Good Afternoon!
Late update today
As long as she’s pretty, she can’t be misleading us. Can she?
Have you ever noticed that most people don’t read beyond the headlines in the news when they’re forming opinions?
It’s as if most people are incapable of “reading between the lines.”
I’ve been looking through the “reader comments” sections in the news reports about yesterday’s demonstrations in Oakland and across the nation.
Of course, the comments vary wildly from one extreme to the other. It’s up to each individual to pick through the manure we’re fed by the corporate media and to form our own opinions.
One thing I noticed was that it appeared as if most of the negative comments were knee-jerk reactions from people that only read the inflammatory headlines and didn’t read the articles.
My favorite?
“The police should just start cracking skulls in Oakland and San Francisco and dump the bodies of the protesters in the Bay.”
Calico Blackie says:
Oh yeah. Let’s “crack their skulls” and trample their First Amendment rights. While we’re at it, let’s make all forms of protest in this country illegal!! Sure, that would work.
Just think….
The next time that jackass started to loudly complain about a 2-cent hike in the price of a stamp at the post office, he would be quietly arrested and sent to a “re-education camp.”
FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA
Free speech is for everyone.
Not just for people whose opinions you happen to agree with.
So……
From msnbc:
OAKLAND — “Thousands of Wall Street protesters shut down the Oakland, Calif., port Wednesday evening, culminating a day of picketing banks and mostly peaceful marching throughout the city’s downtown.”
“However, agitators vandalized bank branches and a grocery store.
Demonstrators in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia held solidarity actions Wednesday. In Seattle, protesters marched on a downtown Chase Bank branch and planned to descend on a speech Wednesday evening by Chase Bank’s chief executive officer.”
Find anything to discredit the protesters and make it the headline!
“Black-dressed and masked marchers threw paint balls, ripped up a picket fence and broke windows at a Whole Foods market before about two dozen protesters forced them to stop.”
“There was lots of shoving and punches thrown, the Oakland Tribune reported.”
From CNN:
Oakland, California (CNN) — “Authorities used tear gas early Thursday on anti-Wall Street protesters who defied orders to disperse after earlier shutting down the Port of Oakland, California, police said.”
“A crowd of several hundred people threw rocks and shot fireworks at officers after being asked to leave the scene, prompting officers to fire tear gas, authorities said.”
“After the port protest, Occupy Oakland demonstrators returned to a city park and nearby streets, where the violence broke out.”
“Hazy video from the scene, posted on the Internet, showed a fire burning and fireworks exploding as at least one protester threw objects.”
Calico Blackie says:
See what they did there?
From The San Francisco Chronicle:
“There were a few reports of broken windows at the Lakeside Drive branch of Bank of America, and at a Chase branch. Others reported “anarchists” attempting to cause damage to a Whole Foods, but dozens of marchers surrounded them and forced them to stand down.”
Also seen on the news…..
“As Micky Randhawa, Wells Fargo regional president for the East Bay, lamented to a reporter that customers were having a hard time getting into his business, Oakland teacher Christine Martin, 30, handed him her ATM card. “I would like to close my account,” she said, adding that this was her way of joining the day’s demonstration.”
Randhawa told her the branch was closed.
Unless the bank lets you close it
Elsewhere:
· In Philadelphia, “police arrested about a dozen protesters who were sitting peacefully inside the lobby of the headquarters of cable giant Comcast. Officers moved in after they refused to leave.”
“The protesters were handcuffed and led into police vans as supporters cheered.”
· In Tulsa, “Police Chief Chuck Jordan defended the overnight arrest of 10 protesters who refused to leave a city park about two hours after curfew early Wednesday morning. About 50 officers were involved in clearing out the park. Occupy Oklahoma City moderator Beth Isbell said in a news release that police used pepper spray while arresting protesters sitting on the ground in the park about 2:30 a.m.”
· Maryland “officials said they would cut power to outlets in the downtown Baltimore park where Wall Street protesters have been living for the last month. Mayoral spokesman Ian Brennan said Wednesday the city is taking this step to alleviate a public safety hazard at McKeldin Square near the Inner Harbor. He said a city official visited earlier this week and found fire and electricity hazards.”
In London, “the leader of the world’s Anglican Christians is backing a so-called Robin Hood tax on financial transactions as one response to the global financial crisis.”
Learn the difference. This is a mouthpiece, not a reporter. She's talented though. Looks like she reads books with her ass
Meanwhile….
Poor Ann Coulter.
She’s so thin.
Won’t some of you find it in your hearts to sponsor her?
For only $1 a day, she could be eating nutritional meals!
Here’s another headline for you:
Peaceful at first, Occupy Oakland protest degenerates into a riot
“A day of demonstrations in Oakland that began as a significant step toward expanding the political and economic influence of the Occupy Wall Street movement, ended with police in riot gear arresting dozens of protesters who had marched through downtown to break into a vacant building, shattering windows, spraying graffiti and setting fires along the way.”
“Meanwhile, protesters and police faced off for the rest of the night in an uneasy standoff.”
Calico Blackie Says:
Really now. A riot?
London...THIS IS A RIOT
From Yahoo News:
Kitchen Volunteer’s Sex Assault Arrest Shocks Zuccotti Park
“The Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park has had to deal with its share of undesirable behavior, from drummers to a drug related arrest, but Wednesday saw the most serious criminal allegations yet, as a volunteer in the encampment’s kitchen has been arrested for sexual assault and rape.”
“The 26-year-old volunteer, a Crown Heights man named Tonye Iketubosin, was known in the kitchen as Tonye Parks, one cooking colleague told Gothamist. “He was a genuinely nice guy…he came to get shit done,” kitchen volunteer Beau Sibbing told the news blog.”
Watts in the 60s. THIS IS A RIOT
“But after two different women reported he had raped one and groped another, his fellow volunteers told him to leave.”
And in Oakland……….A riot?
Naw, forget the riot, rape is more lurid.
“After word had spread of the alleged assaults, Iketubosin was told not to come to kitchen meetings and to stay away from the park, “but he kept coming.” Sibbing said that around 9 p.m. last night “a whole bunch of people came and made him leave the park. Then the NYPD picked him up.”
“I wasn’t sure if it was for his own safety or if he was being arrested.”
Calico Blackie says:
See what they did there?
All we’re going to hear now from the people trying to suppress the demonstrations is “Women Raped” and “Drug Use.”
Those are British papers. They wouldn't do that here. WOULD THEY?
Yeah, right.
Isolated incidents blown WAY out of proportion to satisfy the lurid interests of their readers/followers.
In other news…..From the Department of Defense:
New TRICARE Prime Enrollees Pay Adjusted Annual Fees
“In accordance with changes authorized in February 2011, the Department of Defense announced today military retirees enrolling in TRICARE® Prime after Oct. 1, 2011, will begin paying an additional $2.50 per month for individual members and $5 per month for members and family.”
This change does not affect any retiree currently enrolled and only affects future enrollees.
Active duty service members will continue to receive health care with no out of pocket costs.
Is this how we thank our Veterans?
Calico Blackie says:
But Bank of America needs that money for their tax break!
Won’t anybody think of those poor bankers and their families?
Just a small increase in fees you say?
Bullshit.
It’s just another slice in the “death by a thousand cuts” for our middle class and poor. Think about how much money you would have if every armed forces veteran in America were forced to send you five bucks a month.
That’s a big pile o’ cash. Hell, you would be a 1%’er!
From CBS News:
1 in 15 Americans now rank as poorest poor
Maybe that's how the 1% plans to deal with us?
WASHINGTON – “The ranks of America’s poorest poor have climbed to a record high — 1 in 15 people — spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income.”
“New census data paint a stark portrait of the nation’s haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high. It comes a week before the government releases first-ever economic data that will show more Hispanics, elderly and working-age poor have fallen into poverty.”
“In all, the numbers underscore the breadth and scope by which the downturn has reached further into mainstream America.”
“There now really is no unaffected group, except maybe the very top income earners,” said Robert Moffitt, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University.
Calico Blackie says:
That’s a telling statistic. Personally, I believe it’s more like 1 in 10. ESPECIALLY here in rural America. In my hometown for example, the rate is more like 1 in every two people live in poverty.
REMEMBER……
TAKE THAT YOU DIRTY HIPPIE PROTESTER!
Free speech works both ways. If you don’t agree with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, don’t just tell me “crack their skulls.”
Tell me why their Constitutional rights should be ignored and why you believe citizens should be killed.
Also…..
If someone wants to tell me “Violent revolution and the end of Capitalism is the only answer”….Tell me why you feel that thousands should be killed in a Civil War, and tell me what type of system YOU think would be preferable (and why).
I’m open to dialogue and suggestions. Hard core left AND right wingers hate that!
And……If you’re a hard core anarchist or fascist?
THIS IS FOR YOU!!!
OCCUPY WALL STREET
We are the 99%
Calico Blackie
