Conspiracy theorists are going to love this one. In an interview with the BBC, Mayor Quan admitted that she discussed dismantling Occupy Oakland with Mayors from 18 other cities.
That explains why the crackdown on Occupations seems to have happened all at once — in Oakland, in Portland, and in NYC, to name a few.
The first ever GAO(Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill(HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke(pictured to the left), Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve’s nearly 100 year history were posted on Senator Sander’s webpage earlier this morning: http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3
What was revealed in the audit was startling: $16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious — the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.
If there is one thing one can say about the insolvent European continent is that despite everything, it is a bastion of truth, and a knight of see-thru disclosure. After all, who can forget such brutally honest statements as "Greece will not default", or the follow ups: "Ireland is not Greece", "Portugal is not Ireland", "Spain is not Portugal", "Italy is fine", "Italy has turned down money from the IMF", "The IMF has never offered any money to Italy", and then the old standbys, "the ECB will not be a lender of last resort", "the EFSF will use 4-5x leverage", wait, make that "the EFSF will use 3-4x leverage", and last but not least, "Europe is not America" and "it is all the fault of evil CDS speculators." Well we have one more to add to the list: "the EFSF is not an illegal ponzi scheme" -
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Greece is the cradle of democracy, but as the world has seen recently, a financial crisis is no time to put important questions to the people. Prime Minister George Papandreou's proposed referendum on the country's loan deal with the European Union, called off quickly after intense international opposition, illustrated that perfectly.
Plato and Aristotle would have approved of dropping the referendum. They didn't like democracy of the direct kind. Neither trusted the people that much.
What we have witnessed is a coup d’état: bloodless and genteel, but a coup d’état none the less. In Athens and in Rome, elected prime ministers have been toppled in favour of Eurocrats – respectively a former Vice-President of the European Central Bank and a former European Commissioner. Both countries now have what are called ‘national governments’, though they have been put together for the sole purpose of implementing policies that would be rejected in a general election.
Italy and Greece are satrapies of Brussels, just as surely as Bosnia or Kosovo. In its Balkan protectorates, the EU overtly favours technocracy as the antidote to ‘populism’ (ie, democracy). Left to themselves, the locals have a tendency to vote for parties that want ethnographic frontiers. The EU's solution is to rule through a series of appointed governors – diplomats (and the odd retired politician) in Bosnia, generals in Kosovo.
The sovereign debt crisis tightening its grip on Europe has claimed the scalps of two prime ministers – those of Greece and Italy. Looking at the men poised to replace them, one cannot but ask – is this another turn of the screw for ordinary people?
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In the past year, nine vocal critics or potential whistleblowers of the Gulf oil spill all died in extremely mysterious ways. Their deaths could be strange, unrelated coincidences. Or they could have been killed as part of a conspiracy to silence those who were speaking out against the worst oil spill in American history.
The blog post:
http://bpwhistleblowers.blogspot.com/
Links to each individual case under question:
Professor Greg Stone
http://www.lsu.edu/ur/ocur/lsunews/MediaCenter/News/2011/02/item25180.html
Officer Anthony Nicholas Tremonte
http://www.kltv.com/story/13919722/officer-resigns-after-being-arrested-for-c...
Dr. Thomas B. Manton
http://www.naturalnews.com/031115_Thomas_Manton_oil_spill.html
John P. Wheeler II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._Wheeler_III#Death
James Patrick Black
http://sec.floridatoday.com/article/0eG44wOcqRdIM?q=Florida
USF biologist Chitra Chauhan
http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_east_hillsborough/temple_terrace...
Roger Grooters
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1319529/Cyclist-Roger-Grooters-66-kil...
Senator Ted Stevens
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/132/410/Sen._Ted_Stevens_Killed_In_Plane_Crash...
Matthew Simmons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Simmons
Joseph Morrissey
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/nova-instructor-shot-dead-in-plantati...
From The Economic Collapse:
In order for a society to function, there has to be a certain level of trust. Each day when we leave our homes, we take for granted that most people are not going to attack us for no reason, that there will only be isolated incidents of theft in our community and that rioting and violence are not going to erupt in the streets. Whether we realize it or not, we depend on the fact that the vast majority of the people around us are going to act in a civilized manner. Unfortunately, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear. When I was growing up, I was taught that challenging times reveal our true character. There are many that believe that the declining economy is causing a lot of the chaos that we are now witnessing, but perhaps what is going on is that these challenging economic times are simply revealing the character that has been there all along. For decades, a "false prosperity" that was fueled by unprecedented amounts of debt has masked a lot of the internal rot that has taken hold in America. But now that our prosperity is crumbling, our lack of values is becoming startlingly clear.
Colombian and Chilean students have come together in an attempt to spread their protest across Latin America.
The protesters, who in both countries are demanding their governments improve higher education, want to organize a mass demonstration across the continent on Thursday November 24.
Colombian student leaders proposed the idea after contact between the two countries' representatives on social networking sites. The Chilean students voted to go ahead with the plan - which aims to spread protests into countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Peru - following a meeting Saturday.
Jairo Rivera, spokesman for the Colombian movement, the National Alternative Education Board, told BBC Mundo, "A continental movement in defense of education as a right is being built. Each movement has its own problems but we have common goals. It is very important that young people are political actors in Latin America."
Occupy Wall Street protesters stormed Manhattan's Duarte Square Tuesday morning, hours after being kicked out of Zuccotti Park by the NYPD.
Hundreds of protesters descended on the square, where they quickly assembled, erected several wooden makeshift tent-like structures, and began planning their next moves.
What are you going to do about the Banksters?
What are you going to do about the Mortgage Foreclosure Scams?
What are you going to do about being a Slave ?
Five Buddhist monks launched a rare protest inside a famous temple in Myanmar's second-largest city on Tuesday, calling on the military-aligned government to immediately release political prisoners, residents said.
The monks locked themselves inside a museum at Maha Myatmuni pagoda in central Mandalay city for several hours before heading out in a car to a nearby monastery to continue the protest, said Ni Ni Tun, a 35-year-old resident who was contacted by telephone.
She said the monks hung banners with slogans in both Burmese and English on the wall of the pagoda that read "Free all political prisoners" and "We want freedom." Some 300 Mandalay residents including monks gathered outside the compound to watch the protest and some brought food for the protesters, she said.
Protests are rare in Myanmar, where dissent has been suppressed by a military junta that was in power from 1962 until earlier this year. It transferred control to a nominally civilian government led by a former general which has promised to liberalize politics, but continues to hold about 2,000 political prisoners.
From a Reuters exclusive: . . . In a release to TheWrap, Luis Augusto Garcia Rosado, the minister of tourism for the Mexican state of Campeche, said new evidence has emerged "of contact between the Mayans and extraterrestrials, supported by translations of certain codices, which the government has kept secure in underground vaults for some time." He also spoke, in a phone conversation, of "landing pads in the jungle that are 3,000 years old." Raul-Julia claims there is proof that the Mayans had intended to lead the planet for thousands of years, but were forced to escape after an invasion by "men of dark intentions," leaving behind evidence of an advanced race. "The Mexican government is not making this statement on their own -- everything we say, we're going to back it up," he said. . . .
From the Gothamist:
During our coverage of the eviction of the Occupy Wall Street protesters early this morning, a NPR reporter, a New York Times reporter, and a city councilmember were arrested. Airspace in Lower Manhattan was closed to CBS and NBC news choppers by the NYPD, a New York Post reporter was allegedly put in a "choke hold" by the police, a NBC reporter's press pass was confiscated and a large group of reporters and protesters were hit with pepper spray. According to the eviction notice, the park was merely "cleaned and restored for its intended use." If this is the case, why were so few people permitted to view it? . . .
Photoblog: Police clash with protesters during Zuccotti Park clearance, scores arrested
OWS witness: Brutal lockdown in Zuccotti Park to fuel new protests
The birthplace of the anti-corporate 'Occupy' movement in New York has been raided and cleared out by police. Hundreds of protesters who've been camped out in Zuccotti Park for two months have been evicted, and banned from coming back to stay. Officers reportedly used force to kick out some of the activists, with witnesses suggesting pepper spray and tear gas were also used. Authorities removed all tents, citing health and safety concerns. But protesters say that's just an excuse to sabotage a massive demonstration planned for Thursday. An 'Occupy' activist Alexa O'Brien who was in New York at the time of the police raid, says that the authorities' heavy-handed response has been an infringement on civil liberties.
tear gassing of the kitchen. - Violent arrests pepper spray #OWS #occuppywallstreet
Violent arrests #OWS #occuppywallstreet
Chairman of EU Trilateral Commission and Bilderberger Leads Italy After Berlusconi Crisis
He is chairman of the European branch of the Trilateral Commission, a body that brings together the power elites of the United States, Europe and Japan and is also a member of the secretive Bilderberg Group of business leaders and other "leading citizens".
Chairman of EU Trilateral Commission and Bilderberger Leads Italy After Berlusconi Crisis
He is chairman of the European branch of the Trilateral Commission, a body that brings together the power elites of the United States, Europe and Japan and is also a member of the secretive Bilderberg Group of business leaders and other "leading citizens".
Bilderberg 2011 The Secret Power Elite One World Government Conference
Nicole Sotelo for National Catholic Reporter:
A little more than 100 years ago, Sigmund Freud presented a lecture to his colleagues on the "The Aetiology of Hysteria." It was to be his magnum opus, his great contribution to the budding field of psychology. Instead, this lecture on his discovery of the origins of hysteria was not met with the warm reception he expected and Freud found himself uncomfortable with his own theories. In a year's time, Freud questioned his findings that had revealed an uncomfortable truth: the mysterious disease of hysteria from which so many women suffered may not have been the result of an illness, but symptoms of childhood sexual abuse.
Judith Herman, a well-known psychiatrist on trauma, has written that Freud's skepticism about the widespread nature of abuse eventually led him to disavow his research. Later, Freud hypothesized that the women's stories and revelations of abuse were not based in fact, but rather, fantasies of their own desire for one or another parent. Freud eventually abandoned his earlier research into sexual abuse and turned instead to other work.
Today we find the same skepticism regarding childhood abuse among most members of the church hierarchy and some Catholics who do not want to face the horrors of sexual abuse and other atrocities that have been committed against children in our faith communities. We hear the stories. We read the statistics. And we turn away. It is too painful.
Yet what happened to Freud could be a lesson for our church today. After largely ignoring childhood sexual abuse, now the field of psychology not only recognizes the unfortunate widespread nature of such abuse, but has taken immense strides to help survivors heal. How much farther into the field of abuse psychology would be today -- and how much better we would be as a society -- if, in 1896, Freud had believed in the women he was studying and continued to research how the field of psychology could address childhood sexual abuse and other issues they faced. ...
From Sibel Edmonds' Boiling Frogs Post:
The Baltic undersea route was chosen deliberately to avoid potential geopolitical disruptions such as occurred several years ago when a pro-NATO Ukrainian government blocked Russian gas deliveries to Western Europe to undercut Russian attempts to come closer to western Europe. Behind Ukraine was the long arm of Washington.
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Hundreds of police officers in riot gear raided Zuccotti Park early Tuesday, evicting dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters from what has become the epicenter of the worldwide movement protesting corporate greed and economic inequality.
Hours later, the National Lawyers Guild obtained a court order allowing Occupy Wall Street protesters to return with tents to the park. The guild said the injunction prevents the city from enforcing park rules on Occupy Wall Street protesters.
At a morning news conference at City Hall, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city knew about the court order but had not seen it and would go to court to fight it. He said the city wants to protect people’s rights, but if a choice must be made, it will protect public safety.
About 70 people were arrested overnight, including some who chained themselves together, while officers cleared the park so that sanitation crews could clean it.
By 9 a.m., the park was power-washed clean. Police in riot gear still ringed the public space, waiting for orders to reopen it.
The city told protesters at the two-month-old encampment they could come back after the cleaning, but under new tougher rules, including no tents, sleeping bags or tarps, which would effectively put an end to the encampment if enforced.
View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.
Police have begun clearing out 'Occupy' protester camps in New York. There are also claims that pepper spray is being used. The raid comes after activists vowed heightened action this coming Thursday, to mark two months since the movement began. RT's Marina Portnaya reports from New York.
Police in Riot Gear Clear Occupy Wall Street, Mayor Calls It "Intolerable Situation"
Pigs are raiding Liberty Park!Watch live streaming video from occupynyc at livestream.com
#OccupyWallStreet 'NEW STREAM! NYC Protest Watch Live Stream + IRC Chat
The four dimensions of the economic pie: Hazel Henderson - Love Economy from Complementary Currency on Vimeo.
1. competitive market
2. public sector
3. parental duties
4. mother nature
Solutions to create a life centered economy.
Janet Phelan writes in Salem-News:
The attacks of September 11 were quickly followed by a biological weapons attack in which government- grade weaponized anthrax killed five people and sickened numerous others. This attack, the genesis of which remains unsolved ten years later, was used to justify the United States Congress pumping over $60 billion dollars into a “biodefense “ program which has failed in every parameter that can be measured.
In fact, it appears that all purportedly protective measures, developed nationally and internationally, have fatal flaws in their design which may function to ensure the likelihood and success of a biological weapons attack.
[ ... ]Dr. Basson, it appears, was chummy with Dr. David Kelly, the British biological weapons inspector whose sudden “suicide” (http://dr-david-kelly.
"We will shut down Wall Street," a post on the movement's Facebook page said.
"We will ring the People's Bell, and initiate a street carnival in which we rebuild and celebrate the neighborhoods that the Wall Street economy has destroyed."
The group promises "a block party the 1% will never forget."
From the Alliance of Community Trainers, ACT
The Occupy movement has had enormous successes in the short time since September when activists took over a square near Wall Street. It has attracted hundreds of thousands of active participants, spawned occupations in cities and towns all over North America, changed the national dialogue and garnered enormous public support. It’s even, on occasion, gotten good press!
Now we are wrestling with the question that arises again and again in movements for social justice—how to struggle. Do we embrace nonviolence, or a ‘diversity of tactics?’ If we are a nonviolent movement, how do we define nonviolence? Is breaking a window violent?
We write as a trainers’ collective with decades of experience, from the anti-Vietnam protests of the sixties through the strictly nonviolent antinuclear blockades of the seventies, in feminist, environmental and anti-intervention movements and the global justice mobilizations of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. We embrace many labels, including feminist, anti-racist, eco-feminist and anarchist. We have many times stood shoulder to shoulder with black blocs in the face of the riot cops, and we’ve been tear-gassed, stun-gunned, pepper sprayed, clubbed, and arrested,
While we’ve participated in many actions organized with a diversity of tactics, we do not believe that framework is workable for the Occupy Movement. Setting aside questions of morality or definitions of ‘violence’ and ‘nonviolence’ – for no two people define ‘violence’ in the same way – we ask the question:
What framework can we organize in that will build on our strengths, allow us to grow, embrace a wide diversity of participants, and make a powerful impact on the world?
A SWAT team of over 25 heavily armed police officers swarmed and arrested an Occupy spin-off group of anarchists in Chapel Hill N.C. who had taken over a long-vacant car dealership and suggested the space be used for a free clinic, kitchen, child care, library, dormitories and other uses so much less scary than the SWAT team that we are left speechless. The police said they felt they had to take the semi-automatic-wielding action because "the group used large banners to obscure the windows to the business..."
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..."The structure has the added advantage of being fire proof, bullet proof and earthquake resistant, with the interior maintaining a constant temperature of 18 degrees C (64 degrees F) which is good for tropical climate," Yahaya Ahmad, the project coordinator said. ..
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Monti is the prototype of the new ‘non-political’ class destined to preside over the slide of all European states into the gloomy Hadian shades of sham technocracy.
What is going on in Rome and Athens right now is the controlled destruction of national sovereignty and the slow death of the nation state at the hands of a pack of ruthless looters.
How appropriate, historically speaking, that such ancient bastions of civilization should collapse like a pack of cards at the same time.
The Athenian Revolution was just as swift as the tsunami that swept Berlusconi away. Of course there is nothing fishy about the fact that the new Greek premier Loukas Papademos has lately vacated a warm seat as a vice president of the European Central Bank. Here’s another smoothie economist who gargles globalism like good port.
He is mostly US educated, he sat on the Boston Federal Reserve and for the past twelve years, he too has been a charmed ornament of the infamous Trilateral Commission. He’s never had trouble meeting his mortgage payments in his entire life.
Just the sort of chap who is likely to stop you in the street and demand your wallet to save the banksters from their manifold follies and their grotesque deformed creature called the euro.
The sheer audacity of the globalist raiders in Greece and Italy demonstrates that long-hatched plans swung into action. These are blatant coup d’états, not some prudent intervention by Two Very Wise Men who have nothing but the public interest at heart.
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Rebecca Solnit writes in Common Dreams:
...The powers that be are already scared of the Occupy movement and not because of tiny acts of violence. They are scared because right now we speak pretty well for the 99%. And because we set out to change the world and it’s working. The president of Russia warmed at the G20 Summit a week or so ago, "The reward system of shareholders and managers of financial institution should be changed step by step. Otherwise the 'Occupy Wall street' slogan will become fashionable in all developed countries." That’s fear. And capitulation. And New York Times columnist Paul Krugman opened a recent column thus: “Inequality is back in the news, largely thanks to Occupy Wall Street….” We have set the agenda and framed the terms, and that’s already a huge victory.
This movement is winning. It’s winning by being broad and inclusive, by emphasizing what we have in common and bridging differences between the homeless, the poor, those in freefall, the fiscally thriving but outraged, between generations, races and nationalities and between longtime activists and never-demonstrated-before newcomers. It’s winning by keeping its eyes on the prize, which is economic justice and direct democracy, and by living out that direct democracy through assemblies and other means right now.
It’s winning through people power direct-action tactics, from global marches to blockades to many hundreds of Occupations. It’s winning through the creativity of the young, from the 22-year-old who launched Move Your Money Day to the 26-year-old who started the We Are the 99% website. And by tactics learned from Argentina’s 2001 revolution of general assemblies and politica afectiva, the politics of affection. It’s winning by becoming the space in which we are civil society: of human beings in the aggegate, living in public and with trust and love for one another. Violence is not going to be one of the tools that works in this movement...
The Amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Goldman Sachs, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such a magnitude entails is left out of the mainstream media, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.
The greatest theft in history. Read our report at: http://ampedstatus.com/the-wall-street-economic-death-squad
The dollar collapse will be the single largest event in human history. This will be the first event that will touch every single living person in the world. All human activity is controlled by money. Our wealth,our work,our food,our government,even our relationships are affected by money.
No money in human history has had as much reach in both breadth and depth as the dollar. It is the de facto world currency. All other currency collapses will pale in comparison to this big one. All other currency crises have been regional and there were other currencies for people to grasp on to.
This collapse will be global and it will bring down not only the dollar but all other fiat currencies,as they are fundamentally no different. The collapse of currencies will lead to the collapse of ALL paper assets. The repercussions to this will have incredible results worldwide.
In Spain three weeks ago in a town called Alzira population (maybe about 50,000 people) 30 kilometres south of Malaga a big shot politician flew in by helicopter. The landing zone was in the local police station which was based close the centre of the town .The politician was coming to the town to sort out the compensation claims and worries of the peoples where a nearby local forest and bush fire had damaged property .These forest and bush fires are a common event in the dry October end of summer tinderbox Spanish country side.
The difference this time was that the local police force used some high tech device from the police station that caused most all electronic items within 500 meters of the police station to be knocked out for about one hour. The Police told the locals it was a safety wave .This safety wave
effect lasted for about one hour in the early morning times while the Helicopter flew in and about one hour later flew out. The effects were no mobile phones in that 500 meter radius of the police station would work. No cars within that field effect could be made to start their engines. All other cars outside the region were not allowed to enter this safety wave region so it’s not known if they
can knock out engines that were running at the time of the safety wave event.
All satellite TV and cable TV devices in the safety wave region were knocked out also. We are talking a region festooned with multi story apartment blocks with hundreds if not thousands of normal Spanish going about their normal lives unaware that there was some sort of test of a safety wave device about to be given to them.
ATTENTION: All you rule-breakers, you misfits & troublemakers, all you free-spirits & pioneers... Everything the establishment has told you is wrong with you - is actually what's right with you...
Go here: http://WayseerManifesto.com
Economic hit man John Perkins has confessed the sins of predatory politicians and analyzed the reasons for the current meltdown. A reformed economist, he warns that returning to our "normal" blueprints for the global economy would prove disastrous. Perkins details the steps to transform "the mutant form of capitalism" into a system based on sustainability and justice. John Perkins: How to Remake the Global Economy from Complementary Currency on Vimeo.
Source: fora.tv/2009/11/18/John_Perkins_How_to_Remake_the_Global_Economy
Over the weekend, police evicted and/or attacked several Occupy encampments across America, sending a clear message: the cops, and the corporate banks, have apparently imposed a time limit on citizens' first amendment rights. There was, of course, the cop raid in Oakland last night, which had protesters kettled until the wee hours in the morning (stay tuned for a full report from AlterNet's Joshua Holland). And protesters in Chapel Hill, NC, who were occupying an abandoned building before they were removed by rifle.
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Occupy Portland Eviction, Police Horses Charge Crowd, Firecrackers and Pallets Thrown Back
Sunday November 13, 2011 Occupy Portland faced eviction from Lownsdale and Chapman Square downtown Portland, Oregon. Riot Police are dispatched from the nearby police headquarters and mounted police on horseback. One lane of traffic was flowing until police blocked traffic and charged the crowd with horses. Protesters fought back by throwing firecrackers, wood pallets, bottles, and slurppees. Police had lost all ground by 5:00 am Sunday morning. The protest was relatively peaceful and non eventful before police made the bold move charging horses into the crowd. Before the charge a beach ball bouncing in the crowd could be seen.
Occupy Denver: Police Use Excessive Chemicals on Protesters
Original Upload by free2betv on Nov 12, 2011--Crystal clear video from the front line of protestors as police released excessive fire extinguishing chemicals, destroyed the community kitchen and tents, and forcefully shoved protesters, independent journalists, and innocent bystanders with their nightsticks.
Oakland mayor’s top legal aide quits in solidarity with ‘Occupy’ protest
The chief legal adviser to Oakland mayor Jean Quan decided to resign late Sunday evening over how the city’s police have treated “Occupy Oakland” protesters.
Thousands of protesters standoff with police after Portland Mayor orders eviction
Think your job's bad? It probably doesn't even come close to our list of 'dirty' science careers, compiled by our team at Discovery Interactive. We've come across everything from sewage scuba-divers to barnyard masturbators. Read below on more of the jobs you won't yet see on TV and learn about all the gory, icky details...
Medical waste biohazard cooker
Ever wonder where those big bags of waste collected at hospitals and medical facilities end up? Medical Waste Biohazard Cooker's are the guys who make all of this disappear - collecting the urine, blood, semen and teeth-filled parcels is their job. They dump these bags into giant metal canisters' that heat up the materials to about 127 degrees Celsius; ensuring the safe disposal of the hazardous waste. What does it smell like? Some describe it being similar to a smorgasbord of body odour, sweaty feet and cooking rubber - it's not that bad, they say.
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The state of these "liberations" all point to the great need for a different type of liberation, that of American democracy from the corporate interests that pull its levers to facilitate their accumulation of wealth. That is precisely the focus of the Wall Street occupiers, whose movement has attracted solidarity occupations and protests in cities around the world.
The 1 percent knows what good business war is, owing partly to America's seemingly insatiable will to spend its money on military affairs and the ease with which the national security state can be gamed to furnish private corporations with windfall profit-yielding public contracts. More than half of the discretionary budget is devoted to military matters, as though there were no use for that money domestically. Rakaa Iriscience of Dilated Peoples puts it well in the aptly titled "Big Business": "If more than half the budget goes to military spending, less than half goes to whatever it's defending."
Nov 14th 2011- Firefighters were showered with applause when they were called to a fire at the site of the Occupy Toronto protest.
Fire crews weren't cheered for extinguishing the blaze -- they were applauded for allowing it to burn.
Source: http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20111114/111114_occupy_fire/2011...
Firefighters took a look at the small fire and spoke to the people responsible for it, and decided not to extinguish it because it's considered a sacred fire and is being tended to by aboriginals around the clock.
http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20111114/111114_occupy_fire/2011...
Toronto firefighters have launched a website and say they'll go door-to-door in the city to explain to residents why their jobs shouldn't be cut in the upcoming budget exercise.
All city departments have been told by Mayor Rob Ford to cut their budgets by 10 per cent as part of a plan to wrestle with a $774 million shortfall — and that includes the fire department.
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/09/07/toronto-firefighters-b...
Toronto Firefighters you are the 99%- Occupy Canada Stands with you against Mayor Fords proposed Austerity cuts. Toronto Fire Services are fighting back against Mayor Rob Ford's proposed budget cuts on their new site notgravy.com, but the city's budget chief insists there is no money "to shell out."
It's a tongue-in-cheek jab at Ford's mayoral campaign to "stop the gravy train" at City Hall.
Toronto Professional Fire Fighters' Association are concerned cuts will mean fewer firefighters and trucks on the road, resulting in delayed response times.
Ford has mandated 10 per cent cuts across all city departments -- including essential services such as fire, police and TTC -- to offset the $774-million budget deficit.
Their current budget is $371 million, 92 per cent of which goes toward salaries and benefits. They say a 10 per cent cut would mean 400 fewer firefighters and the permanent removal of 20 trucks.
Source: http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110909/toronto-fire-not-crav...
Thank you Firefighters of Toronto! hearts go out to all of you! you are the 99% The city of Toronto is proposing austerity cuts to firefighters. Occupier's across Canada stand with you! You are an essential service, respect goes out to the heroes who put their lives on the line to save lives.
Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday is performing to justify cuts to fire services, given that the police ended up receiving a budget increase. According to Holyday, carrying a gun and protecting citizens from bad guys make the police a special case. "Their job does not carry the same degree of hazard as a police officer," Holyday told the Sun. Because there's nothing safer than running into a burning building
Source: http://www.torontolife.com/daily/informer/political-whoas/2011/11/09/doug-hol...
Occupy Toronto protesters applauded emergency crews after an early-morning visit on Monday.
Fire fighters showed up at St. James Park around 3:30 a.m. to examine a campfire. Demonstrators said it was a First Nations sacred fire and then linked arms around the fire, preventing crews from extinguishing it.
City crews eventually left the fire alone, allowing it to burn. Demonstrators applauded the firefighters, thanking them for a peaceful resolution. -
-I was there linking arms with fellow occupiers at 3:30 am and thanked the fire fighters and emergency workers for respecting the sacred fire and our peaceful assembly. We all showed respect and applauded them for the peaceful resolution. Hope the video goes up, I'll post it when it does..so much positivity! -Derek
Source: http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/168030--occupy-toro...
In this episode of the Krellant Evenings News, Cat Reporter infiltrates the Occupy movement and learns of their secret plans to take over the world. Oh, and Frank freaks out.
Peaceful protesters stop police provocateurs from starting a riot at the Stop the SPP protests in Montebello Quebec. The police admitted they were their officers. CEP President Dave Coles confronts men with rocks and sticks. Find out more about what's wrong with the SPP at www.canadians.org Help us make our documentary about the SPP and TILMA find out more at http://www.manlymedia.com
On November 11, 800 citizens from across Belgium were brought together to discuss the future of their country. G1000 was conceived a few months ago by a small group of Belgian citizens (the key player is a prominent author and columnist, David van Reybrouck; the others are a mix of academics, journalists, and civil society activists) who were concerned about the failure of their political system to get to grips with the economic crisis.
Exercised in particular by the inability of Belgium’s politicians to form a government and the resulting political limbo, the opening line of the group’s manifesto, states: ‘if the politicians can’t find a solution let the citizens’. G1000 seeks to show the country’s political leaders that they should engage with the citizens in seeking a way out of the mess. Their principal objectives are both to show that deliberative democracy can work, and to produce concrete proposals for the government to consider.
Making use of every means possible to mobilize interest (briefings around the country, media interviews and newspaper articles, website and social media) they put out a call to the wider Belgian public to propose policy issues for discussion. This resulted in over 5,000 proposals, which the organizers than aggregated into 25 key topic areas, ranging from detailed proposals for political reform through to key economic and social policies. Belgian citizens were then invited to vote on-line for the topic area that most concerned them, resulting in the three topic areas that were discussed at the Citizens’ Summit: social security; wealth inequality and the economy; and immigration policy (in a final session of the day the tables were each invited to select a topic from the remaining 25 key topic areas and discuss that).
