Month: November 2010
National Call In Day Against Social Security Cuts
Look, you all know how I feel about these rat bastards and their determination to steal what little we have left. It’s really, really important that we swamp the Congressional switchboards today.
Yeah, maybe they’ll screw us anyway, but they’re not going to be able to say we gave them any such mandate.
As you know, Grandpa Simpson and Erskine Bowles, Co-Chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, are dead set on deeply cutting Social Security benefits for all Americans. To stop the Commission from adopting this position, a coalition of groups have organized National Call Congress Day for today, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
By committing to call your senators in Congress and demanding that they oppose any cuts to Social Security, you’re fighting to ensure that you, your children and your grandchildren will know Social Security will be there.
Make your voice heard on Tuesday, November 30 as part of our National Call Congress Day.
Trading away our future
It’s really, really important that you call Congress Tuesday:
Somehow finding time between their On Air with Ryan Seacrest appearances and Top Chef: Just Desserts guest judging, Federal Deficit Commission Co-Chairs and heartthrobs du jour Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson will take DeficitMania to Washington, D.C. this week. Today they resumed negotiations with the panel’s commissioners.Tomorrow the two will hold a press conference at 3:30 to update reporters on the negotiationsand just how much of your retirement will be spent reheating last night’s Ragu-and-Ramen Surprise. On Wednesday the commission will hold a public meeting as it holds a final vote on the details of its final recommendations.
People who have been briefed on the state of negotiations tell HuffPost Hill that the commissioners are within striking distance of the 14 of 18 votes needed for passage. The Simpson-Bowles plan put out recently is being blended with Jan Schakowsky’s progressive alternative and a third plan from deficit hawks Paul Ryan and Alice Rivlin.
Must. Hit. Head. On. Wall.
Comcast
I’m sure our elected officials will go to bat against the monster corporation on behalf of consumers!
Breaking news
Wikileaks founder says next target will be a major U.S. bank. Says contents are equivalent to the Enron emails.
UPDATE: It’s Bank of America.
What a shitty president
What Howie said. And yes, I could vote for a third-party candidate if it was Bernie Sanders.
Oy
Single payer would have fixed this:
One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements.
The fund is administered by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Union officials said the state compelled the fund to start buying coverage from a third party, which increased premiums by 60%. State health officials denied forcing the union fund to make the switch, saying the fund had been struggling financially even before the switch to third-party coverage.
Continue reading “Oy”
Starve the banks
In an interview, retired Manchester United soccer star Eric Cantona said he didn’t think protests were very effective:
“We don’t pick up weapons to kill people to start the revolution. The revolution is really easy to do these days. What’s the system? The system is built on the power of the banks. So it must be destroyed through the banks.
“This means that the three million people with their placards on the streets, they go to the bank and they withdraw their money and the banks collapse. Three million, 10 million people, and the banks collapse and there is no real threat. A real revolution.
“We must go to the bank. In this case there would be a real revolution. It’s not complicated; instead of going on the streets and driving kilometres by car you simply go to the bank in your country and withdraw your money, and if there are a lot of people withdrawing their money the system collapses. No weapons, no blood, or anything like that.”
He concludes: “It’s not complicated and in this case they will listen to us in a different way. Trade unions? Sometimes we should propose ideas to them.”
Cantona’s call appeared to touch a popular chord and generated an instant response. Nearly 40,000 people have clicked on the YouTube clip, and a French-based movement – StopBanque – has taken up the campaign for a massive coordinated withdrawal of money from banks on 7 December. It is claimed that more than 14,000 people are already committed to removing deposits. The movement is also gaining increasing attention in Britain.
The trio of French Facebook users now leading the campaign have appealed to people across Europe to provoke a bank crash. “It is we who control the banks, not vice versa,” they write.
In a fuller statement on the website Bankrun2010.com, the organisers write: “Our call has been more successful than we dared think. Our action is a people’s movement… we’re not seeking to destroy anyone in particular, it’s the corrupt, criminal and moribund system that we have decided to oppose using what means we can, with determination and within the law.” The statement is signed by Géraldine Feuillien, 41, a Belgian filmmaker, and Yann Sarfati, 24, an actor and director from France.
Sarfati said he and his friends had simply wanted to pass on Cantona’s video clip, but had found themselves caught up in a global “citizens’ movement”.
“We were surprised by the interest and the buzz it created on the internet. It has really spread; there are now Facebook events in Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and even Korea,” Sarfati said.
“We’re not anarchists, nor linked to any political party or trade union; we’re not even an organisation. We just thought this was another way of protesting.”
He added: “In between doing publicity campaigns for L’Oréal, Cantona has this revolutionary side. He earns a good living, but obviously he has a social conscience and I think he is sincere.”
Valérie Ohannesian, of the French Banking Federation, said she thought that the appeal was “stupid in every sense” and a charter for thieves and money-launderers.
“My first reaction is to laugh. It is totally idiotic,” she told the Observer. “One of the main roles of a bank is to keep money safe. This appeal will give great pleasure to thieves, I would have thought.”
She also doubted the practicalities of the suggestion. “If Mr Cantona wants to take his money out of the bank, I imagine that he’ll need quite a few suitcases,” she said.