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“Crabs In A Bucket” As An Analogy For Modern Human Society

<p><a href="http://cdn11.trueactivist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/crawfish-777737_640.jpg"><img alt="crawfish-777737_640" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-38452" height="300" src="http://cdn11.trueactivist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/crawfish-777737_640-400x300.jpg" width="400" /></a>Sometimes it helps to use metaphors to describe the current situations that we are living under to help people see what is right in front of them. The violence and twisted mentality that consumes many cultures around the world is difficult for someone to notice when they have grown up around it, and know nothing else.</p>
<p>Recently I came across an extremely interesting concept that does a really good job at depicting the current mentality that many people have in their personal relationships as well as their business and political ventures.</p>
<p>That is the “crab mentality” which looks at the world as a zero sum game, where there is no such thing as a mutually beneficial exchange. Every situation has winners and losers with this world view, and everyone is out to make someone else a loser. In reality, there are solutions that people can come to without getting hostile with one another, that leads to an outcome where everyone involved is better off than they were before.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality" target="_blank">According to a Wikipedia entry:</a></p>
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<p>Crab mentality is a phrase popular among Filipinos, and was first coined by writer Ninotchka Rosca, in reference to the phrase crabs in a bucket It describes a way of thinking best described by the phrase “if I can’t have it, neither can you.” The metaphor refers to a pot of crabs. Individually, the crabs could easily escape from the pot, but instead, they grab at each other in a useless “king of the hill” competition which prevents any from escaping and ensures their collective demise. The analogy in human behavior is that members of a group will attempt to “pull down” (negate or diminish the importance of) any member who achieves success beyond the others, out of envy, conspiracy or competitive feelings.</p>
<p>The concept figures prominently in Terry Pratchett‘s novel “Unseen Academicals.” A fish monger does not bother to keep a lid on the crab bucket because “any that tries to get out gets pulled back.” The protagonist comes to realize that his social status results not from external repression, but from his own low expectations of himself: “The worst of it is, the crab that mostly keeps you down is you.”</p>
<p>This term is broadly associated with short-sighted, non-constructive thinking rather than a unified, long-term, constructive mentality. It is also often used colloquially in reference to individuals or communities attempting to improve their socio-economic situations, but kept from doing so by others attempting to ride upon their coat-tails or those who simply resent their success.</p>
<p>The popularity of the phrase has made accusing opponents of crab mentality a common form of defense against criticism, whether the criticism is valid or not. In logic, this tactic is considered a common logical fallacy known as argumentum ad invidiam, or appeal to envy.</p>
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<p>This mentality is probably relevant to almost anyone’s life, as we can see it all around us, especially in the social institutions that hold us hostage. Most people look at their everyday encounters as if they were all zero sum games, where they can only get ahead by knocking someone else down.</p>
<p>Isn’t it possible for everyone to just do their own thing, and use their intellect to work things out when they get in each other’s way? This seems like a far safer and more productive way of doing business than we see today, where many people think that they only way to get ahead is to cut others down. The mainstream culture has yet to catch onto this concept, but that doesn’t mean that we have to stagnate with them. In our everyday encounters, business interactions and especially our conflicts, we can take the high road by using our intellect to meet our needs without violating the rights of others.</p>
<p>Even in today’s world, with seemingly limited resources we can still all get by without slaughtering each other and stirring up trouble.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jgvibes" target="_blank">John Vibes</a> writes for True Activist and is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war.</p>
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activism knowledge news “Crabs In A Bucket” As An Analogy For Modern Human Society

Sometimes it helps to use metaphors to describe the current situations that we are living under to help people see what is right in front of...

Exarchia, The Town In Athens Greece That Is Keeping The Government Out And Starting Anew

<p><a href="http://cdn9.trueactivist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/exarchia.jpg"><img alt="exarchia" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-38437" height="219" src="http://cdn11.trueactivist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/exarchia-400x219.jpg" width="400" /></a>As the economic and political systems continue to crumble and collapse in Greece, a district in Athens is growing in strength and independence after large numbers of individuals began to keep the government out and empower their own community.</p>
<p>Although Exarchia is in the shadow of the country’s capital city, it has become a hotbed of freedom and mutual aid programs during a dark time for the whole country. Due to the rising freedom in the area, people from all over have begun to move in and help to build the community.</p>
<p>The mainstream media has demonized the community and has painted it as a stronghold for anarchists, drug dealers, criminals and homeless people, and the community has become understandably resistant to the mainstream media as a result. The media, the police, and government officials are not welcome in the territory and are rarely brave enough to pass through, knowing that the community is united and defiant in their resistant to the establishment.</p>
<p>Exarchia is one of the most common areas where people will resist police brutality with force, and it is also one of the most active areas of the country in terms of activism. The walls of the streets are covered with posters, writing and graffiti that is distinctly political and anti-state.</p>
<p>In 2008, police killed a young boy in Exarchia sparking massive protests and riots, and since that incident, police have avoided the area, knowing that they are not welcome.</p>
<p>There are a wide variety of cooperatives and independent social welfare and mutual aid organizations in Exarchia, including time banks and free health care services that are voluntarily funded without any taxation.</p>
<p>One thing that is most interesting about what we have witnessed so far is that the actual behavior of people in the midst of economic and societal collapse is nothing like the popular “every person for themselves” scenario that is often touted by mainstream thinkers who have a very cynical and distorted view of what is truly inside people’s hearts.</p>
<p>In these desperate situations where people’s compassion and ingenuity has been tested, communities have come together on their own accord, without any authority telling them what to do and they have worked side by side nonviolently, in mutually beneficial exchanges that made all parties involved better off.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jgvibes">John Vibes</a> writes for True Activist and is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter-culture and the drug war.</p>
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activism knowledge news Exarchia, The Town In Athens Greece That Is Keeping The Government Out And Starting Anew

As the economic and political systems continue to crumble and collapse in Greece, a district in Athens is growing in strength and independen...

Hackers release data of millions of Ashley Madison cheating site users

<div class="article__summary summary"><img alt="© ashleymadison.com" class="" height="266" src="http://cdn.rt.com/files/2015.08/original/55d3de26c46188930a8b45d0.jpg" width="479" /></div>
<div class="article__summary summary">A group of hackers who threatened to release sensitive data about millions of Ashley Madison cheating website users last month have apparently fulfilled their promise after the site’s owner refused to take the resource “offline permanently in all forms.”</div>
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<p>A massive dump of data just short of 10 gigabytes was released on the dark web on Tuesday by the Impact Team group claiming to be behind the scandalous Ashley Madison hack. The data appear to include sensitive customer information, such as payment transaction and credit card details, emails, names, addresses, phone numbers and member profiles.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.rt.com/news/310235-dating-ashley-madison-hacked/" target="_blank">READ MORE: Sexual fantasies exposed: Online cheating site Ashley Madison hacked, 37mn users affected</a></strong></p>
<p>Although the leaked data did not include full credit card details and billing information, the hack is still a major embarrassment to Avid Life Media Inc., which owns the site, and some 38 million of its users whose private data was exposed.</p>
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<p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Ashley Madison data has allegedly been dumped (still verifying). Also this re <a href="https://twitter.com/haveibeenpwned">@haveibeenpwned</a>:<a href="http://t.co/rLvlBMwRhQ">http://t.co/rLvlBMwRhQ</a><a href="http://t.co/xgqAIO6WHg">pic.twitter.com/xgqAIO6WHg</a></p>
<p>— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) <a href="https://twitter.com/troyhunt/status/633741074545033217">August 18, 2015</a></p>
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<p>While the passwords released are hashed, according to Wired, hackers may still eventually crack the easier ones, gaining access to user’s private correspondence if the account is still online.</p>
<p><em>“Time’s up!”</em> the Impact Team wrote in the introduction to the leak, apparently referencing to Avid Life Media’s decision to keep the website online reassuring their users of increased security measures instead.</p>
<p><em>“It was ALM that failed you and lied to you,”</em> the group added. <em>“Prosecute them and claim damages. Then move on with your life. Learn your lesson and make amends. Embarrassing now, but you’ll get over it.”</em></p>
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<p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">There are more than 1M unique email addresses attached to payment records in the Ashley Madison dump.</p>
<p>— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) <a href="https://twitter.com/troyhunt/status/633798260985978881">August 19, 2015</a></p>
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<p>Although it is unknown how much of the personal data is legit, given that people seeking an affair would likely fill out a profile with fake details, the hack is still expected to result in massive public outcry and embarrassment.</p>
<p>Online security analysts and social media users scanning through the leaked database have, for example, already noticed an email address which appears to belong to former UK PM Tony Blair, but since the affair website does not require email address verification some noted that anyone could have used it to set up a fake account.</p>
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<p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">awkward? <a href="http://t.co/xxrWgMOhpB">pic.twitter.com/xxrWgMOhpB</a></p>
<p>— zerohedge (@zerohedge) <a href="https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/633753110490419204">August 18, 2015</a></p>
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<p>Meanwhile ALM has acknowledged they know about the release of <em>“more of the stolen data,”</em> the company said in an email to Ars Technica.</p>
<p><em>“We are actively monitoring and investigating this situation to determine the validity of any information posted online… furthermore, we will continue to put forth substantial efforts into removing any information unlawfully released to the public, as well as continuing to operate our business.”</em></p>
<p>The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Ontario Provincial Police along with the FBI are investigating the hack, the company said, admitting the bureau’s involvement for the first time.</p>
<p><em>“This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality,”</em> the company added, emphasizing that they are cooperating with authorities to hold the perpetrators accountable to the <em>“strictest”</em> measures of the law. <em>“The criminal, or criminals, involved in this act have appointed themselves as the moral judge, juror, and executioner, seeing fit to impose a personal notion of virtue on all of society.”</em></p>
<p>( Via Rt.com )</p>
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anon anonymous news Hackers release data of millions of Ashley Madison cheating site users

A group of hackers who threatened to release sensitive data about millions of Ashley Madison cheating website users last month have apparen...

200 Cities Protest Corruption In Brazil, Saying "Dilma Must Go"

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<h2>200 Cities Protest Corruption In Brazil, Saying "Dilma Must Go"</h2>
<span>200 Cities Protest Corruption In Brazil, Saying "Dilma Must Go"</span>
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<div>This article originally appeared on <span><a href="http://www.guardiannews.com/" rel="nofollow">The Guardian</a></span></div>
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<p>Tens of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets in cities across the country on Sunday to protest against President Dilma Rousseff.</p>
<p>Angered by a massive, unfolding corruption scandal, an economy mired in recession and harsh austerity measures, many of the protesters called for the president’s impeachment.</p>
<p>In São Paulo, an anti-government event drew around 135,000, <a href="http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2015/08/1669471-protesto-contra-dilma-reuniu-135-mil-em-sao-paulo-mostra-datafolha.shtml" rel="nofollow">according to Datafolha</a>, a polling institute. Though significant, the numbers were down on a similar event in the city in March this year, which attracted 210,000.</p>
<p>In Brasília, police numbered the crowd at around 25,000. Demonstrations took place in more than 200 cities, including Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Salvador.</p>
<p>In Rio de Janeiro, thousands marched along Copacabana’s Avenida Atlântica, many dressed in the yellow and green of the Brazilian football team. The crowd followed six mobile sound-systems, each commandeered by a different protest movement, loudly broadcasting a mixture of anti-government speeches and music.</p>
<p>According to the newspaper <a href="http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2015/08/1669434-fora-sp-e-rio-dados-do-planalto-indicam-cerca-de-200-mil-nas-ruas.shtml" rel="nofollow">O Folha de São Paulo</a>, which cited anonymous government sources, around 200,000 took part in the marches, excluding those in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo – fewer than the government had feared.</p>
<p>In the shade of one of the few trees along the route, Marcia Regina, 55, a teacher from Rio’s Northern Zone, took a break from hammering banners bearing anti-government messages on to wooden poles.</p>
<p>“I can’t stand being in a country where I have to pay such high taxes to get nothing whatsoever in return,” she said. “In our health system, we are treated like wild animals. In terms of public safety, we are just treated as statistics. Don’t even talk to me about education. They think we are all stupid.”</p>
<p>With families and friends snapping selfies and socializing under a baking mid-winter sun, the demonstration was good-humored. But the participants were unmistakably angry. Atop one of the sound systems, a man dressed as Captain America reminded the crowd that “this is not Carnival”.</p>
<p>João-Luiz Garcia, 31, an engineer, gathered signatures for a petition to force congress to debate anti-corruption measures. A voter for Rousseff’s predecessor, Lula da Silva, Garcia said he had been sold a dream that Brazil could change.</p>
<p>“What happened was the opposite. Economic power became even more concentrated,” he said. “The people close to the government benefited much more than the rest of the population.”</p>
<p>A minority of the protesters demanded military intervention if the president refused to stand down. Angela Tenorio, 62, a doctor whose televised tirade against the inadequacies of the public health system went viral in 2012, attended the march holding a banner with a picture of Rousseff as the Terminator, under the slogan “Exterminator of the Future.”</p>
<p>“I don’t just want her out of power,” she said. “I want her out of the country. I want the return of the armed forces, because we don’t have politicians, we have thieves. The political parties are criminal factions. The military have to take care of the country.”</p>
<p>The leftwing Partido dos Trabalhadores has been in power for more than 12 years. Many of the demonstrators accused it of institutionalizing corruption.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, one of the party’s founders, José Dirceu, was arrested, suspected of orchestrating a multibillion dollar bribery scandal at the state oil company, Petrobras.</p>
<p>Over the past year, “Operation Car Wash,” a police investigation into corruption at the oil firm, has resulted in the arrests of dozens of leading industrialists. More than 50 politicians, mainly from the ruling coalition, have been accused of involvement in the scheme.</p>
<p>A criminal investigation has also been opened into former president Lula, over allegations of illegal influence-peddling in the years since he left office.</p>
<p>With the economy expected to contract <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/13/news/economy/brazil-economy-recession/" rel="nofollow">around 2%</a> this year, inflation nearing 10% and unemployment rising, anger at the country’s political elite is growing.</p>
<p>The president’s approval rating is in single digits, and a recent survey found that two-thirds of Brazilians wish to see her impeached, despite the fact there is no clear-cut legal case for her removal.</p>
<p>The pro-impeachment lobby in congress is short of the votes it needs to initiate proceedings. Over the past week, Rousseff has strengthened her relationship with the senate president, Renan Calheiros, in a move that could help her avoid impeachment.</p>
<p>Raul Gotlieb, 64, an engineer attending the protest in Rio, said he believed demonstrating widespread popular outrage was key to persuading congress to impeach the president.</p>
<p>As to whether the protests received sufficient support, he said the turnout was better than he expected. “But it’s far less than we should have,” he said. “There should be 40 million people on the streets.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/16/brazil-protests-dilma-rousseff" rel="nofollow">Originally published by The Guardian</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/media_crop/13141/public/medialibrary/150218100037-brazil-economy-780x439.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img alt="" src="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/media_crop/13141/public/medialibrary/150218100037-brazil-economy-780x439.jpg" /></a></p>
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<p>So much for that tough talk about holding Wall Street accountable for its crimes.</p>
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<p>United Auto Workers have led a push for the AFL-CIO to dissolve its relationship with an international police union.</p>
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<p>There has been a surge in homelessness among young people in the U.K., as the real number of homeless is three times higher than the government's "official figures."</p>
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<p>Crisis equals opportunity, for those who are ready to use it.</p>
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<p>People dying in the streets and living under the thumb of institutional racism don't enjoy the privilege of having their voices heard – so if they have to shut down a campaign event to force people to listen, they'll do it.</p>
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<div><span><em>6 days 8 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>This is Kenneth Langone, the founder of Home Depot and a longtime GOP donor. His biggest fear? Income inequality.</p>
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<div><span><em>5 days 10 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<div><span><em>6 days 7 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>Brittany Ferrell has been accused by St. Louis police of causing $5,000 damage to car she kicked as the driver forced her way through demonstrators at Michael Brown anniversary.</p>
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<div><span><em>4 days 8 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>Cody Murray, his father, wife, and four-year-old daughter were all burned by a fireball after methane built up in his pump house and exploded.</p>
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<div><span><em>5 days 10 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>Some of the largest American Catholic organizations have millions of dollars invested in energy companies, from hydraulic fracturing firms to oil sands producers.</p>
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<p>There are more than 1,500 ongoing conflicts raging over water, land, spills, pollution, ill-health, relocations, waste, land grabs, floods and falling water levels.</p>
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<p>Families of Latinos killed by police are pushing for a Brown Lives Matter movement.</p>
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<p>People dying in the streets and living under the thumb of institutional racism don't enjoy the privilege of having their voices heard – so if they have to shut down a campaign event to force people to listen, they'll do it.</p>
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<p>For the 35 years, almost all incentives operating on American corporations have resulted in lower pay for average workers and higher pay for CEOs and other top executives – it's about time that started to change.</p>
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<div><img src="http://www.occupy.com/article/200-cities-protest-corruption-brazil-saying-dilma-must-go" /></div>
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armageddon news revolution 200 Cities Protest Corruption In Brazil, Saying "Dilma Must Go"

200 Cities Protest Corruption In Brazil, Saying "Dilma Must Go" 200 Cities Protest Corruption In Brazil, Saying "Dilma...

How the Obama Administration is Helping Big Bank Felons

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<h2>How the Obama Administration is Helping Big Bank Felons</h2>
<span>How the Obama Administration is Helping Big Bank Felons</span>
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<div>This article originally appeared on <span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/occupy-wall-street_n_1871661.html" rel="nofollow">Huffington Post</a></span></div>
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<p>With the blessing of the White House and the Justice Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-05-15/pdf/2015-11807.pdf" rel="nofollow">is attempting</a> to sneak through a major policy change that would enable big banks convicted of felonies to continue lending through a federal mortgage program, <a href="http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=HUD-2008-0054-0007" rel="nofollow">according to federal records</a> and government officials.</p>
<p>The housing agency wants to quietly delete a requirement for lenders to certify they haven’t been convicted of violating federal antitrust laws or committing other serious crimes. <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/05/15/2015-11807/60-day-notice-of-proposed-information-collection-application-for-fha-insured-mortgages" rel="nofollow">HUD proposed</a> the move on May 15, without detailing the reasoning behind the change. It’s now considering public comment, with an eye towards finalizing the proposal.</p>
<p>Five years after lawmakers and the Obama administration said the Dodd-Frank financial reform law would end the problems caused by banks perceived to be “too big to fail,” HUD's move could represent yet another capitulation from federal officials who want to appear to be tough on Wall Street’s crimes, but don’t want big banks to suffer the consequences typically associated with felony convictions.</p>
<p>The main beneficiaries of the proposal would be JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest bank with more than $2.4 trillion in assets, and Citigroup, the third-largest U.S. bank with $1.8 trillion in assets, <a href="http://www.ffiec.gov/nicpubweb/nicweb/HCSGreaterThan10B.aspx" rel="nofollow">according to Federal Reserve data</a>.</p>
<p>The HUD proposal only came to the public's attention in recent weeks, when three Democratic lawmakers – Rep. Maxine Waters of California and Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts – highlighted the housing agency's plans in a critical letter to HUD Secretary Julián Castro, citing private discussions with agency officials.</p>
<p>Both JPMorgan and Citi pleaded guilty to criminal federal antitrust violations in May, marking the first time in a decade that large American banks have pleaded guilty to criminal charges. But HUD's new proposal, the lawmakers wrote in their letter to Castro, would allow it "to turn a blind eye" to the banks' criminal acts, “putting homebuyers and taxpayers at additional risk.”</p>
<p>The proposed change would also sharply contrast with the way HUD treats low-income Americans who live in federally subsidized housing. Federal rules allow local housing authorities to evict tenants immediately if they're arrested for certain crimes, such as marijuana possession. The accused can lose their homes even if they’re ultimately found not guilty.</p>
<p>“Turning a blind eye to rich and powerful banks that have plead to very serious felonies really marks the worst kind of double standard,” said Runa Rajagopal, a supervising attorney at The Bronx Defenders, a nonprofit firm that represents low-income clients in New York.</p>
<p>Cameron French, a HUD spokesman, said the Obama administration “has taken extraordinary steps to hold lenders accountable for their actions that helped lead to the economic crisis.” He declined to provide further comment until after the department has responded to the lawmakers' letter.</p>
<p>Justice Department spokespeople Nicole Navas and Patrick Rodenbush, Citi spokesman Mark Rodgers and JPMorgan spokeswoman Amy Bonitatibus all declined to comment on the proposed change to the disclosure rules. A representative of the White House Office of Management and Budget, which preliminarily approved HUD’s request, declined to comment.</p>
<p><strong>Reining In Misbehaving Banks After The Financial Crisis</strong></p>
<p>For the last several years, federal prosecutors during the Obama administration have repeatedly helped misbehaving banks avoid many of the consequences of their actions – and have faced stinging criticism from federal lawmakers and public interest groups for failing to demand accountability.</p>
<p>One egregious example came in 2012, when the Justice Department allowed U.K. banking giant HSBC to dodge a criminal indictment – despite evidence that it violated U.S. sanctions and allowed Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and Colombia's Norte del Valle Cartel to launder their drug proceeds through the bank’s U.S. and Mexico units. Drug traffickers laundered at least $881 million through HSBC, according to the Justice Department.</p>
<p>Lanny Breuer, who served as the assistant attorney general for the criminal division at the time, said the so-called “collateral consequences” of forcing HSBC to plead guilty – such as the possibility of the bank losing business and shedding jobs – “were absolutely a factor” in the department’s decision to seek a settlement rather than pursue criminal charges.</p>
<p>In 2013, former Attorney General Eric Holder said the size of big banks made it more difficult for the Justice Department to prosecute them, though he later attempted to walk back that comment after a public outcry.</p>
<p>Since then, the Justice Department has attempted to toughen its stance against banks accused of misconduct. BNP Paribas, the big French bank, pleaded guilty in June 2014 to helping rogue nations evade U.S. sanctions.</p>
<p>And on May 20, JPMorgan and Citi each pleaded guilty to criminal federal antitrust violations for their traders’ participation in what Attorney General Loretta Lynch described as “a brazen display of collusion” in a years-long, trans-Atlantic scheme to manipulate currency markets for profit.</p>
<p>The pleas were heralded as a major coup for federal prosecutors, and the two banks paid a combined $1.5 billion in fines for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act – penalties Lynch said “appropriately reflect the conspiracy’s breathtaking flagrancy, its systemic reach and its significant impact.”</p>
<p>Citi and JPMorgan each told the Securities and Exchange Commission that the pleas were the result of a single employee’s conduct, federal records show. But to Lynch, the guilty pleas “serve as a stark reminder that this Department of Justice intends to vigorously prosecute all those who tilt the economic system in their favor; who subvert our marketplaces; and who enrich themselves at the expense of American consumers."</p>
<p><strong>Guilty Pleas Coincided With New HUD Proposal</strong></p>
<p>As early as October 2014, federal prosecutors had been seeking guilty pleas from big U.S. banks for their currency crimes, according to the news reports. Multiple outlets in February and March said that the Justice Department wanted JPMorgan and Citi to plead guilty to federal antitrust charges.</p>
<p>Citi warned investors on May 11 that a settlement with the Justice Department resolving the currency market allegations “could include a guilty plea on an antitrust charge.” JPMorgan told investors on May 14 that “any resolution acceptable to [the Justice Department] would require that the firm plead guilty to an antitrust charge.”</p>
<p>On May 15 – five days before Citi and JPMorgan entered their guilty pleas – HUD proposed to eliminate its requirement that lenders working with the agency certify they haven't been convicted of non-mortgage related felonies.</p>
<p>HUD oversees the Federal Housing Administration, which insures lenders against losses they’d sustain if borrowers default on their mortgages. First-time homebuyers, borrowers with spotty credit, and those who can’t afford big down payments all benefit from FHA financing because lenders would otherwise charge them much higher rates on their mortgages, or decide not to lend them any money at all.</p>
<p>The agency’s insurance program provides “a huge economic stimulation to the country in the form of home and community development,” according to its own description.</p>
<p>In return for shedding the risk of borrower defaults and promoting easier access to credit, the federal government requires lenders to meet certain standards and uphold certain promises to borrowers and taxpayers. Currently, lenders must submit a certification with every loan application that they haven't been convicted of violating any major crimes in the preceding three years – such as fraud, falsification of records, forgery or making false statements. Lenders also must certify that they haven’t been convicted of violating federal antitrust laws.</p>
<p>A federal judge still needs to accept Citi and JPMorgan’s guilty pleas – but once that occurs, the banks will officially become felons convicted of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. They’d then, seemingly, be unable to make FHA-insured mortgages.</p>
<p>But if HUD removes its requirement for lenders to certify they haven’t been convicted of major crimes, JPMorgan and Citi can continue to participate in the agency’s FHA program – unless the lenders are convicted of mortgage-related misconduct, the Obama administration says.</p>
<p>Yet state and federal authorities have accused Citi and JPMorgan of various mortgage misdeeds in the past. In 2012, the two banks, along with three others, struck a settlement with the housing agency and other authorities that resolved allegations they had illegally robo-signed foreclosure documents and otherwise mistreated distressed borrowers seeking to modify their mortgages in violation of federal rules. They also settled allegations they had defrauded the housing agency.</p>
<p><strong>HUD's Biggest Concern</strong></p>
<p>Despite evidence of the banks' misconduct, government officials and industry executives who pressed for the HUD's policy change said the agency's main concern was expanding access to mortgage credit.</p>
<p>More than a dozen lenders have been ensnared in federal investigations probing whether they defrauded FHA in the wake of the Great Recession, which saw millions of borrowers default on their mortgages. The Obama administration seized on lenders’ certifications, which accompanied loan applications, to claim they had lied to the federal government about the quality of their FHA-insured loans.</p>
<p>Thanks to the False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law that allows the government to recover damages worth three times the actual harm plus additional penalties, the administration recovered billions of dollars in damages – JPMorgan, for example, agreed to pay $614 million last year, and Citi agreed to pay $158 million in 2012.</p>
<p>But the investigations and settlements prompted an industry backlash. Lenders and their representatives in Washington are still arguing that the Justice Department is targeting them over so-called “foot faults,” or minor infractions that played little role in a borrower’s mortgage default.</p>
<p>Significantly for HUD, lenders have also complained that the Justice Department’s investigations and lawsuits have led them to curtail credit. The prospect of additional fines pushed some big FHA lenders, including JPMorgan, to retreat from the market. Others increased their requirements for an FHA-insured mortgage, eschewing the kind of borrower who typically received FHA mortgages in the past. For example, many lenders have demanded higher credit scores.</p>
<p>That response from banks raised concerns among borrower advocacy groups and civil rights organizations that perhaps the Obama administration had gone too far in holding lenders accountable for their mistakes.</p>
<p>Researchers at the Washington-based Urban Institute argue that mortgage lending has become unnecessarily restrictive as a result of Justice Department litigation. It’s now much harder for Americans with mediocre credit to qualify for an FHA mortgage. Some banks, including JPMorgan, have sharply reduced their FHA activity, and consumer groups want to jump-start more mortgage lending.</p>
<p>In a nod to those concerns, federal officials have sought to clarify the guidelines for lenders over the past year, so they won’t fear possible government lawsuits if they continue participating in the government mortgage insurance program.</p>
<p>Justice Department officials informally approved HUD's changes, according to people briefed on the internal government discussions. So did the White House budget office, at least initially. The White House budget office could push HUD to alter its proposal before it's finalized.</p>
<p>But officials at the Justice Department said the new policy didn’t limit their ability to bring future lawsuits under the False Claims Act.</p>
<p><strong>Labor, Consumer and Civil Rights Groups React To The Proposal</strong></p>
<p>In announcing its May proposal, HUD didn’t play up the fact that it wanted to delete the certification requirement. Nor did it explain the rationale for its proposal.</p>
<p>The agency and the White House argued that because the proposed changes didn’t constitute a significant alteration of a regulation or policy, HUD didn’t need to request public comment about the deleted certification requirement, according to people briefed on the internal deliberations. Instead, the agency requested public comment on the new version of the loan application form under the Paperwork Reduction Act, a federal law that aims to minimize the paperwork burden when the government collects information from the public.</p>
<p>But officials at HUD's inspector general were upset they weren’t consulted, people briefed on the discussions said. Marta Metelko, a spokeswoman for HUD's inspector general, declined to comment.</p>
<p>Likewise, traditional Obama administration allies criticized HUD’s seeming gift to Citi and JPMorgan, even though they support the housing agency’s efforts to increase mortgage lending. The Center for American Progress, National Consumer Law Center, and Consumer Federation of America wrote in a joint July 14 letter to HUD that they were concerned that the proposal had been secretly developed and not adequately justified.</p>
<p>In a separate July 14 letter, other prominent groups – including the AFL-CIO, Center for Responsible Lending, NAACP and the National Council of La Raza – urged the housing agency to drop its effort to allow banks convicted of felonies to remain in the government’s mortgage insurance program.</p>
<p>“We oppose any steps that weaken the language or standards for lender disbarment,” the labor, consumer and civil rights groups said.</p>
<p>But David Stevens, a former FHA chief who left the agency to become chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said the existing certification was unnecessary and counterproductive.</p>
<p>First, Stevens said, the form accompanying loan applications is usually completed by low-level loan employees – not executives who are aware of the lender’s various legal issues. “There’s just no way someone signing this certification could have that level of knowledge,” he said.</p>
<p>Second, the consequences of not adopting the housing agency’s proposed changes would ultimately hurt the housing market if major lenders are forced to exit the government lending program.</p>
<p>The criticism against the housing agency for wanting to change the form is “overblown," Stevens said. Kicking out lenders such as Citi and JPMorgan would be an “overstep,” he added.</p>
<p><strong>Guilty Pleas Without Consequences</strong></p>
<p>It would also run counter to the Justice Department's record of striking deals with banks suspected of misconduct. Normally, banks convicted of violating money-laundering laws automatically face federal hearings to determine whether their banking license should be revoked. Yet federal prosecutors have allowed lenders suspected of money laundering to enter into deferred-prosecution agreements, or have charged them with lesser violations, such as failing to report suspicious activity to government authorities, to avoid these hearings, said Brandon Garrett, a professor at the University of Virginia law school and author of the book “Too Big to Jail.”</p>
<p>In just the past six years, the Swiss bank UBS and federal prosecutors have struck two nonprosecution agreements and one deferred prosecution agreement for activities including bid-rigging in the U.S. municipal debt market, manipulating key interest rates, and helping Americans evade their taxes. The bank pleaded guilty to the interest rate charge this year after the Justice Department determined that the bank violated its 2012 non-prosecution agreement. Federal prosecutors said UBS’s currency traders and sales staff deceived clients and conspired to restrain competition in foreign exchange markets.</p>
<p>Other federal agencies have also sought to soften the blow for big banks accused of crimes. Federal securities regulators and the Department of Labor – which oversees managers of private-sector pension plans – have given waivers to criminally charged banks following settlements with federal prosecutors.</p>
<p>In the days leading up to BNP’s June 2014 guilty plea, officials from the Justice and Labor departments discussed the pending settlement, according to emails obtained by Public Citizen, a nonprofit that keeps tabs on the federal government and big business. The group obtained the e-mails under the Freedom of Information Act and shared them with The Huffington Post.</p>
<p>Numerous big banks, including JPMorgan and Citi, have also received multiple waivers from the SEC allowing them to conduct business as usual after striking settlements or pleading guilty to crimes, even after being accused of violating the same rules over and over.</p>
<p>According to federal records, both JPMorgan and Citi requested waivers from the SEC so they could continue quickly selling new shares – a privilege normally reserved for large companies that comply with the law – despite their impending felony convictions. The Justice Department agreed to delay sentencing until after the two banks secured waivers from the Labor Department so their business units could continue managing U.S. pensions, court filings show.</p>
<p>On May 20 – the same day Citi and JPMorgan’s plea agreements were announced – the SEC granted the waivers without public debate. In similar cases, the SEC took weeks to decide on waiver applications.</p>
<p>"It is troubling enough to consistently grant waivers for criminal misconduct. It is an order of magnitude more troubling to refuse to enforce our own explicit requirements for such waivers,” Kara Stein, an SEC commissioner, said in May. “This type of recidivism and repeated criminal misconduct should lead to revocations of prior waivers, not the granting of a whole new set of waivers."</p>
<p>Meanwhile, buried in the banks' plea agreements with the Justice Department were promises from federal prosecutors that they would aid the banks in trying to clean up any fallout from their guilty pleas, removing their sting.</p>
<p>Those promises included a guarantee that the Justice Department, if asked, would advise other federal agencies of the “fact, manner, and extent” of Citi’s and JPMorgan’s cooperation with prosecutors.</p>
<p>In effect, JPMorgan and Citi pleaded guilty to felony criminal charges, but the SEC and the Justice Department are helping them avoid the often debilitating consequences that come with being a felon.</p>
<p><strong>"Two Systems of Justice"</strong></p>
<p>In a report last month, the Democratic staff on the House Financial Services Committee slammed federal regulators for routinely granting big banks exemptions from rules designed to penalize misconduct.</p>
<p>“Neither banks nor their customers are well-served when regulators rubber-stamp their requests for waivers,” the Democrats said in the July 21 report. “Until bad actors in the banking industry have to deal with the collateral consequences of their actions, it is unrealistic to expect bad actors to behave any better.”</p>
<p>Federal authorities have “done little to dispel the sentiment that no one will ever be brought to justice,” the committee's Democratic staff said.</p>
<p>“We’ve got two systems of justice,” said Bartlett Naylor, financial policy advocate for Public Citizen. “The judicial system is pretty harsh on individuals who can’t afford major Wall Street law firms – many of whose partners previously were officials at the Justice Department. But when it comes to criminal banks, we have de facto policies within the Justice Department that protect banks from ... accountability."</p>
<p>In contrast to the federal government’s lenient stance toward banks, HUD oversees public housing authorities and landlords who can be extremely unforgiving of residents accused of crimes, critics of the proposed changes say.</p>
<p>Public housing authorities can evict tenants for suspected criminal activity regardless of whether they've actually been arrested or convicted, according to research published in 2013 in a HUD policy journal.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has taken limited steps toward aiding ex-offenders. Shaun Donovan, the White House budget chief who preceded Castro as housing secretary, in 2011 and 2012 urged public housing authorities and landlords to use their discretion when it came to allowing ex-offenders to reunite with relatives in HUD-subsidized homes.</p>
<p>But researchers writing in the HUD policy journal criticized that approach as lacking, arguing that simply relying on public agencies and landlords to use their discretion “is not necessarily effective."</p>
<p>Tenants accused of wrongdoing are often bullied by property managers into accepting settlements that force them out of the building, said Runa Rajagopal, the attorney from The Bronx Defenders. Rajagopal has represented clients with felony convictions who had to show they were sorry for their past crimes, prove they’d turned their lives around and convince housing authorities that they’ll never again break the law in order to be allowed back into public housing.</p>
<p>Few are successful, she said.</p>
<p>“Vulnerable communities have to jump through all these hoops ... to demonstrate they are worthy of assistance,” Rajagopal said. "They are routinely denied access to public housing, whereas for these banks – we’re going to just give you a pass, just because you’re banks.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-hud-big-banks_55c4f2f2e4b0923c12bcc4b1?2rjrwwmi" rel="nofollow">Originally published by HuffPo</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/medialibrary/55ca47961d00002f001447f8.jpeg" rel="nofollow"><img alt="Too big to fail, Obama administration, Julián Castro, Department of Housing and Urban Development, The Bronx Defenders, the Justice Department, JPMorgan, Citibank, BNP Paribas, Maxine Waters, Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren" src="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/medialibrary/55ca47961d00002f001447f8.jpeg" title="Too big to fail, Obama administration, Julián Castro, Department of Housing and Urban Development, The Bronx Defenders, the Justice Department, JPMorgan, Citibank, BNP Paribas, Maxine Waters, Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren" /></a></p>
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<p>So much for that tough talk about holding Wall Street accountable for its crimes.</p>
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<p>United Auto Workers have led a push for the AFL-CIO to dissolve its relationship with an international police union.</p>
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<p>There has been a surge in homelessness among young people in the U.K., as the real number of homeless is three times higher than the government's "official figures."</p>
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<p>Crisis equals opportunity, for those who are ready to use it.</p>
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<p>People dying in the streets and living under the thumb of institutional racism don't enjoy the privilege of having their voices heard – so if they have to shut down a campaign event to force people to listen, they'll do it.</p>
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<div><span><em>6 days 8 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>This is Kenneth Langone, the founder of Home Depot and a longtime GOP donor. His biggest fear? Income inequality.</p>
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<p>Brittany Ferrell has been accused by St. Louis police of causing $5,000 damage to car she kicked as the driver forced her way through demonstrators at Michael Brown anniversary.</p>
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<p>Cody Murray, his father, wife, and four-year-old daughter were all burned by a fireball after methane built up in his pump house and exploded.</p>
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<p>Across Europe, debt audits are emerging as a key instrument calling austerity policies into question – from the Greek debt crisis to the Spanish Citizen Debt Audit Platform, to the LOBO loan scandal in U.K. councils.</p>
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<p>The company Google recently bid to buy out 'Impossible Foods,' the creator of the "Impossible Cheeseburger" which looks, cooks, and tastes like 'real' meat.</p>
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<p>Recently, Britain's less politically vocal under-25s, whose penchant to not vote has long been the bane of politicians, are gathering political momentum and emerging as a potent voice of opposition to the government.</p>
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<p>By far the greatest beneficiary of fossil fuel donations has been Ted Cruz</p>
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<p>Cody Murray, his father, wife, and four-year-old daughter were all burned by a fireball after methane built up in his pump house and exploded.</p>
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armageddon news revolution How the Obama Administration is Helping Big Bank Felons

How the Obama Administration is Helping Big Bank Felons How the Obama Administration is Helping Big Bank Felons This article origin...

Black Labor Organizers Urge AFL-CIO to Reexamine Its Ties to the Police

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<h2>Black Labor Organizers Urge AFL-CIO to Reexamine Its Ties to the Police</h2>
<span>Black Labor Organizers Urge AFL-CIO to Reexamine Its Ties to the Police</span>
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<div>This article originally appeared on <span><a href="http://truth-out.org/" rel="nofollow">Truthout</a></span></div>
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<p>The rise of the Movement for Black Lives got Brandon Buchanan and some of his fellow graduate student employees in the University of California system thinking. Many of them had taken part in the protests rippling across the country, and the movement had also inspired them to think about what they could do within their own union, United Auto Workers Local 2865, to deal with questions of racism and anti-Blackness close to home.</p>
<p>"To get our voices heard we realized that we needed to come together to form a committee that specifically addressed the needs of Black workers in the union," Buchanan, a graduate student in sociology at UC Davis, told Truthout.</p>
<p>The Black Interests Coordinating Committee was born out of this effort to "call out our fellow union members, and call them in to an anti-racist union," he added. But the committee's members also wanted to have an impact on the broader conversation in the labor movement around racism, police violence and the role of labor in a racial justice movement.</p>
<p>"We were seeing a number of police unions and associations criticizing Black activists for addressing the needs of their communities, and actively working to cover up and dismiss issues of police brutality in their departments," Buchanan said. Most of those police unions are already outside of the major labor federations, but the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA) is a member of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of labor unions. And when members of the Black Interests Coordinating Committee did some reading of IUPA leaders' statements on police killings and the union's website, they found what Buchanan describes as "articles in which questions of Black civilian life were downplayed to the benefit of the police officers' narrative."</p>
<p>UC Davis was the site of one of the most famous images of police brutality in recent years, at least before the National Guard troops rolled into Ferguson, Missouri, a year ago to quell protests over the death of Michael Brown. Pictures and video clips circulated around the world of University of California police officer John Pike casually pointing a can of pepper spray at student protesters seated on the ground and spraying them all, point-blank, in the face. That incident, as well as the acquisition by Davis police of the same kind of mine-resistant armored vehicle that drew attention in Ferguson, helped frame the graduate workers' conversation about the role of the police in suppressing protest.</p>
<p>"They always seem to be out there ready to defend and support the status quo," Buchanan said. "We realized, if we want to begin this conversation, if we want to address the fact that police are inimical to labor broadly and Black workers in particular, then we need to start with this organization."</p>
<p>On July 25, Buchanan presented a letter to the joint council of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2865 calling on the AFL-CIO to end its affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations. "Historically and contemporarily, police unions serve the interests of police forces as an arm of the state, and not the interests of police as laborers," the letter said. "Instead, their 'unionization' allows police to masquerade as members of the working-class and obfuscates their role in enforcing racism, capitalism, colonialism, and the oppression of the working-class." The joint council voted to endorse the call, and the letter was sent to the AFL-CIO's leadership.</p>
<p>They have yet to receive a response from the labor federation, but the IUPA's response in public has been dismissive. Dennis Slocumb, its legislative director, told Workers Independent News, "It's impossible to stand for the rights of working class people while opposing the people in law enforcement. We are working class. And we think this is nothing but a publicity stunt for a group that's struggling for some sort of attention." He also criticized the group for singling out his organization, and stressed that the IUPA doesn't condone illegal actions by police officers.</p>
<p>But the resolution has had at least some of its desired effect already. One goal of the letter, Buchanan said, was to encourage unions to take a stand on issues of racial and economic disparity and to have those conversations out in the open. By pushing the question of the role of police unions to the front, the Black Interests Coordinating Committee and UAW Local 2865 have gotten more people talking about the role police play, both in the labor movement and in the broader society.</p>
<p><strong>Police Unions and Organized Labor: A Strained History</strong></p>
<p>Almost exactly a year ago, after Michael Brown was shot on the street in Ferguson, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka signed a letter to President Obama calling for monitoring of police departments that "too often treat low-income neighborhoods populated by African Americans and Latinos as if they are military combat zones instead of communities where people strive to live, learn, work, play and pray in peace and harmony."</p>
<p>When he spoke at the Missouri state AFL-CIO convention, Trumka told the crowd, "Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown's mother, who works in a grocery store, is our sister, an AFL-CIO union member, and Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Michael Brown, is a union member, too, and he is our brother. Our brother killed our sister's son and we do not have to wait for the judgment of prosecutors or courts to tell us how terrible this is."</p>
<p>In response to Trumka's comments, Sam Cabral, president of the IUPA, accused Trumka of having an "agenda" in speaking out, and wrote, "While there are those in the world that accuse all law enforcement of maintaining an 'us versus them' mentality, you can bet on one thing - so long as they use as a symbol of their movement the man who assaulted and tried to disarm a police officer who was doing his duty - I will be on the other side of that line."</p>
<p>Police unions have long had a tenuous relationship with the rest of the labor movement, though, and in part that is because in the age-old labor cry of "which side are you on?" the police have often been on the side of those trying to break strikes, jail organizers and crack down on public protests. "Many unionists were very loath to think of a policeman as part of labor or to admit police groups into organized labor," said historian Joshua Freeman. "That attitude continues although usually pretty quietly among some unionists to this day. Often, by the way, fairly conservative building trades types, who know that long history."</p>
<p>In other words, it's not simply political conservatism that puts the police on the opposite side from the labor movement - it is the specific social position they occupy as the enforcers of law, an enforcement that Buchanan notes is often quite selective.</p>
<p>Police unions began mostly as fraternal or benevolent associations, many of which date back to the 19th century. They often, Freeman noted, had strong ties to local political machines and were involved in lobbying the legislature for benefits for their members long before collective bargaining was codified into law.</p>
<p>Alex Vitale, a sociologist who studies the police, told Truthout that the insularity that is commonly associated with police culture long predates the establishment of unions as well. Unionization, he noted, played a somewhat interesting role in the steps away from the old corrupt ward-boss appointment system and toward professionalization. "From a police perspective they see it as a form of professionalization: Let the experts on crime-fighting fight crime. We don't want to be pulled one way after each election. We don't want elected officials calling us up to tell us how to treat this victim or this crime problem," he said.</p>
<p>"These unions have never been as bureaucratized as some of the other unions, and I think they more directly reflect a kind of day-to-day mutuality among these workers," Freeman said. "In this regard, police are a lot like construction workers and certain other kinds of workers who face great dangers and whose safety and survival depends upon their bonding with their coworkers. Those groups tend to have enormous levels of solidarity [among their members] and also sometimes to be kind of insular, [with an] inside-outside kind of divide."</p>
<p>The due process procedures and protections that police unions won for their members, though, have helped contribute to that insularity in a way; police union representatives, Vitale notes, play a particular role in advising officers on questions of propriety and the law. The most obvious example of this was in November 2014, when the New York police officer charged with shooting Akai Gurley in a stairwell in the public housing building where Gurley lived reportedly contacted his union rep before reporting the shooting.</p>
<p>"You could have a due process system, but you could place some limits on it so that it looks more like the due process that most workers get," Vitale said. "They've carved out some pretty extraordinary protections for themselves. There are states where if a doctor is accused of malpractice, that's a public document, but if a police officer is accused of misconduct, that's sealed from public scrutiny."</p>
<p>This case also dramatizes the real difference between police and other workers: The former are the ones who carry a gun and are allowed to shoot to kill.</p>
<p><strong>Lessons From Wisconsin and Ohio</strong></p>
<p>In 2011, when the attempts to destroy labor unions for good began in earnest in Wisconsin and then in Ohio, they started with a divide-and-conquer strategy. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union bill that took apart collective bargaining rights for public employees carved out an exception for the state's police and firefighters; while the firefighters notably took part in the protests against the bill anyway (their state union president becoming one of the movement's most visible faces), the police were quieter. Some police unions continued to support Walker through the recall attempt and in his re-election.</p>
<p>Ohio's movement succeeded in overturning the similar bill, in part because it was possible to put the bill itself on the ballot without having to remove Gov. John Kasich, and in part because Kasich made the mistake of including police and firefighters in the bill, pushing them to get involved in a broad labor struggle out of basic self-interest. That move badly backfired on him, as Mike Weinman of the Fraternal Order of Police explained to me in 2012, when the police took a very active role in working with the rest of the labor movement to overturn the bill. "A lot of this stuff was new to us; we hadn't really dealt with this type of issue before, so it's kind of different for us to sit at a table with all these folks," he said. "It worked out pretty well, but there was some apprehension there for a little while."</p>
<p>The coalition was notable in part because it was so rare. As Weinman said, the Fraternal Order of Police is not part of the AFL-CIO; its national constitution forbids it from joining any federation, as it prefers to stand alone. While some police are organized with major unions that are part of a federation - including, it's worth pointing out, the UAW itself - the big police unions have made a point of standing outside of organized labor. The police may be working-class, as the IUPA's Dennis Slocumb said, but they don't seem to see themselves as being like other workers.</p>
<p>Buchanan recalls a recent community forum in Davis around the death of Sandra Bland, a Black woman who died in police custody, when a police officer came to the forum "in full uniform, with weapons." What that demonstrated, he said, was "that the police officer first thought of themselves as a police officer and not a member of a community."</p>
<p>While officials have often carved out special conditions for police officers and firefighters, Freeman noted, there have also been times when they refused to. And there have also been moments when police have been "swept up in a kind of sense of solidarity with the rest of labor and been welcomed." During the great strike wave of 1919, for example, the police in Boston struck and sought to join the AFL. They were supported by labor - and crushed by the federal government. "It was really in the course of that strike that the notion that public employees were different than other workers, in that they threaten the sovereignty of the state if they went on strike, was really developed and of course it lives with us to this day," Freeman added.</p>
<p>The willingness of law-and-order officials (a position that has been bipartisan for decades in the United States) to grant police special treatment is tenuous too, in other words. Vitale notes that many politicians curry favor with police not because they want police votes but as part of "culture-war" politics. "In some ways they're used by these politicians to advance their own political careers," he said, "without actually giving two whits about the well-being of cops on the street."</p>
<p>Roger Toussaint, the former president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100 in New York, wrote in January to remind the police unions how quickly that support can evaporate, and to call on them to "think hard about where their better interest lies and who their true allies are." He wrote, "Having worked to isolate them from the communities they serve as privileged and singing them praises as 'the finest,' 'the bravest,' 'first responders,' they switched up on cops and firefighters, declaring their pensions to be 'unsustainable' and depicting them as undeserving recipients of welfare." But instead, the leadership of the city's police unions, he wrote, was "to the interests of the rich and powerful," even though efforts to diversify the city's unions meant that a lot of police now have children, uncles and friends who look like Eric Garner or other people targeted by the police. He suggested that not just elected officials, but perhaps hardline union leaders as well might not be doing their best by the members.</p>
<p>In this context, Buchanan said, "We recognize that police ... sometimes are workers who make very little money, oftentimes receive very little benefits in terms of the capitalist system that we live in and we want to recognize that, but we're also arguing that despite the fact that in some ways they are materially not supported by society, their job means they are supporting the very system that keeps them in these positions."</p>
<p>There is the question of whether, if the AFL-CIO did disaffiliate itself from the International Union of Police Associations, this might simply further drive the police behind the "thin blue line," increasing their insularity and their sense of victimhood. But to Buchanan, it is more important to consider whether Black people and other marginalized people remain excluded from the labor movement. "I would argue that Black workers who have not taken up this historical insularity and anti-labor action should be made central to our political actions and central to our organizing."</p>
<p>It is unlikely, Vitale said, that by keeping police inside the broader labor movement that they would become part of a social justice movement for change. But by raising the question in a labor context - rather than in an external call to break police unions, which might echo right-wing rhetoric against public sector unions as a whole - the Black Interests Coordinating Committee and UAW Local 2865 offer the police unions the unlikely chance to demonstrate real solidarity. He added, "This isn't to say, 'Police just go on your own.' It is a call out; it is asking, 'What are you doing to center these communities?' If they're not able to do that, that supports our point about the logics of policing."</p>
<p>The problem with the police, in other words, is not that they have unions, but that they are police.</p>
<p><strong>Police Participation in Job Actions</strong></p>
<p>In New York City, after Eric Garner was killed by police officer Daniel Pantaleo, some of the city's unions decided to take a stand. Notably, the United Federation of Teachers endorsed a march protesting Garner's death, despite some anger from its own rank-and-file members (many of whom protested by wearing pro-NYPD T-shirts to the first week of school) and an outraged open letter from Patrolmen's Benevolent Association head Patrick Lynch. Lynch wrote, "It is absolutely ridiculous that [UFT president Michael Mulgrew] ... would waste his members' dues to get involved with a march that has nothing to do with teachers or his union," and demanded to know, "How would he like it if police officers lined up with the activists who oppose his efforts to shield bad teachers and undermine effective charter schools?"</p>
<p>This kind of threat illustrated the idea of solidarity held by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association rather well - demeaning the teachers' union's fight and rhetorically taking the side of its opponents, while implying that his own union's performance of solidarity deserved reciprocity. The police unions, Vitale points out, are part of a municipal labor coalition with the teachers that bargains health benefits with the city, a fact that underlined the tension between the two and is a factor in other unions' decision to speak out against police.</p>
<p>Of course, this is hardly the first time that labor unions have had a major dispute around policy or politics. The biggest current example might be the Keystone XL pipeline, on which major unions are deeply divided - those whose members might get jobs out of the construction of the pipeline in support, while others, like National Nurses United, stand in firm opposition. The difference between the pipeline debate and the police debate, Buchanan told Truthout, is in part that, "These organizations are at least in some way listening to other people in the labor movement; there's a conversation happening around it. There are going to be different views, and I don't think that being completely toe-the-line is all that helpful or realistic. However, being open to reform, being open to addressing those problems is the very least that we can do for each other and I have not seen police unions or police associations take even that step."</p>
<p>New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had campaigned on reforming the police, particularly its "stop-and-frisk" practices (which, like all police policies, were enforced from the top rather than instituted by the rank and file), and spoke out in response to Garner's death, angering the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and the other police unions. But after two NYPD officers were shot and killed in December, after the mayor mentioned having to teach his biracial son, Dante, to take special care around police officers, NYPD officers engaged in what looked an awful lot like a slowdown. Arrests for minor offenses dramatically declined, ironically giving police reform advocates exactly what they'd asked for - a decline in "broken windows"-style policing of the kinds of small infractions that drew the attention of police to Garner in the first place.</p>
<p>The NYPD, of course, was not doing so in solidarity with the community activists, and denied that there was a job action at all. But, Freeman noted at the time, the police were engaged in what leftists within the labor movement often wish unions would do more of. "There's a great deal of solidarity, a great deal of projecting of values, and they're very militant," he said. There have been other strikes in the city where the interests of workers were pitted against the interests of the community, like the 1968 teachers' strike, where the mostly white United Federation of Teachers had challenged the mostly Black community school board in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn (a history that was evoked by both the United Federation of Teachers' decision to take part in the Garner march and the backlash by mostly white teachers against it). "There are these moments where the whole issue of labor power versus the needs of the whole society comes up," Freeman said, "and often that comes up as glib, right-wing, self-interested blather, but I think right now we do need to think about that."</p>
<p>Some of the worst qualities of police unions are not unlike some of the worst qualities of non-police unions - shortsighted bargaining on behalf of their members only at the expense of other members of society. But, Freeman noted, police can often get away with things that other workers can't; during the 1970s fiscal crisis, he said, police threw massive demonstrations blocking the Brooklyn Bridge. "There's a little bit of a sense of greater license that they have as well," he said. "Who's going to take them on?"</p>
<p><strong>Anti-Racist Commitments in the Labor Struggle</strong></p>
<p>In contrast with both the 1960s teachers' strikes in New York and the 2015 police demonstrations, the Chicago Teachers Union, during its strike in 2012, explicitly aligned itself with the students and the broader community, challenging school closures they called racist and bringing an intersectional awareness of the inequality that Chicago residents faced. That kind of social movement unionism is much closer to what Buchanan and the Black Interests Coordinating Committee want to see going forward, with unions actively bringing anti-racism to their struggles.</p>
<p>UAW Local 2865 has members who, like some members of the United Federation of Teachers, have family and friends who are in law enforcement and are worried that they might alienate potential members with their stance on ousting the International Union of Police Associations. "Our central response to that was this wasn't about individual people being bad," Buchanan said. "There are lots of people who are working this job and want to keep people safe and individuals who think that they're doing good work. That's what we're uniquely placed as a union to address. Our perspective should be one of broad societal institutions rather than what neoliberalism encourages us to do, which is to think of ourselves as unique individuals who make choices."</p>
<p>The argument that Local 2865 is making relies on an explicitly anti-capitalist analysis, one that sees the purpose of the labor movement not just to bargain better contracts for its workers but to struggle for a just society, beyond exploitation. They hope that the labor movement can have a conversation that is intersectional, and that understands struggles for Black liberation, queer liberation and women's liberation as part of the economic and labor struggle. In that vein, they call for abolition of the police as an institution, a statement that Buchanan said also raised some questions among the membership. "When we talk about abolition we can discuss what that looks like," he said. "If the police are addressing police brutality, if they are addressing anti-Blackness, if they don't rely on those things to uphold what is considered law and order, they wouldn't look like the police we know."</p>
<p>Moving forward, Buchanan added, they are planning a forum for labor activists to discuss police unions, and whether they can or should be reformed or included. Representatives of the Black Interests Coordinating Committee have been in contact with other graduate student workers and other union members who are interested in putting forth their own resolutions, and they're working with other members of the Movement for Black Lives on future actions. And, of course, they await a response from the AFL-CIO leadership.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, Buchanan said, "If police were to excise police brutality and anti-Blackness from their institution, I think we'd be having a very different conversation. And that's also a conversation that I would be happy to have."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32342-black-labor-organizers-urge-afl-cio-to-reexamine-its-ties-to-the-police" rel="nofollow">Originally published by Truthout</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/medialibrary/screenshot_2015-04-02-09-32-32-1.png" rel="nofollow"><img alt="" src="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/medialibrary/screenshot_2015-04-02-09-32-32-1.png" /></a></p>
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<p>So much for that tough talk about holding Wall Street accountable for its crimes.</p>
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<p>United Auto Workers have led a push for the AFL-CIO to dissolve its relationship with an international police union.</p>
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<p>There has been a surge in homelessness among young people in the U.K., as the real number of homeless is three times higher than the government's "official figures."</p>
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<p>Crisis equals opportunity, for those who are ready to use it.</p>
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<p>People dying in the streets and living under the thumb of institutional racism don't enjoy the privilege of having their voices heard – so if they have to shut down a campaign event to force people to listen, they'll do it.</p>
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<div><span><em>6 days 8 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>This is Kenneth Langone, the founder of Home Depot and a longtime GOP donor. His biggest fear? Income inequality.</p>
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<div><span><em>5 days 10 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<div><span><em>6 days 7 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>Brittany Ferrell has been accused by St. Louis police of causing $5,000 damage to car she kicked as the driver forced her way through demonstrators at Michael Brown anniversary.</p>
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<div><span><em>4 days 8 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>Cody Murray, his father, wife, and four-year-old daughter were all burned by a fireball after methane built up in his pump house and exploded.</p>
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<div><span><em>5 days 10 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>People dying in the streets and living under the thumb of institutional racism don't enjoy the privilege of having their voices heard – so if they have to shut down a campaign event to force people to listen, they'll do it.</p>
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<p>Some of the largest American Catholic organizations have millions of dollars invested in energy companies, from hydraulic fracturing firms to oil sands producers.</p>
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<p>The company Google recently bid to buy out 'Impossible Foods,' the creator of the "Impossible Cheeseburger" which looks, cooks, and tastes like 'real' meat.</p>
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<p>This is Kenneth Langone, the founder of Home Depot and a longtime GOP donor. His biggest fear? Income inequality.</p>
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<p>Across Europe, debt audits are emerging as a key instrument calling austerity policies into question – from the Greek debt crisis to the Spanish Citizen Debt Audit Platform, to the LOBO loan scandal in U.K. councils.</p>
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<div><img src="http://www.occupy.com/article/black-labor-organizers-urge-afl-cio-reexamine-its-ties-police" /></div>
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armageddon news revolution Black Labor Organizers Urge AFL-CIO to Reexamine Its Ties to the Police

Black Labor Organizers Urge AFL-CIO to Reexamine Its Ties to the Police Black Labor Organizers Urge AFL-CIO to Reexamine Its Ties to ...