Public Intelligence Blog

Jack Abramoff critiques OWS, Republicans’ media exposure in Yahoo News interview

By Rachel Rose Hartman

The Ticket, 4 January 2012

EXTRACT:

Abramoff says that since his release, he's been in touch with some of Occupy's “sensible” leaders, as he calls them, via Twitter and other channels of communication.

But Abramoff, once a major conservative Republican figure in Washington, hasn't switched party allegiances. In fact, he said he's pretty certain Occupy Wall Street has no future without political involvement.

“I think the response is ‘while we're revolutionary, we're not in the power structure,' ” Abramoff said of OWS supporters. “…Well, then, in that case, law enforcement is going to come and clear you out and the elected officials will have no fealty to you.”

Read full article (includes VIDEO)

Have the Super-Rich Seceded from the United States?

The Joke is on the Rest of Us

by MIKE LOFGREN

EXTRACT:

There have been hundreds of books about globalization and how it would break down borders. But I am unaware of a well-developed theory from that time about how the super-rich and the corporations they run would secede from the nation state.

I do not mean secession in terms of physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens occasionally. It means a withdrawal into enclaves, a sort of internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well-being except as a place to extract loot. Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it.

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30 Statistics That Show That The Middle Class Is Dying Right In Front Of Our Eyes As We Enter 2012

Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most vibrant middle class that the world has ever seen. Unfortunately, that is rapidly changing. The statistics that you are about to read prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the U.S. middle class is dying right in front of our eyes as we enter 2012. The decline of the middle class is not something that has happened all of a sudden. Rather, there has been a relentless grinding down of the middle class over the last several decades. Millions of our jobs have been shipped overseas, the rate of inflation has far outpaced the rate that our wages have grown, and overwhelming debt has choked the financial life out of millions of American families. Every single day, more Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty. In fact, more Americans fell into poverty last year than has ever been recorded before. The number of middle class jobs and middle class neighborhoods continues to decline at a staggering pace. As I have written about previously, America as a whole is getting pooreras a nation, and as this happens wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated at the very top of the income scale. This is not how capitalism is supposed to work, and it is not good for America.

Read full article with 30 statistics.

Disruption Example: Open Source Protest + Flash Mob

The Occupy Network/Brand is a perma protest against the future.

Occupy's Cause of the day:  To express discontent with the “indefinite detention” provisions of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act).

Action:  Freezing Grand Central Station during rush hour.

Robert David Steele is speaking and answering questions for one hour from 0800 Thursday morning, 5 January 2012, at the College Convention 2012 in Concord, New Hampshire.  The first multi-party event of the electoral season in New Hampshire, it includes appearances by “one major,” Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and Buddy Roemer, among others.   Robert will provide a contextual explanation of when and how America began to unravel, beginning in 1975, provide an overview of the Third Party situation, explain the short and long options on Electoral Reform, and generally outline the “Seven Promises to America” as listed below and documented on this website–more substance and truth than on all the other campaign websites combined.

Seven Promises

01 JOBS.  Full employment for citizens instead of bailing out white collar crooks.
02 ELECTORAL REFORM.  Restoring integrity to governance.
03 COALITION CABINET.  Any honest American can govern with a coalition cabinet.
04 BALANCED BUDGET.   Crowd-sourced, citizens in the aggregate should rule.
05 TAX & MONEY REFORM.  APT Tax, end the Fed, stop exploding the dollar.
06 TRUE COST ECONOMICS.  The truth at any cost reduces all other costs.
07  RESILIENCE.  Focus on distributed state and local resilience.

Learn More/Help:

BigBatUSA Full Directory of Pages and Sub-Pages

Donate (Trip Cost $750)

Presenting 2011′s Top 10 Most Corrupt American Politicians

Money Trends Research, 3 January 2012

When it comes to corruption, cronyism and general muppetry in Washington D.C., the only real question is ‘where does one start?‘ Yet one has to start somewhere to conclude with a list of the ten most corrupt and despicable marionettes in D.C. Which is precisely what JudicialWatch has done in its annual compilation of the “Top 10 Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington D.C.” for 2011. And confirming what everyone knows, that both the left and right are merely irrelevant names for the same general social affliction, or should we call it by its true name – wealth pillage – the split is even between democrats and republicans. In no particular order, the winners of 2011 are…

• Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
• Former Senator John Ensign (R-NV)
• Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
• Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
• Rep. David Rivera (R-FL)
• Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
• Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
• Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)

And of course:

• Attorney General Eric Holder
• President Barack Obama

While a detailed look is really not necessary as we are quite familiar with everyone on this list, here it is nonetheless?

Read full article.