The Senate Banking Committee's effulent praise of Jamie Dimon

"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks! If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!" - Nein, Nein, Nein Herman Cain, The 1% Owns Congress.

Rich Powerful Corporations control the US Government. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon (literally pronounced Diamond) went to Congress to have Tea Party Super-Hero Senator Jim DeMint, Bank Executive... I mean "Senator" Charles Schumer and the other members of the sycophant Senate Banking Committee engage in a display of bootlicking not seen since Republican lickspittle Joe Barton apologized to BP Chairman Tony Heyward for Gulf of Mexico waters and sealife dirtying up his companies oil.

In the face of this evil, we the 99% are divided. The Plutocracy has succeeded in dividing Us. Now, some of Us are more wrong than others, (If you believe the 1977 CRA was responsible for the Housing Crash 30 years later or if Herman Cain's denounciation of the Poor or Andrew Deadbart's declaration to "go after the Teachers and the Union organizers", resonated with you for instance) but the awful truth is money bought and owns both "sides" of Washington DC.

In Dimon's prepared opening statement, he claims JP Morgan Chase holds,

'[A]pproximately $1.1 trillion in deposits and $700 billion in loans. CIO, along with our Treasury unit, invests excess cash in a portfolio that includes Treasuries, agencies, mortgage-backed securities, high quality securities, corporate debt and other domestic and overseas assets. This portfolio serves as an important source of liquidity and maintains an average rating of AA+. The bulk of CIO’s responsibility is to manage an approximately $350 billion portfolio in a conservative manner."

You see? JP Morgan Chase only lost $3 billion out of a $350 billion dollar portfolio! What a crock of shit. As with just before the 2007 Crash, Dimon like all the Banking Criminals claims his $400 billion in liquidity has an average rating of AA+. Dimon is willfully hiding the nature of JP Morgan Chase's holdings.

The entire Wall Street/Big Banking Super-structure is built on a foundation of naked credit default swaps, bad derivatives and toxic junk. The Giant Vampire Squids were assured their profligate criminal malfeseance and outright multi-billion dollar gambles "hedges" were 100% backed by the full faith and credit of the US Taxpayers. And they still are...

It's not that we haven't learned from our mistakes. Senator Jeff Merkeley (D-Oregon) pointed out,

"In 2008, 2009, your company benefited from half-a-trillion dollars in low-cost federal loans, $25 billion in TARP loans, of TARP funds, untold billions indirectly through the bailout of AIG that helped address your massive exposure in repurchase agreements and derivatives."

But, Dimon smugly responded, "I think you were misinformed. [W]e were asked to take TARP by Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke." And why not because the Giant Vampire Squids were going to treat the Trillions in Guarantees from the Federal Reserve as the Mob treated the Restaurant in Goodfellas:

Senator Jim DeMint decided to lovingly praise Dimon's profitability while complaining about the United States expenses,

"We can hardly sit in judgment of your losing $2 billion. We lose twice that every day here in Washington and plan to continue to do that every day."

Yeah Jim, "We" are losing billions every day because of the fucking Trillon Dollar War Budget you vote for every year, while you've voted to keep millions in Federal Farm subsidies and for the costs associated with paying your exorbinant salary, free government funded healthcare and the massive expenses for your giant tax-payer funded DC and South Carolina Staffs and Office Spaces.

Of course, DeMint being a prime Tea Party asshole wasn't finished as he implied Over-Regulation was the actual cause of JP Morgan Chase's $3 Billion dollar plus loss and asked pretty please if Jamie would tell him what to write down for future regulation,

"Every time something goes amiss, we want to add a regulation, and we’ve surrounded the banking industry with so many regulations. It will, I think, advise us, help us and—as we look forward, and hopefully it will contribute to best practice scenario in the industry, and I appreciate your emphasis on a continuous quality improvement."

So of course, DeMint and Charles Schumer aren't going to sit in judgement of their Owners. 16 of the 22 members have received numerous campaign contributions from JP Morgan Chase. A former Senator on the committee, Mel Martinez, R-Fl., is also now the JP Morgan exec in charge of Florida, Central America, and the Caribbean. Martinez was elected to the Senate in 2004 and went to the bank in 2010. And there has been a revolving door between staffers and aides for the Senate Banking Committee and JP Morgan Chase.

The Fault lies not with Us, but with our Political Stars...

The Thinner Blue Line

173 officers were killed in line of duty in 2011. It's a sad time for those families of the Officers killed. It's also a sad time for the Image and Reputation for Police Officers and Departments.

The viscous, unconstitutional criminal oppression of OWS and the #Occupy Movement in New York, Oakland, Richmond, Albany, Boston and numerous other cities has once again put police officers into conflict with the 99%. Of course, this is precisely what the 1% want and expect. The 1% have always sought to use Police Departments and Individual Officers to fragment and divide. The Plutocracy also sees the quelling Domestic Dissent as the only legitimate Role of Police Officers.

Police Officers have once again found themselves placed in the role of Oppressor of the Poor in Service of the Rich. The Plutocracy has created an Economic and Political Model out-of-touch and unresponsive to the 99%. The Government is in service (and has been for a long time) to the Very Rich and their Multi-National Corporate Monsters.

Do you think any Police Departments are investigating BP over it's criminal negligence from the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Disaster? Do you think Detectives are investigating BP for the continual dumping of Mercury and various other toxic chemicals into Lake Michigan from their Whiting Indiana Plant? No Police Officers are tasked with keeping poor people in line.

There are other problems with Policing in America, as detailed in the Department of Justice Investigation of the Seattle Police Department, which found

"that SPD engages in a pattern or practice of using unnecessary or excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Section 14141.” The DOJ Executive Summary states, "Deficiencies in SPD's training policies and oversight with regard to Use of Force contribute to the constitutional violations."

The DOJ report highlights the "few bad apple" theory,

"In any given year, a minority of Officers account for a disproportionate number of Use of Force incidents."

There are always going to be a percentage of individuals who abuse their authority. But, the System itself is at issue. Police Officers have to decide which side they are on. Is the Officer willing to be a Guardian of the Plutocracy? A truncheon wielding, pepper-spraying Bully for the 1%? Because every Police Officer should realize once the 99% are crushed, once the Middle Class is forever obliterated, once we are reduced to Wage Slaves chained irrevocably to be cogs in the machines of industry and war, Police Officers will be disposable too.

#Occupy Protest in a Box

I'm the Dog who gets beat Man in the Box, Alice in Chains

As OWS and the #Occupy Movement continues and struggles to make it through the winter, several factors are going to determine if the energy of the Movement is blunted, re-directed or dissipated.

Currently, the reaction to the Police Brutality is at the forefront of many commentators. The influential feminist Naomi Wolf caused quite a stir with her article on the #Occupy crackdowns over at the Guardian. The article caused big traffic, but while to many it smelled false and smacked of hyperbole it's in line with much of Wolf's thought and dovetails succinctly with her 2004 book, The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot. (As an update, it seems the reporter, Rick Ellis, who first mentioned the DHS Conspiracy is full of bullshit.)

Right-wingers continue their mission to destroy the #Occupy Movement. One of their major complaints is OWS and the #Occupy Movement should be working within the confines of the law. Now, of course, this is a disingenuous argument on multiple levels.

First, it's a logical fallacy which the Tea Party should specifically disagree with, since the genesis of their name comes from one of the most celebrated "illegal acts" in US History.

However, it also underscores the pure hypocritical phoniness of the ideological underpinnings of Modern Conservative Thought. Since, the election of Barack Obama a large strain of rightwing commentary has focused on "Natural Law" and the moral rightness of disobeying unjust or immoral laws. But, the Right is two-faced when it comes to such arguments for they apply them only when it suits their purposes, which usually is to undercut and delegitimize the elections of Democrats. But, also in service to the Plutocracy's goals of deregulation and privatization. Therefore, when a protest or movement is outside their keen or control the Right always reverts to calls for Authoritarian Tyranny and the destruction of those movements.

This is why the Tea Party faced no concentrated Police and Govenmental Oppression, the Tea Party always was a Top-Down false-front organization quickly subsumed by the 1% to advance the causes of the Rich. Any energy the movement had outside Plutocratic interests was redirected by Rightwing propaganda and limited to arguing over non-issues which would have no impact on the Establishment.

But, the Tea Party has already gone the way of their ideological forefathers, the Know-Nothings. OWS and the #Occupy Movement do not suffer from the TP defects because OWS is grassroots and made up of working and middle class people who are pointing out the underlying problems caused by the control the Richest 1% have on the Government and Society.

And by going outside the guidelines the Establishment has erected regarding political debate (i.e. issues which won't change the fundamentally unfair and corrupted system) they are facing a concerted rightwing media, lobbyist and law enforcement effort to shut them down.

So, making positive connections with the 99% is going to be paramount to keeping OWS vital and vibrant. Unfortunately, regular bloggers are being irked by some of the #OccupyMovements actions.

In a post from Feminisnt, she vents anger at an #OccupySeattle march which hampered her movements in town. Feminisnt points out the March hampered not only her movements but average everyday poor and working class people whom the 99% Movement is supposed to comprise. She also doubts any of the 1% were affected by the Seattle protest march.

I'm not posting this to pick on her, or issue the divisive You are with Us or Against Us, but merely to highlight the disconnect which the 1% have sewn amongst us to keep the 99% divided.

Libertas and Lattes has a bit more vitriol in his post about #Occupy telling the blog-o-sphere if,

"Any of these pale, rat bearded hygiene-free, Che shirt wearing knuckleheads keep me from getting to my place of employment, of home from said place....my fist might accidentally occupy the same space as their face."

I don't highlight these two bloggers, who I've read before to throw rhetorical jabs at them. But, merely to point out a few problems.

The #OccupyMovement is facing the problems all Movements do, after the initial glow has worn off how do you connect with people and weld them to your side? Protest Marches are good for reminding people your Movement is still around but as we all saw during the run-up to the Iraq War, they don't mean anything once the Powers That Be (PTB) have decided on a course of action.

#Occupy needs to bring more people over, and it's not going to be through media coverage but from positive interactions with everyday people as they make them aware of what the true causes for the Republican Recession, Rightwing generated Income Inequality and the stagnation and dissolution of the Middle Class.

Thus while the Controllers of the Tea Party played pin the blame on the Black Guy it didn't succeed in convincing any Americans, other than those who were already convinced that President Obama is a secret love child of Malcolm X and Karl Marx born in Kenya. While the 2010 elections went the way of the Republicans, Americans quickly learned zero help was forth coming to them.

"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks," declared Herman Cain. "If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!"

But the decades long propaganda effort by FreedomWorks, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Fund, the Carlyle Group, Faux News has succeeded in creating a sizeable amount of useful idiots who blame Teachers, Unions, the "Welfare Queens" and the unemployed and ignore incidents such as when Former AIG CEO Maurice Greenberg sued the Federal Government for $25 Billion USC. Or that 0.1% - the richest one-thousandth - of American population reap over 50% of the income made on Capital Gains and the executive pay for CEOs has risen to more than 343 times that of the average worker at the company.

Because despite the scoffing at the 99% slogan from rightwingers, who were pre-programed to hate OWS, what they and the 99% need to know is:

1) There is a Club and 2) You are not in it.

Because the average amount the Richest 1% will save from the Bush/Obama Tax cuts ($66,384 USC) is greater than the average salary of the 99% ($58,506 USC).

Capitalism Wills It! OWS or the Tea Party? Tear Down the Faux Capitalist System.

#Occupy is calling for those accountable to be brought to justice.

Justice would be the end to the current American Capitalist System, which can be better described as Neo-Feudalism, with all profits privatized and all loses subsidized. It's really that simple, the 1% have been cultivating a political elite (The Republican Party and Business-Friendly Democrats) who cater to their whims, use the power of the Federal Government to control the economy and transfer Trillions of dollars into the hands of a small cadre of politicos, military leaders, lobbyists, and multi-national Corporations.

A University of Zurich study shows 147 interconnected Corporations - mainly Banks - control 40% of the World's Wealth.

We have an increasingly stratified class system in America, the problem is so many of the 99% refuse to believe the evidence before their eyes and fall back on the comfortable narrative peddled by the Guardians of the Rich.

The Republican Party and the Right Wing has to put the focus on President Obama, or SEIU, or ACORN, or Teachers, or lazy minorities because the fact is the system they set-up and tended to, is a rotten evil one in which the 1% have now garnered a vast majority of the wealth of the Nation. The 400 richest own more wealth than 150 Million Americans. The 1% own 70% of all Corporate Stocks. Since the 1960's the mobility of Middle Class families has been downward.

Tax laws and Governmental policy has focused on shifting the burden of the Nation onto the Middle Class to sow dissent, drive wages, and living standards down in the Race to the Bottom.

However, such blatant theft and oppression wouldn't last long if the 1% didn't turn around and blame others for the theft. Hence the "welfare queens" rhetoric and the entire mythos the Right wing has been incessantly repeating for 30 years.

It's never been more clear the distinction than when a grass-roots up-rising of the 99% called for an end to the Wall Street Corruption and were immediately smeared, called Nazis and infiltrated by Right Wing Agent Provocatuers. It's difficult for many to drop what they've been spoon-fed by Toxic Right Wing radio, Faux News, and Conservative Think Tanks.

For decades these organizations have been focused on convincing a sizable segment of the population the problems, the regressive tax structure, the deference to the Rich, the stagnant wages, the loss of the industrial base, the inflation, the growing disparity and tremendous inequality between the Well-Off and everyone else, lies with individuals (mainly liberals and minorities) and not the corrupt system itself.

And that's where we find the Tea Party Dupes and Charlatans and the Republican Blame Barack Obama for Everything Campaign. Here is an excerpt from the most recent Tea Party Nation broadside against Socialism:

Resolved that: Our President, the Democrats-Socialists, most of the media, and most of those from Hollywood, have now encouraged and supported "Occupy" demonstrations in our streets, which are now being perpetrated across the globe, and which are being populated by various marxists, socialists and even communists, and are protesting against business, private property ownership and capitalism, something I thought I'd never see in my country, in my lifetime.

I, an American small business owner, part of the class that produces the vast majority of real, wealth producing jobs in this country, hereby resolve that I will not hire a single person until this war against business and my country is stopped.

I hereby declare that my job creation potential is now ceased.

"I'm on Strike!"

Reading the comments I came upon what, I think are plants but, could be the realization of decades of active disinformation,

The EPA needs to be closed. Think of the money that the government would save if it was closed. Think of the money that businesses would save if it were closed and their regulations were rolled back keep.ing only those needed to keep our enviorment clean. You add closing the department of education and let the states educate their chrildren, close the department of energy that is not needed because the free markets. - Wayne Thomas Inman

You're singing my tune. We will reduce hiring anyway. With all the regulations, it's better to outsource, partner, or utilize the services of independent contractors. That's what four of my five startups are doing right now, and we will continue to use the services of only experienced, independent business people until one of three things happens. 1) We get a government that boldly gives us back our freedom. 2) The majority of small businesses agrees to conduct a tax strike and bring down the government unless the Congress commences immediately to impeach and expel every representative, every senator, every executive branch officer, and every federal judge who has failed to uphold the Constitution in accordance with the interpretation of those who ratified it. 3) Every business person agrees to ignore all unconstitutional regulations and to act as a group to put under citizens arrest any government official or agent who attempts to enforce the unconstitutional regulations. If we wait until the second or third option is necessary, we will also have to band together with armaments to defend our businesses against rioters and looters. Make my day! And let's keep the military on our side. - Ed Stoneham(note the double spacing after periods)

agree, 100% with Melissa; Obama is the root cause of killing jobs in America by his policies;
further, he is killing the coal industry, as well the oil and gas industry and this winter millions of Americans will pay for higher costs to heat their homes - Claire C. Benson

Close the EPA. Obama is killing the Coal Industry. The Free Markets shall save us! Don't hire or if you do "outsource". These are, Classic Capitalists. If the policies they hold to be true, cause suffering to their fellow man or takes their lives; So Be It! Capitalism Wills It!

It's what American Capitalism has always been, whether it be against the women workers at the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory, in New York City or the Miners in the Massey Energy Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia. Capitalism has failed the 99%.