October 21, 2011
Retirement Funds Built for Skittish Times
By RON LIEBER

You must unlearn what you have learned.

When mutual fund companies start quoting Yoda while trying to persuade you to hand over your money, it’s a sure sign that something new is going on.

Most likely the American investor has gotten a tad, what's that word again? "SKITTISH" about the market, so easily manipulated by the investment banks and hedge fund managers.

But Pimco, a bond specialist now selling the popular target-date retirement funds that blend stocks and bonds and become more conservative as you near retirement, would have you believe that it has a revolutionary approach to these funds, which populate most employers’ 401(k) and other plans.

Pimco believes we are experiencing a “new normal,” where markets in the future are much less likely to deliver the returns people remember from retirement investing in the 1980s and 1990s.

Um, dontcha think stock prices were a tad over-valued in those days, what with all the bubbles and such? And it t'weren't all salad either - well, people with bond funds got a great return as the Fed kept lowering interest rates, but, once you lower interest rates to essentially zero, that strategy pretty much has run its course.

Plenty of people have ended up looking like idiots after declaring that this time is different, so it’s tempting to dismiss their proclamations as a lot of hot air. But Pimco has created its RealRetirement target-date funds with a strategy that appears to be custom-built for these skittish times. There’s less money in stocks, more inflation protection, hedging to protect against large losses and freedom for the Pimco fund managers to make bets on the fly.

For the period that began March 31, 2008, and ended in the middle of this month, Pimco’s funds for people retiring in 2020 and 2040 outperformed each of the big three in the target-date arena, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and Vanguard, according to Morningstar data.

well, yeah, that would be a much better time to start a new fund than to be an old fund and be mis-leveraged and going long on certain investment houses that will remain unnamed

Still, the margin of victory over the next best-performing fund was less than one-quarter of a percentage point annually in both cases. And as Yoda himself might put it, three years of returns matter not when worried you are about many decades of future.

That outperformance is something, though. So it’s worth a peek under the hood to see what Pimco is up to.

But first, how did we get here? Target-date funds grew out of the utter lack of preparedness that many people felt when employers left pensions and made workers pick investments in a 401(k).

Actually, a 401(k) plan IS a pension plan, it's just that it's a more akin to a defined contribution plan than to a defined benefits plan. The interest rate assumptions underlying the funding of the defined benefits plans of the 1980's, 90's and early 00's was typically on the order of 8%. Not so easy to score that 8% in a zero% interest environment and an unstable stock market.

“People were given investment discretion when they didn’t want it,” said Joe Nagengast, a principal at Target Date Analytics, a research and consulting firm that does not work with Pimco but would like to someday. “The way to address that was to put everyone in these broad age buckets and say, ‘For investment management purposes, we’re not insulting your individuality but if you’re 25, you are the same as every other 25-year-old.’ ”

So a 25-year-old today can invest in a 2050 fund with a high allocation of riskier assets like stocks. Over time, the fund would gradually switch to bonds and other more conservative investments that can reduce risk as retirement looms.

Pimco introduced some of its target-date funds right before the stock market fell to pieces in 2008, which dragged down many other companies’ 2010 and 2015 target-date funds that had a lot of money in stocks. What Pimco had surmised was that one big loss near retirement would set many retirees back so far they’d have difficulty recovering. So it wanted to try to protect people from that.

“You only get one shot to do this properly,” said Vineer Bhansali, the Pimco managing director who oversees the investment strategy behind the target-date funds. “Most participants don’t worry so much about marginal underperformance as they do about underperforming significantly on the downside.”

Mr. Bhansali has a Ph.D. in particle physics from Harvard, did time in the trenches on Wall Street and is qualified to fly all sorts of airplanes even when he can’t see 100 feet in front of him. But he has no instruments for predicting returns, and he worries about once-in-a-while calamities like hyperinflation. “We believe that just like losing your money to someone who doesn’t pay you back is a very immediate threat to your capital, so is a loss of buying power,” he said. “It’s the same thing. You can’t buy stuff that you need.”

The Americanconsumre b uys so much shit that he doesn't need, that he ought to be re-educated.

One way Pimco tries to avoid that possibility is by gradually moving as much as 35 percent of the target-date portfolio to TIPS, which are United States Treasury bonds with built-in inflation protection. To avoid outsize stock market risk, Pimco’s targets for its stock allocation are never higher than 55 percent.

Another big difference here are the hedges that Pimco has in place to protect against a collapse in the stock market. By using various complex tools, Pimco sets a maximum loss it is willing to tolerate. For a fund with a retirement date that is relatively soon, it wants no more than a 5 percent loss; for a retirement date that is much further away, it may be willing to suffer a 15 or 20 percent decline, though the targets can move some.

Opening the funds in early 2008 was the ultimate test for the strategy, given the enormous losses in stocks over the next year. “We were very nervous about whether it was going to work, but we never busted the boundaries,” Mr. Bhansali said.

Hedging is not free, and its costs, which can range from roughly half of a percentage point to 1.25 percent annually, act as a drag on returns. Mr. Bhansali, however, argues that if the hedges work, he can sell options, say, that are more valuable when markets are in free fall and then use the proceeds to buy newly cheap investments. This, he believes, could enhance returns by a couple of percentage points annually over the long haul.

Sounds good in theory - in practice - the question that won't get asked is this: HOW LOW CAN IT GO? ("The Market?" And NOBODY but NOBODY has a clue unless the FED keeps manipulating interest rates!

It had better, because as John Ameriks, who heads investment counseling and research for Vanguard notes, those hedging costs add up over time. “People fail to appreciate that the numbers come out of the returns every year,” he said. “The math is not perfect, but you basically multiply the annual extra costs by the number of years, so at 1 percent annually you’re losing 30 percent of your gains over 30 years.”

All we know so far about returns are those three-year figures I cited above, which have Pimco’s funds just barely beating its three biggest rivals, thanks in no small part to those hedges. But Pimco’s reduced stock exposure really hurt it in the period starting March 1, 2009, when the stock market was near its nadir, and ending two years later after the markets had bounced back a fair bit. During that period, the Pimco 2020 fund trailed its rivals by about 6.5 to 12.5 percentage points annually while the 2040 fund trailed by roughly 3 to 7 percentage points, according to the Morningstar data.

Again, three years (or 30, even) are not enough to go on, though Mr. Ameriks of Vanguard takes his best shot at using the historical return of stocks to cast doubt on Pimco’s approach. “Theirs is a very skeptical view of what equities will generate,” he said. “I suppose one is entitled to take that view. But it’s not consistent with longer-term history.”

Pimco, for its part, doesn’t want to be a slave to that history — that is, to be in a situation where it is forced, because of strict fund rules, to do something that has resulted in good historical returns but may not lead to good prospective returns. So it gives itself plenty of leeway to shift the allocations, often by many percentage points. If you’re an investor, this means you need to have a ton of faith in Mr. Bhansali and his team.

Or, you could take a fallback position — that you’re willing to earn a bit less with people who have their eyes on the downside. “We for sure don’t have forecasting ability over 30 years,” he said. “But you want to focus on things you can control, and one of those is risk. Do you really have the luxury of taking a risk from which you can’t survive?”

So let’s say you bet your retirement on this unproven model, which anyone can do, given that the Pimco funds are available through brokerage firms. And let’s say you ignore the fact that few big employers have chosen so far to adopt the funds for their retirement plans, due to their lack of a long track record. And assume that these Pimco funds underperform competing funds by a percentage point or two each year over 30 years. What then?

Well, Pimco has its own downside covered here. Its research offers a sober piece of advice that just may solve all investors’ problems, no matter whose fund family they adopt. Pimco, perhaps self-servingly, declares that people may need to save 20 percent of their pay to reach a goal of replacing just 40 to 60 percent of their income in retirement.

So there’s your new normal ladies and gentlemen: 20 percent. Forget the inner workings of your target-date fund for a minute. How many of you can say that you even come close to meeting that standard?

End Date for Iraq (Oh? Really? No you stupid fucking morons, we went to war with Iraq to establish military bases there - and build the damned embassy

October 21, 2011

President Obama’s announcement on Friday that the last American soldier will leave Iraq by year’s end signals a welcome end to a war that was started under false pretenses and went on far too long — killing more than 4,400 Americans and many more thousands of Iraqis and costing $1 trillion over nearly nine years.

When Mr. Obama took office, there were about 142,000 Americans fighting in Iraq. The president deserves credit for fulfilling his campaign promise to bring the conflict to a close.

Mr. Obama had wanted to leave several thousand troops behind, for a while longer, to keep training Iraqi forces and to help Iraq’s democratically elected but deeply flawed government maintain security. But the Iraqis couldn’t make up their minds, and the debate in Baghdad was growing increasingly bitter. With a Dec. 31 deadline for a full withdrawal — negotiated by President George W. Bush — approaching, Mr. Obama decided the best thing to do was to bring all the troops home. There is still talk between Iraqis and Americans about an ongoing military relationship and future negotiations that could continue Iraqi training in Kuwait, the United States or under NATO auspices.

We share concerns about Iran’s growing influence, continued high levels of violence and doubts about the ability of Iraq’s army and police. Those were reasons to keep a small military force there, with a carefully drawn mission, but only if Iraq agreed.

The problem was that even Iraqi officials who favored the United States and understand their country’s vulnerabilities want the Americans gone. When Iraqi officials refused a demand from the United States to continue granting immunity from legal prosecution to American soldiers, there was no way the Pentagon could accept that.

The announcement triggered some foolish criticism from neo-conservatives — who remain shamefully unapologetic for their role in unleashing this war — accused Mr. Obama of abandoning Iraq now. Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate, said Mr. Obama “unnecessarily put at risk” hard-won victories. Like most of what Mr. Romney says about national security, that was absurd. Would he have Washington ignore the desires of Iraq’s democratic government and stay in Iraq forever?

Oil-producing Iraq is a major regional actor. The United States, which has an embassy with thousands of employees in Baghdad, must remain actively engaged diplomatically, through development and economic cooperation. But Iraq will be in the hands of Iraqis, as it should be.

Except, of course, for the ones we expected would stay all the long!

October 21, 2011
U.S. Troops to Leave Iraq by Year’s End, Obama Says
By MARK LANDLER
WASHINGTON — President Obama announced on Friday that the last American soldier would leave Iraq by the end of this year, drawing to a close a divisive eight-year war that cost the lives of more than 4,400 troops, defined the presidency of George W. Bush, and helped ignite his own political rise.

The decision leaves only a vestigial presence of Marine embassy guards and liaison officers staying on where more than a million troops, in all, have served.

The president’s statement, coming a day after a NATO air campaign hastened the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, was laden with symbolism, marking the ebb tide of a decade of American military engagement that began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It also capped a remarkable period of foreign-policy accomplishments for a president who is hindered by a poor economy at home.

For Mr. Obama, whose rise to the White House was based partly on his opposition to the Iraq war but who as president ordered a troop buildup in Afghanistan and intensified drone strikes against militants in the region, the announcement fulfills a campaign promise. Its timing, after Colonel Qaddafi’s death and the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and just as the administration was taking its toughest stance yet on Pakistan’s reluctance to root out militants along its border with Afghanistan, may help insulate him from Republican charges that he is weak on national security.

“Today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year,” the president said in a midday appearance at the White House. Anticipating what he called “another season of homecomings,” he declared, “Our troops will definitely be home for the holidays.”

The complete withdrawal, which his political critics decried and his military team had worked hard to avert, was propelled by an irreconcilable dispute between the United States and Iraq over the legal immunity of a small force of military trainers that the Pentagon had planned to leave in the country. Though the president left open the possibility that trainers might still advise Iraqi troops, military officials said the chance of putting any significant American force there was slim.

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, among others, scorned Mr. Obama for putting the sacrifices of American troops at risk and questioned whether the president had been motivated by “naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government.”

Mr. Obama gave word of the decision to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who faces rough political crosswinds of his own over the timing of the departure, in a video conference call. Mr. Obama’s aides described the call as “poignant,” with the Iraqi leader expressing thanks for the sacrifices of American soldiers. As of Jan. 1, 2012, Mr. Obama said, the two countries will begin “a normal relationship between sovereign nations, an equal partnership based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

The agreement to leave Iraq this year dates from late 2008, when Mr. Bush, before leaving office, made a farewell visit to Baghdad that was disrupted when an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at him and denounced him as a “dog.” American military officials had wanted a “residual” force of as many as tens of thousands of soldiers to remain past 2011 as an insurance policy against future violence.

Those numbers were scaled back, but the expectation was that 3,000 to 5,000 American troops would remain. Some top American military officials were dismayed by the decision, saying Mr. Obama was putting the best face on a breakdown in tortured negotiations with the Iraqis.

Pentagon lawyers insisted that the Iraqi Parliament grant soldiers immunity from legal prosecution. In recent weeks, American negotiators in Baghdad concluded that it would be impossible to obtain that protection, essentially scuttling any chance of a substantial troop presence there next year.

Mr. Obama and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta kept the door open to further talks on trainers. While civilian and military officials characterized the withdrawal as a clean break, negotiations could always resume.

“As I told Prime Minister Maliki, we will continue discussions on how we might help Iraq train and equip its forces,” Mr. Obama said. “After all, there will be some difficult days ahead for Iraq, and the United States will continue to have an interest in an Iraq that is stable, secure and self-reliant.”

At the Pentagon, however, senior officials said that without a change in the tenor of Iraqi domestic politics, it was unlikely that any enduring American military presence could be negotiated with the Iraqi government.

Instead, these officials said, the two countries might look to create what one Pentagon official called “a smaller footprint and more flexible relationship.” That might include organizing joint exercises, inviting Iraqi officers to American military schools and offering to train Iraqis in other Middle Eastern nations where the United States has a presence.

“We’re prepared to meet their training needs, we’re prepared to engage in exercises with them, we’re prepared to provide guidance and training with regard to their pilots,” Mr. Panetta told reporters traveling with him to Indonesia.

The United States will still keep about 160 military personnel to guard its embassy in Baghdad and manage the continuing military relationship. There will also be 4,000 to 5,000 private State Department security contractors, as well as a significant C.I.A. presence. In Afghanistan, about 95,000 American troops remain.

“We fought to give Iraqis a choice,” said a frustrated senior officer who was not authorized to speak publicly about the White House’s decision. Another officer said, “Bottom line, it is a failure of the Iraqi government.”

American officials continued to express concern about gaps in Iraq’s security capabilities to withstand what they view as continuing threats of sectarian violence and Iran’s malign influence. But political pressure in Iraq to end the American occupation gradually came to dominate military imperatives.

“Iraq is a highly nationalistic country, and we were not able to dislodge the view that they should not have foreign troops on their soil,” said Christopher R. Hill, a former American ambassador to Iraq who is now dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

Mr. Obama’s announcement drew mixed reactions in Washington, with Democrats generally approving while Republicans voiced fears that security gains in Iraq could be reversed without an American presence.

“While I’m concerned that a full withdrawal could jeopardize those gains,” Speaker John A. Boehner said in a statement, “I’m hopeful that both countries will work together to guarantee that a free and democratic Iraq remains a strong and stable partner for the United States in the Middle East.”

News of the American withdrawal was met with scattered celebrations in Iraq. In Sadr City, the Shiite district in Baghdad that is a bastion of anti-American sentiment, roughly 1,000 people celebrated under the picture of young Shiite men who had been killed by American troops.

“The United States here was just like Saddam Hussein,” said Muslim Mohammed, 42, a government employee. “We never thought we’d get rid of Saddam, and we thought his sons would just take over. We thought the Americans would never leave and they would just create excuses to stay longer and longer.”

Mr. Obama, however, has stuck to his plans to end the combat mission and withdraw all troops, in part because he wants to channel energy to reviving the economy. “After a decade of war,” he declared, “the nation that we need to build — and the nation that we will build — is our own.”

Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, Michael S. Schmidt from Baghdad, and Elisabeth Bumiller en route to Indonesia.

Oh? Really? Yeah, I guess so (OBUMMAH Speaks with forked tongue)

October 21, 2011
Despite Difficult Talks, U.S. and Iraq Had Expected Some American Troops to Stay
By TIM ARANGO and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

BAGHDAD — President Obama’s announcement on Friday that all American troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year was an occasion for celebration for many, but some top American military officials were dismayed by the announcement, seeing it as the president’s putting the best face on a breakdown in tortured negotiations with the Iraqis.

And for the negotiators who labored all year to avoid that outcome, it represented the triumph of politics over the reality of Iraq’s fragile security’s requiring some troops to stay, a fact everyone had assumed would prevail. But officials also held out hope that after the withdrawal, the two countries could restart negotiations more productively, as two sovereign nations.

This year, American military officials had said they wanted a “residual” force of as many as tens of thousands of American troops to remain in Iraq past 2011 as an insurance policy against any violence. Those numbers were scaled back, but the expectation was that at least about 3,000 to 5,000 American troops would remain.

At the end of the Bush administration, when the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, was negotiated, setting 2011 as the end of the United States’ military role, officials had said the deadline was set for political reasons, to put a symbolic end to the occupation and establish Iraq’s sovereignty. But there was an understanding, a senior official here said, that a sizable American force would stay in Iraq beyond that date.

Over the last year, in late-night meetings at the fortified compound of the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, and in videoconferences between Baghdad and Washington, American and Iraqi negotiators had struggled to reach an agreement. All the while, both Mr. Obama and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, gave the world a wink and nod, always saying that Iraq was ready to stand on its own but never fully closing the door on the possibility of American troops’ staying on.

Through the summer, American officials continued to assume that the agreement would be amended, and Mr. Obama was willing to support a continued military presence. In June, diplomats and Iraqi officials said that Mr. Obama had told Mr. Maliki that he was prepared to leave up to 10,000 soldiers to continue training and equipping the Iraqi security forces. Mr. Maliki agreed, but said he needed time to line up political allies.

Mr. Maliki was afraid that if he came out publicly in favor of keeping troops without gaining the support of other parties in Parliament, his rivals — particularly the former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi — would exploit the issue to weaken his shaky coalition government. Eventually, he got authorization from the group to begin talks with the Americans on keeping troops in Iraq.

In August, after debates between the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House, the Americans settled on the 3,000 to 5,000 number, which was reported in August. According to two people briefed on the matter, one inside the administration and one outside, the arguments of two White House officials, Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, and his deputy, Denis McDonough, prevailed over those of the military.

Intelligence assessments that Iraq was not at great risk of slipping into chaos in the absence of American forces were a factor in the decision, an American official said.

This month, American officials pressed the Iraqi leadership to meet again at President Talabani’s compound to discuss the issue. This time the Americans asked them to take a stand on the question of immunity for troops, hoping to remove what had always been the most difficult hurdle. But they misread Iraqi politics and the Iraqi public. Still burdened by the traumas of this and previous wars, and having watched the revolutions sweeping their region, the Iraqis were unwilling to accept anything that infringed on their sovereignty.

Acutely aware of that sentiment, the Iraqi leadership quickly said publicly that they would not support legal protections for any American troops. Some American officials have privately said that pushing for that meeting — in essence forcing the Iraqis to take a public stand on such a controversial matter before working out the politics of presenting it to their constituents and to Parliament — was a severe tactical mistake that ended any possibility of keeping American troops here past December.

But the repeated lesson of Iraqi politics is that putatively final agreements are always subject to revision. Even now, with a definitive sounding statement from the president, the two sides are continuing to discuss a continuing military relationship.

Shortly after Mr. Obama’s remarks, which were carried on Iraqi television, Gen. Babakir Zebari, the chief of staff of the Iraqi Army, who has said previously that Iraq’s security forces would need American help until 2020, said in a statement that the country still needed military trainers.

Sami al-Askari, a member of Parliament and close adviser to Mr. Maliki, said in an interview that, Mr. Obama’s statement notwithstanding, not much had really changed. “As we said before, the SOFA is totally different from the trainers issue, which is still under negotiation, because we have said that there is a necessity for trainers,” he said.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta held out the possibility of keeping a small force of American military trainers in Iraq in the future, although there are no negotiations under way on numbers or a mission.

“We’re prepared to meet their training needs, we’re prepared to engage in exercises with them, we’re prepared to provide guidance and training with regard to their pilots, we’re prepared to continue to develop an ongoing relationship with them in the future,” Mr. Panetta told reporters on his plane on Friday en route to Indonesia.

On Friday evening, an American official in Iraq, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations are confidential, said that negotiations would now center on arrangements that would begin next year, after all United States troops leave.

Possibilities being discussed are for some troops to return in 2012, an option preferred by some Iraqi politicians who want to claim credit for ending what many here still call an occupation, even though legally it ended years ago. Other scenarios being discussed include offering training in the United States, in a nearby country such as Kuwait, or having some troops here under NATO auspices.

Omar al-Jawoshy contributed reporting from Baghdad, Thom Shanker from Washington, and Elisabeth Bumiller en route to Indonesia.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Chicago Tribune Editorial Page contained the best news reporting on education ever told!

www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-schools-20111010,0,1917922.story

chicagotribune.com

No miracles

Chicago school reform has modest results

October 10, 2011

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Chicago has tried cutting-edge school reform after reform. In the 1990s, Paul Vallas ended social promotion and championed high-stakes standardized tests to hold schools accountable. His successor, Arne Duncan, shuttered failing schools and boldly vowed to create 100 new schools in a decade. Educators revamped reading and math curriculum. Chicago gained a national reputation for being on the cutting edge of urban school improvement. Duncan runs the federal Department of Education today.

But are those reforms really working?

The sobering answer: Not as smashingly as you might think.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research tracked Chicago school progress from 1988 through 2008 and concluded:

• Elementary reading scores didn't budge much over that time, despite a massive effort. While white and Asian students showed modest gains, African-American students did not improve at all.

• African-American students, particularly males, fell further behind all other students over the two decades. The pernicious racial achievement gap is growing.

• The city's high schools are the bright spot. They're performing better than many people think. Graduation rates are up: 66 percent now graduate by age 19, up from 48 percent in 1997. Impressive gains. But many kids still drop out and many who graduate remain unprepared for college.

The study didn't pinpoint which reforms were most effective. It did underscore that there are no broad miracles in education. No single reform lifts all students.

So why has appearance not matched reality in Chicago schools?

The consortium study points to state-mandated changes in the content, scoring and benchmarks of state standardized tests. Illinois sets the bar very low compared with other states, and in recent years has even lowered passing scores, creating phantom gains.

Yes, we've dumbed down our tests. This should not come as a shock.

"Many states bob and weave their way around strict school-testing standards—and Illinois is one of the worst offenders," we wrote in 2007 when the Thomas B. Fordham Institute issued a damning report, "The Proficiency Illusion."

In 2009, the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago concluded Chicago's public schools had made little progress in raising student achievement over several years. Though the system reported rising student passing rates, in fact most schools were not showing significant gains. The Civic Committee has been saying for years that the city's reform success has been more modest than advertised.

Meanwhile, the challenge is getting greater. In Thursday's Tribune, national educators Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane made a sobering argument that a growing gap in family income is fueling a growing gap in education attainment between rich and poor children. The number of affluent children who complete college has soared while the number of low-income children who graduate has largely flat-lined.

Duncan and Murnane argue for more national attention to income inequality and a greater push for early childhood education. We agree.

This also, we think, argues for a tremendous push to attract and keep the most talented teachers and principals in Chicago. Organizations such as New Leaders for New Schools, the Academy for Urban School Leadership and the Chicago Public Education Fund are doing just that. Dedicated teachers and principals do produce inspiring results, student by student, school by school. This is the key to the future of CPS.

The sobering research also underscores the need to expand the school day for Chicago students. The status quo — one of the shortest school days in the nation — is a crime.

Teachers at 13 elementary schools in Chicago have voted to expand the day. The rest of the system will have an expanded day next fall, by state law.

Chicago Teachers Union officials have filed suit to roll back the hours and snatch extra pay from teachers at the 13 schools. Next year is soon enough, the union says.

Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard recently invited union leaders to help select the next 25 schools and design guidelines for expanded instructional days. On Friday, CTU President Karen Lewis invited Brizard to meet with her and other union leaders this Tuesday to talk about the plans for a longer day. We hope the union will drop its legal challenge. Dedicated teachers know how to make the best use of that extra 90 minutes of precious classroom time.

Those talented teachers and principals are key to improving Chicago's schools. More reforms are coming. New evaluations will hold teachers accountable for students' academic progress. The best-performing teachers should be paid more, the worst fired faster. Same for principals. Schools don't improve without aggressive leadership.

After two decades of school reform, we've learned not to expect miracles. Most Chicago students don't need a miracle. They do need talented teachers, talented leaders, and a sense of urgency from everyone who is charged with the noble job of educating them.

Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune

Crony capitalism at its worse - this is criminal!

Phil Kadner: Crestwood set to reward indicted police chief
Phil Kadner pkadner@southtownstar.com | (708) 633-6787
October 19, 2011


Updated: October 20, 2011

Crestwood officials really like Theresa Neubauer, the village’s police chief.

Neubauer was placed on paid administrative leave this year after she was named in a 22-count federal indictment that accuses her of falsifying water department records over a period of two decades.

Before she became police chief, Neubauer was a Crestwood water department clerk. She did such a good job in that role that she was promoted to water department supervisor.

What exactly did she do in the water department?

According to the U.S. attorney’s office, “for 20 years Neubauer, 53, and Frank Scaccia, 50, Crestwood’s retired certified water operator, purposely hid the fact they commingled well water with Lake Michigan water and, by doing so, avoided complying with state and federal environmental regulations.

“As a result,” according to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, “Crestwood’s water customers were exposed to well water that was not adequately tested for contamination.”

And that must have really impressed Neubauer’s superiors because she was named the police chief, even though she apparently had never been a full-time police officer.

I guess they could claim that they didn’t know what Neubauer was doing at the water department, but they do now.

And since the indictment was released, Neubauer has been told she doesn’t even have to work to collect her annual salary of $61,500 as chief.

Her punishment for being named in a federal indictment is that she no longer has to work for her money.

Still, Mayor Robert Stranczek and the Crestwood Village Board apparently feel they need to do more to support Neubauer.

At the village board meeting at 8 o’clock tonight, they will consider paying the legal fees of her criminal defense attorney. That item was on the board’s Oct. 6 agenda, but trustees decided to get a legal opinion from the village attorney before voting on the matter.

That opinion was delivered this week, and I’m told it is very likely the village board will vote tonight to pay for Neubauer’s legal defense.

I’m impressed.

This is an era in American history that tends to bring out the worst in employers. People who have worked for a company for 30 years, never taken a sick day, always been on time, are losing their jobs.

They’ve never been accused of a crime or done anything wrong. It’s just the economy, people are told. Times are tough.

But not for Neubauer. She has a job, and Crestwood taxpayers will likely finance her legal defense.

Trustee John Toscas is the only elected official who has spoken out publicly against spending tax money to defend a village official accused of jeopardizing the health of everyone in her village.

Toscas was elected in the aftermath of the Crestwood water scandal and apparently doesn’t fully appreciate everything Neubauer has done.

Why, if it wasn’t for her, Crestwood might not be facing multiple class-action lawsuits.

Irony, dripping like puss from a scab, leaks from the page.

If she had refused to falsify those water department documents, the village might have saved the $3 million in legal bills it has spent defending itself.

That’s right. The tab for legal bills alone is already more than $3 million, and the meter is going to be ticking for many years to come.

If I were a taxpayer in Crestwood, I would attend the village board meeting tonight to congratulate my elected leaders for setting a standard of loyalty unequaled in America today.

While other employers look for any excuse to cut their budgets, Crestwood officials stand tall behind Neubauer.

Where other elected leaders and company CEOs have cut and run when a scandal destroyed the reputations of their community or business, the people at the helm in Crestwood have said, “Public opinion be damned.”

Neubauer is obviously just the sort of police chief the village wanted.

As a water department clerk and supervisor, she must have fulfilled every request and expectation of the village fathers.

In other words, it seems clear she did exactly what she was told to do.

Tonight’s meeting is at the Crestwood Civic Center, 14025 Kostner Ave. This is a unique opportunity to see an employee rewarded for decades of unquestioned devotion.

It’s not often that a police chief indicted for criminal conduct is honored in such a fashion.

Bring the kids.

Remembering Ken Bridges | By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, PhD

Worrill’s World

BlackCommentator.com Columnist

On Friday, October 11, 2002, the leaders of the National Black United Front, from around the country, began arriving in Kansas City, Missouri for our Fall Central Committee Meeting. The meeting was scheduled to begin Friday evening with a welcome reception and an all day meeting for Saturday, October 12th.

As the Chicago contingency pulled into the parking lot of the W. E. B. DuBois Learning Center, I immediately observed that many of the leaders of NBUF had arrived and were outside the Center greeting and interacting with each other. It was a beautiful day in Kansas City and it was good to see that so many of the NBUF leadership had arrived early in preparation for this important meeting.

About an hour after our arrival at the W.E.B. DuBois Learning Center, I received a call on my cell phone from Lloyd Kelley, an activist from Chicago, and a MATAH organizer informing me that our Brother, Kenneth Bridges had been killed by a sniper somewhere in Virginia while pumping gas. Needless to say, I found this hard to believe and accept. Immediately, I began to call other MATAH organizers, specifically Gaston Armour, the MATAH Regional Organizer for the Chicago and Midwest area. Brother Gaston confirmed that our friend and fellow worker in the Black Liberation Movement had become a victim of a serial sniper.

Immediately, I asked everyone to assemble and I made the announcement. Obviously, everyone was shocked. I asked that we pour libations for Brother Ken and use his spirit to begin our meeting early. We dedicated our NBUF Central Committee Meeting to Ken Bridges, the Co-Founder of MATAH.

I had begun to work very closely with Brother Ken as we prepared for the August 17, 2002 Millions For Reparations Mass Rally in Washington, D.C. Brother Ken was very helpful in making this rally a “grand success.”

I must admit, for a very long time I avoided meeting with any of the representatives of MATAH who called NBUF Offices seeking to explain the MATAH program. Personally, I had become somewhat turned off, over the years, by people presenting a variety of economic schemes allegedly aimed at helping solve the economic problems of African people in America. I had become burned out from listening to these proposals.

So, I put up a barrier over the last two years and avoided meeting with any MATAH representatives. But apparently, the Creative Forces of the Universe did not want this to continue.

Without all the lengthy background, Gaston Armour joined the NBUF Chicago Chapter and in our meeting, the evening he joined, I discovered I knew his family, specifically his aunt, with whom I’d worked over the years. It dawned on me that Gaston was a member of the Armour family in Chicago who owned a very popular Black-owned grocery store. The Armour family has established a tradition in Chicago of being a family of business people.

From that moment on, Brother Gaston began to lobby me to become a part of MATAH. One of our members, Sister Iris Dunmore, had been attending some of the local MATAH meetings on our behalf and suggested that we should give the MATAH concept a chance.

Finally, I broke down and agreed to meet with Brother Ken at my home earlier this year. The meeting was only to be for an hour, just to touch base. However, Ken and I hit it off so well, we met in my living room for over four hours. It was truly a meeting of the spirit of our ancestors and from that day forward, Ken and I began talking every week on a regular basis. It was out of that meeting that we made the linkage between the demand for external reparations and its relationship to what we must do to repair ourselves, which we began to call “internal reparations.”

It became clear to me that Ken Bridges was a deep thinker, a brilliant organizer who had committed his life to the liberation of Black people by making his vision of MATAH become a reality.

MATAH, as Ken explained it to me, was a concept given to him by God. Ken constantly made the point that “MATAH was an economic movement of self determination for Africans in America and around the world.” Ken always reminded his audiences when speaking that “MATAH emphasizes African cultural development and therefore the products and services that the organization represents would focus on the promotion of African culture.”

Ken helped NBUF understand that by becoming a Network Business Center, we could help finance the work of NBUF. We had begun working on identifying one-hundred NBUF members who would be willing to purchase $30.00 worth of MATAH products each month that would provide NBUF with a profit of $600.00 a month. A simple but powerful formula if executed.

Ken and his friend, and business partner, Al Willington, had created a vision for products made by African people to be purchased and distributed by African people around the world. The key component of the MATAH concept, as Ken taught, is not only should we purchase products from each other that we produce, but we must also control the distribution of these products.

In the name of Kenneth Bridges, we should carry the MATAH vision forward by remembering that “MATAH are those people of African descent who know that practicing a race-first philosophy is the key to obtaining true freedom for people of African descent, and who refuse to be crushed.”

Let us always honor the spirit of our Brother, Ken Bridges.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is the National Chairman Emeritus of the National Black United Front (NBUF). Click here to contact Dr. Worrill.

Tax and Slide 9-9-9

The Other Side of the Tracks
By Perry Redd
BlackCommentator.com Columnist

Over the past few weeks, former Godfather CEO Herman Cain has surged into a frontrunner position for the Republican nomination for president. This surge is nothing new for the political world. Several have appeared to be what the GOP is looking for, then after peeling back cover, the truth comes out. Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” tax plan looked like something the conservative voter could hold onto. But just as any magician’s trick, if one looks intensely enough and long enough, the illusion will be unmasked.

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people. Cain’s 9-9-9 plan stimulated the senses. It was clear, concise and rolled off the tip of your tongue; besides, none of the other Republican candidates had a cognitive plan to fix the economy that they could articulate. All they could offer is that “Obama messed the economy up.” It’s obvious that coming with something was preferred to blaming the other guy.

The 9-9-9 plan would get rid of almost all current taxes and replace them with a 9% income tax, a 9% corporate tax and a 9% national sales tax. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? Nothing else - just 9-9-9, right?

What hasn’t been said yet is that when the dust clears, Cain wants the country to adopt a Fair Tax. The FairTax, a tax reform proposal for the federal government, would replace all federal taxes on personal and corporate income with a single broad national consumption tax on retail sales. The Fair Tax Act (H.R. 25/S. 13) would apply a tax once at the point of purchase on all new goods and services for personal consumption. The proposal also calls for a monthly payment to all family households of lawful U.S. residents (a side attack on illegal immigration) as an advance rebate, or “prebate”, of tax on purchases up to the poverty level. He’s not the first presidential candidate to propose it. In 2008, for instance, Mike Huckabee placed it at the forefront of his economic plan when he ran for the GOP nomination.

What also is not being said by the Cain camp - or the media - is that other taxes and fees will still exist. Those include excise taxes on things like gas and alcohol, tobacco and firearms, airline tickets and phone service. These items generate a helluva lot of revenue! That’s equal to nearly half the money now collected in corporate income taxes.

Another huge problem for Cain’s plan is that the average American family - the bottom 99% - would pay roughly $29,000 more than the richest 1% would pay Uncle Sam, according to Time magazine.

Economists and tax policy experts were quick to point out that under Cain’s plan, most Americans will actually pay more in overall taxes, even if they pay less in income taxes. The tax bill for the rich however is likely to drop - overall and on income. What has to be taken into account is that state taxes still apply. In states like Tennessee, the 9% sales tax will be levied along with Cain’s proposed 9% national sales tax - regardless of your income level. Rich people and poor people alike buy items like televisions, toys and toilet paper. That tax hurts poor people the most.

Edward Kleinbard, a USC tax expert studied the plan and did a comparison between a family making $50,000 and another making just below $500,000. According to the 9-9-9 plan analysis, the average family of four making $50,000 under our current system pays $8,416 a year, after deductions, in both income and payroll taxes. That equals an effective tax rate of about 17%. Now take the top 1%. To meet that mark that family would have to earn $530,000. Under current tax law, taking into affect deductions like charitable giving and mortgage write-off, the top 1% pay an average of 29% of their income to Uncle Sam in payroll and income taxes. So, under current law the family making $530,000 will pay $153,700 a year in taxes.

The Cain plan lowers the income tax rate to 9%, and does away with the payroll tax. Nice. How does Cain pay for that? Well, he adds on the other two 9s - a 9% sales tax, and replaces corporate income taxes with a 9% business transaction tax, meaning instead of paying taxes on just earnings, businesses will now have to pay a 9% fee to the government for their net purchases every year. Most company’s biggest purchase or expense is their workers, so it basically works out as a 9% payroll tax.

What would the $50,000 family and the top 1% have to pay? Well, under Cain’s plan, the family earning $50,000 would see their income tax bill fall to $4,500. But they would also have to pay a 9% tax on everything they buy each year. Since most families of four on a $50,000 income spend nearly all of their income, that works out to another $4,500 in taxes. What’s more, Kleinbard figures that most companies have a fixed budget to pay for wages. So if the government adds on a 9% payroll tax, companies will simply pay 9% less in salaries to their workers. So, for the family making $50,000, they pay another $4,500 in lower wages. Total 9-9-9 tax bill: $13,500, or $5,084 more than what they pay under the current tax system.

Cutting to the chase: Cain’s 9-9-9 works out well for rich folks…but the mainstream, working class American is getting the screw again. That’s pretty much par for the course with all Republican policies. This inequality, that appears equal on the surface, is the basis for the current Occupy Wall Street protests cropping up across the country.

There’s every reason to be suspicious of any elixir that rolls off the tip of your tongue. Slick marketing is the aim of corporate heads, like Herman Cain. You can make it look like a cake, but sprinkling sugar on doo-doo, doesn’t make it anything other than doo-doo. The illusion of 9-9-9 may excite the senses, but not only hurts the working class American, it makes no guarantee that corporations will hire because of this proposed change. This “trickle down” approach is actually a “piss-on” approach.

Herman Cain has placed the tax before you and is sliding the facts of its impact under the table. I’m truly hoping you don’t go for the tax and slide of 9-9-9.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Perry Redd, is the former Executive Director of the workers rights advocacy, Sincere Seven, and author of the on-line commentary, “The Other Side of the Tracks.” He is the host of the internet-based talk radio show, Socially Speaking in Washington, DC. Click here to contact Mr. Redd.

The King Memorial On The National Mall: Now More Than A Scar On The Nation’s Conscience

Between The Lines
By Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, PhD
BlackCommentator.com Columnist

The monument to 20th Century social change leader, and some say 20th Century Prophet, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was finally dedicated on the National Mall. On the 16th Anniversary of the Million Man March, the President of the United States reminded us that King’s struggle for social change was a protracted one.

People forget that the Civil Rights Movement was actually a counter-movement to the ten year long “Massive Resistance” that took place from 1954 to 1964. Called Massive Resistance, it was an organized movement to reject and resist the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Brown vs. Board of Education case, outlawing ‘Separate But Equal” or de jure segregation (racial separation by law).

The movement wasn’t just a grassroots reaction. The resistance was from Congress to Statehouses to local government, who defended the culture and the norms of Jim Crow. One hundred and one Southern Congresspersons (82 House members and 19 Senators) signed “The Southern Manifesto” in 1956 stating that the Supreme Court had overstepped its bound and had infringed upon “States Rights.” It also called for the impeachment of Chief Justice, Earl Warren.

The Massive Resistance movement spread across a third of the nation and was the second greatest populist protest movement, outside of the Civil War, in this nation’s history, but lasted more than twice as long as the Civil War. More than 300 books have been written about the Civil War. Less than a dozen have been written about Massive Resistance, largely because many of the “resisters” are still living and are trying to erase that bitter and volatile history. It is a history that can never be erased and never be run from because of the counter-resistance movement King led and the ugly way this period ended. Martin Luther King, Jr. will always be a scar on our nation’s conscience.

Why? Because King sought to exert love, peace and non-violence to an extremely hostile and violent nation, that was resisting the change of the day. King exhausted every peaceful remedy over a thirteen year period to change the mentality of a racially deranged nation - some suggest to much avail while others suggest to no avail. The reality is that America never seriously took up a civil rights bill until King was on the scene and pulled back the cover on southern racial hostilities with the Birmingham marches in 1963. This compelled John F. Kennedy to introduce civil rights legislation and many suggest it was only passed in memoriam to the late President as implored by his successor, Lyndon Johnson - the first Southern President since Andrew Johnson after Lincoln was assassinated. By the way, the 13th Amendment was also signed in memoriam to Lincoln who was killed by a confederate sympathizer. Guilt ended slavery, and guilt put an end to emotional segregation. The Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964, a full ten years after Brown and that’s when the signs came down, but it only intensified the country’s distain for King, who was ultimately killed in the midst of an anti-poverty movement while giving support to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968. America knew things had gone too far, but the “King of Love” was dead.

Killing King almost assured America would burn in hell as over 200 cities rioted, but three days later came the Fair Housing Act and a watered down anti-lynching act (America has never passed a stand alone anti-lynching law in its history) as this post-mortem politic continued. The “after the fact” legislation was passed in memoriam to King, but the scars over King’s death run deep. In the 20th Century, they gave him a federal holiday and have co-opted “the dream.” King meant different things to different people, but one thing is for sure…America, black and white, had not gotten over King’s death - not if you have any sort of a conscience. With the monument, the post mortem “In Memoriam” for Martin Luther King, Jr. continues almost a half a century after his death. Celebrating him in death more than in life but this is significant.

America’s guilt seems to always arrive a minute too late after someone takes it a little too far. In the case of Martin Luther King, Jr., it was 43 years late…but not too late to remind us what King truly ment to the social evolution of the nation. Maybe the nation had not gone far enough in acknowledging what it had or in what King had done. America builds monuments to its heroes, a constant reminder of the contributions such heroes have made to society. The National Mall is reserved for Presidents and war heroes…mostly Presidents though. The greatness of America is in the men who built it and the men (and one day women) who defended its truest creed, liberty.

The monument suggests that Martin Luther King, Jr. is now a certified and documented “National Hero,” in perpetuity, for everyone who ever visits the national mall from here on out. He probably is the only one (Lincoln included) who demanded liberty AND justice for all people. King took the “White Only” sign down off the nation’s most hallowed ground - its national mall. I mean, we could go there but only to look at other people’s heroes - who we were TOLD was ours too - but we only have suspect evidence of that. Still, we couldn’t put up any statues of our own…until this past weekend. King is the first non-President, non-war hero, non-WHITE MAN on the mall. He’s also the first (mostly) privately funded monument (but that’s another article). If the people didn’t make it happen, it would’ve happened. It meant that much to us. Hopefully, it means that much to the nation. They only put these up every 40 or 50 years.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is now more than a scar on the nation’s conscience, that we artificially celebrate once a year. He is now in his rightful place as a national hero who changed the course, and the culture, of this nation. He now has a physical space in this nation’s capital…Like all the other MAJOR heroes we honor, on the nation mall.

A true “American Hero,” with a monument to match his accomplishment…and his sacrifice…for the good of the nation. Let the record now reflect it.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com. Click here to contact Dr. Samad.

Presbyterian Church’s Ordination of Gays Bittersweet Inclusion By The Reverend Irene Monroe

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

Before returning to New England for the second time, I served two African American Presbyterian Churches. And during that time I never thought, two decades ago, that the entire church body would change its position on LGBTQ worshippers.

But a historic yet bittersweet moment happened on October 8th in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

And the moment didn’t happen without a long and arduous struggle against the church’s ecclesiastical heterosexism.

After decades of open struggle with the church’s recalcitrant attitude and discrimination against its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) worshippers who wanted to serve as pastors, elders or deacons, the Presbyterian Church (USA), known as the more liberal and tolerant branch of the denomination, finally conducted its first openly gay ordination.

In May of this year, Amendment 10-A was passed, meaning the majority of church’s 173 presbyteries ratified an amendment to its constitution (The Book of Order) that removes a provision prohibiting the ordination of sexually active unmarried Presbyterians as church officers. Before the passing of Amendment 10-A, the constitution required church officers to be celibate or married to a member of the opposite gender.

So on that Sunday of October 8th, many of us Presbyterians celebrated Scott Anderson’s ordination. Anderson served as co-Moderator of More Light Presbyterians, before moving to Madison to become the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, and he also served as Executive Director of the California Council of Churches.

Scott stands on the shoulders of so many of my clergy brothers and sisters who were either defrock or flatly denied ordination because they were either opened about their sexual orientation or their local presbytery suspected they were LGBTQ.

As a church that is borne out of a liberal Protestant Christian tradition, the Presbyterian Church’s problem with its LGBTQ worshippers is a history of how it not only broke the backs and souls of the many who wanted to serve, but also how the church recklessly discarded the gifts we bring.

While homophobia is nothing new in the hallowed halls of most churches, the Presbyterian Church - with its 2.3 million members in all 50 states and Puerto Rico that are part of the Reformed family of Protestantism, descending from the branch of the Protestant Reformation begun by John Calvin - has been an embarrassment to itself.

And as a church that proudly touts itself as “reformed and always reforming,” when it came to all things LGBTQ prior to this recent Amendment, the church was not only losing its theological ground of being one that affirms diversity without divisiveness, it was also losing its public face of inclusion.

Wrestling with the issue of scriptural interpretation and faithfulness to the Bible, the Presbyterian Church at the 190th General Assembly in 1978 was unabashed with its homophobic renderings as it relates to LGBTQ worshippers stating, “The repentant homosexual person who finds God’s power to control his or her [sexual] desires can certainly be ordained, all other qualifications being met.”

LGBTQ worshippers had second-class status in the church, and it was maintained not only church policy that forbid us to serve as pastors, elders or deacons, but also by overriding decisions made by local parishes in support of inclusion of us within the body of the church.

However, before the Presbyterian Church finally abolished its ban on LGBTQ ministers, elders and deacons becoming ordained, many LGBTQ worshippers and allies over the years found ways to include LGBTQ members as church officers.

For example, “More Light Presbyterians” gave LGBTQ worshippers hope. It is a coalition of congregations and individuals in the American Presbyterian Church committed to increasing the involvement of all people in the church, regardless of sexuality.

More Light churches endorse the mission statement: “Following the risen Christ, and seeking to make the Church a true community of hospitality, the mission of More Light Presbyterians is the full participation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people of faith in the life, ministry, and witness of the Presbyterian Church (USA).” These are the Presbyterians who truly uphold the church’s motto of being reformed and always reforming.

Other examples were the actions taken at General Assembly. The 210th General Assembly (GA) in 1998 reaffirmed that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was committed “not to exclude anyone categorically in considering ordained service based on sexual orientation. And in 2003, the GA Permanent Judicial Commission reaffirmed that position when it said, “Sexual orientation alone is insufficient to make a person ineligible for ordination or installation.”

Why now, many ask, is the Presbyterian Church (USA) loosening its reins on LGBTQ worshippers?

Many within the Church speculate four possible factors:

•Some congregations have left the denomination - including large congregations in some presbyteries - thus changing the “balance” of voting in some presbyteries.
•Some Presbyterians and presbyteries “are ready to get past this argument, which has been going on since at least 1978.”
•American society has become more tolerant of same-gender relationships, evidenced, for instance, by a number of states legalizing same-sex marriage.
•“The wording of Amendment 10-A is more acceptable to more Presbyterians than previous proposals.”
In an “Open Letter to the Presbyterian Church (USA) from Archbishop Desmond Tutu,” he expressed the ultimate reason the church needed to abolish its discriminatory policy: justice!

“It is incumbent upon all of God’s children to speak out against injustice. It is sometimes equally important to speak in solidarity when justice has been done. For that reason I am writing to affirm my belief that in making room in your constitution for gay and lesbian Christians to be ordained as church leaders, you have accomplished an act of justice...”

Amen!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific School of Religion. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She was recently named to MSNBC’s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible Prayers for Not’So’Everyday Moments. As an African-American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Her website is irenemonroe.com. Click here to contact the Rev. Monroe.

Has the Fighting Spirit of Black America Been Co-opted & Neutralized? By Larry Pinkney

Keeping it Real

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

"The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become."

- W.E.B. DuBois

"Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

As today's systemic political war mongers and economic blood-suckers offer their fake tributes in Washington, D.C., to the statue, life, and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., everyday people of all colors are occupying streets throughout this nation, and around the world, demanding an end to corporate blood-sucking and perpetual wars.

The avaricious corporate/military elite of this nation (Democrat and Republican), including the corporate-stream 'news' media - which is its de facto propaganda arm, is about the business of propping up a nominally black U.S. president who is the antithesis of everything for which Martin Luther King, Jr. struggled for in conjunction with Black America as a whole. Nevertheless, much of Black America's intelligentsiahave, in the name of supporting a biological nominally black president of the U.S. Empire, traded in principles for crass opportunism.

Yet, where does Black America stand collectively at this historical juncture? After all, the joblessness, homelessness, incarceration, and police killings, etc. of Black and other poor people have massively and disproportionately increased during the almost three full years of this nominally black president's tenure. Moreover, this president has repeatedly and arrogantly chastised the very constituency that was duped into electing him, as being "whiners" and "complainers" while shamelessly engaging in making back room deals with the greedy, blood-sucking pharmaceutical, banking, and insurance corporate power brokers of Wall Street. This same same president has expanded U.S. "militarism" throughout the world including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and on the African continent. He has made a mockery not only of the life and legacy of the late Martin Luther King, Jr., but of Black America collectively.

Under the auspices of the criminal, so-called trillion dollar 'bail-out' of Wall Street, this president has overseen the largest single transfer of wealth from the public coffers of everyday people to the blood-sucking wealthy elite in the history of this nation.

In a word, the relatively tiny U.S. corporate / military elite continues to bank on this president and his cronies to, articulately bamboozle and simultaneously emaciate, everyday Brown, White, Red, and Yellow people - and in particular the everyday people of Black America. As the year 2011 draws to a close, the systemic contradictions and incredible pain of the everyday people are becoming ever more apparent.

Irrespective as to whether or not he is re-installed in the next national corporate-funded fraud - referred to as an "election," the usefulness of this president Barack Obama, to his corporate masters is approaching an end. As everyday people continue to comprehend the enormous damage that has been done to them/us, so it is that Black America collectively, like other segments of this nation, will politically re-awaken as if from a slumber. Indeed, this process has already begun.

The people can be fooled for only so long. The fighting spirit of Black America is not dead, and we shall, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "recapture the revolutionary spirit." Notwithstanding certain pathetic, opportunistic, and hypocritical biologically black misleaders, who continue to urge Black America to stay politically asleep, the reality of the political and economic times is rapidly approaching, and Black America collectively will yet reclaim its place as an important part of the struggle of ordinary everyday people of all colors in this nation and around the globe.

Onward, then, my sisters and brothers! Onward!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.) Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

The 2011 Occupy/Decolonize Moment By Dr. John Hayakawa Torok, JD, PhD

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator

Occupy Wall Street (“OWS”) is a social movement begun September 17, 2011 by a handful of protestors who encamped at “Liberty Square” in lower Manhattan. In a month it has spread to over a thousand actions across the United States.

It is also denominated as the 99% as against the 1% of the wealthiest and highest earning Americans who, along with finance capital, are perceived as having excess power over U.S. and global governance. This 1% is identified as the source of the misery of the global majority.

Since its inception I have followed the uprising through social media and also in what she who shall not be named calls the lamestream media.

I have observed a general meeting or two at the Oakland and San Francisco, California, Occupy/Decolonize encampments. I have also visited the Berkeley encampment. This writing is solely my own reading based on these observations and others’ writings.

AdBusters and author/activist David Graeber are credited with providing the spark for the uprising.

The movement draws inspiration from other recent people’s rebellions like those of the Arab Spring particularly in Tunisia and Egypt, against austerity in Greece and France and the U.K., and Chile and Spain’s Indignados. Connections are also made to the global justice protests at Seattle, Toronto and elsewhere in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Solidarity statements and actions for OWS have already come from players in U.S. organized labor and the broader U.S. left.

Demonstrations of solidarity with OWS also occurred on October 15-16 in Lahore, Seoul, Madrid, London, Hong Kong, Rome, and elsewhere. Another global day of action is apparently being planned for October 29 to precede the next G20 summit scheduled at Cannes.

The ethos at the encampments I have visited and have seen described is radically egalitarian, participatory, and cooperative. They are open, evolving communities committed to non-violence because they are quite aware of the state’s repressive power. They are also sites for deep conversation, “free schools,” cultural performance and production, and even for dancing in the streets.

The carnival aspect does not derogate from these encampments’ projects of self-rule based on consensus, or at least an aspiration to that process of decision-making. To varying degrees

Occupy/Decolonize encampments assert autonomy from the state and thus eschew police presence and protection. In the U.S., the violence that has occurred has come from police repression.

Communications, like the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, September 29, 2011, are also adopted through the consensus process. They receive wide distribution through social media networks nationally and globally. What other communiqués will emerge, and from where, remains open.

The decolonization critique of OWS has two components. The first is stated in the slogan, “Take Back Wall Street: Occupied Since 1625.” The major premise is that the economic and social development of the present U.S. order originates in white settler colonization. A minor premise is that the invention of racism served as ideological justification for both conquest and enslavement and that racism still prevails in Occupied America.

The second component is based on experiences, and criticism based on those experiences, by people of color participants in the Occupy general assemblies. This part of the critique centers how male, heterosexual, class, and especially white racial privilege exclude the histories and experiences of women and queer people of color in articulating the uprising’s politics.

Thus, a call to “Occupy America” obscures the histories of colonization and resistance that U.S. indigenous and people of color communities often carry with them. The slogan “Occupy Everywhere” also unfortunately evokes colonialist projects. The phrase “Occupy Together” – used by an unofficial online coordination project –avoids this danger by inviting everyone’s participation.

Participatory democracy and consensus-based decision-making require significant leisure. That leisure can come from wealth, or student status, or unemployment. Most with jobs or families – unless they are homeless and living in poverty - will find it difficult either to follow or to participate in the on-site Occupy/Decolonize conversations. That does not render the conversations unimportant.

By claiming to be the dispossessed and disenfranchised 99% - a claim that hundreds of thousands around the world have found compelling enough to find ways to support the movement and its physical articulation as local encampments including financially – the participants have clearly struck a nerve.

The opportunity that the Occupy/Decolonize encampments provide is for people from diverse racial backgrounds and class positions to learn together and articulate a new democratic politics to transform society. It is this potential unleashed by OWS for the liberatory imagination to work and to transform our world that has captured so many imaginations not only in the U.S. but in other countries as well.

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Dr. John Hayakawa Torok, JD, PhD, is a critical race theorist and card-carrying member of the USA Green Party, who lives in Oakland, California. Click here to contact Dr. Torok.

Critics of "Occupy Wall Street" Jumping the Gun Solidarity America By John Funiciello

BlackCommentator.com Columnist


There was an Internet headline this week in a right-wing Washington, D.C.-based publication that said, “One month in, protests yet to topple capitalism.”

If its intent was to minimize the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests that have sprung up all across the country, in Europe, and in a number of other countries, it widely missed the mark. There hasn’t been much said about “toppling capitalism” among the men and women who are in New York City and elsewhere, demanding a redress of grievances against the real titans of the American government and economy: Corporate America.

Demonstrators, young and old, who might not be “experts” in economic and political theory, have readily understood that it’s the greed of the few at the top that has caused the problems in the economy, in the political system, and in the environment. That understanding is not going to be dissipated by a few critics from the corporations, the politicians, or the pundits, who could be (in effect, so many are) in the pay of those same corporations.

And, there are millions of people who agree with the analysis of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, but they just are not in the streets, yet. In fact, there are a few polls, which show that a majority of Americans believe that the greed of the wealthy and the corporations is at the heart of the threats to the stability of the nation.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Monday showed that New York voters agree with the OWS demonstrators by 67-23 percent. On the same day, a Time magazine poll reported that Americans, in general, favored the OWS movement over the Tea Party, by a margin of 54 percent to 27 percent.

Some observers have said that the Wall Street event is like the Tea Party and that OWS might even be a come-lately copy of that small anti-Obama billionaire-inspired political caucus of the Republican Party. But they were wrong. The Tea Party never achieved the approval of even the mainstream of the GOP, let alone the American public. The polls are telling us something about OWS: Whereas the Tea Party was made up mostly of white middle-aged, disgruntled taxpayers (although there were a few minorities sprinkled throughout the crowds some of the time), Occupy Wall Street is a more representative sampling of Americans of all ages and walks of life, all economic strata, and racial and ethnic groups.

Obviously, the American people are identifying with the demonstrators in all of the cities where they have appeared and are appearing regularly. They are working class, middle class, and the poor. More and more Americans are being pushed into the latter group, especially since they have lost their jobs, have little prospect of finding another comparable job, and many have lost their homes through foreclosure.

Although the denizens of Wall Street may be sitting in their cubicles or standing around the floor of the stock exchange, making fun of the demonstrators, charging that they are “hippies” or “indolent” or “trust funders” or “lazy,” they cannot dismiss the young that easily and the older ones are our brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, fathers and mothers. They are workers, or they were workers, until America was emptied of its economic lifeblood by the machinations of Corporate America, which shut down its factories and foundries, its clothing and shoe shops, and anything else they could ship to a low-wage country, even all of the electronic goods that we’re told are essential to “information and communication” in a post-industrial society.

That’s why the corporatists, the GOP, or some Democrats are not going to be able to equate OWS with the Tea Party in the American mind, because Americans know why they are in the streets. Some of the criticisms of OWS have been that “there is no coherent set of goals” and there is “no program.” Of course, that is wrong and the corporate media is trying its best to make it seem as if the thousands in the streets every day don’t know what is wrong and don’t know how to fix it. A glance back at some of the movements that freed people in other countries from some of the most egregious leaders and governments and powers started in just the same way, with groups of people in the streets, seeking reform of systems that oppressed them. Change and programs and policies came out of this: “We’re not going to take it anymore and we’re going to stay in the streets until we see the changes we want.”

Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute, at the release of this week’s poll, said, “It’s a free country. Let them keep on protesting as long as they obey the law, New Yorkers say overwhelmingly. Critics complain that no one can figure out what the protesters are protesting, but seven out of 10 New Yorkers say they understand and most agree with the anti-Wall Street views of the protesters.” That’s quite a departure from the description of Tea Partiers, whose main effort was to “take back their country,” a thinly veiled reference to the black man who sits in the White House and who they claim, most ridiculously, is a “socialist” or worse.

Just a short list of things OWSers across the country believe are wrong and need to be addressed include: two wars, just one of which is consuming $2 billion a week; massive amounts of corporate money that has (now legally) polluted our political system; students who come out of college owing tens of thousands of dollars, with no jobs to pay back the loans; home foreclosures occurring at a rate not seen since the Dust Bowl days; an oil company-driven “energy policy” that would further plunder the environment for a few gallons of oil; a food system that is controlled by a few chemical, pharmaceutical, and seed companies; economists and money manipulators responsible for the current (second round) recession who are guilty of criminal acts, yet are still walking free; nuclear weaponry possessed by a handful of nations that years ago pledged to reduce and eliminate them; an unrelenting attack on America’s workers and their unions, resulting in a drastic lowering of the nation’s standard of living; minority unemployment at a much higher rate than the average, and the promise of endless wars, which will further degrade America’s economy and politics.

Another issue which some might say is an overriding issue is the 50 million Americans who have no access to health care and an equal number who have inadequate coverage, although they are making big monthly payments. Those who can’t comprehend why the demonstrators are in the streets might look into one or two of these issues and the picture might come into focus.

Since President Obama didn’t start his fight-back against the Republic onslaught until about three years into his first term, his move into campaign mode just about guarantees that there will not be much progress in dealing with very many of the monumental problems facing the U.S. And don’t look to the Republicans for any solutions of any kind, for any problems. The party has been united in refusing to deal with anything, unless their benefactors in Corporate America are protected. They don’t want the rich or corporations to pay another nickel in taxes, despite the disparity in wealth and they, in fact, want to cut programs that help the poor, the working class, and the middle class, although these are the programs that determine the kind of society we have.

One of the “innovators” in the field of GOP presidential hopefuls has proposed what he calls the “9-9-9 tax plan.” Herman Cain, for a time, has been the darling of potential Republican primary voters in a couple of states, because he has been CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, a national chain. Apparently, there are still people who are deluded into thinking that a just nation can be created using the techniques of very profitable corporations. They have not noticed that a nation is not a business; it’s not a corporation.

Under Cain’s tax plan, Warren Buffett, the billionaire who says he pays too little in taxes, compared with his secretary, would pay even less. Some wag noted that, if Buffett is complaining about not paying enough taxes now, he’ll really have something to complain about if a plan like Cain’s ever is enacted. That plan encompasses a piece of a recycled income “flat tax” and a national sales tax, all of which falls most heavily on the poor, the working class, and the middle class. One of Cain’s “nines” is a corporate income tax. The rich would likely not notice it.

Cain, speaking perhaps for the bulk of the running-to-the-right Republican field has denigrated the OWS demonstrators with his Rep. Eric Cantor-like epithets and reminded them that, “if you don’t have a job, if you’re not rich, blame yourself.” There are five applicants for every job in the U.S., and Cain, the GOP, the corporate media, and the pundits can’t understand that young people are mad as hell?

What is clear from the past week’s events is that the American people are beginning to understand who trashed their jobs, their economy, their schools and colleges, their savings, their homes, their air and water, even the food they eat. They are backing the OWS demonstrators, whose ranks are growing. And they did not fall for the flim-flam of the billionaire-backed Tea Party and all of the Astroturf groups that were used to support it.

Although there have been a few flare-ups of conflict, overwhelmingly the OWS demonstrations have been peaceful, although the impulse of the authorities to suppress such exercise of free speech is present in our country. Such suppression can be detected just under the surface on any given day, but it’s there and the power of the state is palpable. We are not called a national security state for nothing. The means of surveillance and control have been in place for decades, but there has been an explosion of the tools of suppression since September 11, 2001, after which Americans accepted a vast array of methods, techniques, and technology for controlling the population.

Despite all that, people are going into the streets. They might not express any intent to “topple capitalism,” per se, but they are expressing their strongly held belief that there is so much wrong with the country and that something radical needs to be done to save what they once knew as America. Despite the propaganda that emanates from the powers that be and their communications outlets, OWS is a truly grass roots movement, whose, millions of members know that they must exercise their dwindling rights under the Bill of Rights, just to protect those rights.

They also know who is responsible for the current debacle. While the Tea Party concentrated on “government,” leaving Corporate America unscathed, Occupy Wall Street has its eye on the corruption and destruction caused by the most powerful corporations in the world. It is those corporations that have taken over the government and OWS is unmasking them, which is why the demonstrations are seen to be so dangerous.

Occupy Wall Street is growing and causing Americans everywhere to understand what caused their country to unravel and cause such pain and suffering for the scores of millions who are left behind in all aspects of life. Occupy Wall Street is not going to go away anytime soon.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.

When We All Are Doing Better By Carl Bloice

Left Margin

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

One young occupier in New York’s Zuccotti Square held aloft a simple sign that read: “I Demand Empathy.” Seeing it immediately brought to mind a recent attempt to denigrate the very thing the young man was asking for.

“Nobody is against empathy,” wrote the New York Times columnist David Brooks September 20. “Nonetheless, it’s insufficient. These days empathy has become a shortcut,” wrote the conservative scribe, who has been called “The Bard of the 1 percent.”

“It has become a way to experience delicious moral emotions without confronting the weaknesses in our nature that prevent us from actually acting upon them. It has become a way to experience the illusion of moral progress without having to do the nasty work of making moral judgments. In a culture that is inarticulate about moral categories and touchy about giving offense, teaching empathy is a safe way for schools and other institutions to seem virtuous without risking controversy or hurting anybody’s feelings.”

Yada, yada, yada.

Brooks writes a lot about original sin or “the weaknesses in our nature.” His aim seems always to be to accentuate our sectarian differences and devalue any notion of social solidarity.

“Empathy orients you toward moral action, but it doesn’t seem to help much when that action comes at a personal cost,” wrote Brooks. “You may feel a pang for the homeless guy on the other side of the street, but the odds are that you are not going to cross the street to give him a dollar.” Brooks should speak for himself (which of course he’s doing). Lots of people do walk over or lean out the driver’s side window and hand the person a buck. I see it all the time. Of course, that’s in my neighborhood, not Brooks’ suburban Bethesda.

And, a lot of people keep their wallets shut because they think institutional giving is better and when they get home, write out another check to the local food bank. Or maybe they are convinced that the way to respond to poverty is through social action and they contribute to the political campaign of someone who proposes to take some action to alleviate it.

Or, they may just decide to sit-in on Wall Street. Empathy can prompt any number of responses.

That we may sometimes suppress emphatic pangs when our personal comfort or security is involved, there is no doubt. However, as Jason Marsh wrote on the Greater Good blog, Brooks is “misguided, misinformed, or being needlessly provocative to discount or disparage empathy altogether.”

On October 10, Brooks decided to take on the occupiers in Zuccotti Square, whom he derided as “small thinkers” and “pierced anarchists.” If ever there was a case of empathy-less-ness, or unconcern for the fate of those amongst us being slammed by the current economic crisis, this was it. Check this out. “The U.S. economy is probably going to stink for a few more years. It is beset by short-term problems (low consumer demand, uncertain housing prices, too much debt) and long-term problems (wage stagnation, rising health care costs, eroding human capital).”

“Realistically, not much is going to be done to address the short-term problems, but we can at least use this winter of recuperation to address the country’s underlying structural ones. Do tax reform, fiscal reform, education reform and political reform so that when the economy finally does recover the prosperity is deep, broad and strong.” The problem, he goes on, is that we are wasting this winter (it come early in Maryland) concentrating on “been a series of trivial sideshows” instead of keeping our minds “focused on the big things.”

And, what are the big things? A “group that divides the world between the pure 99 percent and the evil 1 percent will have nothing to say about education reform, Medicare reform, tax reform, wage stagnation or polarization. They will have nothing to say about the way Americans have over consumed and over borrowed. These are problems that implicate a much broader swath of society than the top 1 percent.” In other words, we’re all to blame. “Let’s occupy ourselves,” he writes.

“The policy proposals that have been floating around the Occupy Wall Street movement - a financial transfer tax, forgiveness for student loans - are marginal,” wrote Brooks. “The thing about the current moment is that the moderates in suits are much more radical than the pierced anarchists camping out on Wall Street or the Tea Party-types.” Here he’s talking about the people who would spend the rest of the year undermining public education and slashing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

“In other words, Brooks wants all those people who are unemployed and losing their homes to just suck it up” wrote Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research October 11 in his “Beat the Press” column. “Nothing is going to be done to help you: get over it.”

“And why is nothing going to be done to help the 26 million people who are unemployed, underemployed or have given up looking for work altogether? The reason is that people like David Brooks and rest of the 1 Percent don't give a damn about you.”

The fact is we are living in what the Times’ editors called “a deeply unequal society.” The portion of income garnered by those in the top 1 percent of households is higher than at any point since before the Depression of the 1930s and twice what it was three decades ago. The paper recently reported: “From June 2007 to June of this year… median annual household income declined by 7.8 percent for non-Hispanic whites, to $56,320, and by 6.8 percent for Hispanics, to $39,901. For blacks, household income declined 9.2 percent, to $31,784.”

Last Friday, Brooks wrote: “Tax policy isn’t just about how to raise revenue anymore. Liberals see it as a way to punish the greedy and redress the iniquities of capitalism.” That’s just nonsense (not that said redressing wouldn’t be a grand idea). The problem facing the country right now, and the one that has brought so many people into the streets, is that millions people can’t find work, millions more are facing home foreclosures, and many are burdened by onerous student loan debt. The only realistic way to alleviate the situation is for the government to stimulate the economy, provide meaningful programs to increase employment, and debt relief. That will require revenue. “Conservatives” like Brooks can pretend otherwise but that’s what the debate over tax policy is really all about.

“If the federal government increased spending on infrastructure, gave teens jobs cleaning up their neighborhoods, gave state and local governments the funds to keep teachers and firefighters employed and encouraged employers to shorten work hours rather than lay off workers, we could quickly get the economy back to full employment,” wrote Baker. “Economists have known this story for more than 70 years, but somehow creating jobs doesn't rank as high on the priority list in Washington as cutting Social Security and Medicare.

“In short we have an economic system that, even when it is working, has been rigged to redistribute income to rich. And we have a political system that at a time of immense economic distress is more focused on undercutting the means of support for working families than fixing the economy. It is hard to understand why everyone is not occupying Wall Street.”

However, as most perceptive people have noticed the occupiers of town and city squares aren’t coming up with lists of demands in the traditional sense and are raising broader and more fundamental issues. Greed is rampant, poverty and economic inequality are growing relentlessly in our country and our political system is ever increasingly corrupted by money. The system is in trouble.

Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote last week in the Washington Post, “The movement doesn’t need a policy or legislative agenda to send its message. The thrust of what it seeks - fueled both by anger and deep principles - has moral clarity. It wants corporate money out of politics. It wants the widening gap of income inequality to be narrowed substantially. And it wants meaningful solutions to the jobless crisis. In short, it wants a system that works for the 99 percent. Already Occupy Wall Street has sparked a conversation about reforms far more substantial than the stunted debate in Washington. Its energy will supercharge the arduous work other organizations have been doing for years, amplifying their actions as well as their agendas.”

Last week I was fortunate to take part in a very exciting and encouraging meeting of senior and disability activists and their supporters who enthusiastically identified with the occupations at Wall Street and around the country. There, one young man, outlining a proposal to increase the taxes of the very wealthy drew spirited applause when he said our motto should be: “We all do better when we all are doing better.”

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union. Click here to contact Mr. Bloice.

A View from the Battlefield By Jamala Rogers

The People’s Occupation:
Making Demands and Building Democracy

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

The Occupy Wall Street Movement is now about a month old. It began way before people gathered at Zuccotti Park, which sits in the shadows of Wall Street. It began before the Canadian anti-capitalist maga zine Adbuster issued a call to spark an American “Tahrir moment” (in reference to the situation in Cairo that resulted in Egypt’s regime change). It certainly began long before a group of organizers met at 16 Beaver Street to create the New York City General Assembly. It started before the occupation of the Wisconsin Capitol last year. And while all of the above may have been fuel, the Occupy Wall Street Movement has been simmering for about a decade. It was stirred to a boil in the last few years by U.S. corporate bloodsuckers and a GOP-dominated Congress who have thumbed their noses at the majority of citizens in this country.

The Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS) has spread to about 1,000 cities in the U.S. and throughout Europe, Asian, and Africa. That’s because neo-liberal policies have created a global financial system that is choking the life out of 99 Percenters all around the world.

For at least the last twenty years, the salaries of the working class have not just flattened, they have taken a dip, given the rise in the cost of living. During this same time span, the gap between the 1% and the 99% has tripled, pushing more Americans into poverty. While we lined up at pantry centers for food, lost our homes, filed bankruptcy because of health care catastrophes and witnessed a decline in the stability of our neighborhoods, the elite in this country have been jet-setting around, eating at the finest restaurants, going home to their nice mansions and finding more ways to exploit the world and keep wars going.

Some media observers and political pundits keep pressing the protestors for their demands as in what-do-you-people-want? Movements have their own unique rhythms, their ebbs and flows. It’s okay that people have come out to express their anger and outrage at a system that has caused a lot of economic damage at taxpayers’ expense. The ruling class and their Congressional cronies need to see the scope of this anger. We are tired of Wall Street getting bailouts on the People’s dime. Enough is enough and quite frankly, we’re out of dimes.

Each city’s Occupy looks and acts differently. It will take some time for those who are at the heart of the actions to get to know one another, to struggle through acts and words of racism, sexism and homophobia, to learn consensus building - all necessary to create a truly democratic space.

For example, Occupy L.A. has stated that it’s in it for the long haul and has put together Principles of Solidarity for its Action Assembly. It plans on reaching out to diverse communities and neighborhoods to bring them into the process.

Occupy St. Louis has its own website, being transparent about decisions and actions. With the World Series coming to St. Louis, the group will surely utilize this opportunity to raise important issues affecting families in this region with national eyes on us.

And the movement is getting more organized - creating websites to inform people of actions, raising monies, etc. They are organizing food, shelter, medical care, libraries and a host of other needs for participants.

Ultimately, the OWS Movement will have to figure out strategy and tactics that will ensure tangible changes in the future. We should always be guided by the eloquent words of Frederick Douglass: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

With thousands of people being mobilized across the country, it would be a travesty not to use the power of the people to force some concessions that will ease our economic pain. We can choose from a smorgasbord of economic injustices to address: mass unemployment, rampant home foreclosures, slashes in social services, defunding of public education, increases in health care costs, etc. People will need to graduate from chants and signs to a political agenda that spells out what must happen to “Make Wall Street Pay for the Crisis!”

This is a broad based, intergenerational, multi-racial movement that could bring meaningful changes in this country, especially as we head into the 2012 elections. Let’s work towards minimizing empty rhetoric and pockets and maximizing our political power and economic victories.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Jamala Rogers, is the leader of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis and the Black Radical Congress National Organizer. Additionally, she is an Alston-Bannerman Fellow. Click here to contact Ms. Rogers.