Citizen Surveillance on the Rise, Zero Tolerance for First and Fourth Amendments

Surveillance state

Some say the further we travel into the future, the darker it looks for average citizens. With wages for the bottom 90 percent of Americans stagnant and wages for the top 1 percent skyrocketing, I would agree that most Americans are in for a ride—One of those scary rides that keeps flipping you upside down continuously. The opportunity for every American to achieve wealth has dwindled away. That doesn’t mean that we can’t get it back though.

For citizens who just want to have a job, be able to pay off their student loans, to drink safe water and food, indulge in whatever intoxicants they please and not have their private data used against them, you are out of luck (for now). Maybe some time in the far future we can return to a United States that valued the 1st and 4th Amendment, but for now our path is headed to an increasingly more surveillanced, bleak and austeriy-driven state. The trend towards a police state is become increasingly disturbing. What’s even more disturbing is seeing so many people ignore the trampling of the 1st and 4th Amendment. They’re quick to dismiss any police officer that may have abused their power in the occupy events. I guess they think that as long as they keep their hair trimmed and take showers twice a day, the police won’t bother them. Hm.

Here’s a look into what happened earlier in October to Occupy Wall Street. Bloomberg and his teams were detaining journalists who were just doing their job. They also trashed the whole camp, destroying any evidence against the state the camp may have had. Not only can the state search, seize and destroy anyone’s property they deem fitting, now journalists cant even report on news if the state says it is too dangerous. Excuse me, but when did journalists need permission to cover news in the first place?

The first of many reasons why I feel we are entering a police state is because of the amount of spying going on in America, by corporations and by governments as a result of the PATRIOT Act. Recently, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, a SWAT team raided the home of prominent Civil Rights Lawyer Barbara Arnwine for reasons unknown (Not the first time prominent civil rights leaders were under scrutiny from the federal government). She said she was trapped in her house at gunpoint for three hours.

Also, take a look at what Germany is doing to their citizens. They’re using Trojan virus to record citizens through their own laptop computers. They’re also saving keystrokes and data. Well, if the government wants to look at a guy’s laptop, be prepared to see a lot of porn and a little bit of terrorism plots. Do you think America is going to remain behind in these Spy Wars? The FBI is also working on technology that can recognize facial structures. This on top of the fact that they are capturing our faces through our own computers’ cameras. Now these companies and the government will have no doubt who we are when presenting evidence to the courts.

More of the taxpayer’s money is being spent on the military industrial complex. Americans have sent drones into six sovereign nations to conduct lethal attacks on citizens (some of them even being American citizens who never received due process). In a time when the Super Committee failed to make the necessary cuts to entitlement programs and add revenue to a stagnant economy, the committee fails to come to a consensus. With the recent failure of the debt committee, the Democratically-controlled 112th Congress made sure they and the Republicans hurried up and passed a $662 billion defense bill to bypass any cuts to the military caused by Obama’s trigger. Way to hold up your end of the bargain folks…

The surveillance of the citizens is on the rise, but there is less surveillance over food contamination. In fact, tens of millions of dollars are being cut from the FDA’s food inspections services. We’ve already seen the worst outbreak of Listeria in 50 years. Do we really need to cut inspection services that so many of us rely on?

The country is also becoming less compassionate of fellow Americans. I’m used to seeing the patriotic videos of Americans coming together in times of stress, but the way things are happening now, we look more like first-graders refusing to share. And if we do have to share, we’ll go home and cry to mom about it. And listening to these Republican debates and seeing the inaction of Democrats in the Senate and the presidency, you would think it was political capital to degrade the poor, middle-class and struggling families. More and more middle-class families are having to cut back just to make ends meet. The dollar just doesn’t make it as far as it used to.

It’s also illegal for undocumented immigrants to have water in Alabama. This is amazing to think about. Can we blame the children of undocumented workers for the actions of their parents? Their parents may have made a bad choice, but what does that say about our country when we remove a basic necessity of life from the children of illegal immigrants. Way to stay classy, Alabama.

The homeless and unemployed are drug tested when applying for heat and cooling assistance without evidence to support that they are predominately drug users. And how crazy is this? To further degrade those who are already struggling and then have them pay for their own embarrassing drug tests? Yeah, tax the struggling, as if they can afford that… I understand the logic of keeping drug abusers and free riders off of welfare and not creating incentives for them to stay on that system, but should we be disarming a known economic stimulus, especially in tough times like these? Plus giving people money that they’ll spend immediately is a known stimulus. Now, welfare and SNAP benefits are not the best ways we should go about bringing an economic recovery, but in times of austerity, every dollar counts. And what about the people who really need a little extra assistance?

In Kansas, domestic abuse services are being cut because they are “too costly” for the state. Not really surprised with this move by Kansas, though. Not too much earlier, the state banned all abortion clinics, even though abortion is legal in the United States. As a result to the “burden” of trying those convicted of domestic abuse, the abuse has become decriminalized.

Where is this country headed? That’s a question that many of us are left wondering during these times of austerity. The last hope we have is freedom on the Internet. It is up to us to expose the crimes of those in power with our phones, computers, interactions with each other, social media and the Internet. The Internet is all we have.

It’s no surprise to see those in power trying to control more and more of our lives through Internet regulation. They know that the Internet is a monster who practices anarchy and if the powers don’t control it soon, they’ll lose. This is why Wikileaks has been under public and governmental scrutiny. The governments and corporations don’t want their dirty business being shared with consumers so of course they’re going to be against Wikileaks. Just take a look at the PIPA and SOPA Acts that will dramatically curb our freedoms if they become law.

Times are changing. Where will each of us stand in the face of adversity? You better answer that question soon because when the time comes, you don’t want to be on the wrong side.

A Message to My Family: Citizens of America and the World

First, I want to thank all that view my blog for giving me your attention. I know that in this crazy world of high taxes, lack of empathy, mean faces, scary climate changes, corrupt politicians and companies, vicious cops and lazy free-riders, it’s difficult to pay any attention to anything that doesn’t immediately benefit you. It’s difficult to pay attention to anything that doesn’t help your situation out immediately, but this is why I try to bring you pertinent information. Through enlightenment there is hope.

I try to bring you to the light and see things from my perspective. I want my fellow humans of the world to see that the conflicts and dark days that we face are no longer a result between of different cultures, countries and people of different hue. Even when the country was torn between races, we got more done as a nation… Today, it’s all about the haves and have-nots. Just take a look around you. Your neighbors are composed of people of different races, age groups, backgrounds and cultures, yet you ALL live in the same place and share the same struggle.

When politicians on the right and left of the spectrum are both being funded by the same corporations and special interests, it’s easy to see that the argument between conservatives and liberals is a front. Politicians, corporations and the elite make their real decisions behind closed doors and leave us with wedge issues. That way we can fight amongst ourselves while they steal the country and we undergo the biggest redistribution of wealth to the top 1% in American history. So Obama, a “liberal,” made a deal with pharmaceutical companies to make sure the public option wouldn’t be included in the health care deal. This would drive down costs of insurance. We can’t have that. Dubya, a “conservative,” pushed for home-owners, who couldn’t afford to pay their mortgages, to own homes in 2002. This helped kick-start the economic collapse of 2007. It’s not so bad for the rich, but of course, it sucks for the rest of us.

Both of these presidents are divisive because of what they stand for. Barack Obama, our first black president, scares the hell out of extremists in the South and on the right and Dubya, a military-happy and gun-toting conservative scared the hell out of extremists in the North and on the left. But let’s look at these presidents for who they really are. Let’s look at these presidents and understand who they are beyond the surface. One president stands for the poor while the other stand for the rich, but who is with the middle-class? Republicans want to tax the middle-class and poor and Democrats want to tax the rich. But even if taxes were increased on the rich, law-makers would still increase taxes on the middle-class by at least 8%, according to Daily Finance. Big surprise, the middle-class gets hit again, as if we can afford that on top of rising unemployment, a stagnant economy, rising gas prices and high levels of inflation. But this is how it’s done in America politics: Fight to protect the poor and rich for political gain, but leave out the middle-class who pays for most of the taxes, is the most politically active, and constantly gets screwed over.

I just want people to wake up and see that Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party aren’t all that different. I liken the two movements to how the human body and mind works. One movement (the Tea Party) is the ego, focused on protecting the self (America). This movement sees the problem from within political and state boundaries, while the other movement (Occupy Wall Street) is focused on the soul, understanding the problem from a worldly scale. Both of these movements are important as is the ego and the heart when referring to the human body.

It’s time to wake up and understand what our politicians, banks and corporations are up to. What are they doing around the world and what effects do cheap food and commodities have on the labor system and the environment? It’s time to nip the problem in the bud or risk crashing together while we point the finger at that other person, like we still live in the 1960s.

Jay-Z Occupies Some Cash: He’s a Business, Man!

Roc-A-Fella's "Occupy All Streets" T-shirt

Rap: Oh, how far your masters leaders have fallen from the tree.

On Nov. 10, Jay-Z of Roc-A-Fella aka Rocawear decided to go political by selling t-shirts that read, “Occupy All Streets” with the “W” crossed-out from the word “Wall” and an “S” added to the end of word “Street.” This is kind of cool and hip, I guess. It’s also a bit disturbing, like the “Vote or Die” campaign that was endorsed by Diddy. Jay-Z began to receive criticism because he and his label were making money from a movement without donating a dime to it. So Jay-Z made a PR decision and from the bottom of his dishonest heart, he yanked the shirts from his website.

These shirts are a political statement if you consider money as being political. It’s funny because money is an integral part of the political system, so why should anyone be surprised with the decisions Jay-Z and his record label have made? On the other hand, this is exactly what the Occupy movement is all about. If there is a consensus that comes from this movement, it is to get money out of politics because it has corrupted the system (Obama is on the path to raising over $1 billion for the elections of 2012). How could Jay-Z not know this? Actually, that is not the right question. The question should be “Does Jay-Z really care about the Occupy movement?” I think we all know what the real answer is.

There was always something about Jay-Z that never really spoke to me. He’s a talented artist and a smart business man, but he doesn’t speak to me. He’s not honest to me and that’s what is important to me as an avid listener of rap. He’s always in his persona and he just feels like a fraud to me; He always has. Am I upset with the move he made? I am a little perturbed, yes, but I understand that Jay-Z is all about the benjies.

All of his raps talk about how much of an empire he has obtained through rapping. That’s a great achievement for any man, especially a black man like himself who came from nothing. But as you reach your forties, wouldn’t you get tired of hearing yourself talk about how much money you have? As a rapper, don’t you want to be a positive role model for the rest of the black community who desperately needs some guidance, a mentor and/or someone who cares about them?

At times, Jay-Z reminds me of Michael Jordan. They do things that endanger the black community. They brainwash our youth into thinking that money and power are the only things to be proud of in this short journey we all partake in: life. Don’t you want to die and have someone say something other than “Damn, that dude died with a lot of money in his bank.”? If you don’t want to achieve this as a human being, don’t you at least want to uplift your community as a rapper; As someone who knows the struggle and came from nothing?

I understand that the rap game has changed from what I listened to in the 90s, but damn, Jay-Z was a product of the 80s and 90s, so where is the passion that transcends materialism? We have one of the biggest movements the country has seen in 50 years and the only thing on your mind is money. Are you free or enslaved by your way of thinking? Jay-Z is doing the same thing the hustlers on the street corner did when Obama ran for presidency. They’ll use people’s passion for an idea as a way to make cash. This is no different from what most politicians do, so Jay-Z needs to run for office—He seriously does.

Now, in no way am I surprised with the decision of Jay-Z and Rocawear. Even D.C. native rapper Wale said he fell off from Rocawear because his vision wasn’t exactly in tune with theirs. He called them out for being about the business aspect of rap and nothing else. This is not what Wale is about. He is an underdog, a poet and a passionate rapper trying to embed the DMV in the nation’s conscience. Jay-Z has always been Wale’s favorite rapper, but I wonder if he still feels the same.

This debacle is something that the majority of rap listeners are probably not even conscious of. Most listeners of rap don’t even know what Occupy Wall Street is, so Jay-Z and his PR team will spin this ordeal in such a way where they will probably make even more money than through some silly shirts. Everyone will forget this happened, Jay-Z and Kanye will team up with Jesus to make a greatest hits album, the masses will follow and all will be right on Earth. Do your thing Jay-Z. But understand that now you’ve just branded yourself with a big “1%” on your forehead, Inglorious Basterds style.

Wait, Did I Say That About ‘Occupy Wall Street’?

Flip-flops

See, politicians were allowed to get away with flip-flopping when we didn’t have the Internet and ways to hold them accountable for their lies. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even called flip-flopping, it was called being a politician. Politicians have and always will be beholden to polls, money and votes. That’s all that matters. If the polls are favorable, if the money is good and the votes are coming in, you won’t find a politicians too far behind.

If my memory serves me correct, presidential hopefuls Herman Cain, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum made sure to delegitimize the Occupy Wall Street Movement; These people can’t be taken seriously, can they?

At first, Santorum called the Occupy movement a bunch of hippies that have been protesting since Vietnam. Herman Cain told people not to get mad at Wall Street and crony capitalism, but be mad at yourselves for losing your house and your job (even though there is more than enough evidence documenting the intentional housing fraud by the banking system). Lastly, Mitt Romney said that Americans shouldn’t focus their anger at Wall Street because Wall Street is connected to Main Street, as if Wall Street has been looking out for anything but their own greed over the last 2-3 decades.

Now that polls show the majority of Americans support the Occupy Wall Street protests, these politicians have had to walk back their remarks. Now it seems like they understand where they are coming from and they are against corporate welfare and crony capitalism. The fact that these politicians understand what these terms mean, but choose to not do something about this problem tells me that they take Americans for dumb. And the blatant disregard for the polls show just how disconnected these politicians are from everyday, blue-collar, business-owning, middle-class Americans.

The jobs bill that will “fix” our infrastructure or a 9-9-9 tax code is not going to fix the current problem. These are just wedge issues made to rouse public emotion, but they aren’t meant to do anything but get people to the voting booths next November. The only infrastructure that needs fixing is that of the current system of capitalism and politics because it is as rotten as it’s been. Until we put people to work in fixing the roads to prosperity and making sure all Americans have an equal opportunity to succeed or fail, the problem will continue at an exponential rate.

The critics have had a field day with the Occupy events. They call it unorganized, smelly, full of anarchists, etc. I know one thing, these dirty vermin have caught the attention of the world and its corrupt politicians. They are now realizing that not everyone is as stupid as they thought. They know their time is running out and their window of personal success at the expense of others is closing. Though it may not be obvious, people can smell the fear in their breath. Time to let the sharks loose.

Why I Stand With Those Who Want to ‘Occupy’

Caption: UPI/Roger L. Wollenberg

I have been following the Occupy D.C. movement quite vigorously. I have physically attended one general assembly (watched at least five of them), talked to dozens about their motivation, and watched half a dozen protests and live events on UStream and similar streaming venues.

From listening and watching the many talented acts and voices, I can tell that this movement is something a little bit different from what we’ve seen recently; A complete 180 from what the Tea Party protests were about.

Let’s compare the two movements for a second: The Tea Party is a faction of the Republican Party. The Occupiers don’t want to have any relation with the many political actors that want to take credit for what is going on despite the many political interests trying to associate with the protests.

The Tea Party brought semi-automatic weapons to rallies and claimed “We came unarmed, this time.” The Occupiers are, for the most part, peaceful and want to see change happen in a rational way.

The Tea Part are collectivists. Though they were a minority before the 2010 elections, they took the political field by storm. Now that they pretty much dictate what the Republican Party does, they feel as though the political system should bend to their needs. For them, the fewer and more rational conservatives who are slowly being weeded out of politics don’t have much say within the Republican Party. From the general assemblies I’ve witnessed, the Occupiers would like everyone within the movement to take action as a unit, but they state that every individual has the right to say or do as they please, as long as it is respectful and on topic. And the Occupiers denounce the actions taken by violent anarchists. You would be pressed to find Tea Party members who spoke out against racism; Many did not even recognize the racist factions within the party.

Yes, I am aware that there are over 1,000 Occupy events happening in cities over the world, but what intrigues me is that every one of these events is a little different from the next event. The more organized events are the ones that have not received the mainstream media’s attention, like the Stop The Machine, Occupy K Street/D.C. and the Occupy Kansas City protests happening at Freedom Plaza, McPherson Square and Kansas City respectively. At these events, the people are not interested in politics. They think the system is broken and poisoned and needs to be restructured or drastically reformed to where the people’s votes carry the same worth as campaign spending, hence “One dollar, One Vote.” They want to limit the powers of the government and the people who own the government, the corporations, the international banking systems and the Federal Reserve.

However, I do have to admit that I am not totally for what many are doing at Wall Street and at Stop the Machine. They still want to change things with the old way of thinking. They want to change the political system to another political system, but that is what has been happening for hundred of years. Every time one political or economic system goes down, another one pops up and becomes just as corrupt. I would rather not put all of my energy into starting a revolution and just choose to disconnect from the system itself. We, the people, are the ones with the power and we prop the system up. If we don’t buy into the system, then the system falls apart and will be forced to adapt to our wants and needs. The current system works so well because so many people put much of their energy into perpetuating it. I say we stop mindlessly consuming, invest in credit unions and local banks, start growing our own food and buying local produce, invest in cleaner, more efficient energy, not buying pharmaceuticals when sick and start taking control of our lives that way.

What is yelling at buildings, having a bunch of signs and disturbing the peace inside the Air and Space Museum going to do? This was really a low point for the protests. Protesters should be smarter and more respectful than that.

We have to reach for change by starting with a look into ourselves. Change starts from within. Teach one, teach all.

*P.S. be careful with the misinformation that has been occurring on the Internet and fake blog sites. The blogger at http://www.toddkinsey.com/ is a troll and insider for the Tea Party and Republican Party. He or she is spreading lies. Their pictures of people crapping on the flag are fabricated and are not from the Occupy events. They are from 2003. Please discredit this person.

In the meantime, enjoy this interview from the talented journalist Alyona Minkovski with Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author.

Mass Conscience Awakening

A piece I worked on over the past couple of days. I can’t really put it into words, but this is what manifests when all of my emotions and feelings inside can no longer be contained. I hope you enjoy.

What I Experienced at an ‘OccupyDC’ Event

Sign at an Occupy DC event

I try my best to be a conscientious person. I don’t like to participate in things because I feel or believe in something. I want to do as John Trudell said—I want to think. We all have a beautiful creation of the universe inside of our skulls and we should all want to use it to its full capacity.

I have been an active supporter of these ‘occupy’ events, but recently I’ve had to evaluate my actions and thoughts. This is a healthy thing to do and I urge not only people who support the protests to do so, but also people who are against the protests. If you are really against these protests, ask yourself what you are for. Are you for being a slave to a monetary system that preys on the weak and enslaves through debt and the worry of losing your job, family, home and/or car?

Getting hom from the OccupyDC event, I wanted to look at the actions of the participants and most importantly myself. So let’s look at the term occupy. The definition of this term is as dualistic as my perspective on these events. This word has two pertinent meanings. Meaning one: To engage or employ the attention or concentration of.

This definition of occupy has a positive connotation. This seems to be the message of the people I have talked to and met. If members are trying to call attention to important issues, I stand behind that. I stand behind the protesters who want to employ the attention of the government, the banks, the system and the people around the world. If you read my previous post, you can see that there definitely are things to be upset about, especially if you are a part of the younger generation and feel as though your future has been stolen from you and as if you’ve been slighted by the system you were told to buy into since being birthed into this crazy world.

The second definition is “to seize possession of and maintain control over by or as if by conquest.” This tone evokes negative energy and this is what I would advise participants to be aware of. I don’t fully stand behind this. Are we really trying to conquer something that we’ve all had a hand in creating? Some may respond to my rhetorical question and say that they are taking back what was stolen from them. This is a valid point, but we as humans should learn from the past and from our mistakes and not repeat the dark history of this country. This includes the painful stories of enslavement, worldwide occupation, Manifest Destiny, biological warfare and murder. As our once insightful leader JFK said, “An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” So I ask our young and tired souls to evaluate our past and correct it, so that the generations after us can look back at us and say we didn’t repeat past mistakes, but corrected them. This would mean that America didn’t make a mistake in the first place, but it failed in order to better itself. In other words, it evolved.

Most of these protests are made up of teenagers and persons in their early twenties. This in and of itself is something positive. Many call our generation lazy, apathetic and freeloading, but I then respond by saying, “Culture is passed down from previous generations.” Many of the youth today may be lazy, but where do they learn it from? I’m relieved to see that not all of us are obsessed with celebrities, athletes, TMZ, impulsive consumerism and clubs, i.e., the Matrix. But the question we should ask ourselves is “What is the Matrix?” By being angry, disorganized, spiteful, hopeless and misguided, are we not playing into the Matrix?

Annabel Park joined us at the Occupy DC event and it was a shame she left so fast because I wanted to talk to her and get a little guidance. For those of you who don’t know who Annabel Park is, she is the creator of the Coffee Party movement, originally a grassroots organization meant to bring the power back to the people in realistic and obtainable ways. She too was a person that was fed up with business as usual, so she took things into her own hands, but she did so in a coherent way. She urged like-minded people to hold meetings around the country, focus on important issues and pressure the political system to take notice (there goes that occupy word again) of what was going on. But they never demanded anything.

The one piece of advice she told our group that resonated with me was to be positive and focus on the affirmative. For instance, try not to divide, but get people to come together through positive language. Instead of focusing on what the government and these corporations are taking away from us, focus on what we can do to bring about change. This is a great philosophy because the universe does not operate in positive and negative language, it does so in the affirmative. For instance, if you say you don’t want to die, the universe does not recognize the word don’t. It only recognizes the action word die. So don’t say, “I don’t want to die.” Instead say, “I want to live.”

At the Occupy DC event, I saw a lot of people who had coherent arguments and ideas to fix issues regarding injustices, but I also experienced a few people who were angry, divisive, and focusing on conflict. Being the young people we are, it’s good to be passionate about something, but we should spend some time really evaluating what we want to accomplish and most importantly, take advice from people who have been there; People like John Trudell and Annabel Park who have more wisdom than we do.

Overall, I’m excited to see where our future is headed. I’m glad people are no longer asleep and in the dark, but this is only the beginning. Again, we got the ball rolling, let’s just make sure we don’t let it turn into an uncontrollable avalanche. Let’s give people a reason to take us seriously.

I want to thank everyone for listening to my opinion and for everyone who is willing to stand up for a cause bigger and more important than themselves. Peace and blessings to all.

*Please take a look at the John Trudell speech I have posted. It holds a special place in my heart and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Why Americans Are Fed Up

Credit to Dave Chappelle

This post is less about what can be supported and proven with timely news evidence and more about how I see the world from my narrow and young perspective. Some things cannot be supported by what other people report on, so this is why I blog.

For starters our leaders are useless. We have our politicians professional swindlers of this country telling us “Everything is going to be okay, but in the meantime, hang in there and oh yea, be afraid of another terrorist attack.” You see, like George Carlin said, the system has us “by the balls.”

I’m tired of being afraid and hoping for the better when I know what these devils are up to. I mean damn, look at what they are telling us after the alleged killing of “terrorist” Anwar al-Awlaki (I mean are Muslims and brown people the only terrorists worth fighting today?). Now international flyers have to beware of retaliation. They want us to stay scared so they can pass legislature that take away our rights, e.g., Patriot Act and Citizens United, and redistribute our money and opportunities to the richest few.

We are mad because people like my mother are struggling to make ends meet. Yea she has a nice TV and a nice car, but she’s single and the price of everything is going up because of inflation. My mother barely has leftover cash after a month’s pay like she used to—And she just finished paying off her car note which should have put at least $500 in her checking account. So why is she being stretched?

Her car and home insurance has gone up without her even being warned by the companies. The insurance companies added another payment to her existing bill because of the recent influx in hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and other natural man-made disasters that recently occurred on the East Coast.

Let’s not forget this silly game we play every time we pass a gas station hoping the price goes down like crackheads addicted to gasoline. Gas prices continue to rise and people are rebelling. People are starting to stay at home and partake in activities that doesn’t involve driving. People are even beginning to find alternative ways of transportation like carpooling, subway transit, busing and biking. I used to bike as a graduate student at Oklahoma University and let me tell you, it saved me a lot of money and stress.

Our soldiers who risk their lives in wars should come back home with jobs waiting for them, but this too is not the case. The U.S. also lacks proper medical services for the increasing amount of soldiers returning home addicted to narcotics and suffering from PTSD & depression.

People like me who worked their asses off and graduated from universities are struggling to find anyone who is hiring (don’t get me started on the journalism profession). We worked our tails off, played by the rules and did what we were told. And how does the system reward us? They play politics, hoard money and increase barriers to entry. It’s really quite depressing to see the people I grew up with be left without an opportunity to live the American Nightmare Dream (Yea I’m enjoying that “crossing-out” feature way too much) because of a country that lost sight of what made it great: Freedom, i.e., equal opportunity to succeed and fail. Now most of us are just destined for failure.

And who can forget the 9/11 first-responders who barely have health insurance to cover their blackened lungs and compromised respiratory system after the government told them it was safe to breathe at Ground Zero? And the Congress that refused to pass a bill that would have supported health care coverage for them? Meanwhile, Congress is busy constantly shoving 9/11 horror stories down our throats and reminding us everyday what those terrorists did so they can get us to chalk up a few bucks to support their campaigns… erhh emmm… Bernie Sanders. Need I say any more about OUR American politicians?

And last but not least, we have our American businesses. Forget all the crazy rhetoric for a second because there are a lot of small and large corporations that do stand for good causes like Bill & Melinda Gates’ foundation and Target’s support of local schools. But it’s always the few and most powerful businesses that dirty the water for everyone else.

Is business in America hurting? Yes, and some of it is because the “uncertain” business environment and because we are entering a new era of trading. Advertising and business strategies have had to change how they do things because of the Internet. If you don’t believe me, ask Blockbuster’s and Borders’ CEO how things are going for them. But what is really devastating the business environment? It is the fact that there is no business. The customers and consumers don’t have the money to demand anymore. Yea, business have been hit hard by this “recession,” but middle-class families are hurting a lot more. And the thing that should break all of our hearts is the fact that 1 in 5 children in America are impoverished. Children are more likely to be poor in America than any other segment of the population. Wut up wit dat?

Like Mayor Bloomberg said, if we don’t change things for this younger generation fast, they will take to the streets like in Egypt and other places across the pond. I believe the repercussions of this generation being poor and jobless will take down this empire if Goldman Sachs doesn’t do it first. We got news for you Mayor, it’s already happened. And what do they do instead of fixing the problem? They beat us and arrest us for being angry.

We are experiencing the biggest redistribution of wealth and opportunity since Africans were stolen from their homes and forced into servitude on the same land we walk on everyday. Welcome to America 2011.

What ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Can Learn From the Tea Party

Demonstrators at an Occupy KC event. Credit to Twitter.com/brandyn_a81

The protesters of Occupy Wall Street need to be careful because they are very close to having their movement tainted. So far Michael Moore, Cornel West and union members have shown up to these protests, capitalizing on the enthusiasm of people upset with the direction of their country (sound familiar, eh?). For the time being, it seems as though the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are headed down the same path as the Tea Party.

The Tea Party started out with what seemed to be a grassroots movement, but quickly got out of hand with increasing amounts of media attention, celebrity freeloaders, corporate donors and extreme views of how politics should be fixed. As with anything, humans will grows narcissistic and narrow-minded in their attempt to control people. This was definitely the case for then Tea Party leader and racist Mark Williams. The mainstream media was vying to get inside of the Tea Party’s mission and this one man (along with other political factions) ended up poisoning whatever message the Tea Party was trying to get across. This is the issue with having leaders represent a movement; Leaders can be manipulated by opposing forces and lose sight in the cause all together.

There are some lessons that can be learned by the Wall Street protesters from the Tea Party. For one, be careful of celebrities and other factions that capitalize on something that they really had no hand in creating. I think it’s always a good thing for the media to be aware of what is going on at the protests, but the media can also play a large role in extinguishing the fires of a movement. Once the media sees Michael Moore give a speech to a crowd, he then becomes the spokesperson for the effort and the same goes for Cornel West.

This takes away from the movement because it is the people who should be questioned and given the microphone to speak. When the people who participated in the early Tea Party protests were interviewed by the media, it gave people a better understanding of what these people were about. When Mark Williams was given the microphone, a lot of people were turned off from the movement. When celebrities, politicians, political factions and high-profile persons take part in these protests, it takes away from what the protests are really about: the people. Because the mainstream media is lazy, they will begin to only interview high-profile persons and cast a wide net over the whole movement based on the actions of a few. This is largely what happened to the Tea Party.

When it comes to the Wall Street protesters, not having a definite leader has its drawbacks. It makes it difficult to mobilize people under one message. I say this because of the unions and other political factions taking a part in the Wall Street protests. The protests should be open to all, but participators should let leaders of these political factions know that they do not represent the movement. Yes, it would be easier to push this message with a leader, but this doesn’t mean it is not possible to do so without one. It is up to the protestors and those in the general assemblies to get this point across.

Demonstrators in a park in Kansas City. Credit to Twitter.com/Brandyn_a81

Bank of America Wants Consumers to Pay for Their Mess

Credit: http://www.luxuo.com/

With the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act coming October 1—capping transaction fee costs, banks are panicking. Obama’s recent attempts at curbing predatory credit card practices and Wall Street swindlers may be futile. With low-interest rates, low demands for loans, Bank of America’s acquisition of Lehman Brothers’ and Merrill Lynch’s toxic assets and still a slow economy, US banks are increasingly looking for creative ways to cover their costs.

Bank of America (and other banks are working hard to follow their lead) has decided to tax the American consumer yet again because we all know that the consumer can afford it. With reports of Bank of America paying $2.8 billion to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for mortgages based on faulty data earlier this year, it’s no surprise to see how Bank of America is trying to cover its “debt.” Starting next year, Bank of America will charge customers $5 per month for using a debit card.

This new monthly increase for debit card owners comes at a time when families and consumers of the middle-class are still hurting. According to the US Comptroller of Currency, 1 in 5 Americans who received help under a program aimed at reducing foreclosures defaulted again within a year. Large American banks are also scaling back on the amount of rewards consumers receive, implementing new monthly fees, raised existing fees or imposed stricter requirements to have previous fees waived. But the banks aren’t really that bad are they? You decide for yourself.

Recently a worker for Countrywide Bank was sentenced to eight months in prison and made to pay $1.2 million dollars for illegally downloading and selling private data of customers. Nationwide, complaints of bank fraud have gone up 88% since this time last year. The fraud just keeps on keepin’ on.

But don’t worry about that stuff though. I bet the banks just made an honest mistake. Really… It’s not like they have a system in place that is made to rip off the general public in order make millions more in cash. I mean, the banks need to go back to being regulated like they were under the Reagan, Clinton and Bush years. Because that worked out so well for everyone…

What’s really going on is that the banks are tired of being exposed for their predatory practices. They’re like, “How dare you call us on our bluff?!” You would think they would do something to curb those practices, but if you know any history of American banks, you would understand that banks don’t get regulated or held responsible for any mistakes they make, no matter how devastating. And if they do get regulated, the consumer pays for it.

Instead of not being the predators they have always been and cooperating with the demands of the people who fuel their business, their first thought is to fight against any and all regulation. In a span of three months, bank lobbyists on K Street have spent $27 million to try to repeal the act.

There have been some more significant wins by the bank lobbyists. After the 2007-8 Great Recession, banks lobbied tens of million of dollars in the span of a few months to make sure they wouldn’t have to pay for their crimes and most importantly, to make sure the public remained oblivious of their plots. In late 2010, Congress was split on the Dodd-Frank Act—an act that was aimed to curb the loopholes and fraud occurring within Wall Street. The banks got newly elected Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) to push to remove a bank tax that would have raised $19 billion. They also got Brown to water down the legislation and get the Volcker Rule blocked—a rule that would have limited Wall Street’s ability to make risky trades with dollars backed by the government.

Many people will say that the reason BofAis raising fees is because of Obama’s job-killing, regulation overhaul. I respectfully disagree. The reason the banks are doing so is because they know they can get away with blaming it all on Obama. And people will buy into it. There’s a small group of Americans that knows that Wall Street got itself into this mess. I mean, aren’t they the experts who know all about economics? But some of us know that when they receive high profits, they claim it was all them, but when the screw up, it’s all the government’s fault. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, unless of course you’re Wall Street.