and Making Change at Wal-Mart as you plan your Black Friday solidarity action:

Across the country, Wal-Mart employs 1.4 million people. We are not just the Associates that you see in stores, we are moms and dads, sons and daughters, husbands and wives working hard to support our families.

We have been speaking out for good jobs with decent pay, regular hours, affordable healthcare and respect, but instead of working with us to make changes, Wal-Mart has attempted to silence us and has retaliated against us for speaking out. Our jobs have been threatened, our hours cut, our schedules changed. Some of us have even been fired.

We will not be silenced. Throughout the holiday season, including Black Friday, we will be standing up for an end to the retaliation against workers who speak out for what’s right for our families, our communities and our country, and we hope that you will stand with us. It is not an easy decision, but without an end to the retaliation, Wal-Mart workers across the country will be walking off the job in protest, and we hope you will join us in creative, non-violent action in solidarity with our strike. We ask that supporters take action that spreads the word about our strikes and demonstrates to Wal-Mart a wave of support for workers who are speaking out.

Together, we are calling on Wal-Mart to end the retaliation against hard-working employees who are courageously speaking out for better pay, fair schedules and more hours, affordable health care and respect.

We will not be silenced until we see real change at Wal-Mart.

Sincerely, OUR Wal-Mart Workers

Editors note: Please consider supporting the Wal-Mart Strikers Food Fund

[Via]

New from the folks at Moveon.org:

First, Donald Trump demanded that President Obama show his birth certificate, repeating a racist conspiracy theory that Obama isn't really American. Then Trump wanted to see his academic transcripts, implying that he got into Harvard because he's black. And on Election Night, Trump accused President Obama of essentially stealing the election and called for a "revolution."

So why does Macy's have a special deal to promote Donald Trump's line of clothes, including a major holiday season TV ad campaign? Macy's should not continue to allow this kind of racism by association with their family brand.

It's time for Macy's to tell Donald Trump: "You're fired."

Click here to sign the petition urging Macy's to dump Trump.

[F-bomb warning, NSFW]

Olivier Desbarres was fired from his job as a senior Singapore-based banker at Barclays after a video surfaced of him berating and threatening a group of construction workers who were on a job near his home, The Wall Street Journal reports. Desbarres must have had a really bad day at the bank to verbally assault and threaten the innocent workers, as I would hate to think this was his usual demeanor!

The Times has a part of the transcript:

"I’m gonna go after you. I’m gonna burn your f..cking house down."

"You have no respect. You know what ? You’re f..cking animals. Chinese f..cking animals... I have a life. I have a family. You break that, I will find your f..cking family. I can find it very easily - I’m a man with resources."

Once he realizes that he's being filmed, the former trader shouts:

"You’re filming me ? You think that’s good ? Put your f..cking phone down because I’m going to wait for you to come out and take that phone and shove it up your f..cking ass."

Unison Construction, the firm whose workers were threatened, filed a police report after the incident, a spokeswoman for the firm said. The Singapore Police Force is investigating, a police spokesman said.

The bad publicity comes at an inconvenient time for Barclays, as they are currently facing investigations for corruption as well as interest rate-rigging.

I must say, kudos to the creator, Jonathan Mann, for speed! Video probably not suitable for small children, because kids really love Sesame Street, and all the characters get "fired" in the video. The terrified faces of little ones that Mitt Romney would pick up to hold on the campaign trail are all making sense now...

Your morning open thread begins below.

Mitt Romney has stated publicly that he likes being able to fire people. But Big Bird? Yes Big Bird was put on notice, as was the debate moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS and the entire PBS network.

Debate moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS asked each candidate to describe the difference between his plan to attack the deficit and his opponent’s.

“I’m glad you raised that,” Romney said. “I think it’s frankly not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in, knowing that those burdens are going to be passed on to the next generation. They’re going to be paying the interest and the principal all their lives, and the amount of debt we’re adding -- at a trillion a year -- is simply not moral.”

Cutting the deficit, said Romney, can be done by cutting taxes, cutting spending and growing the economy. And finally, after being accused continually of failing to give specifics about things like which loopholes he would close in the tax code to offset the tax reductions he’d like to make, Romney spelled out some cuts he’d enforce. “Obamacare is on the list,” Romney said. “I apologize, Mr. President. I used that term with all respect.”

If Romney was trying to throw Obama onto the defensive, it didn’t work. “I like it,” the president interjected.

“OK, good. So I get rid of that.”

Then, looking at moderator Lehrer, Romney said, “I’m sorry, Jim, I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS…. I like PBS, I love Big Bird -- I actually like, you too -- but I am not going to keep spending money on things [we have] to borrow money from China to pay for.”

Romney vowed to return the control of some federal government programs to states, though he didn’t specify which programs, and reduce the number of government agencies and departments, and the number of federal employees, though he hastened to add that would be through attrition.

And finally, he slapped at the president for promising to reduce the deficit and instead presiding over a massive increase.

“The president said he’d cut the deficit in half,” Romney said. “Unfortunately, he doubled it -- trillion-dollar deficits for the last four years. The president has put in place almost as much debt held by the public as all presidents combined.”

Whoa...Mitt Romney needs to spend a little more time with his budget reports. It seems that Romney not only likes to fire people, he seemed to really enjoy tossing out bogus "facts." The statement above on the deficit and public held debt? Romney’s claim is close to true, though he’s using a different debt measure than the one his party used at his nominating convention. On the day Obama took office, the total public debt was $10.6 trillion, according to the Treasury Department’s website. Today, it’s $16.2 trillion. That $5.6 trillion increase is a bit more than half of the debt incurred by the chief executives who preceded Obama in the White House. Looking only at the debt held by the public, the measure quoted by Romney, Obama has added about $5 trillion while the presidents who came before him ran up a $6.3 trillion tab.

Of course, a truly honest debate over the deficit and debt reduction can't be had without mention of the pattern of obstructionism on the part of the Republican congress, largely influenced by Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan:

Mr. Ryan’s enormous influence was apparent last summer when Representative Eric Cantor, the second most powerful House Republican, told Mr. Obama during negotiations over an attempted bipartisan “grand bargain” that Mr. Ryan disliked its policy and was concerned that a deal would pave the way for Mr. Obama’s easy re-election, according to a Democrat and a Republican who were briefed on the conversation.

When President Obama pointed out that Ryan’s budget plan offers a “deeply pessimistic” vision for America that would cut crucial investments in the middle class and jeopardize health care for seniors, Ryan took the criticism personally and said it “definitely damage[d]” the chances that he’d accept a bipartisan grand bargain on debt reduction.

And back to Big Bird, someone in the Twitterverse responded to Romney's threat to terminate the beloved Sesame Street Character by creating a @FiredBigBird account, which, as of this writing had almost 23,000 followers.

Facebook users chimed in too, with someone creating a page called "Big Bird for President."

Portland, Ore., resident Sam Chapman responded to the buzz by creating an indiegogo.com campaign to "Save Big Bird." All funds from the campaign go to PBS, according to the indiegogo site. "Let's show PBS some love," the webpage read.

A new anti-Romney PAC ad features a man who worked at a paper plant in Marion, Indiana recalls the day all three shifts at the profitable manufacturer were ordered to stop what they were doing, and build a 30-foot stage inside the warehouse. Later, a group of men in suits walked up onto the stage to tell them that their plant was closed, and that they were all fired.

The "suits" were Mitt Romney's Bain Capital.

Romney made over $100 million by shutting down the plant. A small community was devastated.

"Turns out that when we built that stage, it was like building my own coffin, and it just made me sick."

From Jasiri X:

I was in Madison, Wisconsin when the citizens took over the statehouse and it was one of the most amazing events I've witnessed. I saw firsthand the power of regular people coming together in unity to fight back against corrupt politicians and corporate influence. I'm honored to add my voice to this historic campaign to recall Scott Walker and rebuild Wisconsin.

"You're Fired" was directed by Paradise Gray and stars Silas Russell as "Scott Walker"

LYRICS
Yeah, it's time for a Recall
Untied we stand divided we fall
We tired of being treated like we small
You forgot you work for us and we the boss

So let's tell Scott Walker you're fired
Go clean out ya desk cause you're fired
Cash that last check cause you're fired
You don't wanna show us respect now you're fired

Continue reading »

[A scene from "Roger & Me," some language may not be suitable for work.]

Tonight, Tuesday, April 24th, the Film Society of Lincoln Center (the group that presents the New York Film Festival each year) will be having a special screening of Michael Moore's first film, 'Roger & Me.' The film festival turns 50 this year, and to celebrate, they've chosen a handful of films from the over one thousand that they've shown to present at their theater at Lincoln Center, the Walter Reade. Showtime is 8:00 PM and the screening is open to the public (if you happen to be in the New York City area). For more information click here:

It may be “halftime in America,” but for the once prosperous GM town of Flint, Michigan, the game ended long ago. In his explosive—and explosively funny—debut feature, Michael Moore returns to Flint (where he grew up in better times) in the wake of massive layoffs at the local auto factories and surveys the damage with his signature mix of razor-sharp satire and profound compassion. His primary objective: to land an interview with elusive GM chairman Roger B. Smith. But along the way, Moore introduces us to an unforgettable cast of eccentric locals, including a woman who sells rabbits as “pets or meat” and Flint native son Bob “Newlywed Game” Eubanks. The first of Moore’s always prescient investigations of business-as-usual in America, Roger & Me feels as relevant in the “Occupy” era as it did 23 years ago.

“A phenomenal film debut... Moore fails to convince the chairman to visit Flint, but triumphantly succeeds in exploring the dark irony of a city where the Miss America parade shows the beauty queen waving at boarded-up storefronts and the homeless lining the streets.” —NYFF27 program note

“Mr. Moore makes no attempt to be fair. Playing fair is for college football. In social criticism, anything goes, as it goes triumphantly in Roger and Me.” —Vincent Canby, The New York Times