“With all respect, the person who is sitting in the classroom, the person who’s giving back to this economy is me, not my parents.”
(Source: campusprogress.org)
"The bunny syringe was patented on January 24, 1967, by Robert L. Smeton of Twentynine Palms, California, based on the strange misconception that this would make children fear needles less, rather than fear bunnies more."
Realest sentence on our site today.
freaky:
"The revolution that preceded that one—ours—sprang from the insight that a just government derives its power from the consent of the governed. And if the Occupy movement has accomplished nothing else, it's provided a vehicle for many people to consider whether anyone actually bothered to obtain their consent before eliminating the basic safeguards of democracy. While the media and political professionals fixated on the movement's lack of demands, they missed the real story. It wasn't about demands; it was about diagnosis. The occupations provided a catalyst, but the most interesting conversations haven't taken place in the camps via the human mic. They've happened among the millions of people who found that kids in tents were quite effectively articulating their own sense of abandonment. What comes next is the question that should occupy us in 2012, and beyond."
occupy…where?
the ever-excellent josh harkinson on the debate over the value of occupying a public space, and what options the occupiers have.
two views of an occupation:
logistics
“If we are not careful, we are going to turn into a homeless shelter and food kitchen, and to be honest, that’s not why I came here.”
versus symbolism
“Having a space that is a show of force, that is big, that is in your face is really important”
and also interesting, how duarte square would be different from zuccotti:
If Trinity allows the occupation, it will be protected from thieves by the surrounding fence. The only tents allowed inside will be large military versions that each sleep 18 people, allowing better oversight of campers and plenty of meeting spaces for daytime use. Anyone who wishes to join the occupation will be required to sign a pledge to actively participate, not use drugs, and keep the peace; those who don’t comply will be removed. And the Duarte occupation will have its own General Assembly composed entirely of occupiers, giving it much better control of itself.
“for a movement that now lacks a single center of gravity, the Occupied Office is playing an increasingly important role”
It’s hardly the movement’s only workspace. The Spokes Council, the movement’s quasi-governing body, held it’s latest meeting at a Times Square auditorium owned by a local chapter of the Service Employees International Union. Students at Manhattan’s New School have occupied a classroom that they are using for teach-ins. Two Manhattan churches have opened their doors to the camp’s homeless. And meetings continue at the park, in the nearby atrium of 60 Wall Street, and in other spaces owned by religious and labor groups. The Center for Constitutional Rights will soon roll out an online listing service to connect occupiers with other groups that can offer free space.
"Starting around 1980, which is exactly when income inequality in America started to gap out, savings steadily fell. Fundamentally, what this represents is two things: the rich accumulating most of the gains of economic prosperity while the middle class suffered from sluggish wage growth. The rich couldn't really use that gusher of new money, so for 30 years they loaned it out to the middle class in increasingly Byzantine ways, and the middle class used these loans to sustain the steadily improving lifestyle they had gotten accustomed to. In 2008, this game of musical chairs came to a sudden end and the middle class stopped borrowing. And guess what? The rich still couldn't spend all that extra money. If they could, the savings rate would have stayed low. Instead, it shot up. The middle class was borrowing less, and the rich, left with no customers for their money, couldn't find anything to spend it on either. So now they're saving it."
(caption of the day.)
My colleague Adam Serwer reported this morning on one of the more bizarre domestic terror plots in recent memory—the alleged plot by four senior citizens in north Georgia to produce and spread ricin and botulinium toxin in Atlanta and Washington, DC, in order to kill millions of people and “save the Constitution.” (Because that’s not strange enough, the plot was hatched at a Waffle House.)
to this i would add, of COURSE it was hatched at a Waffle House. it’s georgia, for goodness’ sake.
full story: Confederate Flag Activist Behind Georgia Terror Plot
New Congressional Budget Office data confirms what we’ve been saying for a while: There’s an income inequality gap, and it’s growing.
