COMPLETE CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM (CCFR)! This is the root cause of most of our problems. If we publicly funded our elections and outlawed campaign contributions we could get politicians that look to US for re-election instead of the Fat Cats that currently OWN OUR POLITICIANS!!!

don't respond to us. Occupy was a strong and capable movement, but the politicians just sent the police to end it. They never responded to the very serious problems that were raised by the Occupiers -- like irresponsible and even criminal banking practices that were not reformed or in appropriate cases prosecuted and that hurt millions of Americans.

The number of people who participated in these protests are much greater than occupy.

Also occupy started with an abstract idea of doing something about income inequality.


This protest started around a concrete idea. Opposition to public transportation fares.

For a prostest movement to work you need a concrete objective. E.G. suffrage for women, ending Jim Crow etc.

It was written by Theodore White, a journalist who was in China off and on mostly on between 1939 and 1945. He describes the Communist Chinese and how they gained the trust and support of the Chinese people. It is quite interesting. Our government should be very careful. It is making some of the mistakes that Chiang Kai Shek made. It is ignoring the needs of the people and of the lower ranks of the military and rewarding those who work for the bureaucracy including private contractors and heads of industry and finance. Big mistake. Occupy was a warning. The government should not fool itself into complacency about the issues that the Occupy movement raised. Nor should it think that the Occupy movement has disappeared. I am far too old to be part of that movement really. But the secret of the Communist Chinese was that they stayed close to the people, understood them and were there when the Chiang Kai Shek government fell apart. It isn't always a matter of being an effective movement. It can sometimes be a matter of being a compassionate and trustworthy alternative.

I recommend the book.

http://www.amazon.com/In-Search-History-Personal-Adventure/dp/0060145994

Brazil protests: 'A country built on colonisation and slavery is breaking its chains and increasing democratic participation'
21 Jun 2013 15:25

Brazilian student Andy Love, has lived in the UK for the last five years and studies journalism at Cardiff University. Here he discusses the protests that are gripping his home country, where more than a million people have taken to the streets in demonstrations over transport costs, corruption, and the cost of 2014's football World Cup


It has been a long time coming for the “Brazil Uprising”.The UK media has been picking up on the protests recently, but there is so much information missing, and I hope I can try to illuminate some of this.I left Sao Paulo due to its lack of opportunities, and moved abroad to pursue my dreams of studying journalism.

Whilst most people see Brazil as a country of “Carnaval”, beaches and beautiful people, the truth is quite different from the postcard image.Is it really surprising that people took to the streets when the government still has to address the dire management of public education, security and healthcare?We are still a third world country with a huge class divide; of course people are unhappy with the World Cup spending.

~snip~
There have been reports of TV news changing sides after interruptions, the police throwing out of date tear gas at protesters, and even a video of a police officer breaking the window of his own car to blame protesters. Giuliana Vallone, a reporter for one of the biggest Brazilian newspapers was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet - all very shocking events that people could follow on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

~snip~
The media's focus on violence is puzzling, because it undermines the protest's message for the “spectacle”, but these are passionate people taking the streets to remind the government that they are in charge in a democracy. The fare increase has been stopped, but demonstrations continue across the country.

~snip~
It is hard to say where it is going now, but I can only hope that the cause has not been lost to an opportunistic political attack from the right wing on the verge of elections.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/news-opinion/brazil-protests-a-country-built-4696843

June 20, 2013
The Sleeping Giant Has Awoken

Rocking São Paulo
by BRENDAN LEVY

São Paulo.

Last Thursday, June 13th, I was crossing a bridge on foot in the center of São Paulo with my wife after doing some shopping when the military police stopped us and asked us to open our bags. “What do you have in here? Are there any rocks?” One of the policemen examined a plastic bottle of sparkling water and sniffed the contents before returning it to my wife. When they’d finished, we continued on to the Municipal Theater, the meeting point for the next round of protests that had been rocking the city.

I’d always heard that Brazilians were unusually passive when it comes to politics. My friends lament that theirs is a country where soccer and carnival reign and education languishes. There is a sense that once elected, politicians are indifferent to the demands of the public, irresponsible with their money and unaccountable for their actions.

Paulo Maluf, a former mayor of São Paulo (the largest city in Latin America) and governor of São Paulo (state), wanted by Interpol for conspiracy to commit grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property, is currently serving as a federal deputy (an elected representative to the lower chamber of congress). Fernando Collor de Mello, a former president of Brazil who had resigned and was subsequently impeached on corruption charges and banned from politics for eight years, is currently serving as a senator from the Northeastern state of Alagoas. The Federation of State Industries of São Paulo, estimates that about 25 billion dollars (US) are embezzled from government coffers every year. Another São Paulo federal deputy, Marco Feliciano, who has made disparaging comments against Africans, gays and women, is the recently elected president of the lower chamber’s Commission on Human Rights and Minorities.

~snip~
This past week I’ve heard many people say that they feel proud to be Brazilians for the first time in their lives. But the big question is what comes next. As groups jockey to take control of the movement, proposed protests have included everything from preventing the constitutional amendment, PEC 37, which would make the police the only organ allowed to investigate crime, and Deputy Feliciano’s Commission on Human Rights’ recently approved proposal that would allow psychologists to treat homosexuality, to vaguer anti-corruption movements, to the impeachment of the governor or the president or even in a few extreme cases, calls for a return to the military dictatorship. The sleeping giant has awoken. It remains to be seen where its wrath will be directed now.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/20/rocking-sao-paulo/