UK Uncut ( ukuncut.org.uk ) is a peaceful protest action in England, having an effect in opposing cuts in social services while fat cats are protected by policy makers. It has come up now as an example for similar "1st Amendment" remedies in the US, regarding the umbrella matters of worker's rights (Wisconsin), endemic unemployment (99'ers), deep cuts in the benefits of average Americans (Republicans).
However it had a very simple equation to sell - of a specific retailer, Vodafone, owing £6 billion in unpaid taxes, and imminent draconian cuts in services of £7 billion. So they sat in at Vodaphone stores across UK, and chopped up their commerce.
The US situation is not nearly so executable. Only some of the many tax-ducking American corporations, even have retail stores. You're not turning anything, by clogging a few McDonalds. So you pick on Target or Safeway. Will their unpaid tax bill if collected, mean much for 10 million disenfranchised who can't get back to work?
Even if you somehow got up enough steam to stop the tax havens in DC, you know the next line: "Well see we have an enormous deficit and we have to stop spending! Deficit! Spending!"
So, you'd now battle the usage of those revenues. With Obama, negligent through it all. We clearly, badly need FDR jobs programs to convert to a green economy - solar, bio-diesel, geothermal conversions, high-speed rail.
You may - may - be able to win that battle by putting the horror of the disenfranchised, in the face of Media Inc. until they start covering it. We have little national outrage because they are sweeping the jobless 99'ers crisis under the rug, allowing DC in turn to sweep it under the rug. They are casting benefit cuts as "unavoidable" under an unexamined pretense that the Gates' & Buffets' (their own admission) be clocked at 16% net tax rates (cap gains on nearly all their income, not salary). Under an unexamined pretense that the Pentagon continue at $750 billion - 2.5 times it's 1990's bloat.
Green jobs programs are do-able and return dollars on pennies. Just as Hoover Dam and the Interstate highways did. It's a matter of fiscal priorities. You put paychecks not UI checks in the pockets of idle workers short term, you reduce the massive transfer of US dollars to OPEC nations long term. Amounts to the biggest stimulus you could possibly craft for the US economy. Those billions, stay home.
Obama works the margins of this reality. We need an Apollo project.
There is a new Help Board up for jobless 99'ers, and a team of Twitter users whom are tweeting the link out to major media, asking them to cover the crisis. Here is the link > http://t.co/...
