Occupy Wall St.

I first learned about the Revolution in a Labor Day email from Ralph Nader’s Single Payer Action linked to Kevin Zeese’s Labor Day Reflection: Time for Americans to participate in power: Three hundred million Americans can take control of the economy and country published by October 2011.org. October 2011 was such a successful non-violent revolution the leaders in Washington DC have been forgotten and Occupy Wall St. is protesting the richest 1% who stole the government from us, the 99%, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at more than 100 locations in the United States and 1,500 around the world. The participation in the Occupation in New York City is regularly as large as 20,000 and millions of people have participated around the world. In a poll of nearly 5,000 people by the Herald Pulse 28% of respondents found campers annoying, 10% back what Occupy has to say, while only 6% say the Tea Party is annoying and 42% are for what the Tea Party has to say. The Occupation is being organized using a non-binding consensus based collective decision making tool known as a "People's Assembly" developed by the Commission for Group Dynamics in Assemblies of the Puerta del Sol Protest Camp in Madrid, Spain during 15- 31 May 2011 published by Take the Square. A People’s Assembly is a participatory decision-making body which works towards consensus. The Assembly is based on free association. An Assembly should deal with practical questions: What do we need? How can we get it? A consensus is reached when there is no outright opposition to the proposal. A moderator asks “does anyone have an opinion” and three arguments for and against are allowed after which the Assembly is allowed to express its opinion through gestures. The gestures are (1) applause, agreement; upraised open hands moving side to side, (2) disagreement; arms folded across the head, (3) get to the point; revolving upraised hands, (4) your intervention is taking too much time; crossing and uncrossing arms above head in clocklike fashion, (5) difficulty hearing; hands cupped behind ear.

This is what Democracy Looks Like

Credit: AP Photo/Ben Margot) November 1, 2011

The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, unpublished on the Occupy Wall St. website, was reported in the first issue of the Ashland Free Press, after a hiatus of several years, the Belly of the Beast Edition, of October 2011, that reported the Declaration had been unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street around 8pm on September 29, to read;

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut worker’s healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in the pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

These grievances are not all-inclusive.

Silent No More: We are the 99%

Credit: AP Photo/Ben Margot November 1, 2011

The traditional tools of elections and lobbying no longer work. Americans need to build an independent movement and independent media along with independent politics to challenge the deep corruption in American government caused by corporatism. Support and Solidarity! We’re inspired by the occupation of Wall Street and elsewhere around the country. Finally, people are taking to the streets again! The “99%” is not one social body, but many. The demonstrators refer to themselves on signs and in slogans as “the 99 percent,” a reference to Nobel Prize- winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s study showing the richest 1 percent control 40 percent of U.S. wealth. Some occupiers have presented a narrative in which the “99%” is characterized as a homogenous mass. The 99% are not necessarily the 50% workers, the 66% middle class, the 15% poor or 0.3% homeless, but a union of people from all walks of life, including the 20% reasonably paid government workers and professionals, who would otherwise be divided and conquered by class struggle, if anyone thought to challenge the 1%. The 99% is not intended to be a tyranny of the majority but a super-majority of tyrannized minorities tired of losing their cases to class struggle, although some of the rhetoric is tyrannical, it is non-violent and well-meant to give the dispirited the illusion of popularity they need to participate in democracy. Not everyone is waking up to the injustices of capitalism for the first time, some populations, namely minority groups such as Latinos and African-Americans, women, those with gender issues, the mentally ill and drug users, and tobacco smokers, have been targeted by the power structure for years or generations. Middle-class workers who are just now losing their social standing can learn a lot form those who have been on the receiving end of injustice for much longer. The problem isn’t just few “bad apples” but systemic negligence and abuse, identity theft, libel, censorship and organized crime. The crisis is not the result of the selfishness of a few investment bankers it is the inevitable consequence of an economic system that rewards cutthroat competition at every level of society. The answer is not to revert to some earlier stage of capitalism – to go back to the gold standard, for example; not only is that impossible, those earlier stages didn’t benefit the “99%” either. To get out of this mess, we’ll have to rediscover other ways of relating to each other and the world around us. Laws serve to protect the privileges of the wealthy and powerful. We have to develop the strength of conscience to do what we know is best, regardless of the unjust laws. Denouncing others only equips the authorities to delegitimize, divide and destroy the movements as a whole. Criticism and debate propel a movement forward, but power grabs cripple it. The goal should not be to compel everyone to adopt one set of tactics, but to scientifically discover and analyze how different grass roots approaches redress global and local issues (CrimethInc ’11). Careful understanding of the motivations and the constraints of everyone (poor people, civil servants, taxpayers, elected politicians, etc.) can lead to policies and institutions that are better designed and less likely to be perverted by corruption or dereliction of duty. These changes will be incremental, but they will sustain and build on themselves. They can be the start of a quiet revolution (Banerhee & Duflo ’11: 265, 269).

A masked protester smashes a window at a Wells Fargo Bank during the General Strike

Credit: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images; Occupy Oakland November 2, 2011

The Occupation arose as an American Fall in solidarity with the Arab Spring that toppled the governments of Libya, Egypt and Tunisia and threatens Syria. There is camping, some free food and grass roots democracy organized by a general assembly. The camping and tent city are important for the legitimacy of the Occupation because it means the semi-retired working and professional classes, who generally run the assemblies, are indeed collaborating with the unemployed and homeless to house and feed a nonviolent revolution and provide the community with a 24/7 Occupation. Travelling from Occupation to Occupation is the rage in tourism, the only expense being transportation. Occupations that relocated to universities seem to be having the best time, in Seattle for instance, when Professors began giving lectures, mostly on the civil rights movement, the number of 24 hour campers rose from 7 to 100-200. Unless there are people occupying the public space 24 hours a day the Occupation simply does not seem to qualify as an Occupation in the minds of the 99%, who consider the Occupation over. This does not prevent the dedicated from hosting meetings on a schedule like an ordinary political organization. Tolerance for the protestors waned after Veteran’s Day, when the U.S. cruelly vowed to veto Palestinian statehood, and the domestic surveillance programs, that corrupt corporate and government behavior went into overdrive. On November 13, 2011 police in riot gear swept into Occupy Portland and Oakland in a predawn raid. In Oakland 23 non-violent protestors, many from the Interfaith-commission were arrested. Oakland police chief Jordan claims “we had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks” (Davies ’11). In Portland 50 were arrested. 16 had been arrested in Colorado the day before. In New York Times v. Sullivan 376 US 254 (1964), when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s detention in Birmingham Jail was reviewed, the Court held “Imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic” as cited in Freedom of the Press HA-25-1-10. To be fair, these offending law enforcers have placed their municipalities under threat of sanctions and impeachment equal with the condemnation of Syria’s Ba’ath Party, whose President has been asked to step down and whose membership to the Arab League has been stripped. New York and Toronto enforced eviction notices on November 15. In the New York eviction nearly 200 were arrested, after 700 were arrested on Brooklyn Bridge on October 1. Occupy must ensure detainees are speedily released and not harmed, and only those anarchists who participated in vandalism and looting, such as the government crackdown on the only social redeeming movement in the repressively depressing global economy, be fined for the damages they caused. The municipal governments are responsible for the unconditional release of detained protestors.

Police crack-down on Occupy Portland and Oakland, arresting 100, on November 13

Credit: Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian; Occupy Oakland November 13, 2011

Occupy upholds Arts 47-78 Section III Occupied territories of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949. Art. 2 of GCIV provides “the Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance”. The Occupying Power shall be bound, for the duration of the occupation, to the extent that such Power exercises the functions of government in such territory. Art 12 directs the Protecting Powers to lend their good offices with a view to settling disagreements with suitably chosen neutral territory. Art. 27 entitles, “Protected persons to respect for their persons, their honor, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs. They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against insults and public curiosity”. Art. 51 guarantees “Workers shall be paid a fair wage and the work shall be proportionate to their physical and intellectual capacities”. Art. 53 prohibits any destruction by the Occupying Power of real, personal or public property. Art. 56 provides, “the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory”. Art. 59 demands, “If the whole or part of the population of an occupied territory is inadequately supplied, the Occupying Power shall agree to relief schemes on behalf of the said population, and shall facilitate them by all the means at its disposal”. Soon after he witnessed the horror of the Battle of Solferino (1859) Swiss national J. Henri Dunant (1828-1910) proposed to establish a permanent system of humanitarian assistance in wartime. His efforts led to the ratification of the Geneva Convention (1864) a treaty that required all signatory states to secure the rights of the wounded and to respect the immunity of those providing assistance, regardless of their nationalities. The Hague Peace Conference (1899) secured the rights of victims and the rights of prisoners of war and was a catalyst for the establishment of the International Committee of the Red Cross (Ishay ’08: 151, 152). The Hague Convention Laws and Customs of War on Land of October 18, 1907 defines the term Occupy at Art. 43 whereby “The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country”. Occupy lawyers have asked for, and received in many cities, injunctions against the evictions.

Nonviolent protestors arrested at Occupy Oakland

Credit: Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune/MCT, Occupy Oakland November 13, 2011

Advocates of a social justice approach are pointing to a path beyond inherited orthodoxies to structural solutions that get at the underlying causes of poverty, inequality, racial and gender disparities, and the erosion of rights and civil liberties. Social and racial justice are inextricably interwined. In 2000 more than two-thirds of people living in concentrated urban poverty were black or Latino; 34 percent of poor blacks and 22 percent of Latinos lived in neighborhoods with at least a 25 percent poverty rate, compared to only 6 percent of poor whites. Policies need to change, as do the way those policies are implemented. Large number of people working together as part of dynamic social movements – with leadership from and by those directly affected by injustice – are needed to provide the ideas and muscle to overcome entrenched interests. A number of strategies need to be pursued in concert – including community organizing, civic participation, strategic communications, advocacy and policy development and analysis – to achieve large-scale social change. Philanthropy has a critical role to play in supporting grantees as they move social change forward. Giving for social justice helps ensure that much greater number of people can enjoy a society’s resources and opportunities. By harnessing the power of all sectors of society and more fully recognizing the defining roles of government and business play in people’s lives, foundation can more effectively help soc ieties meet the manifold needs of the twenty-first century. Social justice actors seek to help citizens transform systems, institutions and cultures to ensure that all citizens can participate fully in the social, spiritual, economic and political life of a country, regardless of their position or station in life. The aim of social justice is not to ensure that all people live the same lives or earn the same amount of money. However, a basic tenet is that all have the opportunity to meet their basic needs, to engage freely with one another across differences, and to define and build the institutions that shape their lives. There is a famous adage, “Give a person a fish and you have fed him for a day. Teach a person to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime.” Addressing issues of structural injustice can be “risky” or “political” yet the risk is offset by the long-term payoff. Mounting an effective funding program, particularly one that seeks to achieve large-scale impact in support of equity and justice, is an art. A successful strategy typically includes the following steps (1) analyze the problem (2) find a niche (3) identify powerful levers (4) choose strong grantees (5) give organizations what they need to succeed and (6) evaluate progress. The success of funding depends on three factors (1) conflict of interest rules (2) activist integrity and (3) diversity (Korten et al ’09: xii-xix, 212, 217, 227).

Thousands blockade all entry points to the New York Stock Exchange on two month Anniversary

Credit: Occupy Wall St.; Shut Down Wall St. November 17, 2011

Within the context of federal tax laws limiting lobbying by charities and foundations, there are generally many ways for organizations receiving foundation dollars to lobby legally. Within limits most 501(c)(3) public charities (including so-called public foundations) may lobby, but it is unwise to do so. Generally those limits may be set as a percentage of the organization’s expenditures under the so-called 501(h) expenditure test (named under the section of tax law that created it) or simply left vague, with the charity promising to do no “substantial” amount of lobbying. (in most cases, the charity can choose which of these two tests to use.) Typically, organizations that are exempt from tax under section 501(c)(3) may engage in unlimited amount of non-lobbying advocacy, such as preparing a substantive analysis of a public policy issue. As for 501(c)(3)s that are private foundations, the rules for lobbying are more strict, but these foundations still may play important roles in public policy efforts. Private foundations are not allowed to directly engage in lobbying or designate grants specifically for lobbying (they cannot earmark grants for lobbying). However, private foundations, like charities, may engage in non-lobbying activities, and most foundations may also provide support to charity grantees that lobby. Generally, there are two ways for private foundations to provide funds that grantees may use for lobbying. First, foundations may make general support grants to public charities without violating the ban on grants earmarked for lobbying, even if the grantee ends up using the grant to lobby. A foundation may also make a grant to support a particular project of a charity that includes lobbying, provided that the amount the foundation gives is less than the total non-lobbying budget for the project. Legally, most foundations do not have to restrict grantees from using grants for lobbying activities, although such language is common. There is usually no legal requirement that a foundation include such a “no lobbying” provision in grants to public charities (Korten & Pomeranz et al’11). In Regan, Secretary of Treasury et al v. Taxation With Representation of Washington 461 US 540 (1983) the U.S. Supreme Court held that lobbying restrictions on §501(c)(3) organizations violates the principle "that the government may not deny a benefit to a person because he exercises a constitutional right." 26USC§501(c)(3) organizations retain their constitutional right to speak and to petition the Government. Generally, is not in good taste to spend money and time attempting to influence government decisions when a non-profit organization, such as Occupy, could invest in social capital to sustain its participatory democracy and be the government. Occupy should not hesitate to file for non-profit status if it would benefit sustainers. Occupy is more fun than Move On and easier to participate in than the Tea Party. Occupy is not a political campaign. Occupy is a World Revolution in urban camping!

II. Occupy Ashland Watershed

Occupy Ashland began occupying the Plaza, across the street from City Hall, Lithia Park and the police substation on October 6^th with considerable community support from artists, naturalists and homeless advocates. Ashland is a small town in Southern Oregon, near the California border. The tourism related to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, fosters a lot of culture, including horticulture, community events and a more pleasant atmosphere than Medford where people in the Rogue Valley, go to work. At Occupy Ashland there was a table filled with food, another table with literature and general assemblies every night at 6 pm. For nearly 4 weeks there were at least five people on the Plaza 24 hours a day and twenty to thirty attending the general assembly when people would usually bring hot food. The police granted a permit and patrolled regularly. The authorities denied people the use of 24 hour bathrooms, tents and sleeping were prohibited. Those spending the night had to elect a lookout to say “six-up” when the police made their rounds, the insomnia was trying, and although I was camping at the time, I only slept on the Plaza one night and the other night I tried to participate I was kept up until I was convinced to leave at 4 am by “A Camp” to use the Rainbow Gathering segregation of alcoholics. Some regular campers reported having their names run through the system when the police caught them sleeping, usually around 8am. At 3 am one night an extremely obese police officer was responding to a report of stolen food, humorously he did not want any of the very nice donuts a veteran had contributed. After 21 days the number of 24 hour participants was dwindling and people were commenting that for moments they had seen absolutely no one occupying the Plaza. Organizers were discussing moving the location of the protest, like protests in other cities had done, but the goal of camping in Lithia Park was too enthralling to move locations and too long term a goal to achieve. And at this time one of the organizers took a trip to Occupy New York and I got too many, 14+ days of labor (a 10 year record), with room and board, 10 days of which were too far from town to continue participating in Occupy, at all. When I returned Occupy Ashland was gone with no forwarding address. Occupy Ashland however continues to host a general assembly on Wednesday at 6 pm and Saturday at 2pm and schedules activities with other organizations in the community, as promised. The email newsletter now serves minutes and last minute invitations to community events, during the occupation of the Plaza, it didn’t work, but no one needed it to get together. At the Saturday assembly a demonstrator on the soap box said, “it is nice to associate without the interference of the Internet and phones”.

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

The protest to chase Chase Bank out of town, as part of the Move your Money Southern Oregon movement to switch to a local bank or credit union, was highly successfully at encouraging many hundreds, even thousands, of people in a small city, to transfer their accounts to a local financial institutions. Less progress was made on the major social and environmental issues concerning use of the Lithia Park/ Mt. Ashland watershed. Ashland, does not have a homeless shelter, other than a cold weather shelter in a church when temperatures are below 20º, which rarely happens in the low elevations of rainy Rogue Valley, and the camping ban in the entire watershed between Lithia Park and Mt. Ashland, as designated on the maps given out by the local police substation, since the non-traditional lifestyles of the hippies scared respectable citizens from the park in the 1960s. Occupy organizers would like to emphasize their very strong support the homeless even though the 24 occupation fell apart, everyone is a star and should be allowed to sleep under the stars at the night. The label on the police substation map says, “Camping is only allowed at areas with stars. All other lands are closed to camping such as all of Ashland City Limits and All adjacent watershed forests including all private property in and around tow”. This area includes the entire Mt. Ashland to Lithia Park watershed where the town reservoir, water treatment plant and swimming hole are located. For the past decade naturalists have been waging an injunction against the proposed Mt. Ashland ski resort expansion into a 70 acre cirque, carved out by glaciers. The case is represented by the Sierra Club and has reached the U.S. 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. Forest Service has conducted surveys and concluded that no endangered species would be harmed by the proposed expansion. Scientists argue that the 70 acre expansion would damage the fragile headwaters of the watershed and would contaminate the town water-supply with 70 acres of dirt. Efforts to mitigate the silt will be needed to protect the water-supply, if the proposed expansion is to continue. The resistance is canvassing the public, advocating for a boycott of Mt. Ashland, holding meetings on the topic in conjunction with Occupy and guiding 13 mile walks to the site on Mt. Ashland, weekly. The local spring waters in the Ashland area are famous for the high content of Lithium found in the waters, the third highest in the world (O’Harra et al ’86). As a reminder of previous efforts to market the water there is a Lithia Springs drinking fountain on the Plaza, it smells funny and tastes like sulphur, something to try once, as a tourist, before preferring to drink out of the copper fountain scientists now and in ancient times attribute antibiotic and antiviral properties. The town drinking water is fine, but at the Jackson Wellsprings camping and trailer park, where many campers work-trade for work in the organic garden in the summer, there is only one five gallon jug, a swimming pool and hot tub of treated water, the sinks and showers use sulphur smelling water that is not safe to drink. Residents drink bottled water. Scientific testing of Lithia springs water has been done before and must be done again!

Note Taker, Facilitator and Vibe Checker of the Occupy Ashland General Assembly

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

Mount Ashland ski area is located on 7,532-foot (2,296 m) Mount Ashland and features 23 trails on 200 acres (0.81 km²) served by four lifts, in addition to chute skiing in a glacial cirque called The Bowl. The mountain receives over 300 inches (7,620.0 mm) of snow annually with a season from early December until mid-April. Half of the terrain is rated as advanced, and 15% is rated beginner. The peak is also the site of the transmitter and antenna for KTVL Channel 10 television, based in Medford, Oregon, approximately 15 miles (24 km) to the north. Since 1929 the City of Ashland got the Forest Service to agree that the city would participate in any forest management that might impact water quality of the 15,000-acre (61 km²) Ashland Creek watershed, the city's sole municipal water supply. During the 1950s, the mountain was a popular destination for local back country ski enthusiasts, some of whom built the lodge and one lift in 1963. In the 1970s, the area was managed by the Southern Oregon College Foundation (now Southern Oregon University) until it was purchased by Dick Hicks, a local businessman, in 1977. In 1975, the City of Ashland signed a new Memorandum of Understanding with USFS in which the city agreed to hire consultants to monitor conditions in the Ashland Creek watershed and USFS agreed to implement any measures necessary to maintain watershed quality. In 1983, the ski area was sold to Harbor Properties of Seattle, the owners of Stevens Pass Ski Area. Two new lifts were built during their ownership and night skiing lights were installed. In 1991, the City of Ashland purchased the ski resort through a community fundraising campaign and a grant from the Oregon Economic Development Fund. The slogan of the community fundraising campaign was "Save Mount Ashland." The city then hired Mount Ashland Association (MAA), a newly formed non-profit corporation, to maintain and operate the ski area (Wikipedia ’11). In 1992, the City of Ashland entered a lease agreement with MAA that expires on June 30, 2017, with an option to be renewed or terminated. In 1998, the Mount Ashland Association (MAA) proposed an expansion plan downslope of the existing ski area in the middle branch of the East Fork of Ashland Creek. Local conservationists objected to the plan, citing concerns about soil erosion effects on streams and wetlands in the City of Ashland's municipal watershed as well as concerns for old-growth forest, the McDonald Peak Inventoried Roadless Area, and endangered wildlife. In 2000, the Forest Service issued its first draft environmental impact statement (EIS) considering the MAA expansion proposal. The EIS drew over 6,000 public comments, about half of which supported the MAA plan and half opposed. In 2003, the Forest Service issued its second draft EIS on expansion, this one with a significantly broader range of alternatives including a community proposal (Alternative 5) to develop the existing ski area largely within its existing footprint. In December 2004, the United States Forest Service approved the MAA proposal including a new chairlift accessing an additional 72 acres (290,000 m²) of intermediate and expert terrain, 200 more parking spaces, and a second lodge at the bottom of the glacial cirque known as The Bowl. The Forest Service received 28 notices of appeal, all of which were denied (RGSC ’11).

Status Report on the Bank Protest to the General Assembly

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

In January 2005, three organizations—Oregon Natural Resources Council, Headwaters and Sierra Club—and one individual (Eric Navickas) sued USFS in the U.S. District Court alleging that the decision violated the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). U.S. magistrate Owen Panner issued summary judgment denying the lawsuits in February 2007, noting, "You cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs." In September 2007, the appellate court ruled that USFS violated the NFMA and NEPA in four ways when it approved the expansion. First, the court noted USFS failure to substantiate its assertion that expansion would not harm Fisher, in violation of the 1990 Rogue River National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP) requirement to base its analysis on study of local and total populations of sensitive wildlife known to exist at sites proposed for development. Second, the court ruled that USFS overlooked adverse cumulative effects to Fisher resulting from development in a road-less forest corridor of significant biological importance linking the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains with the Cascade Mountains, as well as from other concurrent forest management activities planned nearby. Third, the court rejected as unreasonable USFS claims that known landslides should be excluded from riparian reserve under the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. It noted significant consequences to the City of Ashland's watershed resulting from the erroneous agency interpretation of riparian management criteria. Finally, the court found that 35 acres (140,000 m²) which USFS approved for development in fact merits designation as restricted watershed under the 1990 Rogue River National Forest LRMP. That designation limits soil disturbance caused by management activities. In its 2004 decision, the Forest Service stated that it is not possible to limit soil disturbance below allowed thresholds in the course of ski area development. The Forest Service has released their Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) that is supposed to address and correct all of the defects that the Courts found with the plan back in 2006. Despite what local newspaper editors have already said, there were many shortcomings in the previous Record of Decision by the Forest Service. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. The Rogue Group Sierra Club supports the Ski Area and some form of expansion, but we do not support expansion in the scenic, fragile and wild Middle Branch and the McDonald's Peak Roadless Area. Instead, we support the Community Alternative (CA) that would not impact the fragile springs, wetlands, seeps and creeks that make up the headwaters of the Middle Branch of the East Fork of Ashland Creek, nor the rare plants and animals that call it home (RGSC ’11).

How Mt. Ashland would look after the expansion

Credit: Mt. Ashland

Clear-cutting an area the size of 70 football fields in a municipal watershed is never a good idea. The soils of Mt. Ashland are well known to be very unstable. Reeder Reservoir already takes in a high volume of sediment annually. The McDonald Peak Roadless Area (MPRA) is 10,000 acres of wilderness within a few miles of Ashland. The proposed expansion would clear-cut 70 acres and fragment up to 500 acres of the Roadless Area. Combined with other projects proposed in the road-less area, nearly 20% of the MPRA would be impacted. If ski expansion is approved, Ashland will have lost a golden opportunity to protect wilderness-quality public lands in its own backyard. Despite at least two recent reports that predict difficult circumstances for snowfall on Mt. Ashland (more rain and less snow), the FS has refused to analyze the impact of global warming on the proposed expansion using best available science. Much of the expansion area is lower in elevation and is subject to lack of snow. We have repeatedly asked the FS to analyze the impact of global warming in light of these reports and the FS has steadfastly refused to do so. Sedimentation to the City’s Reeder Reservoir is likely to increase, requiring the City to dredge the reservoir more frequently. Each large scale dredging costs the City about $600,000. The Master Plan for the proposed ski expansion was approved in 1991 - nearly 20 years ago. Things were different 20 years ago. Climate change was not well known or verified. The value of the forest as a carbon sink was not even considered. There was no knowledge of the rare plants and animals that inhabit the Middle Branch. The values of the general population have changed. Wilderness has a much higher value now than in 1991. Forest Service rules state that this document is “stale” and therefore the master planning should start over. The expansion area is home to many rare plants and animals including the endangered Northern spotted owl, Pacific fisher, Engelmann spruce, Mt. Ashland lupine, Henderson’s horkelia, great gray owl, Arctic blue butterfly and others. All will be negatively impacted by the expansion proposal (RGSC ’11). The U.S. Supreme Court may grant the petition certiorari to decide upon the Community Alternative (Alternative 5) and redress the harmful effects the capitalist development the Mt. Ashland ski area has had upon a nearly century old tradition of free organized camping on Ashland Creek in Lithia Park near the Plaza by allowing for a winter camp close to town and a summer camp at the swimming hole.

Assembly Across the Street from City Hall

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

The second issue of the Ashland Free Press: Ashland’s Independent Newspaper: Lessons Learned and Bridges Burned: Occupy Ashland Week 3 of October 24, 2011 cites the Ashland Municipal Code Section 10.46 Prohibited Camping which defines at ‘10.46.010 A. Unless the context requires otherwise, the following definitions will apply: A. “To camp” means to set up or to remain in or at a campsite. B,. “Campsite” means any place where bedding, sleeping bags, or other material used for bedding purposes, or any stove or fire is placed, established, or maintained for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live, whether or not such place incorporates the use of any tent, lean-to, shack, or any other structure, or any vehicle or part thereof. 10.46.020 Camping Prohibited; No person shall camp in or upon any sidewalk, street, alley, lane, public right-of-way, park , or any other publicly-owned property or under any bridge or viaduct, unless otherwise specifically authorized by this code, by the owner of the property, or by emergency declaration under AMC 2.62.030. Camping prohibited is a Class IVA violation. 10.46.030 Sleeping on Benches or within Doorways prohibited; No person shall sleep on public benches between the hours of 9:00 pm and 8:00 am. Sleeping on benches is a Class IV violation’. In 2008 the Southern Oregon branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued the ban was unconstitutional and petitioned for a rewrite of the ordinance. Several amendments were offered to the city of Ashland which voted to ignore them. The lead homeless advocate for the past several years left town shortly after high profile negotiations at SOU in Spring of 2011 that encouraged private partnerships in which people would perform work for the landlord in exchange for the right to camp on private land, but fell short of repealing the camping ban. In response to dozens of homeless activists and community organizers joining with Ashland’s Homelessness Taskforce to petition city council for more resources to aid the local homeless. The city has agreed to make a Porto-potty available for demonstrators to use at night. The law, as written, has yet to be challenged in the Court system. If the Courts allow the Mt. Ashland ski expansion is to go forward they must surely concede to allow camping in beautiful Lithia Park, on the Lithia Park/ Mt. Ashland watershed, perhaps with a winter and summer tent city, close to the warmth of town in the winter, and far from the maddening crowds in summer, perhaps at the swimming hole, for only the $1,000 a year cost of a Porto-potty, as opposed to the estimated $5,000 costs in extra vandalism that would be caused by a 24 occupation, that could be more easily defrayed by the community.

Singing a Song on Saturday before the General Assembly

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

Ashland Creek tumbles down a forested canyon from the distant skyline of the Siskiyou mountains. At the head of that canyon Mt. Ashland thrusts some 7,500 feet into the sky, towering over the foothills and the small town of Ashland. In the heart of the town is Lithia Park, 100 acres of wooded places and meandering woodland paths that follow Ashland Creek for two miles from the Plaza to the chilly waters of the Reservoir. Lithia Park unfolds out of the Plaza. The world famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s theatre merges with the meticulously landscaped park. One walks past Meyer Memorial Lake and the green where the annual Feast of the Tribe of Will heralds the official opening of the Festival’s summer season. If you follow the path upstream beyond the playground you will come to a bandshell where the Ashland City Band performs on warm summer evenings. There are well-used tennis courts and group picnic areas including the gazebo where the Church without Walls sups for their singing on Sunday and Comack on Thursday, both at 4 p. Lithia Park is city-owned, one of the few such parks in the state to be supported by a separate city tax levy. Through the years many generous gifts have made possible much of its development. In 1982 Litha Park was included on the National Register of Historic Places as an outstanding example of distinctive American landscape architecture. The park is under the control and management of an elected five-member Park Commission and the care of the Ashland Park and Recreation Department’s maintenance staff (O’harra et al ’86). Speeches are not unheard of at Ashland Plaza. A professor of history who has given Veteran’s day speeches in Ashland Plaza wrote in the Ashland Daily Tidings in July 3, 1983, “the Declaration of Independence is chiefly to be remembered for its proclamation, in 1776, of certain truths then called "self-evident" and its sturdy announcement that some of the British colonies had clearly given birth to a new nation. The Constitution was designed in 1787 to create, in the name of the People, a new form of representative government that would guarantee political and economic stability without threatening individual or group freedoms. As we consider in our homes and our schools what to tell the members of a new generation of Americans about this patriotic holiday, we may want to use the past to mold the present. From the American Revolution can be learned the great consequences that can flow from courageous sacrifice of self, comprehensive educational preparation of leaders and the importance of seizing the moment (Bornet ’10: 137-141).

Entrance to Lithia Park

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

Ashland began where the entrance to Lithia Park faces the Plaza. The men who filed Donation Land Claims here in 1852 wanted to build a “home town”, a reservation for whites competitive with the Table Rocks Reservation for the Takelma Tribes created by Treaty in 1852 that was irreparably broken in 1854 as reparated in A Treaty of Freedom with the Rogue River Tribes: Table Rocks Wilderness Camping Powwow Petition HA-12-5-11 that is available to the Oregon Governor for the purpose of designating Table Rocks a National Monument in honour of Aunt Lill who lived to 97 above the Hollywood sign. A place where the gold miners and the settlers who were coming with families could find lumber and equipment, supplies and food, schools, churches – a community life. Ashland Creek made all of this possible. First a water-powered sawmill was built on the banks of the stream, then a flouring mill that stood for more than 50 years at what is now the entrance to the park. It ground the first flour in the Oregon country south of Roseburg. People came to the mills for lumber and flour, mostly moved by pack team and wagon. Business grew around the open space that became known simply as the “the Plaza”: there was a general store, a blacksmith shop, a livery stable and a watering trough for horses. A small hotel accommodated travelers and Ashland became a stopping place for the California-Oregon Stage Company operating between Sacramento and the Willamette Valley. A school opened, and church groups were organized. The Methodist Church encouraged the opening of a small college in 1872. The land around Ashland was developing for farming. Railroad lines stretched south from Portland and north from Sacramento and when they joined in Ashland in 1887 the occasion was celebrated nationwide because the union completed the circle of railroads around the entire United States. The hilltop above Meyer Memorial Lake, where the Shakespearean Festival complex now stands, and the flat grassy space between the lake and the playground became the first public park in Ashland because of Chautauqua, a nationwide travelling program of lectures, seminars and entertainment that originated at Lake Chautauqua in upstate New York. Ashland was 40 years old in 1892, the year the Southern Oregon Chautauqua Association was formed during a Methodist camp meeting near Central Point. The Chautauqua promise was that “outside interest would awaken the sentiments and intellect of the people”. It offered speakers on current events, concerts, classes in literature, history, biology, nature study, bible study, exercise, economic problems and roundtable discussions. The Southern Oregon Chautauqua Association encouraged by its Ashland members, decided that Ashland would be a better location than Central Point for the annual two-week summer session. At the time the town of 1,800 people ensured a crowd, Ashland had electric lights, city water, hotel accommodations, a site for an assembly building on a wooded hillside sloping up from the center of town, and a shady place nearby where families camp on the banks of the a stream (O’harra et al ’86).

Ducks Grazing Where Chautauqua Association Camped near the Entrance to Lithia Park

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

The decision to locate in Ashland a to construct a hall large enough for 1,000 people was made in time for the opening program on July 5, 1893, the land cost $1,500 and a bond was issued for $2,500 to cover the purchase of the land, construction of a wooden frame building and cost of the first year’s program. Dr. C.C. Stratton from Portland University was the opening night speaker on July 5, W.C. Hawley, a faculty member at Willamette University who later became president of that school and congressman from that district, lecture on the projected Nicaragua Canal and the seal fisheries in the Bering Sea. Chautauqua was a huge success. For the next 30 years the annual summer sessions drew crowds to Ashland. People came by train and in wagons loaded with camping gear, and many families set up tents in the grove along the bank of Ashland Creek. As many as 100 tents stood under the trees during the Chautauqua season; local people joined families who came from as far as Klamath Falls and Grants Pass. The initial effort to make the camping place and the tabernacle grounds more attractive was made by members of the Ladies Chautauqua Club. Following a general cleanup, the woman used money from dues and community dinners to hire a gardener and to plant grass, flowers and many maple and locust trees which still stand. This first park in Southern Oregon, owned by the Chautauqua Association but open to the public, was enjoyed year-round. Few if any other small Western towns of that time had the distinction of providing such amenities for picnics, Fourth of July festivities, and public celebrations. However, the old Ashland Flouring Mill, closed for several years because of financial problems, stood between the Chautauqua grounds and the Plaza. The Woman’s Civic Improvement Club was organized, many of its members also belonged to the Ladies Chautauqua Club, they asked City Council to create a park that would begin at the Plaza and eventually follow Ashland Creek up the canyon to Mt. Ashland. The most immediate problem was the flouring mill, the pig pens, cow shed, broken offences and trash behind it. They proposed cleaning the mill site and making it the park entrance. Creation of the proposed park was presented to the voters as a city charter amendment and on December 15, 1908, the measure carried, 607 to 138. All city-owned property bordering Ashland Creek from the Plaza to the Forest Reserve, excluding streets, alleys, the pest house (where people with communicable diseases were isolated), the rock quarry, and a number of parcels that remained in private ownership, was dedicated forever for park purposes. A separate tax levy for parks was approved (maximum two mills) and authority for control and management was given to a separate Park Commission. Ashland purposely did not place this responsibility with the City Council. Henry G. Enders, Mrs. Ida M. Gard, George Knoblaugh, W.A. Patrick and Mrs. Mary Meikle were appointed by Mayor R.N. Shell to serve until a Commission could be elected. The old mill was torn down the next summer, a landscape gardener was hired, rock walls, a pond and a waterfall were built, an addition 40 acres of land were purchased bordering Ashland Creek upstream from the Chautauqua property. At the direction of the new Park Commissioner, rhododendrons and azaleas were planted in 1910, and playground equipment was installed in 1911.

Late season Deer family who graze the Siskiyou strip across the street from the Gazebo

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-24-10-11

The public admired the beauty of Ashland’s new “front yard” and referred to it as the city park, but continued to use the original Chautauqua Park, where the Ladies Chautauqua Club carried the expenses for gatherings. In 1914 a group of these women appeared before City Council to ask for $50 a month for six months to help with maintenance costs, but they were turned down, a decision influenced perhaps by the objection several people voiced over tax funds being spent to help maintain property not in public ownership. Approval to spend money for even city-owned parks was not easily granted by a Council struggling to meet the needs of a growing community. By this time several other small parks had been developed and the Siskiyou Boulevard park strip had been planted, and additional land had been acquired in Ashland Creek canyon. Beginning in 1913, people began to believe that the lithia water could be exploited along with sulphur and soda water to promote Ashland as a mineral water spa. The effort to develop the highly subsidized commercial venture failed, leaving Lithia Park as we know it today, however Jackson Wellsprings, just to the north of Ashland, realized that dream and operates a spa, trailer park, and campground with a community garden many locals work-trade at from April-August for free camping and use of the spa, and many others camp in the woods above the campground. The presence of mineral springs near Ashland was known to both the Indians and the early settlers. In 1907 a lithia water spring was discovered in Emigrant Creek four miles east of town and property owners G.H. Gillette and Harry Silver sent samples of the water to a San Francisco chemist. They were told that it had the second largest lithium content of any known springs in the world; only the famous health spas in Saratoga, New York and in Carlsbad, Germany, offered the combination of health-giving minerals found in the water from Southern Oregon. Bert Greer, a journalist who had worked for an owned newspapers in the Midwest and in Oklahoma, came to Ashland in 1911 and found a community of 3,500 people, a railroad center, the Chautauqua grove, and the beginnings of a larger park. He bought the Ashland Tidings and became interested in the mineral springs. Along with the lithia springs, he heard about the Murphy and Shepard soda springs, the Siskiyou mineral and the Tolman gas springs, all of them east of town. Within the city limits the Helman yellow sulphur and the Natatorium white sulphur springs had been converted into bathing pools. Just north of Ashland the Jackson hot sulphur spring produced a large volume of water, but was in a cattle pasture, undeveloped. Remarkable cures of rheumatism had been reported by the various sulphur owners, and many people drank Siskiyou mineral water for kidney problems. Lithia water was touted for treatment of stomach and kidney troubles and the Tolman gas spring, equipped with an enclosure for gas baths, treated patients with heart ailments and skin disease. Locals frequently complain rheumatism and tooth aches, so there may be a little truth in the self-aggrandizing lies of the health spa entrepreneurs.

The Foul Tasting Lithia Spring Drinking Fountain for Tourists

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

The bond election was scheduled for June 8, 1914, and John McLaren, San Francisco superintendent of parks, attended as guests of honor. Ashland celebrated; parades and banquets boosted the mineral springs development under way at last. Songs were written for the occasion and slogans such as “Ashland Grows While Lithia Flows” were chanted by the enthusiastic crowd. The Jackson County Court praised an effort being made by Col. Frank H. Ray of New York to use the Ashland venture as a way to interest eastern capitalists in Southern Oregon. “Private capital can make the Rogue River valley the playground of the world, especially now that the European war has left thousands of tourists with no watering resort…All that is needed is private capital to grasp these opportunities” the Court said. Meanwhile, the free auto camp developed by the Park Commission, it was located at the present Parks and Recreations Department official site, opened and drew many tourists to Ashland. Its opening coincided with the spread of paved highways throughout the region, and it was one of the first such facilities on the West Coast to cater to travelers. “Every tourist that camps here leaves an enthusiastic booster for Ashland”, reported the tidings, full of praise and complimentary comments about the campground”. Several parcels of privately owned land were purchased in order to unify the area being developed. As the new landscaping began to take shape, people began to refer to his new area as Lithia Springs Park. McLaren incorporated the natural features of Ashland Creek canyon, its granite boulders, and its native vegetation into the landscape plan, and he called for many additional trees. McLaren’s motto was “Trees and more trees”. The curve linear from of Lithia Park is similar to the form of Golden Gate Park, both to which are laid out informally with curves rather than rights angles. The roadway was included, as it was in Golden Gate Park, because the park was to be enjoyed form a car as well as by those who chose to walk. A turnabout, just below where the bandshell now stands provided the formal entrance to the Lithia Springs Park in 1915. Paths were built along the stream banks, simple footbridges spanned the creek, and rustic buildings carried the theme into the auto camp. A cave, dug 40 feet into the granite hillside just across the creek from where the tennis courts were built, provided the setting for a sulphur spring, piped in, which bubbled with arm and unpleasant-smelling water. At night the cave, which came to be known as Satan’s Sulphur Grotto, was lighted with strings of blue lights which gave an eerie glow. Close by, a waterfall (piped in, spilled over a granite cliff into a rocky pool. The Lithia Springs Park dedication arrived at last. In order to involve all of Southern Oregon in the spectacular celebration, July 4, 1916, was declared Ashland Day, Sunday was Medford day, and Monday was for Grants Pass and Klamath Falls. Dignitaries came from Portland and from San Francisco. There were parades, speeches, and music. The extravaganza was a huge success with attendance for the three days estimated at 50,000. It was estimated that the city had benefitted financially acquiring $150,000 to $200,000 in “good hard cash”. Outside capitalists” were ready to build a $50,000 sanitarium in Ashland, but voters said no, 521 to 376, they intended to leave things the way they were.

Condemned Cabin infested with mold from recent flood at Jackson Wellsprings

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-25-10-11

During the 1920s, the Park Commission acquired additional land adjacent to the free auto camp, improved camping facilities and built a community house, now occupied by the Parks and Recreation Department office, and five cabins, one of the original cottages can be seen next to the office, which tourists could rent. The camp provided an income of about $800 a month. Interest in Chautauqua faded during this period. In Ashland, leaders changed, and the local tradition of offering a varied and meaningful program running for two full weeks lapsed. People now had automobiles and radios for entertainment. The Chautauqua building was abandoned. The city of Ashland took it over in 1925 and assigned responsibility for its maintenance to the Park Commission. Eventually the dome was removed, nothing was left but the circular concrete walls inside of which weeds grew in profusion amid accumulations of trash. When the stock market crashed in 1929, Ashland, along with the rest of the nation, did whatever it could to survive the Great Depression. As the United States struggled to overcome the Depression there were two events that would have a long-lasting impact on both the quality of life in Ashland and the feeling of community pride in Lithia Park. In 1935 Angus Bowmer, who taught English composition and public speaking at Southern Oregon Normal School (now Southern Oregon University) looked at the abandoned Chatauqua shell and saw in it “a peculiar resemblance to a drawing of the Globe Theatre of Shakespeare’s London”. Bowmer persuaded the city to include a three-day festival of Shakespearean plays as part of the Fourth of July festivities that year. Bowmer himself would be producer/director of the “festival”. On a small stage built inside the cement walls of the old Chautauqua building, he and his dedicated cast presented “Romeo and Juliet” on July 2 and 4, “The Merchant of Venice” on July 3. To the amazement of many, the brief festival was a success, and in this inauspicious way the Oregon Shakespearean Festival began. The festival runs from February to early November, seats cost around $50 a play. Actors are not paid as well as the businesspeople but there is a thriving community of street performers, and the Shakespeare Festival is world famous.

One of Two Oregon Shakespeare Festival Theatres

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-15-10-11

The second important happening occurred in November when Chester E. Corry was hired as assistant park superintendent. The next year he created the landscape design for the Root Memorial Area, a gift of former Councilman and Mrs. C.W. root of more than 19 acres upstream from the auto camp, and supervised the landscaping project carried out by a Works Progress Administration crew. This action expanded the developed area of Lithia Park still further up the canyon. The path near the Parks and Recreation Department office building will take you there today. Chet Corry made a number of changes. He diverted Ashland Creek in two places to form a large pool, trickling falls and gentle rapids, he built an island for campfire parties. The island campfire pit was clever because fires are generally not allowed during fire season which stretches from April to October depending on the rain. He searched the mountains for colorful native plants and brought to the park dogwood, mock orange, wild rose, sumac, Western wall flowers from Mt. Lassen, wild columbine, wild rick garden plants and ferns. He also established a park nursery so he could grow plants as needed. The Plaza entrance and the Chautauqua park area, worn from use and never unified in design, were replanted under a WPA project in 1938. The playground was enlarged, new bridges replaced older structures, paths were extended. Corry also developed a small zoo near the elk pen. He and his wife, Doris, raided orphan fawns brought to them by police r forest workers and several that were born to the small herd living in the park. During World War II Lithia Park was a lively community center, the scene of bond rallies and patriotic gatherings. Maintenance continued, but Ashland’s primary energies during these years were devoted to the war effort. Changes were inevitable. One of the mineral water fountains had been destroyed years earlier by a falling tree, and Corry removed another when it became impossible to keep the sulphur water running. The central mineral water mixing station, at the head of the long flight of cement stairs that remains in the park today, was abandoned, the building was used briefly as a Boy Scout headquarters, then razed as a safety measure. The famous Satan’s Sulphur Grotto became a dumping place for trash, and the waterfall cut into the decomposed granite hillside. Both were filled and covered. Vandalism and the cost of repair made it impossible to keep the butler-Perozzi fountain flowing and vandals eventually destroyed the statue of Abraham Lincoln. Eventually the auto camp, rundown and no longer economical to operate, was phased out.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival Theatre from Lithia Park in Autumn

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

The Shakespearean Festival grew still more, Ashland was “discovered” by the travelling public, and the multitudes flocked to Lithia Park. Nature, too, brought change. After unusually warm temperatures in the Siskiyou Mountains during Christmas week of 1974, the snowpack at the head of Ashland Creek canyon melted, and the park, the Plaza, and everything downstream were hit with a devastating flood. Bridges were washed out, and water cut deep channels through park lawns and flower beds. Floodwaters raged down Winburn Way and swept over the park entrance and the Plaza. Everyone cared about the park. Even before the water receded, people came with axes and chainsaws to help clean up. The city began restoration work and applied for federal disaster relief assistance. Ashland voters authorized a flood restoration bond issue. The largest single amount of the $400,000 was spent to replace earth and vegetation in the park and rebuild paths and roads. Individuals and groups gave money generously to replace footbridges and other structures not eligible for restoration funds. The combination of gifts, bonds and federal funding was sufficient to repair damage to the park and other city facilities with very little impact on taxes, but the added financial pressure left the Park Commission without any operating funds. The City Council agreed to loan what was needed to pay the bills, and an austerity program was adopted. The Park Commission established several principles to protect Lithia Park: there should be no new structures, money for maintenance must be assured, and there should be no commercial enterprises. The director was given the authority to hire a park superintendent and horticulturist, people with special skills to oversee specific functions. Long-term solutions were emphasized with high-quality workmanship and the finest materials expected to last between 50 and 100 years. Of primary concern was finding a way to maintain a passive park in a wilderness setting when the area was visited by half a million people each year (O’harra et al ’86). Does a winter and summer camp system not leave enough time for the grass roots to grow? The U.S. Supreme Court may grant the petition certiorari to decide upon the Community Alternative (Alternative 5) and redress the harmful effects the capitalist development the Mt. Ashland ski area has had upon the nearly century old social tradition of free organized camping on Ashland Creek in Lithia Park near the Plaza by allowing for a winter camp close to town and a summer camp at the swimming hole. Perhaps the police would stop ticketing campers if the campers were required to volunteer to do a full day of landscaping with the supervised community service crews that meet four days a week to maintain Lithia Park, every week?

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

The Oregon government desperately needs for the U.S. Supreme Court to deny certiorari of another lawsuit from Rogue Valley pertaining to concealed carry of medical marijuana license Gordon v. Sansone et al 2011. Using the email addresses and encouragement in the Ashland Free Press I wrote the Oregon Press to protect the Oregon economy and public health from sharing the same illegitimate fate of Washington State for which the United States Supreme Court could be construed as owing $3 billion dollars in actual damages to the once balanced budget of now fraudulently elected Governor Chris Gregoire caused by Doe v. Reed, Washington Secretary of State No. 09-559 (2010) in flagrant violation of Marbury v. Madison 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) as noted in the Eviction Case for Trashing Treason HA-12-7-10. Gordon v. Sansone et al coup poses a serious economic and public health threat to both Rogue Valley and the entire state of Oregon, by means of the indiscriminate, infringing and highly illegal prosecution of claims against the United States in violation of 18USC(11)§205 with §201 as my witness. The first sign of infringement, occurred in September when the Mail Tribune flippantly reported that my nonrespondent confidant the County Clerk Chris Walker, reported to be female in the press after being cited in the beautiful Treaty of Freedom with the Rogue River Tribes: Table Rock Wilderness Campground and Powwow Petition HA-12-5-11, has paid $113,000 for elections in Goldhill valued at $65. This just goes to show what happens when one opens markets to a $5 bribe to the SWAT Course instructor and $5 wilderness camping free for native Americans and indigents, in contravention to §201. The day the report of the raid on the medical marijuana farm the Mail Tribune did erroneously write the name Sanders instead of Saunders, in the Supreme Court college gun case, causing a week of clouds and rain, The Mail Tribune definitely needs to follow up on this absolutely critical case of alleged malfeasance in the office of the Jackson County Clerk/Board of Elections in Gold Hill. Reading Gordon v. Sansone (2011) one will have no doubt this armed coup conceals the Washington coup d’etat. Oregon’s weakness is the Governor’s association between the prison reduction to balance the budget without making the socially scientific limit of 250 detainees per 100,000 residents public knowledge while being exposed to conflict of interest with his predecessor under 18USC(11)206 from whence this illegal certiorari from the Oregon Supreme Court needs to be denied to reduce gun violence.

Protestor with Gas Mask Confronts Riot Cops at Occupy Portland

Credit: Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

The facts of the conflict of interest are simple. The real issues giving rise to conflict of interest with the Bar of the Federal Supreme Court for which reason Gordon v. Sansone (2011) must be recused is not only the excessive use of force used by the DEA in the raid on the medical marijuana farm, but the $200,000-$400,000 bribe from the federal Department of Justice (DoJ), paid to the Jackson County Judiciary to employ one full time and two part time workers, a $100,000-$200,000 mystery fund for a local judiciary known for their violent and illiterate defense of fraudulent legal records and capitalist judgment. The DEA clearly paid the Jackson County Sheriff Winters a substantial bribe, in contravention to bribery of witness statute 18USC(11) §201, to break and enter Anderson’s medical marijuana farm, where they accidentally discharged a gun and took and presumably destroyed the entire 400 plant collective farm, that could have been made into hashish for Pakistan flood refugees, although federal laws have a 99 plant threshold. The United States is cited for the excessive use of force where they accidentally discharged a firearm and they should not be allowed to cover this up with a patently violent lawsuit that does not pass the Bar exam “A lawyer is behind bars or drunk on power”. The District Attorney should have issued a fine to limit the crop to 99 plants, in writing. Sure Oregon lawyers spend all their time infesting the economy and devote only one small article on the first page of their journals to the way the legislature is completely responsible for sentencing decisions, but Oregon is only about two times over the legal limit of 250 detainees per 100,000 residents, while the U.S. Supreme Court is three times, and Washington D.C. six times over this legal limit based upon international minimal standards for the treatment of prisoners. The U.S. Supreme Court made considerable progress apologizing for using Hospitals & Asylums (HA) to stage a coup d’etat against the only state with a balanced budget in 2010 with their disciplined application for the release of 40,000 mentally and physically disabled California prisoners in Edward Brown, Governor of California, et al v. Marciana & Plata et al No. 09–1233 (2011) that was approved in Act III of the Defense of Social Security Caucus HA-1-7-11 to create an SSI financed halfway house system nationally.

Swimming Hole from the Road

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-19-11-11

For the community a U.S. Supreme Court case is a dubious prospect due considerable introspection. A U.S. Supreme Court case is an opportunity for the community to express its legal personality and respect for human rights for the record but the Bar of the United States Supreme Court is dangerously drunk on power. Is it an honest case? Does it pass the Bar exam? - A lawyer is behind bars or drunk on power? Does it involve prisoner’s rights or is it an armed attack infringing on a mishandled community? I have never seen such a flagrantly armed assassination attempt as Gordon v. Sansone (2011). I am offended by the extortion by the federal government accompanying this frivolous lawsuit, my alma mater stained hirsuit, my entire outdoor war-drobe, in the trash with more than $40,000 of permanent and total disability caused by exactly this familiar (evil-step father) student loan for chemical weapons “exemption” in violation of Title 18 USC Chapter 11, 11A and 11B being too illiterate to plagiarize an infringement. Including the $20 federal regulators did manage to get from me via Magic Jack, two months early, the $330 the Department of Education withdrew from my sister’s account without her permission, is enough federal bribery to justify a U.S. Supreme Court that would both deny Gordon v. Sansone (2011) certiorari and grace the denizens of the Ashland Watershed with the jurisprudence of both the Rogue Group Sierra Club and the American Civil Liberties Union. This is not such a light request for representation, but it is not so difficult to arrange. Both Rogue Group Sierra Club (RGSC) and the Southern Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have extensive documentation on their respective issues. The RGSC has a lawsuit filed with the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals that is ripe for certiorari and the ACLU homeless issue is adequately behind bars to do the inferior courts justice. The only person known to Occupy Ashland who went to jail, for one month, did so because he protested both paying the fine for camping and community service. Long term denizens of the Ashland watershed usually rack up thousands of dollars in fines they obviously don’t have the ability to pay. The former long term spokesmen for the homeless, who owed more than $4,000 in fines, for several years of open container and camping on the watershed, fled town within a week of speaking on the homeless issue at Southern Oregon University (SOU). Whereas the human rights issue of homelessness is clearly too contentious to discuss in the inferior courts and the environmental Mt. Ashland watershed case is too political, to do justice, RGSC and the SOACLU are hereby called upon to collaborate to draft a brief application for writ of certiorari. It hurts to Esq. If these two organizations do not wish to burden the community with the cost and time it takes to prepare a U.S. Supreme Court brief that would supply our community, Hospitals & Asylums (HA) and the entire Occupy movement with positive freedom, taking into consideration the chronically disappointing consequences of petitioning the federal government, Rogue Valley might benefit even more if RGVC and SOACLU lawyers disclosed this, their conflict of interest, to ensure that Gordon v. Sansone (2011) is swiftly denied certiorari to protect the health and property of the community with negative freedom.

III. They Took our Households

The capitalist economy separates households into renters and homeowners. The number of total foreclosure filings rose from about 885,000 in 2005 to 1,259,118 in 2006, up 42 percent from 2005, a foreclosure rate of one foreclosure filing for every 92 U.S. households and remains elevated. An estimate 15.6% of all sub-prime loans originated since 1998 either have ended or will end in foreclosure and the loss of homeownership. As a consequence to the rise in foreclosure auctions the number of home sales dipped from 6.48 million in 2006 to 6.29 million in 2007, a drop of 2.7 percent. In 2010 there were about 106 million occupied housing units, 72 million owner-occupied and 33.6 million renter-occupied. The median value of owner occupied homes was $140,000, down from $219,000 a few years before. The difference between the middle class and the working class can be defined as home ownership. The sluggish labor market, particularly in the housing and construction sector, drove many middle class households to refinance their mortgages to avoid foreclosure. In 2010, about 7.2 million homeowners took out home equity lines of credit last year, up 12% from 2001 when 6.4 million such credit lines were established. The ability for people to earn money is however not infinitely insulated from economic hardships, like the ability of debts to accumulate interest (Smith & Max-Neef ’11). The Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution cruelly and unusually gives excess rights to the Owner to quarter troops in your homicidal home until it is repealed. At the end of 2006 there were $13.3 trillion in US mortgage loans. $10.2 trillion were in one to four family residences, $731 billion in multifamily residences, $2.2 trillion in non-farm nonresidential, commercial real estate and $163 billion in farms. In 2005 the total output of housing services, meaning the income derived from mortgages, was estimated at $1.23 trillion, $928.8 billion from owner occupied units, $250.7 billion net income from rental properties and $54.6 billion other, mostly trailer parks and farms. In the U.S., about 80% of the value of the total commercial real estate market is held privately. Interest rates, at about 6.16 percent for a 30-year fixed-rate loan were expected to rise gradually to about 6.5 percent by the fourth quarter of 2007. The U.S. housing market has not changed much since the Adjustable Rate Mortgage Ban HA-10-5-07 failed to get Congress to repeal adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) loan statute, ban the unethical lending practice and settle on the original contract price.

Outstanding Mortgage Debt 2003-2006 (in millions of US dollars)

Type of holder and property	2003	2004	2005	2006
All holder	9,368,870	10,672,100	12,133,840	13,315,070
One- to four-family residences	7,168,933	8,237,910	9,367,860	10,199,330
Multifamily residences	555,697	609,099	680,072	731,039
Non-farm, nonresidential	1,510,655	1,683,373	1,937,991	2,221,260
Farm	133,586	141,718	147,914	163,440

Source: Statistical Supplement to the Federal Reserve Bulletin, April 2007, 1.54 discontinued in January 2009

Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) Caps should be amended to legislate an all-out ban of ARM loans instead of pretending like government overregulation is capable of mediating the disputes that arise from giving lenders the power to arbitrarily increase their interest rates, under 12USC(39)§3806 at (d)(2) the term “adjustable rate mortgage loan” means any consumer loan secured by a lien on a one-to four-family dwelling unit, including a condominium unit, cooperative housing unit, or mobile home, where the loan is made pursuant to an agreement under which the creditor may, from time to time, adjust the rate of interest. The ability for people to earn money is however not infinitely insulated from economic hardships, like the ability debts already have, to accumulate interest (Smith & Max-Neef ’11). Adjustable rate mortgages under 38USCIII(37)I§3707 and hybrid adjustable rate mortgages §3707A are defective products that should be repealed from Veteran’s statute referenced in Section 215 of the National Housing Act. Section 129 of the Truth in Lending Act 15USC(41)IB§1639 makes it unlawful to engage in any unfair or deceptive act or practice in providing any sub-prime federally related mortgage loan. The departure of asset prices from contractual fundamentals can lead to inappropriate investments that decrease the efficiency of the economy. For example, if banks raise interest rates and monthly payments above the fundamentals agreed upon in the contract, borrowers are not only going to have unforeseen difficulties paying, but borrowers are going to due civil liability settlements under 15USC(41)I(B)§1640 at every correction of billing errors under 15USC(41)I(D)§1666. Moreover, at some point, bubbles burst and asset prices then return to their fundamental values. When this happens, the sharp downward correction of asset prices can lead to a sharp contraction in the economy, both directly, through effects on investment, and indirectly, through the effects of reduced household wealth on consumer spending. As many as 2.2 million sub-prime borrowers are at risk of defaulting on their loans and losing their homes (Sanders ’07). The government must ensure that foreclosures are given due process. Occupy has taken an interest in foreclosure auctions and this seems to help judges to decide in favor of homeowners. Occupy has a program to help people in foreclosure proceedings to squat their homes. By keeping an eye on the foreclosure auctions Occupy might be able to select choice real estate for the public use as federally financed homeless shelters, mental health shelters, addiction treatment centers and halfway houses. The solidarity of the 99%, is that we, the 99%, are all in danger of getting kicked out of our homes, are forced to choose between groceries and rent, are denied quality medical care, are suffering from environmental pollution and are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all, and most of all after the rent and bills we are getting nothing while the other 1% is getting everything - we are the 99% and we resist earning nothing and getting poorer (Occupy Wall St. ’11). To be economical the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recommends that housing expenses should not exceed 30% of the monthly budget.

Credit: Eric Thayer/Getty Images November 2, 2011

Corporate power is locked firmly with state power and confidence in government has reached historically low levels with Congress’s current 9% approval rating (Greg G ’11). The founding fathers thought it best to restrict democracy as a means of protecting wealthy property owners from the tyranny of the majority. Slavery is the legal fiction that people are property and corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person (Phillips ’11). We are united in ongoing action to create a world where we are free from the tyrannies of a flawed political system and oppression of corporate capital. Political power must be held exclusively by the people, and no longer by corporations and money. The media is witnessing the dawn of a political and social movement (Way ’11). Banks make money on the difference between the cost of having money (interest paid out) and the cost of loaning money (interest received) as well as finance charges. As long as their cost of money is low and the rate of interest they charge on their loans is high, they make money. The more loans they have and the higher the interest on those loans, the more money they make. It's that simple. When there is abundant credit, more people can buy houses, when more people can buy houses, the prices of real estate goes up and the demand for new building goes up. Demand for new building sparks economic activity in construction, advertising, human resources, etc. driving the whole economy into perceived "prosperity" - everyone has a job and a house and things are looking up. On the other hand, when credit is tight fewer people can afford to buy houses, prices of housing goes lower, demand for new homes goes down, people lose their jobs and the whole economy goes into a slump, a recession. Sound familiar? This is exactly what happened in 2006 when the Federal Reserve Bank raised the prime interest rate from .5% to 5% over the course of 17 adjustments in a single year. The result has been catastrophic and culminated in two enormous taxpayer funded bailouts for the country's largest banks - TARP 1 and TARP 2, together "The Bailout". But without ending the credit squeeze, the market for housing is still slow, economic activity is low and the recession continues. The Move Your Money project was a good first step. Banks however need to lower the interest paid on loans and/or their overall return on those loans. Banks take losses on a small percentage of their loans all the time and write them off as bad debt. This happens when someone goes bankrupt or just decides not to pay them back. They also occasionally rewrite interest rates on specific loans rather than taking a complete loss on them. Typically the bigger and less secure the debt, the more likely they are to be interested in renegotiating the matter. Thus if it's a mortgage, they're much less interested in renegotiating terms because they believe that people will not want to lose their homes. For credit cards, they're likely to renegotiate more readily. Debt Relief firms try to do this for individuals at a price with varying degrees of success. But that's a limited number of people who go through the debt relief process and the amount lost through this process is part of the business plan of these banks - they know that some of their debt is going to be bad. On the other hand, what if LOTS of their debt was bad, or even ALL of their debt was bad. If that happened, the bank would suffer losses, driving down their stock price and leaving less for executive bonuses and lobbying efforts. Individual debtors seldom have enough debt to make negotiating with them useful but large groups clearly do and would. (Lindauer ’11).

Source: Occupy Washington D.C.

The economic collapse resulted in the average U.S. household wealth declining by 28%. This represents a loss of $27,000 per household – in households that make less money today than they did back in 1971. Currently, at least 62 million Americans, 20% of U.S. households, have zero or negative net worth. Indeed, a majority, or 64%, of Americans don’t have enough cash on hand to handle a $1,000 emergency expense, according to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (Zeese ’11). The economic depression in the labor market has caused the nation's official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009 ─ the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate. There were 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009 ─ the fourth consecutive annual increase and the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published (DeNavas-Walt et al ’11). The U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Report on Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States released in September 2011 found that real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2009 median. Since 2007, median household income has declined 6.4 percent (from $52,823) and is 7.1 percent below the median household income peak ($53,252) that occurred in 1999. Family household income declined by 1.2 percent to $61,544; nonfamily household income declined by 3.9 percent to $29,730 (DeNavas-Walt et al ’11). This Census Report helped Americans realize the importance of the household as the nucleus of the economy, and a traditional nuclear family doubles the economic efficiency of the household; however the omission of individual per capita income information from the report failed to provide adequate guidance regarding the redistribution of wealth and the imagination tended to wander into anti-fascism. An August 2011 report by the National Employment Law Project concludes jobs created since the recession officially ended are reducing worker income: 73% of the jobs created since the supposed recovery began have been low-wage jobs, where workers make between $7.51 (the national minimum wage) and $13.52 an hour ($15,621 to $28,122 a year for full-time). In contrast, 60% of the layoffs were in mid-wage jobs that made between $28,142 and $42,973 per year. $27,000 would probably be a good estimate of per capita GDP for the CIA world fact book. Unemployment has become persistently high. Roughly 31% of U.S. workers experienced unemployment or underemployment at some point in 2009 although official national unemployment rate has hovered around 9.2% for the direction of the crisis, the neoliberal redefinition of unemployment in 1994 indicates the actual rate of wage dissatisfaction is more like 31% (Zeese ’11).

Credit: Why Occupy? The Unofficial Pictorial Guide ‘11

The only segment of the US population that has constantly improved its lot is the top one percent, at the expense of the other 99 percent (Smith & Max-Neef: ’11: 159) The wealthiest 1% of the U.S. population now has a record 40% of all wealth – more wealth than 90% of the population. U.S. millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth in addition to an estimated $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts. Indeed, during the recession the rich are getting richer while the rest of us are getting poorer. In 2009 alone, the pay of America’s highest earners quintupled, while more Americans found themselves on food stamps than ever before. CEOs got a 23% raise last year and corporate profits are at record highs while the minimum wage has less buying power now than in 1956. If we stay on the present course, the wealth amassed by millionaire households is set to increase by more than 100% over the next 9 years. From a total of $92 trillion held by the world’s richest in 2011, by 2020 the world’s millionaire households will possess $202 trillion, or roughly 4 times current global GDP. If you think the wealth divide is bad now, unless significant changes are made, it is going to get much worse. The rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is disappearing, not because the wealthy are smarter or work harder, but because of corrupt crony capitalism. The wealthy have worked to dominate government since the early 1970s (Zeese ’11). In 1970 CEOs made $25 for every $1 the average worker made. By 2000 the ratio had risen dramatically: $90 for CEOs to $1 for the average worker. However, if stock options, bonuses and other benefits are included, CEO pay is actually $500 to the worker’s $1. The total combined wealth of the 400 richest Americans amounts to $1.57 trillion, which is more than the combined net worth of 50 percent of the US population. In the US 400 people have more wealth than 155 million combined. The average income of the top 400 million grew between 1990 and 2006 from $17 million to $87 million, representing a five-fold increase in real terms (Smith & Max-Neef: ’11: 159). IRS statistics released this May reflect that in 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the tax rate is 18.1% on the wealthiest 400 Americans, while someone who has net taxable income of $60,000 after deductions and exemptions pays 25%. Warren Buffet pays only 17.4% income tax. Corporate taxes have dropped consistently since the 1950s, with more and more burden falling on small businesses. The SEC has been covering up the crimes of Wall Street by destroying evidence. The Federal Reserve loaned banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money at very low interest rates (Zeese ’11).

Source: Occupy Washington DC

The investor class knows their wealth comes from reducing the cost of labor. JPMorgan recently told their investors: “US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP, reductions in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement in margins.” Indeed, according to JPMorgan, 75% of the increase in profit margins directly correlates with the reduction in workers’ wages. The desire for excessive short profits is creating an irreversible economic decline because labor can no longer consume enough or borrow enough to keep the economy afloat with its cash and credit-based consumption (Zeese ’11). The IRS report shows that unemployment claims rose by nearly 2 million, or about 19 percent, between 2008 and 2009. The amount of unemployment benefits paid in 2009 nearly doubled from the previous year. The number of 1040EZ returns — the simplified tax form for filers who have no dependents, and whose taxable income is less than $100,000 — fell by 23 percent between 2008 and 2009. The impoverishment of US workers during the current economic crisis has been documented by a report from the Northeastern University, which analyzed unemployment in 2009, based on income data for the previous year. Unemployment in the fourth quarter of 2009, for those at the bottom 10 percent of household earnings was a Depression level of 31 percent. A broader measure of unemployment, the labor market underutilization rate, which combines unemployment, underemployment and those who have fallen out of the workforce because they have ceased actively searching for work, was over 50 percent among the bottom decile of earners, for the second decile, 37.6 percent and for the third and fourth lowest income deciles, 17.1 percent and 15 percent respectively. For the top 10 percent of earners, the underutilization rate was 6.1 percent. According to the Economic Policy Institute: ‘While many middle-income families have lost jobs, homes and retirement savings during the latest recession, their economic woes date back much further. In the 30 years before 2008, the onset of the current crisis, nearly 35 percent of total income growth in the US was cornered by the top one-tenth of 1 percent of income earners. The bottom 90 percent shared only 15.9 percent of income growth in the same period.

1. 50 million people need food stamps to eat.

2.50 percent of US children will use food stamps to eat at some point in their childhoods.

3. 20,000 more people need food stamps every day.

4. In 2009 one out of five households didn’t have enough money to buy food. In households with children, the number rose to 24 percent.

5. 50 million citizens are without health care.

6. The US has the most expensive health care system in the world, with citizens paying twice as much as in other countries, while the overall care they get in return ranks thirty-seventh in the world.

7. 1.4 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2009, a 32 percent increase on 2008

8. Americans have lost $5 trillion from their pensions and savings since the economic crisis began, and $13 trillion in the value of their homes.
9. Personal debt has risen from 65 percent of income in 1980 to 125 percent today.

10. Five million families have already lost their homes, and 13 million families are expected to lose their homes by 2014.

11. Every day 10,000 homes enter foreclosure.

12. An increasing amount of people are not finding shelter elsewhere, amounting to three million homeless Americans.

13. One place where more and more Americans are finding a home is in prison. The prison population is 2.3 million, which means there are more people incarcerated than in any other nation in the world. For every 100,000 citizens in the US there are 700 imprisoned. In contrast, for every 100,000 citizens, China has 110 imprisoned, France has 80 and Saudi Arabia has 45. The US prison industry is thriving (Smith & Max-Neef ’11: 156 & 157).

Credit: Why Occupy? The Unofficial Pictorial Guide ‘11

The federal government must limit investment in residential real estate to the advancement of programs of assistance for the homeless, mentally ill, drug treatment facilities and halfway houses, and leave the tender housing market as free of regulation, home invasions and identity theft as possible. It is the policy of the United States to promote the general welfare of the Nation by employing the funds and credit of the Nation to assist States and political subdivisions of States to remedy the unsafe housing conditions and the acute shortage of decent and safe dwellings for low-income families and individuals with physical and mental disabilities. Government direct sponsored residential homes fall under four categories: Homeless shelters, community mental health and retardation facilities, substance abuse treatment facilities and criminal justice halfway houses. On any given night an estimated 754,000 persons will experience homelessness and between 330,000 and 415,000 will stay at a homeless shelter or transitional housing throughout the U.S. depending upon the season. It can be estimated that 3,000-5,000 emergency homeless shelters with 20 to 50 beds are needed to make up for the loss of 115,000 beds between 1996 and 2005 as these facilities shifted from emergency to transitional or permanent residential facilities for the disabled. There are an estimated 2.5 million community mental health and retardation beds in 100,000 community shelters around the nations supervised by over 5,722 organizations. It is the goal of the mental health system to close all state mental institutions and private psychiatric hospitals to leave only a limited inpatient population in general hospital psychiatric wards with access to community shelters. If the mental health system would push forward with this objective it could be estimated that the mental health system would need to shelter as many 150,000 persons in an estimated 5,000 new shelters. To make progress towards this goal it is recommended to push for around 500-1,000 new community mental health shelters annually for 10 years to absorb the homeless inpatient population and care for the seriously mentally ill. There are an estimated 2.5 million admissions to inpatient drug treatment annually meaning that there are an estimated 200,000 drug treatment beds in 10,000 facilities around the nation. Substance abuse treatment is a growth industry for residential housing whereas an estimated 350,000 drug convictions were overturned in the Blakely decision of the US Supreme Court. The Federal government should plan for 1,000 new residential drug treatment facilities annually whereas there is a market of half a million annually for residential drug treatment and another 250,000 looking for longer term transitional drug free housing, for longer term supervision of drug addicted offenders in the community (Sanders ’07).

Liberation of empty city-owned Franklin School by Occupy K St./Washington DC

Credit: Occupy K St/Washington DC post on Occupy Wall St. website November 19, 2011

The federal government failed to abolish ARM loans and redress corporate negligence to correct billing errors (Sanders ’07). The $250 billion Fannie Mae conservatorship in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008 P.L. 110-289 on July 30, 2008, caused a record number of foreclosures and a first negative credit extension in history in August of 2008 (Sanders ’10). The Occupy movement presents an opportunity for the people to collaborate to convert foreclosed and abandoned building for public use. In a move similar to other recent building occupations in Oakland, Chapel Hill, New York, and London, dozens of occupiers entered the building with sleeping bags and food and declared their intent to stay indefinitely. Occupy K St./DC liberated the empty, city-owned Franklin School. The school was closed several years ago and initially reopened as a homeless shelter. Despite widespread public opposition, the city government later closed the shelter. Next -- in blatant disregard of social safety net programs that are necessary for the very survival of the people who are most directly impacted by economic injustice -- announced plans to turn the building either into luxury condos or a hotel for the 1% lobbyists on K St. From the roof, occupiers chanted "We are the 99%!" as others dropped a banner reading "Public Property under Community Control” over the school. Meanwhile, hundreds rallied in support outside. In all four cities, building occupations were met with brutal police action. However, in the U.K., members of Occupy London have occupied a vacant office building owned by a subsidiary of the Swiss Bank, UBS. The protesters have announced their intention to stay in the building under British squatter's rights laws. (Occupy Wall St. ’11). State foreclosure courts have been deciding in favor of homeowners. The foreclosure court field trip is interesting. About 4 million homeowners who may have been improperly foreclosed upon in 2009 and 2010 are getting an opportunity to have their cases reviewed. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency says that mortgage services will begin sending out letters this November. The nation’s 14 largest mortage servicers – including Citibank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo – lenders were ordered to pay homeowners when a “borrower suffered financial injury”. Independent consultants review the cases for several months, if a consultant finds a lender erred. In the four years since the housing bust, about 5 million homes have been foreclosed upon. About 2.4 million primary mortgages were in foreclosure at the end of last year. Another 2 million were 90 days of more past due, putting them at serious risk of foreclosure. Eligible homeowners can call 888-952-9105 or go to www.independentforeclosurereview.com to avail of the TARP bailout for homeowners only 5 percent of which have been administrated, if the Truth in Lending Act is not sufficient spare change (Kravitz ’11)

IV. They have Subsidized Taxpayers

Americans earning more than $1 million collect more than $30 billion in government largesse each year. Since 2004, people with seven-figure salaries have accepted more than $9 billion in Social Security. The biggest money comes—or goes, rather—through unpaid taxes. More than 1,500 millionaires paid no income tax last year, according to federal records, mainly due to tax loopholes and savvy accountants. Tax breaks taken by millionaires on things like mortgage interest ($27.7 billion), rental expenses ($64.2 billion) and electric vehicles ($12.5 million) keep cash from entering the federal coffers. The $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was a desperate power grab by the colonial elitists running of support for their perverse wars. TARP was the last straw. Under article 6.3(d) of the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures if the effect of the subsidy is an increase in the world market share of the subsidizing Member; countervailing measures may be sought (Sanders ’08: 56). The consumer economy had been weakened with high gasoline and energy prices as early as 2006 when elevated rates of foreclosures were first noted. Yet the Bush administration did nothing to affect their personal interest in oil and energy industries in violation of 18USC(11)§208. Just before the European/American market crash in 2008 OPEC explained that there might be some disturbance from the “financial speculation”. Oil and energy companies had been making a killing, for four years and they had saved enough to sabotage the stock exchange selling their stocks and buying TARP bailout bonds collectively. The TARP bailout program terminated in December 31, 2010 without a sound, however many corporations, who should have been recused from federal grants for conflict of interest, will be indebted to the federal government for decades. The proceeds from these TARP loans must be accounted for as General Fund revenues. Subsidized big banks not only need to repay the federal government for the loans but they owe injured local competitors and States only $1.4 trillion of their estimated $23.75 trillion assets, under anti-trust statute 15USC(1)§1 and §15C whereas they did not necessarily ask for the bailouts and renegotiated in good faith a lower rate of $475 billion from the original $700 billion. Occupy is highly encouraged to protest all TARP beneficiary corporations, as they have been protesting big banks, by informing clients their big corporation has taken federal subsidies that harmed small business, so that the clients might voluntarily redistribute their wealth to be socially responsible and support small, local businesses and individuals, for the same price or less. Recovery Act funds have distorted the budgets of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that must return to within 3 percent annual growth from FY 2008, when U.S. medical spending was the highest in the world, from $911 billion to $780 billion; Transportation Department (TD) from $120 billion to $75 billion; and the Education Department (ED) whose college tuition distorting subsidies began with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 from $75 billion to $50 billion, to balance the federal budget.

Status of the Troubled Asset Relief Program on December 31, 2009 & September 30, 2011

(in billions of US dollars)

	Authorization	Expenditure	Unspent	Repayments	Dividends	Unpaid	Return
December, 31, 2009	698.8	549.4	149.4	165.2	16.9	140.7	33%
September 30, 2011	474.8	413.2	52.1	278.3	39.8	122.4	77%

Source: Table 6; Hospitals & Asylums. Federal Budget in Balance FY 2011: Comparison of Bush and Obama HA-28-2-10 Romero, Christy L. Quarterly Report to Congress. Exiting the Trouble Asset Relief Program: Repayments by the Largest Financial Institutions. Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) October 27, 2011

The lame duck Bush administration, in continuance of resistance to balancing the budget by returning stock market speculation to the General Fund, in violation of bribery, graft and conflict of interest statutes 18USC(11)§214 pertaining to offers of procurement of Federal Reserve Bank loan and discount commercial paper and §207 pertaining to restriction on former officials. Both Obama and McCain betrayed themselves. Already stretched beyond capacity, the federal government did not have enough off-budget surpluses to finance more deficit spending, wherefore the cost of the bailout was foisted on the market. The market, already struggling with the $165 billion cost of the Recovery Rebates and Economic Stimulus for the American People Act of 2008 P.L. 110-185 of February 13, 2008 and the $250 billion Fannie Mae conservatorship, Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008 P.L. 110-289 on July 30, 2008, that caused record number of foreclosures and a first negative credit extension in history in August of 2008, could not bear the $700 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) created in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) HR 1424 of October 3, 2008 that immediately triggered negative 5.4% economic growth and millions of layoffs. Money was being diverted from relatively high levels of employment on the free market to very low levels of employment, per dollar, in the largest financial institutions, determined to be “too big to fail” by the Federal Reserve and Democratic and Republican (DR) party, in mockery of the law of diminishing returns and a century of anti-trust break-ups of large corporations into smaller, more manageable companies. Panicking and insolvent the federal government could not learn from their mistakes. Although the naturally resilient free economy, the United States is so proud of, had nearly recovered, the Obama administration then embarked on another stimulus package in the beginning of his administration, the $787 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) P.L. 111-5 of February 17, 2009, assuring an official recession, defined as two quarters of negative growth, triggering negative 4.6% economic growth in first quarter 2009, and negative 0.8% in the second quarter (Sanders ’10). TARP authorization was reduced from $700 billion to $475 billion and as of September 30, 2011 77 percent of loans had already been repaid. TARP returns to the Treasury are suspicious because they avoid reference to the General Fund and it is doubtful that TARP returns are being accounted for as revenues and far more likely they are revolving in a corporate slush fund. TARP funds need to be returned to the General Fund to be accounted for as revenues.

Credit: Lucas Jackson/Reuters; Occupy Wall Street campaign holds a sign in New York on Sept. 30

WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures deems a subsidy to exist if:(a)(1) there is a financial contribution by a government or any public body such as (i)grants, loans, and equity infusion, potential direct transfers of funds or liabilities (e.g. loan guarantees); (ii) government revenue that is otherwise due is foregone or not collected (e.g. fiscal incentives such as tax credits) (iii) a government provides goods or services other than general infrastructure, or purchases goods; (iv) a government makes payments to a funding mechanism, or entrusts or directs a private body to carry out one or more of the type of functions which would normally be vested in the government and there is any form of income or price support in the sense of Article XVI of GATT 1994; and (b) a benefit is thereby conferred. Under Article 5 No Member should cause, through the use of any subsidy… adverse effects to the interests of other Members, i.e.:(a) injury to the domestic industry of another Member (or to themselves). Under Article 6.1(d) serious prejudice is deemed to exist in the case of direct forgiveness of debt, i.e. forgiveness of government-held debt, and grants to cover debt repayment. Under Article 6.4 whenever a Member has reason to believe that any subsidy results in injury to its domestic industry the criteria for determining whether a disadvantaged region is due non-actionable subsidies shall include a measurement of economic development which shall be based on at least one of the following factors: one of either income per capita or household income per capita, or GDP per capita, which must not be above 85 per cent of the average for the territory concerned; unemployment rate, which must be at least 110 per cent of the average for the territory concerned; as measured over a three-year period. Under Article 17.2 Provisional measures may take the form of provisional countervailing duties guaranteed by cash deposits or bonds equal to the amount of the provisionally calculated amount of subsidization until under Article 18.1(b) the exporter agrees to revise its prices so that the investigating authorities are satisfied that the injurious effect of the subsidy is eliminated. Under Article 19.2 the decision whether or not to impose a countervailing duty in cases where all requirements for the imposition have been fulfilled, and the decision whether the amount of the countervailing duty to be imposed shall be the full amount of the subsidy or less. Under Article 27.10(a) any countervailing duty investigation shall be terminated when the overall level of subsidies granted upon the product in question does not exceed 2 per cent of its value calculated on a per unit basis.

Currency Devaluation Equation to Offset Bailout

. Thus,

Credit: Art. 45 (5) of CHANGE

Generally, when a nation prints money that they didn’t earn, and they don’t have sufficient reserves of foreign currency to cover the expense, that currency is devaluated. This law has been enforced many times against developing nations. The term “currency manipulation” describes socially inappropriate exchange rate policy. Sec. I(iii) of Article IV of the IMF Articles of Agreement provides each member country shall: “Avoid manipulating exchange rates or the international monetary system in order to prevent effective balance-of-payments adjustment or to gain unfair competitive advantage over other member countries”. If there were a widespread protectionist response to currency manipulation, in the interest of banks who uniquely desire a strong currency, employment could fall in the export industries of the county doing the manipulating and in the financial and government sectors of the competition. A strong currency provides a powerful tool against inflation, and boosts national purchasing power; a weak currency gives national producers great incentives to sell into world markets. The real exchange rate affects the relative price of traded goods in both local and foreign markets. A strong (appreciated) currency gives residents greater purchasing power, but also entails a loss of competitiveness for trade producers. A real appreciation benefits consumers of imports and harms producers of goods that compete with imports (and exporters). So tradable (import-competing and exporting) industries lose from a currency appreciation, but domestically oriented (non-tradable) industries and domestic consumers gain. Of course, a real depreciation has the opposite effects, stimulating demand for locally produced tradable products, but raising the prices that consumers pay for foreign goods and services, currency depreciations helps exporting and import-competing industries and is the way for the industrialized nations to bow out of the Keynesian crisis, calculating the global re-valuation for nothing is however time consuming, Devaluating United Nations Currency Enforcement (DUNCE) CAP = US$ -7%, € -5.5%: Price of Bailouts under Rule of Law HA-13-11-08 (Sanders ’08: 49, 54 and ‘10). To resolve the economic crisis in industrialized nations, there is only one solution - the US and EU must reverse currency policy of the past three decades and appreciate developing nation currencies to rationalize their monetary expansion in goods under Article 45 Free Trade paragraphs 5 & 6 of the Constitution of Hospitals & Asylums Non-Governmental Economy (CHANGE) that states, “To promote exports, that creates 2/3 of economic growth, without protectively manipulating the currency exchange governments should devaluate their currencies to the extent that the governments is in budget or trade deficit – laissez-faire bailout. The equation for devaluating is quite simple. The currency is devaluated by the proportion of the size of the deficit less value of foreign currency reserves, divided by the size of the GDP. This will ensure that the GDPs of the nations who engaged in deficit do not overvalue their currency and stifle trade, nor do nations, like China, who has accumulated significant foreign reserves, undervalue their currency and glut the market. Biased to result in the appreciation of developing nation currencies this equation will work towards the goal of global economic equality and ensure international trade is free of market distorting subsidies.

U.S. Current Account Deficit 2000-2011 (in billions)

Year	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Budget Deficit	+236	+128	-158	-378	-413	-318
Int. Trade Deficit	-377	-362	-417	-491	-605	-709
Current Account Deficit	-141	-234	-575	-869	-1,018	-1,027
Year	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Budget Deficit	-248	-161	-459	-1,413	-1,294	-1,645
Int. Trade Deficit	-753	-697	-698	-381	-500	-560 est.
Current Account Deficit	-1,001	-858	-1,157	-1,794	-1,794	-2,205 est.

Source: Whitehouse Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Historical Tables 1789-2016;

U.S. Census Bureau Foreign Trade Division U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services 1992-present

Free of subsidies the economic recovery was steady in the second half of 2009, 2010 and 2011 although the official unemployment rate hovers around 9.2% and wage dissatisfaction is high. All this economic depression to express solidarity with the insolvency of the European Union (EU) in contravention to the Monroe doctrine of non-entanglement in European colonial affairs is the dying shame of John Maynard Keynes who specifically condemned the unpredictable consequences of subsidies and deficit spending in his General Theory on Employment, Money and Interest (1936) however, the propaganda proliferating in economic textbooks holds Keynesian economics to be synonymous with deficit spending. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a former economics professor, seems to have used this myth to sabotage the economy so the Bush administration and its European counterparts in NATO could make a get-away and evade prosecution for war crimes. Despite, or perhaps more probably because of the $700 billion TARP corporate bailout, this financial crisis weighed particularly hard on corporate income taxes that plunged from $304 billion in 2008 to $138 billion in 2009. After a massive jump from $879 billion in 1999 individual income tax revenues jumped to $1,004 billion before plunging to $994 billion in 2001, as the result of Bush tax cuts, and not climbing above $1 trillion until 2005 and plunging again to $900 billion in 2009 and 2010, total receipts were proportionate. These are the longest downturns in revenues since the OMB began keeping records in 1934. In the classic fashion of anti-trust law massive subsidies of large financial institutions created a monopoly that put small businesses out of business. The corporation became corrupt. Despite the massive funding under the Recovery Act of 2009, mostly to stimulate employment, over 2009 jobless rates increased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The national unemployment rate was 10.0 percent in December 2009 but was 2.6 percentage points higher than a year earlier. The 600,000 jobs created under the Recovery Act do not compensate for the 7 million lost (Sanders ’10). Recovery Act funds have distorted the budgets of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that must return to within 3 percent annual growth from FY 2008, when U.S. medical spending was the highest in the world, from $911 billion to $780 billion; Transportation Department (TD) from $120 billion to $75 billion; and the Education Department (ED) whose college tuition distorting subsidies began with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 from $75 billion to $50 billion, to balance the federal budget. To reduce the budget deficit between 2005 and 2007 it was necessary to draw attention to the current account deficit = budget deficit + international trade deficit.

The twelve members appointed to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction got nearly $64.5 million in donations from special interest groups over the past decade, with legal firms donating about $31.5 million and Wall Street firms donating about $11.2 million. And since they were appointed to the commission, they have been seeking contributions from Wall Street. As a result of this bribery disguised as campaign donations, policies are skewed for the wealthiest, some examples among many: 1,470 Americans of 235,413 Americans earning over $1 million in 2009 didn’t pay any taxes (Zeese ’11). Capitalism is not by itself unjust, the creation of surplus value is a function proper to one sphere. The question is whether this surplus value is convertible whether it purchases special privileges, in the law courts, or in the educational system, or in the spheres of office and politics. In the United States today it is the tyranny of money that most clearly invites resistance. To enjoy liberty it is not enough to be free from coercion of the threat of it, it is necessary to be free from the possibility of being threatened or coerced. Of servitude Cicero declared that the most miserable feature of this condition is that, even if the master happens not to be oppressive, he can be so should he wish. To be ruled by laws rather than men thus means that even monarchs must be subject to the constraints of the law and the highest law is the well-being of the people, salus populi suprema lex esto (Hyde ’10: 223, 233, 234). In winter 2007 the Bush Administration panicked after some of the war surplus was covertly returned to the General Fund, and concocted a Keynesian propaganda to conceal war fund assets. After making a little progress in 2007 the current account deficit exceeded a trillion and in 2011 threatens to exceed $2.2 trillion unless TARP funds can be accounted for and Recovery Act distorted agencies adopt spending limits within 3% annual growth of satisfactory. The government however cannot be trusted to abide by HA accounting and economic compensation burdens the people until the HA revision restores accuracy to the national accounts. The people can lighten their liability for economic research safe in the knowledge that the HA federal budget and developing nation currency appreciation are done for the day democracy respects their royalties under the CHANGE.

Credit: Occupy Wall St.

Monopoly grows out of the soil of free competition. There are three principal manifestations of monopoly capitalism. Firstly, monopoly arose out of the concentration of production at a very high stage. Secondly, monopolies have stimulated the seizure of the most important sources of raw materials, especially for the basic and most highly cartelised industries in capitalist society: the coal and iron industries. Thirdly, monopoly has sprung from the banks. The banks have developed from modest middleman enterprises into the monopolists of finance capital. Some three to five of the biggest banks in each of the foremost capitalist countries have achieved the “personal link-up” between industrial and bank capital, and have concentrated in their hands the control of thousands upon thousands of millions which form the greater part of the capital and income of entire countries. A financial oligarchy, which throws a close network of dependence relationships over all the economic and political institutions of present-day bourgeois society without exception—such is the most striking manifestation of this monopoly (Lenin 17). Although the monopolies were very competitive with the competition they had a consumer friendly corporate philosophy (1) innovate constantly and invest heavily in the latest equipment and technology to drive down operating costs (2) always be the low-cost producer so as to remain profitable in bad economic times (3) retain most of the profits in good times to take advantage of opportunities in the bad times as less efficient competitors fail. After a year of intense political wrangling Congress established the Interstate Commerce Commission that was strengthened in 1890 by the Sherman Antitrust Act whereby , “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states, or with foreign nations, hereby declared to be illegal” furthermore making it a crime to “monopolize, or combine or conspire to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several states” (Sanders ’10). Occupy has inspired 650,000 depositors to transfer their accounts from big banks to local banks and credit unions to compensate for the damages monopolization caused to small and local corporations when the biggest and healthiest financial firms were unnecessarily bailed out to “restore confidence in the system”. It is not enough that private individuals transfer their money to local financial institutions, local and state governments need to prevent the flight of capital by banking locally.

V. They have perpetuated Apartheid

To understand the social consequences of the bank bailouts one has to understand Apartheid, a crime of genocide, that renders fascism, defined by Ralph Nader as the government representing the corporate interest, unfit for print. There is such a strong union between South African Apartheid and segregation in the United States these two nations uniquely have what is known as a quasi-private, subsidized capitalist health care system, of remorseless medical b(k)illers. Apartheid was a system of racial minority rule that was both rooted in and sustained by white minority socioeconomic privilege at the expense of the historically oppressed black majority. Apartheid was associated with a highly unequal distribution of income, wealth and opportunity that largely corresponded to the racial structure of society. Apartheid was part of a system of racial-capitalism that is universally condemned although the left claims it helped the economy while the right claims it hurt it. Between 1910 and 1994, government and business (despite periodic differences and conflicts between them) co-operated in the building of an economy that benefited whites. During its heyday of state and racial capitalism, the racial disparity ratio between white and African incomes became much larger. While the per capita income of whites was 10.6 times higher than African per capita income in 1946-47, white income was fifteen times higher than in 1975. If ever there was a period of upward redistribution of income (mainly from Africans to Afrikaners), then it was the period of high growth in the 1950s and 1960s. Given the power structures of white supremacy and racial capitalism, it was a period of high growth with a ‘trickle-up’ effect. The depth of inequality is so great that there is widespread and acute poverty afflicts some 40 per cent of all South Africans. Although racial economic disparities have been reduced or eliminated white domination seems to have merely been replaced by a domination of the rich union workers of the sort on strike today. Because international disparities exist with the middle income emerging market nation one cannot begrudge the striking workers much, but their wealth is odious to the poor they owe decent welfare. In 2009 50% of the population lived below the poverty line, 24% were unemployed and actively looking for work, and most tellingly the distribution of family income rates a 65 on the Gini index the second most unequal in the world. Nonetheless South Africa is a remarkably successful African nation as noted in United States of Apartheid: South African Government and Metalworker Unions Strike HA-27-8-10 Left Credit: David Manning/Athens Banner-Herald/AP

Occupy is a nonviolent world revolution - the American Fall in solidarity with the Arab Spring. The issue of the Palestinian Occupied Territory (POT) is as symbolic for morally conscious Occupy as it has been for the, now officially ended, depraved NATO occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq - the educated people of the world, who respect the existence of the Palestinian nationality as natural law, cannot tolerate the Holy Land to remain mired in the Palestinian Israeli Territory (PIT). Palestine has been occupied since 1948. Until Occupy Ashland unanimously voted for Palestinian membership in the United Nations, Occupy encampments around the nation were being raided as collateral damage to the international crime of 11-11-11, U.S. Veteran’s day. The prayer, not to be found in a single synagogue worldwide, was successful in eliciting judgment issuing injunctions in favor of Occupy attorneys and the news has moderated. Occupy People’s Assemblies must not be so consumed by local politics that they fail to use their democratic institution to defend the integrity of the international occupation, or the entire world will be plagiarized by the censorship. Sanctions of Israel and the United States against the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in violation of Art. 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that provides, “Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited”. Art. 15(b) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clarifies “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality”. Common Art. 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides at clause 1. “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development”. Under international law if Israel wishes to deny Palestine nationality Israel must compensate Palestinians with equal per capita welfare benefits as Israelis receive. Occupy is a movement of the 99% against the richest 1% and ironically it is usually estimated that 1% of the world population is Jewish. In the Legal Consequences of Constructing a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 131 the International Court of Justice found the construction of the wall, or in this case an irrational veto of Palestinian statehood and illegal economic sanctions against both Palestinian NGOs and UNESCO by the United States and Israel, severely impedes the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self‑determination and “the repeated violation by Israel, the occupying Power, of international law…undermine the Middle East peace process and constitute a threat to international peace and security”. The United States suddenly reversed their Palestinian friendly policy and promises to veto the membership application. The EU abstentions from the vote are melting to express support for Palestinian statehood under Art. 4(2) of the UN Charter that requires the approval of the Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council, that a veto by the US may or may not subvert. For their part Palestine must fulfill Yasser Arafat’s Constitution by creating a Palestinian Supreme Court under Sec. 34 of the Will of the Palestinian People HA-11-11-04.

The Wall at the Gaza Strip (Qita Ghazzah)

Jews and other national minorities were historically subjects of great political attention. The Crusades (1096-1099, 1147-1149, 1189-1192 and 1202-1204) contributed to sharpening Catholic intolerance toward other religious groups. In addition to Muslims, European Jews were considered foreigners and often personae non grata in Western Christendom, and as such were subjected to various levels of discrimination. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) banned Jews from government employment. In 1290 Jews were expelled from England, in 1306 from France. In Spain initial tolerance gave way to persecution during the Inquisition (1492) and Jews were forced to choose between conversion and eviction. It was at this time that Jews developed a reputation as moneylenders whereas lending violated Roman Catholic doctrine. With the exception of France and Holland where Jews were granted civil and political rights after the French Revolution the emancipation of northeastern European (Ashkenazi) Jews throughout Europe was more advanced in countries that had moved rapidly toward industrialization and had adopted civil reforms. In England, following the Catholic emancipation, Jews were for the first time allowed to hold public office both in Parliament and the House of Lords. Jews were finally recognized as citizens by the North German Federation in 1869. The reorganization of the Austrian Empire, resulting from its conflict with Prussia, led in 1867 to political equality for Jews throughout the empire, including Hungary. In less industrialized eastern European countries, particularly in Russia, Jews, confined to the territories of the Pale and restricted from traveling, faced severe discrimination. In 1856, Alexander II provided limited rights to Jews, that liberal phase, however ended with the Polish rebellion of 1863. Thereafter, the fate of Jews deteriorated drastically. Russia was the only country in Europe where anti-Semitism was the official policy of the government. The Slavophile state organized and condoned numerous pogroms. From 1881 to 1911 Russia added new restrictions against the Jewish population leading in 1882 to one of the greatest expulsions of Jews (55,000 in one year) since the Spanish Inquisition. The Sephardic Jews (Sephardim) of southern Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and the Arab world were relatively better off. In the Ottoman Empire, Sephardim were tolerated and protected by the state, while still perceived as juridically inferior to Muslims. In 1839 non-Muslim nationals, however benefited from enactment of a law guaranteeing “life, honor and property of all subjects” In Italy, Jews had briefly enjoyed freedom during the Napoleonic era, before they were forced to return to the ghettos, before they would be emancipated a second time, as early as 1848 in Piedmont and later throughout Italy (Ishay ’08: 75, 169). After 6 million were killed in the Holocaust the Jews were promised Israel by the British in 1948 and defended it against their “Pals”. 60 years of victory have made the Jews the oppressors. The number of American Jews has declined from 6 to 3 million over the past several decades.

The Quran recognizes basic economic and related rights for individuals. These include protection against defamation (surah 24:16) and against poverty (surah 22:7-8) as well as rights to a place of residence (surah 2:85) to dignity, to sustenance (surah 17:70) to asylum from oppression and so forth (surah 4:97-99). The doctrine of social service, defined in terms of alleviating suffering and helping the needy, constitutes an integral part of Islamic teaching. Praying to God and other religious acts should always be complemented by active service to the disadvantages (surahs 2:188, 3:14, 4:29, 4:30, 4:44). The Quran promises prosperity in exchange for such social services. Accumulating wealth without recognizing the rights of the poor, however, is threatened with the harshest punishment in the hereafter and perceived as one of the main causes of the decay of societies. When war was seen as inevitable, the Hebrews considered guidelines to ensure that it would be waged justly. The Book of Exodus stipulates that war can be initiated only when peace has been offered to the enemy and has been rejected. The Bible urges the Israelites to conduct themselves compassionately in war: “If the enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat, if he be thirsty, give him water to drink” (Proverb 25:21) while warning against the robbery of an enemy’s property. In all instances, stolen goods needed to be restituted. Not wanting to get robbed while making change for a market subsidy from the 10% tzadaka of Jewish income that should be dedicated to charity, the human rights text now only hold Jewish morality responsible for the theory of just war. The Hindu tradition offers more pervasive constraints on recourse to violence than one finds in the Old Testament. The ideal of ahimsa, “non-injury” or the absence of the desire to do harm, is regarded as one of the keystones of Hindu ethics and has influenced many thinkers and political figures, including Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), whose political technique of passive resistance, satyagraha, was inspired by many Hindu sources. Originally, ahimsa was unrelated to vegetarianism, but the two practices reinforce one another through the protection offered both humans and animals. The Buddhist understanding of war shows clear similarities with Hinduism. The injunction not to kill or injure any human, animal, or insect reflects the pacifist Buddhist attitude. Warfare is depicted as self-defeating. According to the Buddha “Victory breeds more hatred, the defeated live in pain, the peaceful person lives happily, giving up victory and defeat. It is imperative, from a Buddhist standpoint, to minimize casualties, whenever possible, and maintain moral conduct during and after a war. In the early Warring States period (475-221 BCE) Mencius (372-259 BCE) a renowned follower of Confucius defended the right to fight a war of self-defense against foreign aggression. At the same time, Mencius considered as just causes for war the overthrow of tyrannical regimes, and with Confucius the expansion of the territory of a benevolent government not to gain possession of a state but to enlighten a subjugated people. Against an unfit ruler, Mencius recommended criticism and rehabilitation, but called for revolution as a last resort. The people are of supreme importance (Ishay ’08: 40, 41, 42, 43).

The Great Buddha Statue in Bodhgaya, India

Credit: Daijokyo Buddhist Temple constructed 1989

Buddha, propounded a code of ten essential human freedoms and controls or virtues of good life. The first five tenets of social assurances included: freedom from violence (Ahimsa), freedom from want (Asteya), freedom from exploitation (Aparigraha), freedom from early death and disease (Armritatva and Arogya). To these five freedoms corresponded five virtues or controls: absence of intolerance (Akrodha), compassion (Bhutadaya, Adroha), knowledge (Jnana, Vidya, freedom of conscience and freedom from fear, frustration and despair (Pravrtti, Abhyaya, Dhrti). Dharma, is the religious and moral law governing individual conduct, understood in the Vedas. People should first strive for kama, or pleasures derived from the human senses under the control of the mind, such as art, music, literature, and sexual activity. Gaining material control, in economic and political (artha) terms, without being subject to greed and desire, is as central as learning to perform just actions (dharma). Specific to Buddhism is the concept of selflessness (anatma) a notion that along with the idea of the individual’s innate suffering (duhkha) involves feelings of universal compassion. Proposing a middle path between self-indulgence and self-renunciation, the Buddha’s ultimate aim was to reach Nirvana, a real in which all living things are free from pain and suffering. To Confucius a just government would be durable if order was based on the teaching of virtue and justice. Learning is a paramount quality. To love benevolence without loving learning is liable to lead to foolishness. To love cleverness without loving learning is liable to lead to deviation from the right path. To love forthrightness in word without loving learning is liable to lead to harmful behavior. To love forthrightness without loving learning is liable to lead to intolerance. To love courage without loving learning is liable to lead to insubordination. To love unbending strength without loving learning is liable to lead to indiscipline. The early Greeks and Romans embraced similar principles of education and just government. “Might was not right” argued Socrates, rejecting uncritical obedience to the laws of society or self-interest. Plato’s state rule needed to be knowledgeable and wise, one who, unlike a tyrant, did not need to rule unwilling subjects by force, one who strove to maintain peace and the welfare of his subjects. The chief virtue of a just republic was division of labor and the specialization of functions, which put everyone in their proper place and provided what was due to them. With the understanding that “good laws make good men” Aristotle believed that right meant a “right in benefit to the whole state and the common interest of the citizen” (Ishay ’08: 20, 21, 31, 32, 33).

General Strike of the 99%

Credit: AP, Occupy Oakland November 2, 2011

The progress of capitalism brought socialism to the forefront of the nineteenth century struggle for human rights. The socialist contribution to human rights included universal suffrage, economic welfare, labor rights, education, slavery and women’s rights. By suing capitalists, and omitting the government from the socio-economic equation, socialists won the freedoms of speech, press and assembly with a minimum of resistance from the government, whose wisdom is needed to redistribute the wealth. Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and others proposed a materialist understanding of rights sensitive to economic forces, historical change and conflicting class interests. Armed with a new approach they confronted early Enlightenment assumptions, asking why only those with property should be allowed to vote, and still more boldly, whether a capitalist state could ever truly represent the people’s interests. With the establishment of the First International (1864-1876) well before the League of Nations, the International Labor Organization, and the United Nations, workers’ political and economic rights were for the first time endorsed and actively promoted by an institution with representatives from around the world. Soon after the establishment of the First International Marx drafted a letter, signed by each member of the International General Council, congratulating President Lincoln on his reelection “If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant warcry of your reelection is, death to slavery”. The 1868 Brussels Congress of the First International concluded that the Austro-Prussian War was “one between governments” in which workers were advised to be “neutral”. The International launched a propaganda campaign “so as to make every worker who is obliged to join a standing army clear as to his human rights, and to prescribe to him, in the event of war breaking out, certain principles of conduct”. The 1886 London Congress of the Second International and the 1889 Congress of Paris reiterated the importance of workers’ active resistance to war. They urged working-class representatives to vote against military credits, to denounce militarism, to advocate disarmament, to replace standing armies with popular militias, and to set up an international court of arbitration for the peaceful settlement of interstate disputes. While the influence of anarchists was dramatically weakened with the dissolution of the First International, additional controversies between anarchists, reformists and revolutionaries would continue beyond the establishment of the Second International (1889-1914). The Second International was based mainly on organized parties from various nations. It had no mandatory power but was recognized by its member parties as their highest moral authority. The International held congresses every two to four years to debate policy and orchestrate international working-class action. In 1890 it called for demonstrations every May Day in support of an eight-hour workday. In 1896 anarchists were finally excluded. Nineteenth-century socialists regarded themselves as heirs of eighteenth-century ideals of human rights and world peace (Ishay ’08: 118, 149, 150, 152, 155).

British Empire 1897

Credit: Wikipedia

Effective resistance against European colonization in the 20^th century first emerged in the Asian colonies, after the Spanish-American war wrested Spain’s final overseas territories at the end of the 19^th century. Independence movements in Asia had been brewing since the beginning of the twentieth century. Japanese imperialists replaced the previous colonial regimes with their own, accelerating nationalist aspirations throughout the region. With the exception of India, whose partition by creation of Pakistan (1947) resulted in approximately 800,000 deaths, the process of decolonization was generally more orderly in the British colonies than it was in those of the French and Dutch. In 1947 Britain granted independence to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), in 1948 to Burma, in 1957 to the Federation of Malaya, and in 1959 to Singapore, which was later joined by Sarawak and North Borneo to form in 1963 the state of Malaysia. In contrast, the French and Dutch were holding on more tightly to their colonial possessions. After a protracted Indonesian war for independence, which left thousands dead and wounded on both sides, the Dutch finally recognized the fully independent Federation of Indonesia in 1949. In Indochina the Vietnamese revolt against the French would take nine years to succeed. In his 1945 Declaration of Independence Ho Chi Minh described how the French colonialists “have built more prisons than schools. They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have mercilessly slain our patriots. In Africa the decolonization process started later whereas areas occupied by African ethnic groups had little correspondence with the national borders drawn by the colonial powers. The British had already decided that their economically underdeveloped African colonies were an economic and political liability, and they finally accepted nationalist leaders’ demands for self-governance. In the late 1950s, bloodied by anti-colonial uprisings, the French and Belgians reached the same conclusion. In Algeria, however, the French refused any concessions to the nationalist movement. French brutality only intensified National Liberal Front terrorist activities. After eight years of bloody war, French forces under General Charles de Gaulle withdrew in 1962, allowing Algeria to declare its independence. Another violent struggle for national independence in Africa took place against Portugal, under the dictatorship of Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970), which stubbornly held onto its colonies in Angola and Mozambique. Worn out by the conflict in Angola, the Portuguese finally granted independence to their colonies in 1975 (Ishay ’08: 192, 195, 337).

State rule in the colonies differed substantially from state rule in the mother countries. Parliamentary democracies in the mother countries could afford to make concessions to the subordinated classes in civil society, in exchange for their acceptance of the prevailing capitalist form of production, along with bourgeois leadership. Europeans used the coercive apparatus of the government to suppress dissent, while using control over education and the press to help legitimize colonial rule. Colonizing states often used preferential treatment to pit one group or one tribe against another, enabling the colonizers to divide and conquer (Ishay ’08: 337). Developing countries inherited from the colonial period a set of institutions that were put in place by colonial rulers not for the development of the country but to maximize the extraction of resources for the benefit of the colonial powers. After decolonization the new rulers found it convenient to hold on to the same extractive institutions and use them for their own benefit. The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where politics became increasingly caste-based in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated that there was a very large increase in the level of corruption among winning politicians from the numerically dominant caste group in all areas, and by the 1990s one-fourth of the members of the Legislative Assembly had a criminal case lodged against them. In 1996 a study found that only 13 percent of funds allocated to Uganda schools ever reached the schools. By 2001 the survey was repeated and they found that schools were getting 80 percent of the discretionary money they were entitled to. Good economic institutions will encourage citizens to invest, accumulate, and develop new technologies, as a result of which society will prosper. Bad economic institutions will have the opposite effects. One problem is that rulers, who have the power to shape economic institutions, do not necessarily find it in their interest to allow their citizens to thrive and prosper. This is why political institutions matter, they exist to prevent leaders from organizing the economy for their private benefit. When they work well, political institutions put enough constraints on rulers to ensure that they cannot deviate too far from the public interest. Unfortunately, bad institutions tend to perpetuate bad institutions, creating a vicious circle, sometimes called the “iron law of oligarchy”. Those who have power under the current political institutions get to make sure that the economic institutions work toward making them rich, and once they are rich enough they can usually use their wealth to forestall any attempts to move them out of power. Bad political institutions are the main reason many countries in the developing world have failed to grow (Banerhee & Duflo ’11: 235, 237, 238, 239, 252).

Occupy takes most of its lesson on passive resistance from the civil rights movement, that upheld the socialist ideals after the revolution had been corrupted by politics, violence and state ownership, like the liberal democratic revolution before it. Long before Gandhi returned to India in 1915 from his years in South Africa, educated Indians had been searching for a new cultural identity. Mahatma Gandhi, said in 1907, “Passive resistance is an all-sided sword, it can be used anyhow, it blesses him who uses it and him against whom it is used. Without drawing a drop of blood it produces far-reaching results. It never rusts and cannot be stolen. Competition between passive resisters does not exhaust. The sword of passive resistance does not require a scabbard” (Ishay ’08). After World War I, under the leadership of Gandhi and more radical-minded politicians, the Indian National Congress showed increased concern for the problems of the poor. Mahatma Gandhi reportedly said, “Not even God can talk to a hungry man” (Reece & Brandt ’90: 150). Occupy takes most of its lesson on passive resistance from the civil rights movement. Long before Gandhi returned to India in 1915 from his years in South Africa, educated Indians had been searching for a new cultural identity. Mahatma Gandhi, said in 1907, “Passive resistance is an all-sided sword, it can be used anyhow, it blesses him who uses it and him against whom it is used. Without drawing a drop of blood it produces far-reaching results. It never rusts and cannot be stolen. Competition between passive resisters does not exhaust. The sword of passive resistance does not require a scabbard” (Ishay ’08). After World War I, under the leadership of Gandhi and more radical-minded politicians, the Indian National Congress showed increased concern for the problems of the poor. Gandhi said, “Not even God can talk to a hungry man” (Reece & Brandt ’90: 150). Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s estate, largely controlled by his son, Dexter Scott King, treats all Dr. King’s work as private intellectual property and exploits them for their commercial value. In the early 1990s, Dexter King established and is chairman for two for-profit corporations in the state of Georgia, Intellectual Properties Management, Inc and Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. Inc, the former being the agent for properties belonging to the latter, as well as the non-profit Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. When Alpha Phi Alpha, the black fraternity to which Dr. King belonged as a student, tried to erect a monument to Dr. King in Washington’s Tidal Basin, the estate blocked the proposal by demanding a fee for the use of the civil rights leader’s likeness. After Barack Obama was elected to the presidency, the estate threatened to sue vendors selling T-shirts-buttons and posters that juxtaposed images of Obama with images of Dr. King. As for the archives, the estate has received a $10 million tax exemption and $52 million in cash from the federal government and the city of Atlanta. The estate has exploited the copyright it holds for the “Dream speech. When the 1987 documentary Eyes on the Prize used images of Dr. King without first obtaining permission, the estate threatened to sue and turned down an initial $100,000 offer for rights. In 1993, when USA Today printed the text of the speech in a documentary, without first obtaining permission, the estate threatened to sue and turned down an initial $100,000 offer for rights. In 1993, when USA Today printed the text of the speech, the estate successfully sued for infringement. The same thing happened in 1997 when CBS television tried to use its own footage of the speech in a documentary (Hyde ’10: 208).

African American Occupy Oakland Protestor Arrested

Credit: Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune/MCT); Occupy Oakland Raided November 13, 2011

The African American middle class has grown fourfold in a generation, and the black poverty rate was cut in half. Through a similar process of hard work and commitment to family, Latinos have seen comparable gains: From 1979 to 1999 the number of Latino families considered middle class has grown by more than 70 percent. In their hopes and expectations, these black and Latino workers are largely indistinguishable from their white counterparts. They are the people who make our economy run and our democracy flourish, the teachers, mechanics, nurses, computer technicians, assembly-line workers, bus drivers, postal workers, store managers, plumbers, and repairmen. And yet for all the progress that’s been made in the past four decades, a stubborn gap remains between the living standards of black, Latino and white workers. The average black wage is 75 percent of the average white wage, the average Latino wage is 71 percent of the average white wage. Black median net worth is about $6,000 and Latino median net worth is about $8,000 compared to $88,000 for whites. When laid off from their job or confronted with a family emergency, blacks and Latinos have less-savings to draw on, and parents are less able to lend their children a helping hand. Even middle-class blacks and Latinos pay more for insurance, are less likely to own their own homes and suffer poorer health than Americans as a whole (Obama ’08: 242-243). At best, the socioeconomic effects of racial integration have been mixed. On the positive side, the percentage of black families earning over $50,000 annually increased from 10.2 percent in 1970 to 16 percent in 1992. However, during the same time period, the proportion of white families with comparable incomes rose from 24.5 percent to 35.7 percent. At the same time the percentage of blacks in professional or managerial jobs increased from 10 percent to 16.8 percent. Meanwhile the percentage of blacks who had completed at least four years of college more than doubled form 6 percent to 12.7 percent. But median household income for blacks compared to whites changed little over twenty years, with black households earning the same percent of white income in 1992 as in 1972 – 58 percent. And a Harvard University study found that in the 1991-1992 school year, 66 percent of the 6.9 million black students in the nation’s public schools attended predominantly minority schools, the highest percent since 1968 (Naylor & Willimon ’98: 58). Rumour has it that that average annual income of African-Americans is $5,000; although some black people are very successful, there is severe racial discrimination against Blacks and Latinos in social security benefits noted in Act IV Nondiscrimination of Age, Disability, Gender, Race or National Origin of the Defense of Social Security Caucus HA-1-7-11.

The Gandhi and King legacies show that although addressing issues of structural injustice can be “risky” or “political” the risk is offset by the long-term payoff. It is a wise person who searches for the best in other people. People who do this form lasting friendships and discover friends who are dependable. They also achieve positions of leadership more readily than other folk. Always look for the best, not the worst; concentrate on the positives, not the negatives; and look for the victories, not the defeats, in the people around you. Conflict can be defined as people striving for their own preferred outcome, which, if attained, prevents others from achieving their preferred outcome, resulting in hostility and a breakdown in human relations. Differences, disagreements and competition generate conflict when the people involved (consciously or unconsciously) try to deny each other the right to satisfy their own needs. For example, a manager may not allow employees to take part in decisions that affect them. Conflict also occurs when change is imposed or introduced without adequate preparation and involvement of those affected by the change. In an American Management Association study, corporate executives and managers indicated they devote 24 percent of their working time to conflict management. School and hospital administrators, mayors and city managers estimated that conflict resolution commands nearly 49 percent of their time (Reece & Brandt ’90: 332, 349, 351). After reading about the devastating impact the 1996 welfare reform laws would have no immigrant families, George Soros decided to commit $50 million to support immigrants in the United States laying the groundwork for the marches of millions of immigrants in the United States in 2006. Giving for social justice helps ensure that much greater number of people can enjoy a society’s resources and opportunities. By harnessing the power of all sectors of society and more fully recognizing the defining roles of government and business play in people’s lives, foundation can more effectively help societies meet the manifold needs of the twenty-first century. Social justice actors seek to help citizens transform systems, institutions and cultures to ensure that all citizens can participate fully in the social, spiritual, economic and political life of a country, regardless of their position or station in life. The aim of social justice is not to ensure that all people live the same lives or earn the same amount of money. However, a basic tenet is that all have the opportunity to meet their basic needs, to engage freely with one another across differences, and to define and build the institutions that shape their lives (Korten et al ’09: xix, 104, 212, 217).

To help Occupy workers and middle class make reasonable demands it is important that they place international poverty on a pedestal. Recent reports from the United Nations Development Programme show that the poorest countries are getting poorer, not just in relative terms, but also in absolute terms. Around 1.2 billion live on less than $1 a day, and 2.8 billion on less than $2 a day. In Africa, reality shows its cruelest face: 46 percent of the population earns less than $1 a day and foreign direct investment has fallen sharply since the mid-1990s, the $91 billion invested in 2000 amounting to less than 1 percent of total world investment. In Latin American and the Caribbean, the percentage of people living in poverty has increased, peaking at 40 percent during the 1990s (Ishay ’08: 260, 261). The average poverty line in the fifty countries where most of the poor live is 16 Indian rupees per person per day. People who live on less than that are considered to be poor by the government of their countries. At the current exchange rate, 16 rupees corresponds to 36 U.S. cents. But because prices are lower in most developing countries, if the poor actually bought the things they do at U.S. prices, they would need to spend more – 99 cents. Imagine having to live in Miami or Modesto with 99 cents per day for almost of your everyday needs (excluding housing). In India for example, the equivalent amount would buy fifteen smallish bananas, or about 3 pounds of low-quality rice. Around the, in 2005, 865 million people (13 percent of the world’s population) did. In 1965, the average per-capita income of the G7 countries was 20 times that of the seven poorest countries. In 1995 it was 39 times larger, and in 2011, the G7 having become the G8, it is over 50 times. In practically all developing countries that have adapted to a rapid trade liberalization, income inequality has increased. According the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2000 there were 150 million unemployed around the world and 1 billion under-employed, making up one third of the world’s workforce, and that the situation was deteriorating. In Latin America, real incomes have declined by 20-30 percent. More than 80 countries have today a lower real per-capita income that they had one or two decades ago (Smith & Max-Neef ’11: 134).

Church Without Walls Serving Latecomers at the Gazebo

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-20-11-11

At the World Food Summit in 1996, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that world food production in that year was enough to provide at least 2,700 calories per person per day. This is the result of centuries of innovation in food supply. Despite rapid economic growth, there had been a sustained decline in per capita calories consumption; moreover, the consumption of all groups, even the poorest. Today, more than three-fourths of the population live in households whose per capita calorie consumption is less than 2,100 calories in urban areas and 2,400 in rural areas – number that are often cited as “minimum requirements” in India for individual engaged in manual labor. The percentage of people who consider that they do not have enough food has dropped dramatically over time: from 17 percent in 1983 to 2 percent in 2004. The decline in calories consumption can be explained by the decrease in the number of people engaged in physically heavy work for a large part of the day. Food represents from 36 to 79 percent of consumption among the rural extremely poor and 53 to 74 percent among their urban counterparts. (Banerhee & Duflo ’11: ix, 22, 24, 25, 27, 138). As a result of the global economic crisis the number of hungry people is estimated to have risen from 500 million, 7.5% to an estimated 1.2 billion, 17% (Sanders ’10). In the United States most people report a significant loss of income. During the Indonesian crisis of 1998, the rupiah lost 75 percent of its value, food prices went up 250 percent, and GDP fell by 12 percent, but rice farmers, who tend to be among the poorest people, actually gained in terms of purchasing power. It was government employees and other people with relatively fixed cash incomes who ended up worse off. Even in 1997-1998 the year of the great Thai financial crisis, when the economy shrank by 10 percent, two-thirds of the nearly 1,000 people surveyed said that the main reason for the fall in their income was a drought. Only 26 named loss of employment and the job losses were almost surely not all a result of the crisis. For the most part, things were not a lot worse for the poor than in any other year, precisely because their situation is always rather (Banerhee & Duflo ’11: 137, 138).

The most common dream of the poor is that their children become government workers. Among very poor households in Udaipur, for example, 34 percent of the parents would like to see their sons become a government teacher and another 41 percent want him to have a nonteaching government job; 18 percent more want him to be a salaried employee in a private firm. For girls, 31 percent would like her to be a teacher, 31 percent would want her to have another kind of government job, and 19 percent want her to be a nurse. In Pakistan, in urban areas, 74 percent of those who are employed and who live on 99 cents or less per day work for a weekly or monthly wage, but 90 percent of those earning $6 to $10 a day do. In rural areas, 44 percent of the very poor who are employed work for a regular wage and 64 percent of the middle class do. A good job is a steady, well-paid job, a job that allows a person the mental space needed to do all those things the middle class does well. Most good jobs are in the city. In rural Udaipur, 60 percent of the families interviewed had at least one member who had worked in the city over the last year. But few people migrate for long periods of time. The median duration of a trip is one month and only 10 percent of trips are longer than three months. The usual pattern is a few weeks at work and a few weeks at home. Permanent migration, even within the country is rare, the share of extremely poor households that had one member who was born elsewhere and had migrated for work reasons was just 4 percent in Pakistan, 6 percent in Cote d’Ivoire, 6 percent in Nicaragua and almost 10 percent in Peru (Banerhee and Duflo ’11: 226, 227, 231). The poor often lack critical pieces of information and believe things that are not true. They bear too much responsibility for too many aspects of their lives whereas the richer you are the more right decisions are made for you. They get unfavorable prices in markets. Those living on $2 a day spend about 10 percent of their monthly expenditures on health care, whereas those living on less than 99 cents a day spend about 6.3 percent. Every year, 9 million children die before their fifth birthday. A woman in sub-Saharan Africa has a one-in-thirty chance of dying while giving birth – in the developed world, the chance is one in 5,600. Of the 9 million children who die before their fifth birthdays each year, the vast majority are poor children from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and roughly one in five dies of diarrhea. Efforts are under way to distribute vaccines against rotavirus. Three miracle drugs could save most of these children: chlorine bleach, for purifying water, and salt and sugar, the key ingredients of the rehydration solution ORS. A mere $100 spent on chlorine packaged for household use can prevent thirty-two cases of diarrhea. Incentives, like two pounds of dal (dried beans, staple in Udaipur), helped increase immunization rates sevenfold from 6 to 38 percent. Doctors point out that 38 percent is far from the 80 percent or 90 percent required to achieve “herd immunity” the rate at which an entire community is fully protected: WHO targets 90 percent coverage nationally for the basic immunization, and 80 percent in every subunit. Mosquito netting costs around $10 (Banerhee & Duflo ’11: 1, 7, 63, 219).

The injustices and inequities brought about by the neoliberal economic ideology do not only affect the citizens of the poorer nations of the world, but those of the rich countries as well. The model is designed to work against the people, wherever they are, with the sole exception of the mega-rich and the mega-powerful. In the United States there are millions of people who suffer as much as the most vulnerable people in other poverty-stricken areas of the world. The development discourse recognizes three types of countries: underdeveloped, developing and developed. For decades these categories have seemed sufficient for descriptive and comparative purposes. However, under the present circumstances it seems desirable to consider a fourth category: that of under-developing countries – those going from better to worse – of which the United States and Europe are without doubt the most conspicuous example. Since 1970 the quality of life and the economic conditions of the immense majority of Americans, with the exception of the top financial elite, has steadily deteriorated. The US is the most unequal of all the advanced economies, with the coexistence of enormous wealth and extreme poverty. It is the richest nation in history, but also has the highest poverty rate in the industrialized world. Fifty million US citizens are living in poverty and many more owe more than they own. For at least three decades there has been wage stagnation, mounting poverty and attacks on the social welfare system. Wealth redistribution has occurred but only towards a tiny financial elite and this inequality reached a breaking point through the massive bailouts designed to save the financial speculation industry (Smith & Max-Neef ’11: 169, 133, 134, 155). The late Prince Claus of the Netherlands said, “It seems to me that if we look at the evolution of economic theory over the last two hundred years we can conclude, with tolerable exaggeration, that it has been basically concerned with the question of how those who are already rich, especially through their control of capital and land, can increase their wealth still further. Economists have given less attention to issues of distribution. Indeed, I believe that mainstream economics represents in many respects an orthodox consensus which can be shown to be deeply conservative. Such orthodoxy nearly always tells us we need more of the same that got us into the problem, to get us out of it again. It seldom tells us we need something new. Something different”. At the opening speech at the 20^th conference of the Society for International Development in May 1991 he said, “Perhaps, Ladies and Gentlemen, we must await the appearance of ‘green’ Keynes to help us out of this predicament. But preferably a Keynes who is born in and belongs to the ‘South’ (Smith & Max-Neef :11: 59, 60, 118).

Top 10 National GDPs 2050; 2000-2050 (in billions of dollars)

2050 Rank	Country	2000	2010	2020	2030	2040	2050
1	China	1,078	2,998	7,070	14,312	26,439	44,453
*	European Union	9,395	12,965	16,861	21,075	28,323	35,288
2	United States	9,825	13,271	16,415	20,833	27,229	35,165
3	India	469	929	2,104	4,935	12,367	27,803
4	Japan	4,176	4,601	5,221	5,810	6,039	6,673
5	Brazil	762	668	1,333	2,189	3,740	6,074
6	Russia	391	847	1,741	2,980	4,467	5,870
7	United Kingdom	1,437	1,876	2,285	2,649	3,201	3,782
8	Germany	1,875	2,212	2,524	2,697	3,147	3,603
9	France	1,311	1,622	1,930	2,267	2,668	3,148
10	Italy	1,078	1,337	1,553	1,671	1,788	2,061

Source: Fig. 14.3 American Political Economy HA-20-3-10

Economic development programs, argued Nobel Prize winning Indian economist Amertya Sen (1933--), should not require the “blood, sweat, and tears” of the poor but should design policies that link economic growth to respect for human freedom as the central tenet of human rights. Within the narrow views of development (in terms of, say, GNP growth or industrialization), it is often asked whether the freedom of political participation and dissent is or is not “conducive to development”? In the light of the foundational view of development as freedom, political participation and development are constitutive parts of development itself. The relevance of the deprivation of basic political freedoms or civil rights, for an adequate understanding of development, does not have to be established through their indirect contribution to other features of development. These freedoms are part and parcel of enriching the process of development (Sen ’99: 36-37). Franklin D. Roosevelt’s The Four Freedoms addressed to Congress in 1941 states: For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are: Equality of opportunity for youth and for others. Jobs for those who can work. Security for those who need it. The ending of special privileges for the few. The preservation of civil liberties for all. The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living. In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression, everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way, everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants, everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world (Roosevelt ‘41). When we demand the rights and freedoms we so cherish we should also be aware of our human responsibilities. If we accept that others have an equal right to peace and happiness as ourselves, have we not a responsibility to do what we can to help those in need and at least avoid harming them? Closing our eyes to our neighbor’s suffering in order to better enjoy our own freedom and good fortune is a rejecting of such responsibilities. We need to develop a concern for the problems of others, whether they be individuals or entire peoples (Dalai Lama ’88)(Ishay ’08).

VI. Revolutionize the Constitution of Hospitals & Asylums Non-Governmental Economy (CHANGE)

Occupy poses an opportunity for people’s democracy to revolutionize the Bicentennial Edition of the Constitution of Hospitals & Asylums Non-Governmental Economy (CHANGE) as intended by the framer, then Under-Secretary General of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Professor of Economics Jose Antonio Ocampo, whose NGO application required the now 100 article long Constitution, that has been amended 15 times by the author Anthony Joseph Sanders, including the undated Standard & Poor’s Debt Ceiling and Balanced Budget Amendment Crisis HA-16-7-11 amendment of the US Constitution and is due for a Revolutionary 16^th draft to offer political campers an academic scholarship to eat vegan and do sets of push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups between chapters, run 10k a day, marathon on the Sabbath and sell antibiotics without prescription, for a three draft HA Bicentennial Edition this 2011. CHANGE must renumber Chapter on Economic Law 6 and 4 the Rule of Law. Has anyone taken the time to read the 50 page CHANGE? Has anyone cited CHANGE under Art. 100? Is there any people’s assembly, anywhere in the world, that would like to ratify CHANGE as amended? Maybe the locals will bend their backs? The concept of change is integral to the ongoing nonviolent social change movement amongst contemporary philanthropic contributors such as the Center for Community Change and the Center for Creative Change in Ashland (Korten et al ’09). The Sanders-Ocampo economy didn’t pay other than in Defense of Social Security Caucus HA-1-7-11 and the NGO Section record infringes on Freedman’s Hospital & Asylum (HA) as badly as the zombie law firm Sanders, Squire and Demsey, the Democratic and Republican (DR) two party system and the 111^th and 112^th Congresses who must be dissolved in their entirety, including Senator Bernie Sanders (I) until he stops squealing to the DR (Sanders ‘11). Power to the people!!! The largest war reparation in history wasn’t a high enough salary for the writer to get a penny. ONE didn’t pay for the $1 trillion international development decade 2001-2010 that diversified the Iraq settlement amongst all nations and brought the Millennium Development Goals for 2015 into focus to disrespect the private enforcement of a 1% international development payroll tax in industrialized nations (Sanders ’10). Occupy is the best thing to happen this HA bicentennial on which day February 26, 2011 the Armed Forces Retirement Home stole my $69 a month SSI supplement in violation of Re- invest UN Security Council Resolution 1970 (2011) in a Libyan Constitutional Convention HA-7-3-11. When President of the UC Earth Company I helped to organize campus camping. Occupy helps to realize the global revolutionary camping dream, I had in Mexico. Viva la Revolution!!! The date HA-11-11-11 commemorates the censored veto of the Palestinian membership that caused Occupy to be raided. Like all works on socialism, that comprises 75 percent of my unfinished business writing the tooth, this coffee table photo report on Occupy Wall St., took 3 weeks of $140 a week rent, $420, to complete, sorry campers. The true date of the release of this report is November 22, 2011 HA-22-11-11. I would like to extend this invitation to all non-violent People to cite the Bicentennial Edition of the Constitution of Hospitals & Asylums Non-Governmental Economy under Art. 100 of CHANGE. Are any locals interested in participating in the study, discussion, ratification and amendment of CHANGE?

Credit: Andrew Burton/AP Occupy Wall Street protests march through the Financial District in New York on Oct. 10

As far as revolutions go Occupy bears a striking resemblance to the nonviolent social change of Mahatma Gandhi in colonial India and Martin Luther King Jr. in segregated America, on a world scale – a leaderless world revolution in political camping for the 99% unpopular people to lead – that incorporates the most charming profits of peasant revolution in the People’s Republic of China with nonviolent democratic principles of the apologetic inheritors of the liberal economic revolution of Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). Health and email has been difficult since the international criminal coup of 2006 wasn’t satisfied with the suppression of equitable accounting of official development assistance caused by the extra-judicial executions of the Yugoslavian prisoners in the Hague and assassinated the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Lee Jong-wook. Social networking billionaires without obvious sources of revenues or expenses enforced the Google macro-economic infringement on the dead authors. “You’re a peon” ceased to be an accepted defense of European colonialism and service of the yearly, equinox and solstice (yes) HA newsletter declined from more than 10,000 to two Latinos under the No-Membership requirement of Art. 99 of CHANGE while the incredibly unreliable number of anonymous hits on the HA website increased from 1,000 to 10,000 a month. Termination of service was particularly hard on the U.S. Congress that invented the Tony Assassination Retard Pay (TARP) on the fall equinox a few days after being notified of their denial of service, to fully enjoy the impunity of the 1 percent to participate in the European insolvency – colonial occupation. In defense of the black man in the White House whose support of domestic spying, corrupted the health of the most lucrative Presidential campaign in history and the day after he irreparably corrupted my former hometown he was convicted of killing Afghan civilians, was unjustly tried and did not respond to the allegations in Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), et al, plaintiffs v. US Presidential Candidates Barack Obama and John McCain whose foreign policies fail Asia and the Near East (ANE), US Congress in defense of Title 22 Foreign Relations and Intercourse (a-FRaI-d) and the Court of International Trade (CoITUS), defendants HA-28-7-08 – Title 22 Foreign Relations (FR-ee), Customs Commission (CC) and Customs Court (CC). The President continued to take $80 million in bribes from every apartheid 1 percent law firm to advocate the unaffordable American Jobs subsidies and repress Palestinian membership, instead of securing the balanced federal budget from the author of the Defense of Social Security Caucus HA-1-7-11.

Hospitals & Asylums Campsite

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Credit: Tony Sanders HA-25-10-11

Now the 112^th Congress is dissolved until such a time democracy respects royalty. It is up to Occupy to provide people around the world with the local democracy that the socio-economy needs to survive a sedentary post-American century lifestyle in the absence of the functional literacy in the English language HA monopolizes. Sorry I don’t have any pictures of myself or the police contaminated couch under the bridge I, the anonymous jogger, removed, with the help of a friend, from the site of the fifth murder in nine years in Ashland, a 23 year old grocer. Let that be a lesson not to host a grocer’s union foundation meetings in violence prone synagogues so hard on their competition, the Pals, within a mile from the National Guard, that hosts a farmer’s market on Tuesdays. I bought the digital camera with the money I earned working while saving $1,000 in two months of disease free political camping. There is nothing to spare the federal chemical weapons exemption, alma mater complimentary with every rental property with wifi, (why fight with the wife?) from the trash and little but hygiene to treat common viruses; bacterial, fungal and protozoa, that cause the majority of chronic disease by infecting damaged tissue, such as endocarditis, can be safely and effectively cured with an appropriate course of antibiotics 90 percent of the time. Doxycycline is a very cheap broad spectrum antibiotic that treats Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and can be purchased and imported from the full service Indian generic pharmaceutical industry online without prescription, with Ampicillin or Amoxicillin for pneumonia and meningitis, Bactrim for bladder infections and E. coli as well as Metronidazole (Flagyl ER) to treat gastroenteritis of bacterial, amoeba or protozoa causation, such as endocarditis, appendicitis, antibiotic associated colitis caused by the proliferation of antibiotic resistant gut flora Clostridium difficile, Entamoeba histolytica that infects the liver and Bactroides spp. that comprise 99 percent of the rice eating human gut flora in Best Medicine Monographs HA-28-2-11.

Picture of the Author at the Bottle Tree above the Ashland Inversion

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Credit: Tony Sanders Thanksgiving HA-24-11-11

Work Cited

Illegal Market Subsidies

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) P.L. 111-5 of February 17, 2009

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) HR 1424 of October 3, 2008

Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008 P.L. 110-289 on July 30, 2008

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 P.L. 111-148

Recovery Rebates and Economic Stimulus for the American People Act of 2008 P.L. 110-185 of February 13, 2008

Statute

Activities of Officers and Employees in Claims against and Other Matters Affecting the Government 18USC(11)§205

Acts affecting a personal interest 18USC(11)§208

Adjustable rate mortgages 38USCIII(37)I§3707

Adjustable rate mortgage caps 12USC(39)§3806

Anti-Trust Actions by State Attorney General 15USC(1)§15C

Ashland Municipal Code Section 10.46 Prohibited Camping

Bribery of Public Officials and Witnesses 18USC(11)§201

Exemption from tax of corporations, certain trusts etc. 26USC(A)(1)(F)I§501

Hybrid adjustable rate mortgages 38USC(37)§3707A

Offers of procurement of Federal Reserve Bank loan and discount commercial paper 18USC(11)§214

Restrictions on former officers, employees and elected officials of the executive and legislative branches 18USC(11)§207

Truth in Lending Act Requirement for Certain Mortgages 15USC(41)IB§1639

Truth in Lending Act Civil Liability 15USC(41)I(B)§1640

Truth in Lending Act Correction of Billing Errors 15USC(41)I(D)§1666

Trusts, etc. in restraint of trade illegal; penalty 15USC(1)§1

Case Law

Brown, Governor of California, et al v. Marciana & Plata et al No. 09–1233 (2011)

Doe v. Reed, Washington Secretary of State No. 09-559 (2010)

Gordon v. Sansone et al application for write of certiorari from the U.S. 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals 2011

Legal Consequences of Constructing a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 131

Marbury v. Madison 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803)

New York Times v. Sullivan 376 US 254 (1964)

Regan, Secretary of Treasury et al v. Taxation With Representation of Washington 461 US 540 (1983)

Federal Reports

Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) Romero, Christy L. Quarterly Report to Congress October 27, 2011

Statistical Supplement to the Federal Reserve Bulletin, April 2007, 1.54 discontinued in January 2009

U.S. Census Bureau Foreign Trade Division. U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services 1992-present

Whitehouse Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Historical Tables 1789-2016;

Treaties

Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 16 December 1966 enforced 23 March 1976

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights 16 December 1966 enforced 3 January 1976

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Articles of Agreement July 22, 1944

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 10 December 1948

World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Duties. Uruguay Round

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