Occupy Wall Street: Tell Washington "No Jobs for Us, No Jobs for You"

Even at a time of widespread economic woes nationwide, U.S. corporations remain totally indifferent to the suffering of Americans; third quarter corporate profit is estimated at 13.5%, according to a report in today’s Wall Street Journal. Yet there’s no rush to create jobs.

[Open Letter To Occupy Wall Street]
 
“Occupy Wall Street,” should have a very simple message to Congress.

“No jobs for us, no jobs for you!”

Very simple. Just watch and see who opposes the American Jobs Act in the Senate –which has already blocked the proposal– and in the House of Representatives.

Organize and make sure they’re all voted out next year whether they are Republicans or Democrats. Support and fund through grass roots collections, online fundraisers and Town Hall meetings –brick and mortar and online– to make sure that progressive candidates run.

If this eventually leads to the creation of a progressive party, that’s the added bonus.

President Barack Obama isn’t necessarily a bad president; he must be forced into becoming a better president. His actions, mis-actions, and inactions are dictated by the constraints of the two-party corporate political system that dominates this country.

1) President Obama campaigned on healthcare reform. He never really actually have both houses of Congress, as most analysts claim. Many “Democrats” were fearful of making the significant structural change that universal healthcare coverage entails. So they called themselves “Blue Dogs” or “Blue Swine” or whatever, and bailed out on the president: on both healthcare reform and the Stimulus package, which barely passed, and Wall Street financial reform, and everything else
that the president had campaigned for and tried to achieve.

The country could have ended up in another Great Depression without a bailout of Wall Street and probably civil uprising in places like Detroit had the Obama Administration not bailed out the auto industry.

The Motor City is hiring again and people are buying new homes. No thanks to “Blue Dogs.” So in essence, Obama had worked with an opposition Congress even before the mid-term elections. Let’s see how many “Democrats” stand up for the Jobs bill.

2) The withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan will likely hasten only after the 2012 elections. President Obama won’t accelerate the pullout now, seeing how shaky the corrupt and ineffective Hamid Karzai regime is. If unemployment in the U.S. creeps towards 10% and the Taliban were to takeover in Afghanistan, either candidate Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and even Herman Cain or Michelle Bachmann could end up as president.

Ironically, at the end of the day, Afghanistan will end up with a Taliban-dominated regime. Imperial Britain could not subdue the Afghans, and; Soviet Russia, which did not care about domestic or international public opinion, was routed–leading to the collapse of the Soviet regime. So why would Imperial United States be able to pacify Afghanistan? Especially with a president Karzai who periodically proclaims his allegiance to the Taliban, depending on how much of, and what, he’s smoked on that particular day.

3) If there were enough progressive members of Congress, President Obama may have been stopped from plunging the United States into the disastrous Libyan war of aggression and conquest. Only Rep. Dennis Kucinich was brave enough to call that conflict what it was; war for oil by installing a pliant regime.

President Obama was smart enough to initially resist the war. He flew off to South America when the insurrection, financed by Qatar, the corrupt oil sheikdom where women still live like slaves, started in Benghazi. But France’s erratic Nicholas Sarkozy, facing pressure from a resurgent Right wing party led by Marine Le Pen, saw an opportunity to become relevant again. A “victory” against Libya’s Muammar al-Quathafi would boost his fortunes at home.

He would be in the global limelight as the most vocal and hawkish member –“bombard,” “bombard,” “bombard,”– in a Troika that would include Obama and Britain’s David Cameron.

Even then, polls in France indicate that Sarkozy’s final political chapter has been written.

Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton also forced Obama’s hands on the war; a disastrous outcome would have tarnished the president and, combined with low poll ratings as the economy slipped, maybe opened the door for a Hillary insurgency. The Clintons are some of the best political chess players, after all.

The outcome in Libya has been disastrous but not “good enough” for Hillary Clinton. The U.S. helped install in command of Tripoli, a former al-Qaeda fighter, Abdel Hakim Belhaj. His rivals for power are other so-called “revolutionaries” –as The New York Times refers to them– multiple ragtag undisciplined militias, from the Western mountains of Libya, from Misurata, and from Benghazi. (This is what’s called journalistic dishonesty by The New York Times; “revolutionaries” when in fact Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the chairman of the so-called National Transition Council (NTC), that exists only on paper, was until January 2011 Minister of Justice in al-Quathafi’s government? But you wouldn’t know this if you trusted the Times for all your news.)

According to accounts in The Wall Street Journal, these New York Times’ “revolutionaries” have already started to turn their knives at each other; and they will do even more so, if and when, they seize Bani Walid and Surte, cities still loyal to al-Quathafi.

In the meantime, the “revolutionaries” who just happen to fly the flag of the deposed monarchy, ethnically-cleansed Black Libyans from Misurata and the city of Tawargha. After ethnically cleansing the towns, The Times‘ “revolutionaries” scribbled the words “slaves” and “negros” on the burned down homes of the Black Libyans. The Obama Administration, the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, NATO, and the editorial pages of The New York Times have not yet said
a thing about these war crimes; for that is what ethic cleansing is.

Apparently ethnic cleansing is not a war crime if the victims are Black and the alleged perpetrators are endorsed and backed by the West.

The African Union (AU) had offered a peace plan that included a ceasefire, creation of a constitution, and democratic elections open to all Libyans. The plan was rejected by Obama, Clinton, Sarkozy and Cameron. One must wish the best for Libyans, but the writings on the wall aren’t good. Progressives must make it impossible for the U.S. to be dragged into Imperial wars by faded colonial countries like France and Britain.

In the famous words of Colin Powell: If you break it, you own it. Libya now resembles Afghanistan. The Obama Administration owns it.

4) The Republicans had a clear strategy for reclaiming the White House. Object to the creation of new jobs, while European economies also teeter and drags down the U.S.; Republicans pray that unemployment hits 10%. Most Democratic lawmakers had resigned themselves to that reality. They didn’t know how to oppose the Republicans. They had been bullied into submission by the few dozen people who showed up to the healthcare reform Town Hall meetings with rifles and shotguns calling themselves “The Tea Party.”

Enter “Occupy Wall Street.”

Suddenly, millions of Americans know that the U.S. is more than the Tea Party, the Republicans, and weak-kneed Democrats. There are millions of Americans who believe: it’s wrong for CEOs to make on average $11 million while average Americans make $33,000; it’s wrong for top managers to make almost 500 times more than average workers; it’s wrong for members of Congress to oppose healthcare as a right for all, while each and every one of them have the best healthcare coverage in the world; it’s wrong for people to lose their homes while those Wall Street bankers who allowed the economy to tank live in gated mansions in Connecticut; it’s wrong for Americans to sign up for the military purely due to poverty and be shipped to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the sons and daughters of the rich can vacation on tropical beaches during the summer; it’s wrong for Wall Street to refuse to bail out main street, and sit on $2.5 trillion in cash, when Wall Street was bailed out with main street’s dollars, and; it’s wrong to continue electing into office, race-baiters, racists, religious
bigots and homophobes simply because they are afforded access to corporate media coverage, including Rupert Murdoch’s FOX News.

Even at a time of widespread economic woes nationwide, U.S. corporations remain totally indifferent to the suffering of Americans; third quarter corporate profit is estimated at 13.5%, according to a report in today’s Wall Street Journal. Yet there’s no rush to create jobs. The Journal story also revealed that in the past 10 years, U.S. corporations have eliminated 2.9 million jobs in the U.S. while creating 2.4 million jobs overseas.

“Occupy Wall Street,” has shown Americans that there are enough people mad enough to want to change the status quo.

Participants must not be lured into confrontations with the police including by possible Republican plants and provocateurs.

5) So, even as some Republicans like Eric Cantor, and the extremist Herman Cain –if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich blame yourself”– attack participants on “Occupy Wall Street,” and even as many others wonder about what the demands are, “Occupy Wall Street,” should stick to a simple objective: No Jobs for Us, No Jobs for You.

Make sure to organize and send lawmaker who opposes job-creation measures home next year.

If the campaign gives birth to the American Progressive Party, then so be it.

No more business as usual.
 

[email protected]

“Speaking Truth To Empower.”

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