Naomi Klein warned:
We have picked a fight with the most powerful economic and political forces on the planet. That’s frightening. And as this movement grows from strength to strength, it will get more frightening.
What did any of you expect after conservatively an estimated 1,000,000 accountswere closed from Big Banks and opened in our nation's credit unions amounting to a movement of over $5B.
As of Friday, November 4, one day prior to Bank Transfer Day, ABC News reported that the number of people switching to credit unions and community banks had already topped 1 million.
And on Bank Transfer Day on Saturday, November 5, CUNA put the number of new credit union members at around 40,000, bringing $80 million in deposits along with them.
You don't think there were meetings involving risk managers and crisis managers reworking trends flows making alarming projections in their calculated monotones. I know, I have been in those meetings back in the 1990's when I walked into those opulent corporate rooms with their elongated tables and overstuffed wing back chairs. This Occupy thing, not anticipated and now a wildfire both in the political and corporate banking circles is dangerous and it had to be punished--squelched.
What they probably feared most was what happened in Seattle yesterday:
“WHEREAS, over the past 30 years, gains in our economy have accrued largely to the top 1 percent income earners, who now control 40 percent of the wealth in the United States due in part to public policies that can be changed . . .”
In real terms this will turn into policy as in how the city's money is managed:
1. The City will review its banking and investment practices to ensure that public funds are invested in responsible financial institutions that support our community. [...] This review should include evaluating City policies on responsible depositing and management of City funds.
2. The City will examine the number of home foreclosures in Seattle, the geographic neighborhoods in which the foreclosures are occurring, and lender information on homes involved in the foreclosure process, including real estate owned homes. [...]
3. The City will continue to address economic inequality and wealth disparities by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender. [...]
4. The Council will request a report from the Department of Finance and Administrative Services on all exemptions or waivers allowed for City taxes to examine the impact of both tax shifts and lost revenue to the City against the economic and social benefits the exemptions are intended to bring to the City. [...]
Section 4. The Council and the Mayor recognize and support the important responsibility the Seattle Police Department exercises in protecting for everyone our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly while, at the same time, appropriately enforcing City laws and regulations.
This is an escalation of a money bleed. What they fear is that Occupy is giving judges the courage to take on the Banks in their march of foreclosure. In Georgia a judge scolds U.S. Bank.
“Sometimes, only courts of law stand to protect the taxpayer. Somewhere, someone has to stand up. Well, sometimes is now, and the place is the Great State of Georgia. The Defendant’s Motion is hereby Denied [...]
“A cynical Judge might believe that this entire motion to dismiss is a desperate attempt to avoid the discovery period, where U.S. Bank would have to tell Mr. Phillips how his financial situation did not qualify him for a modification. Or, perhaps he was qualified, yet didn’t receive the modification, in violation of U.S. Bank’s Service Participation Agreement (SPA).”
“A cynical judge might think that, if the guidelines clearly prevented Mr Phillips from getting his modification, the US Banks would have trotted out theat fact in matematic equations, pie charts, and bar graphs, all on 8 by 10 glossy photo paper, with circles and arrows and paragraphs on the back explaining each winning number.”
“U.S. Bank’s silence on this issue might heighten the suspicions of such a cynical jurist.”
“I, on the other hand, am sure that nothing of the sort could be true. [...]
Conclusion
“There is no merit to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss, and same is hereby DENIED.”
Then there is another judge in New York rattling the cageof a Bank of America advocate in no uncertain terms:
"The Bank of America lawyer laid down a patented rhetorical move heard in courts across America. Your Honor, this Orange County, N.Y., homeowner — a New York City police officer — didn’t make enough money to qualify for a mortgage modification. He didn’t send us the right documents.
He didn’t, he didn’t, he didn’t, and so we should be allowed to foreclose.
Justice Catherine M. Bartlett of New York State Supreme Court cut off the lawyer. You, she said, are telling me lies.
“Bank of America got a bailout, and this is an outrage, how this man has been treated,” she said. “Hard-working, middle-class Americans are trying to make it, trying to refinance with your bank.”
Either bank officials show up in person, the justice said, or I’m going to order them “here in handcuffs.”
Catch my drift, if more of the 99%'er judges, especially those who face an electorate begin aggressively challenging every foreclosure and admonishing robo prepared cases the whole thing could begin grinding to a halt. Then let us not talk about the implications that the failing Euro and their banks will have on Big Banks here in the U.S., think 2008 on steriods, especially with a Congress and President who would be politically handcuffed to help out.
So the pressure mounted to demonstrate a show of strength, a coordinated effort to take down this rabble of losers who are beginning to have some bite on the empire. Now don't let me pass on this any further, when I say empire it is not metaphorically speaking, there is an empire and they rule and we all drool. George Friedman offers the best evidence of this unspoken and ex-officio entity, what he calls "a reluctant empire"
What the United States consumes and produces shapes the lives of the people around the world. The economic policies pursued by the United States shape the economic realities of the world. The U.S. Navy control of the high seas guarantees economic access gives it access to the world and it gives it potential power to deny to other countries. Even if the United States wanted to shrink its economy to a less intrusive to a less intrusive size, it is not clear how that will be done, let alone whether Americans would be willing to pay the price when the bill is presented.
But that does not mean the United State is at ease with its power. Things have moved far too fast. That is why bringing the U.S. back into balance with require bringing the United State to terms with its actual place in the world. We have already noted the fall of the Soviet Union Empire left the United States without a rival for global dominance. What needs to be faced is squarely now is whether we like it or not, or whether it was intentional or not, the United States emerged from the Cold War as the global hegemon, but as a global empire.
Friedman makes a good clinical case that most foreigners easily recognize, the United States is a global empire and is self-serving and dangerous. Furthermore Friedman's audience is not the average Iowa caucus goer or even a Georgetown liberal, his target are the corporate executives of the economic empire. And when he is speaking of we it is not about the 99%'ers either. And in those circles they too know the U.S. is a global empire.
[snip]
The United States was founded on self-determination, which assumes a democratic process in selecting its leaders, reflected in the Constitution. It is also built on principles of human rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Imperialism would seem to undermine the principle of self-determination whether formally or informally. Moreover the conduct of foreign policy supports regimes that are in the national interest but don't practice or admire American principles of human rights. Reconciling American foreign policy with American principles is difficult and represents a threat to the moral foundations of the empire.
Here is where Friedman discusses a problem, the moral and self-image of the United States with being an empire that the cost will be the American Republic which he laments its passing for the cost of an empire.
The example of how life would be in an empire took place this weekend where coordinated efforts by para-military police took down Occupy camps across the U.S. It is interesting the day of New York City's effort in the glare of the world's media spotlight already leaks emerged about collusion between mayors, Homeland Security and the police.
Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies. Minneapolis Examiner
Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.
The official, who spoke on background to me late Monday evening, said that while local police agencies had received tactical and planning advice from national agencies, the ultimate decision on how each jurisdiction handles the Occupy protests ultimately rests with local law enforcement.
According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the least likely to be present.
Now this is collaborated by Mayor Quan's seemingly inadvertent mentioning of conference calls as she was interviewed by the BBC. hear her words here
Embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, speaking in an interview with the BBC (excerpted on The Takeaway radio program–audio of Quan starts at the 5:30 mark), casually mentioned that she was on a conference call with leaders of 18 US cities shortly before a wave of raids broke up Occupy Wall Street encampments across the country. “I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation. . . .”
So what did any of you expect from the empire, especially when you threatened to gum up the works on Thursday for the sacrament ritual known as trading. So now even the Feds are involved now. Think the Patriot Act was about some anarchists in the mountains of Afghanistan, come on it was all about us. I live in Colorado Springs, the place of NORAD, Air Force Academy, Fort Carson, Peterson AFB, Schriver Space Command, and NorthComm. NorthComm is the US Military command that looks inside, at U.S. citizens and is the military arm of Homeland Security. I know officers and retired intelligence officers who have worked there. It is about the empire and about protecting it from itself. That is a quote. I have been in circles of three or four officers who have had an assignment and something will be mentioned about the Constitution and each will give a look at each other about something unmentioned but known---not spoken.
So when Mayor Bloomberg defied a court order to stand down and restrain from taking over OWS, he knew that the Constitution is only in name only. Only we can resurrect the Constitution again.
This will not be easy, it will probably take a decade or more. Remember the Boston Massacre took place nine years before the Declaration of Independence and fourteen years before Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown. This will be a global and domestic economic civil war, probably engaged using guerrilla tactics where we eventually wear down the 1%'ers cash reserves. In the process we will rebuild our democracy and republic and possibly save ourselves from capitalism.
What else did you expect?