Occupy campaigners angry at police arrests

Protesters outside the police station after squatters were removed from the Railton Hotel, Lancaster and arrrested.

Published on Saturday 14 January 2012 14:00

PROTESTERS who occupied a disused hotel in Lancaster say they could make a formal police complaint after four were arrested.
Around 100 activists - under the Occupy Lancaster banner - took over the former Railton Hotel in Station Road on Sunday with plans to tidy up the property and garden with a view to it being opened up as community space.
However, up to 50 police later surrounded the property, forced entry and arrested three men and a woman.
They were released without charge after 20 hours in custody.
Supporters camped outside the police station overnight to protest against the arrests, and later celebrated outside the Railton Hotel following the group’s release.
One of the arrested protesters, 48-year-old David Fleet, said the group - dubbed the ‘Lancaster Four’ - will be looking into the possibility of making a complaint against the police after being arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.
See the Lancaster Guardian (12-01-12) for full story.

Voters Choice: Ron Paul or Bibi Netanyahu

Americans who desire a return to George Washington’s admonition that American democracy can be destroyed by foreign entanglements have only Ron Paul as an option.

by William A. Cook

A curious glance at the current crop of presidential candidates makes it clear that Ron Paul stands alone when it comes to the issue of US engagement in foreign wars. He stands with George Washington against foreign entanglements while the rest of the candidates stand with Teddy Roosevelt and the attempted creation of America’s first empire one hundred and twelve years ago. Mark Twain responded to that effort by creating the Anti-imperialist society while he caustically satirized the effort in his depiction of the massacre of the Moros in the Philippines. Now we have more massacres, using drones instead of canons, on equally hapless civilians who are caught unawares or hiding from the wrath of America’s righteousness as we drive to bring virtue to a primitive world.
Today America has an estimated 700 military installations in about 140 nations around the world; its bases surround Iran as does its nuclear capability, and it is engaged in executive “wars” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Palestine. All of this while carrying a debt that exceeds thirteen trillion dollars, cutting budgets in education, medical care and social security, and retaining a Pentagon budget that exceeds that of the 16 declared developed nations combined. And to top it all off, we are considering armed aggression against Iran that could plunge America into the biggest war since WW II. Why?

Each star represents a US military base in the Iran region. This does not include US forces on the bases of other nations such as Jordan, Georgia and Azerbaijan, nor does it include the US Special Forces operating inside Syria, Lebanon and Iran itself. Most Naval forces, Allied military forces and the forces waiting orders to bomb Iran from Diego Garcia, Europe and the USA are also not included in this presentation.

Why add Iran to the list of wars when we have succeeded in losing the “wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq? Let’s admit the truth, we do not control Afghanistan and, while we have ostensibly left Iraq, we have left it in chaos and disarray. The question persists, why?
Why invade Iran? Ask first, why did we invade Iraq? Why did we not object to Israel’s bombing in Syria? Why didn’t we object to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon or Gaza? The world’s nations objected in UN Resolution after Resolution. But America voted to support Israel’s illegal aggression. Why? It is America’s reputation that has been placed in the gutter; it is America that is ranked with Israel as the most dangerous nations on the planet; it is America’s democracy that has been diluted, nay emaciated, as our liberties have been eroded with ever increasing draconian delusions that they are purportedly designed to protect while they make the citizen fodder for the few in control. So the question persists, why?
Not long ago, the answer may have been provided when Netanyahu was interviewed by Piers Morgan about the Iranian threat. Relative to this discussion is a comment made by Netanyahu in his interview with Morgan, a comment that I have not seen mentioned in America’s press.
When pressed by Morgan about the Iranian threat constantly broached by Israel and its U.S. supporters and what Israel intends to do about it, the repartee always returns to Iran as not only a threat to Israel, it is a threat to “Europe and the United States.” Morgan asks again, “What is the answer, Prime Minister?” Having successfully avoided saying that Israel would attack Iran to rid it of this danger, Netanyahu resorts to “I’m talking about a credible military action.” “Lead by who,” asks Morgan. “Lead preferably by the United States,” replies Netanyahu. “Could you contemplate some kind of land invasion,” asks Morgan. “Well, I think the United States has proven great effectiveness and I’m going to divulge a secret to you about their capabilities. They’re greater than ours.”
So says the Prime Minister of Israel as he talks about using America’s military to take out the Iranian threat to Israel. Why not use American boys and girls to kill your enemy and save your own sons and daughters? Why not indeed. Mark the tone. It’s almost as though he is saying to this imported talk show host, “Why do you ask, Stupid, it’s so obvious.”
According to recent polls, Americans have fallen out of favor with our numerous wars in countries we neither know nor can spell: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Palestine and Syria. This fact seems to be of little interest to the candidates who appear committed to the military-industrial complex that funds their respective campaigns. Indeed all seem committed to the addition of Iran since it appears to threaten, existentially, our aborted child, Israel. In short, if an American believes that he or she should vote to end America’s foreign entanglements, he or she has only Ron Paul to vote for. All the others have stated unequivocally their support for the state of Israel and its drive to stop Iran from gaining nuclear power. A vote for Romney, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum, or Huntsman means a vote for Netanyahu and his expressed desire to have American boys and girls serve Israel in this cause, or so he says. 
Consider these statements by our candidates:
* Romney on Israel:”I will reaffirm as a vital national interest Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. I want the world to know that the bonds between Israel and the United States are unshakable…If I'm president of the United States, my first trip, my first foreign trip will be to Israel to show the world we care about that country and that region.” Mark that Romney makes no reference to Palestine or Palestinians; how does one resolve a conflict if one does not recognize the second party?
            * Now consider Perry’s comment: “We are going to be there to support you. And we are going to be unwavering in that. So I hope you will tell the people of Israel: Help is on the way." Perry makes no reference to Obama’s unequivocal support for Israel having outspent all previous administrations in dollars and military hardware.
*Not to be outdone, Santorum offered the following: He said more or less what Newt Gingrich stated last month, "All the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis. They're not Palestinian. There [are] no Palestinians. This is Israeli land.” What can one say, Santorum needs to read some history before opening his mouth.
“Gingrich has all but declared that under his presidency, the American position would be that of Netanyahu’s,” Andrew Sullivan recently wrote, and with his recent multi-million dollar support from Adelson, who is linked to Netanyahu by an umbilical cord, he is chained to Israel’s dictates should he be elected.
*And, finally, Jon Huntsman presented his views: “The United States should not pressure Israel to negotiate with terrorists, nor to enter into any negotiated deals that threaten Israel’s security. This is a particularly delicate moment. We are inspired by the “Arab Spring,” in which the Arab people are calling for an end to decades of dictatorial and corrupt leadership. These events also give the lie to the notion Israel is somehow the source of all problems in the Middle East.”
Note that Huntsman does not mention that Israel has occupied Palestine for 63 years, illegally according to international law and the charter of the UN that the US has agreed to. Moreover, the constantly reiterated cause of unrest in the mid-east is the occupation of Palestine by the Israelis. To say it is not so, is, to borrow Gingrich’s eloquent phrase, “baloney.”
            *Since we know that our current president has bragged that his administration has outspent all previous administrations in support of Israel, there is no need to argue that he would change course now. Since we also know that Israel can count on close to 400 supporters in the House and virtually all 100 Senators, as votes in support these past twelve years attest, the choice for Americans who desire a return to George Washington’s admonition that American democracy can be destroyed by foreign entanglements have only Ron Paul as an option.
Ron Paul: Foreign Policy & Israel
Ron Paul on the Economy

Here is what Ron Paul says about American imperialism, a voice crying in the wilderness:

• Islamists attacked us for US bases on Arab lands. (Sep 2011)
• Neither Dems nor GOP will cut one nickel from militarism. (Aug 2011)
• American Empire is big government war & militarism. (Apr 2011)
• We can't keep troops in 135 countries & 900 bases forever. (Feb 2011)
• We’re broke and we just can’t continue to police the world. (Feb 2008)
• Stop policing the world and we can get rid of income tax. (Dec 2007)
• Bring all troops home from abroad & save $100B’s every year. (Dec 2007)
• 9/11 resulted from blasphemy of our bases in Saudi Arabia. (Dec 2007)
• Pre-emptive war policy is a grave mistake. (Jun 2007)
• Pre-emptive war is not part of the American tradition. (Jun 2007)
• Military aggressiveness weakens our national defense. (May 2007)
• Jihadists attack because we have bases in their countries. (Jan 2006)
• Costs of war always higher than expected & go on for decades. (Jun 2005)
• Conscription is a trait of totalitarian government. (Dec 1987)

This is the choice presented to the American voter.
What we know clearly is that America has set out on a course of world domination that mocks the very concept of democracy where people are free to choose their government, not be told who will govern them by a foreign power. What we know tragically is that the American government is content to support and sometimes to create dictators that oppress their own people, if they obey America’s dictates, as the fall of Mubarak in Egypt attests. What we also know is that our government has been bought by a foreign power to secure its own ends regardless of the consequences to the people of the United States. What we know unfortunately is that any citizen wishing to run for the office of President must kowtow to the desires of the state of Israel by declaring his or her allegiance to that state or be declared a nut case.. What we know truly is that America is no longer the nation of the free citizen, since we are now subject to the fear that resides in the gut when threatened by unsubstantiated allegations of suspicion as a terrorist that can result in indefinite detention without trial or due process. Such is the decline of the once proud and free experiment that was the United States of America.     

Brian Basham: Beware corporate psychopaths – they are still occupying positions of power

Outlook Over the years I've met my fair share of monsters – rogue individuals, for the most part. But as regulation in the UK and the US has loosened its restraints, the monsters have proliferated.

In a paper recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics entitled "The Corporate Psychopaths: Theory of the Global Financial Crisis", Clive R Boddy identifies these people as psychopaths.
"They are," he says, "simply the 1 per cent of people who have no conscience or empathy." And he argues: "Psychopaths, rising to key senior positions within modern financial corporations, where they are able to influence the moral climate of the whole organisation and yield considerable power, have largely caused the [banking] crisis'.
And Mr Boddy is not alone. In Jon Ronson's widely acclaimed book The Psychopath Test, Professor Robert Hare told the author: "I should have spent some time inside the Stock Exchange as well. Serial killer psychopaths ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies."
Cut to a pleasantly warm evening in Bahrain. My companion, a senior UK investment banker and I, are discussing the most successful banking types we know and what makes them tick. I argue that they often conform to the characteristics displayed by social psychopaths. To my surprise, my friend agrees.
He then makes an astonishing confession: "At one major investment bank for which I worked, we used psychometric testing to recruit social psychopaths because their characteristics exactly suited them to senior corporate finance roles."
Here was one of the biggest investment banks in the world seeking psychopaths as recruits.
Mr Ronson spoke to scores of psychologists about their understanding of the damage that psychopaths could do to society. None of those psychologists could have imagined, I'm sure, the existence of a bank that used the science of spotting them as a recruiting mechanism.
I've never met Dick Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers and the architect of its downfall, but I've seen him on video and it's terrifying. He snarled to Lehman staff that he wanted to "rip out their [his competitors] hearts and eat them before they died". So how did someone like Mr Fuld get to the top of Lehman? You don't need to see the video to conclude he was weird; you could take a little more time and read a 2,200-page report by Anton Valukas, the Chicago-based lawyer hired by a US court to investigate Lehman's failure. Mr Valukas revealed systemic chicanery within the bank; he described management failures and a destructive, internal culture of reckless risk-taking worthy of any psychopath.
So why wasn't Mr Fuld spotted and stopped? I've concluded it's the good old question of nature and nurture but with a new interpretation. As I see it, in its search for never-ending growth, the financial services sector has actively sought out monsters with natures like Mr Fuld and nurtured them with bonuses and praise.
We all understand that sometimes businesses have to be cut back to ensure their survival, and where those cuts should fall is as relevant to a company as it is, today, to the UK economy; should it bear down upon the rich or the poor?
Making those cuts doesn't make psychopaths of the cutters, but the financial sector's lack of remorse for the pain it encourages people to inflict is purely psychopathic. Surely the action of cutting should be a matter for sorrow and regret? People's lives are damaged, even destroyed. However, that's not how the financial sector sees it.
Take Sir Fred Goodwin of RBS, for example. Before he racked up a corporate loss of £24.1bn, the highest in UK history, he was idolised by the City. In recognition of his work in ruthlessly cutting costs at Clydesdale Bank he got the nickname "Fred the Shred", and he played that for all it was worth. He was later described as "a corporate Attila", a title of which any psychopath would be proud.
Mr Ronson reports: "Justice departments and parole boards all over the world have accepted Hare's contention that psychopaths are quite simply incurable and everyone should concentrate their energies instead on learning how to root them out."
But, far from being rooted out, they are still in place and often in positions of even greater power.
As Mr Boddy warns: "The very same corporate psychopaths, who probably caused the crisis by their self-seeking greed and avarice, are now advising governments on how to get out of the crisis. Further, if the corporate psychopaths theory of the global financial crisis is correct, then we are now far from the end of the crisis. Indeed, it is only the end of the beginning."
I became familiar with psychopaths early in life. They were the hard men who terrorised south-east London when I was growing up. People like "Mad" Frankie Fraser and the Richardson brothers. They were what we used to call "red haze" men, and they were frightening because they attacked with neither fear, mercy nor remorse.
Regarding Messrs Hare, Ronson, Boddy and others, I've realised that some psychopaths "forge careers in corporations. The group is called Corporate Psychopaths". They are polished and plausible, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous.
In attempting to understand the complexities of what went wrong in the years leading to 2008, I've developed a rule: "In an unregulated world, the least-principled people rise to the top." And there are none who are less principled than corporate psychopaths.
Brian Basham is a veteran City PR man, entrepreneur and journalist

'I’m a graduate, get me out of here!’

  Cait Reilly, who has a degree in geology, was told she would lose her jobseeker’s allowance if she did not stack shelves. She had to give up a volunteer job in a local museum

It’s been quite a week for 22-year-old Cait Reilly. After spending 18 months waiting in vain for her phone to ring with the offer of any one of the hundreds of jobs she has applied for since graduating in the summer of 2010 from Birmingham University, these past few days it hasn’t stopped. And all because of two weeks on a government unemployment programme in her local Poundland in King’s Heath, West Midlands.

A triumph for the scheme presented by ministers as giving 250,000 claimants on jobseekers’ allowance a helping hand back into the workforce? Not quite. For Reilly has made headlines because she is mounting a legal challenge to what she says was the “forced labour” of being made to stack shelves for free in the discount retailer, or lose her £53-a-week in dole. “I was told it was mandatory. There were five of us sent there. I was the only graduate. We were doing exactly the same work as the paid staff. It makes no sense. If the Government subsidises high street chains with free labour, they don’t have to recruit. It causes unemployment rather than solves it.”

What makes the mandatory placement more puzzling, adds Reilly, whose degree was geology, was that going to Poundland meant she had to give up a volunteer post she had at the local Pen Room Museum, part of her plan to gain the experience that would help her along her chosen career path as a curator.

“Right now, I would take any job. I have £18,000 in student debts to pay off and the interest is building all the time. That really worries me. But I have plenty of retail experience already on my CV. I didn’t need to go to Poundland. And I was never told I had a choice.”

Her adviser at the Job Centre has, she reports, been replaced. The Department of Work and Pensions, which oversees the scheme, has responded to her allegations by insisting that, within reason, such “sector-based work academy” schemes are optional. And Chris Grayling, the employment minister, has in the past robustly defended the programme, pointing out that “half of young people leave benefits after they have completed their placement”.

The problem in Reilly’s case seems to be that, as a graduate, her career expectations were different from many other claimants. But she is not, in reality, so unusual. Of those who graduated at the same time as her, in 2010, half were either jobless six months later, or in menial roles. Another survey reports that 38 per cent of graduates have been on the dole after leaving university. And longer-term data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency reveals that 28 per cent of 2006 graduates were not in full-time employment three years later, while, among those who were, only 16 per cent of the men were earning over £20,000, and 29 per cent of the women.
This last figure is particularly significant since, under new tuition fee arrangements, those embarking from this September on degree courses that will cost up to £9,000 a year will only have to start repaying their tuition fees once their income rises above £21,000. The Treasury, it seems, may be about to take a substantial hit.
Reilly remains phlegmatic about her joblessness. “Someone is getting the posts I am applying for, so I have to believe that one day that person will be me. That’s the logic.”
Does she regret not tackling something more vocational – law, medicine, engineering – rather than geology?
“I did think about that before I started, but I loved the subject and geology can provide a whole range of careers in civil engineering, mining, oil exploration and property. So it was a practical choice.” But of her cohort, she says, only one – “and he got a first” – has got a job that uses his degree.
Defending the hike in tuition fees, the Government argues that undergraduates are speculating to accumulate. By taking out loans to pay for a higher education, they are giving themselves the prospect of better-paid careers than school-leavers that will more than justify that investment. However, the Office of National Statistics reported last August that a quarter of graduates are earning less than contemporaries who joined the workforce after A-levels. And even with the other three quarters, the graduate pay premium is shrinking. One factor, it seems, is that the rapid expansion in higher education under Labour has seen the percentage of university-educated workers grow since 1993 from 12 to 25 per cent. And it continues to rise.
“I don’t regret going to university,” says Holly Jerreat, 22, who graduated last summer with a 2:1 in languages from Bath, “but with hindsight I might have done a more vocational course. I chose languages because it was a subject I loved and found intellectually challenging. But here I am, still looking for work.”
Jerreat, who has returned home to live with her parents in Kent, has filled in “endless application forms” for graduate posts in marketing, advertising and media, and has come very close several times to landing the job of her dreams, but the competition is stiff and openings few and far between. To pay
her way in the interim, she has applied “for every job going in our local Bluewater shopping centre. I write off, send in CVs, go in and ask face-to-face, and then get told I am over-qualified.” Currently she is doing a part-time administrative post she got through a family connection. “Basically I do the shredding.”
In these hard times for recent graduates, such family connections – much decried by the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, as “the exclusive preserve of the sharp-elbowed and the well-connected” – are one way to gain an advantage.
“I spent a year and a half doing various temping jobs,” says 25-year-old Howard de Podesta, who graduated in aerospace engineering from Bath, “before getting a job in product design in financial IT off the back of an internship. That is the route many graduates go down now.”
People like 24-year-old Kate Ross, who graduated in combined social sciences from Durham in 2009, and then landed a three-month paid internship with a hotel management company with the help of her sister who worked in recruitment. “Having that experience helped me impress my current employer, a property company. Without experience, no one will touch you, however good your degree or your university. You have somehow to find a way to get that experience.”
Unpaid internships, though, especially in London and big cities, depend on being able to rely on family for free accommodation and pocket money. Ross squared the circle by taking a part-time post as a live-in au pair, even though she had no formal training in caring for children. “I was actually better off when I was living for nothing there than when I started work properly and had to pay rent on a flat.”
And therein is another problem. Even when graduates find jobs, starting salaries are so low that it makes it very hard to stand on your own.
“It seems to take friends from university around a year to find a 'proper’ job,” recounts Jerreat, “but they rarely pay more than £18,000. Once you have stated paying back your student loans, which kicks in at £15,000 for my age group, and then pay rent, it really doesn’t leave anything to live on.”
The unpaid internship industry is, says Cait Reilly, pretty much a closed book for her. “I think it probably does skew the market against people like me. I live at home, but my parents can’t afford to support me. I have to make a contribution to my living costs. If I had the option of not signing on, I’d take it like a shot. It tars me with the same brush in the eyes of those who see anyone claiming benefits as lazy or scroungers. And yes, I would be prepared to travel and live somewhere else for work, but it would have to be paid for me to afford to be able to do it.”
So has her week of making headlines and taking calls helped her job search? “No,” she reports flatly. “Or not yet. Some of my friends think I am mad to go to court, that the legal action will mean that no employer will want anything to do with me, but for me it is an abuse that needs highlighting. The idea that any work experience, however irrelevant and menial, will be beneficial just doesn’t add up.”

Woman put in jail for being poor

Woman jailedl for 10 days because she's too poor to pay fine

TAGS: Crisis, USA, Economy

The recession ruined Linda Ruggles’ business and she has been selling plasma twice a week since to make ends meet. The blood bank couldn’t bail her out from behind bars though, which is where she ended up after she couldn’t pay a $480 fine.
That fine, say cops in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, came about because Linda Ruggles had a messy yard.
Barely getting by in recent years, Ruggles, 53, has been stockpiling scraps to pawn off in order to make her bill payments. In her yard rests a pile of metal that she routinely cashes in to get by. Elsewhere outside her house is a shack of shingles. Paying to have her roof fixed, often a job that comes at a cost of several thousand dollars, has been out of the question.
So when cops ticketed her $480 for having a messy yard, Ruggles wasn’t exactly prepared to pay it.
“I told everyone, ‘If I had $480 to pay the fine, I'd fix the roof,’"' she told Charleston, South Carolina ‘s Post and Courier.
Ruggles couldn’t fix the roof, however, and she couldn’t pay the fine either. For being unable to do so, she was sentenced to serve 10 days in jail for failing to pay her “clean lot violation.”
“I feel like they want to make an example out of me,” Ms Ruggles tells the paper. “This should be an embarrassment for the town of Mount Pleasant. And it should be an embarrassment for my neighbors who called the code enforcement officer, because no one offered to help me – no one.”
Six days into her sentence, however, Ruggles was allowed home only to be greeted by an array of local residents who read about her plight and offered to help. That assistance came only after nearly a week in jail and legal complications which are surely only going to add onto the troubles (and scrap metal) which has already piled up.
“It didn’t change the situation,” she adds. “I just don’t think being handcuffed, photographed and fingerprinted is really a behavior-modification tool to keep me from being poor.”
On the bright side, the neighborhood grocery store that Ruggles works part-time at has allowed her to reclaim her position after her brief stint behind bars. On the bright side, that is, as long as she can forget about her last shift behind the register. It was on the job last month when the cops entered her place of business and hauled her off to jail.

Gerald Celente - Jeff Rense Radio Show - 13 January 2012

Home Seizures May Jump 25% This Year as U.S. Foreclosures Resume

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Banks may seize more than 1 million U.S. homes this year after legal scrutiny of their foreclosure practices slowed actions against delinquent property owners in 2011, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

About 1.89 million properties received notices of default, auction or repossession last year, down 34 percent from 2010 and the lowest number since 2007, the Irvine, California-based data seller said today in a statement. One in 69 U.S. households received a filing.

While the seizure process has been “highly dysfunctional,” there were “strong signs in the second half of 2011 that lenders are finally beginning to push through some of the delayed foreclosures in select local markets,” RealtyTrac Chief Executive Officer Brandon Moore said in the statement.

The number of home repossessions is likely to rise about 25 percent from the more than 804,000 properties seized last year as lenders resume foreclosure actions, Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac, said in a telephone interview. Settlement talks are continuing with state attorneys general over documentation flaws, known as “robo-signing,” that surfaced in October 2010.

About 400,000 additional homes would have been repossessed without the slowdown, Blomquist said. The ramp-up in foreclosure proceedings that began in 2011’s second half is likely to continue this year, Moore said in the statement.

Foreclosure filings totaled almost 2.7 million last year as some properties got multiple notices, RealtyTrac said.

Highest in Nevada

Nevada had the nation’s highest rate of foreclosure filings per household for the fifth straight year, at one in 16, while total filings were down 31 percent from 2010. A new state law that took effect in October requires lenders to file an additional affidavit before starting the foreclosure process.

Arizona had the second highest foreclosure rate, with one in 24 households receiving a notice, and California ranked third at one in 31. Georgia was fourth, with one in 37, and Utah fifth at one in 43, according to RealtyTrac.

Michigan, Florida, Illinois, Colorado and Idaho also ranked among the states with the 10 highest rates in 2011.

Las Vegas had the highest rate among metropolitan areas with populations over 200,000, at one foreclosure filing per 14 households. Stockton, Modesto, Vallejo-Fairfield and Riverside- San Bernardino, all in California, ranked second through fifth.

Phoenix; Merced, California; Reno, Nevada; Bakersfield, California; and Sacramento, California, rounded out the top 10, said RealtyTrac, which sells default data from more than 2,200 counties representing 90 percent of the U.S. population.

--Editors: Daniel Taub, Steven Crabill