Today, I saw a MASSIVE signal that the OWS movement is inspiring those who work within the system to grow a backbone and actually do something.

Today, a NY Judge, Jed Rakoff, threw out a proposed settlement between Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission (The SEC, if you need a refresher, is in charge of enforcing federal securities law and regulating the securities industry).

The settlement was for $285 million, over a case where Citi allegedly bundled up some crappy mortgage-backed securities, sold them off the investors, and then simultaneously shorted (i.e. bet against) the same securities. Citi made $160 million off the deal, and investors lost $700 million.

Settling would have allowed Citi group to avoid having to admit any guilt at all. All the SEC charged them with was “negligence.” They did NOT charge them with “scienter” which is legal-speak for fraudulent intent. This is despite the SEC having referred to Citigroup in a memo as a recidivist (a habitual criminal). Judge Rakoff states in the ruling: “By the S.E.C.’s own account, Citigroup is a recidivist, SEC Mem. at 21.”

Settling also would have allowed Citi to avoid going to court, where the case would be argued out in public and put before a jury, and should they lose, they could be subject to FAR more in fines than the $285 million they were trying to settle for.

Essentially, the SEC was offering Citi a slap on the wrist. Usually, judges just rubber-stamp these settlements.

But not this time. This time, Judge Rakoff threw out the settlement, insisting it must go to trial. His ruling is really a smack-down of both Citigroup and the SEC. He doesn’t really pull any punches.

Here are a few choice quotes (emphasis mine):

“An application of judicial power that does not rest on facts is worse than mindless, it is inherently dangerous. The injunctive power of the judiciary is not a free-roving remedy to be invoked at the whim of a regulatory agency, even with the consent of the regulated. If its deployment does not rest on facts — cold, hard, solid facts, established either by admissions of by trials — it serves no lawful or moral purpose and is simply an engine of oppression.”

Another choice part of the ruling:

“Finally, in any case like this that touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives, there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth. In much of the world, propaganda reigns, and truth is confined to secretive, fearful whispers. Even in our nation, apologists for suppressing or obscuring the truth may always be found. But the S.E.C., of all agencies, has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges; and if it fails to do so, this Court must not, in the name of deference or convenience, grant judicial enforcement to the agency’s contrivances.”

The full ruling is here, and really worth a read:
http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/cases/show.php?db=special&id=138

This is one of the strongest signs yet, in my opinion, that not only is the world watching, but our movement is holding the powers that be accountable, and our allies are all emboldened by everything we do. Now, to be fair to Judge Rakoff, he’s expressed doubt over these settlements in the past:

He “reluctantly” approved a $150 million settlement between Bank of America and the SEC last year, after calling the deal “half-baked justice at best.”

But today he seems to be willing to go further than he has before.

The broader implications of this was summed up quite nicely by Adam Sorensen in Time:

Monday’s decision could have implications beyond Citibank. Settling out of court with no admission of wrongdoing has frequently been the SEC’s modus operandi in cases like this. If political momentum built in the wake of Rakoff’s ruling and other judges picked up his banner, Wall Street could face a level of scrutiny it has so far avoided.

Pat yourself on the back today, Occupy Wall Street. The world is starting to change.

I have been busy. I have been actively involved with the Occupy Wall Street protests, in a number of Caucus and Movement groups (including Occupy the SEC which is a part of the Alternative Banking group). I’m long overdue to post to tell you about how I feel like a lawyer these days as I comb through The Volcker Rule text looking for loopholes the banks will use.

But today, I march in solidarity with my fellow protestors at Foley Square at 5pm in New York City. If you are in NY, I urge you to come out. I know many of my friends have been wary to join in. They question the efficacy, they question the tactics, they question the point.

The point is simple: unlimited campaign donations by corporations is free speech, per the Citizens United Supreme Court Case. But tents in a park is not free speech. Instead, it requires a military-style show of force at a time when our city is ostensibly unable to afford anything. And now I am hearing that Brookfield Properties who owns the park is not even allowing signs into the park. Free speech, indeed?

Here is an excellent video of the scene at the night of the eviction, set to Frank Sinatra:

I used to work on Wall Street, so I do think I have a sense of what is good and what is bad (and what is egregious) there. I do think that marching on the NYSE is not the best strategic move. The NYSE is a public, transparent exchange where listed products trade. This is not a warehouse of opaque CDOs that trade Over-the-counter in numbers no one knows and, per the 2000 “Commodity Futures Modernization Act” no one could regulate.

But the movement overall has shone a light on a fact Wall Street wished we’d simply forget: that they are not playing by “free market” rules, though they expect us to.

Yves Smith of the excellent blog Naked Capitalism put it best here:

I lost all sympathy with the executives and producers of major banks in 2009. Here, after having gotten massive, hugely visible rescues, and continuing support in the way of super low interest rates (a massive transfer from savers), they did not do the right thing, which was to lay low for a couple of years, cut pay, and rebuild their balance sheets. Instead, banks fell all over themselves to repay the TARP simply to escape its think restrictions on executive pay, and Wall Street bonuses in 2009 and 2010 exceeded the 2007 record.

As we’ve argued, banks, particularly in this era of extraordinary support (rock bottom interest rates, regulatory forbearance, underpriced insurance schemes) enjoy far more government support than any other industry, including defense contractors. They can’t properly be considered to be private companies. They are utilities and need to be regulated as such. And if they won’t rein in pay levels on their own, it should include restrictions on pay.

And so, today at 5pm I will march on Foley Square. If you have been on the sidelines up until now, come join us today. Come see what we are up against. And come feel your heart soar, as mine has, as you stand side-by-side with a community of people who are finally getting out from behind their laptops and into the streets to make lasting change that’s been so long overdue.

JPM xoxo NYPD

Well, it just so happens that JP Morgan invested significantly in a fund with a $400 million share of twitter back in March of this year. While at the time I’m sure they just thought it made good business sense, what it may well mean now is that they have say over one of the primary mediums the Occupy Wall St movement is using to get the word out.

More chilling is the $4.6 million donation that JP Morgan has recently given to the NYPD’s New York Police Foundation. Here it is emblazoned proudly on JPM’s corporate site.

In my mind, there are two possible interpretations here. The first is this is an attempt at suppression from multiple levels: communication and law. If you control the medium, you control the message. If you control the enforcers, you can supplant the law.

Another interpretation? That Chris Hedges was right. That JP Morgan is running scared.

Hedges recently gave a lengthy interview at Occupy Wall Street (which was so good I stayed up until 4am last night watching every part of it. He is so articulate and moving that I think my brain exploded a little listening to him), and one of the things he said is relevant here:

The real people who are scared are the power elite. Of course, they’re trying to make you scared and us scared. But I can tell you, having been a reporter for the New York Time, that on the inside, they’re very, very frightened. They do not want movements like this to grow.

Which interpretation is right? Perhaps both. We shall see.

Occupy Together

Um, should I be worried that KitKats cause cancer? Because Nestle just acquired a company, Prometheus Labs, that makes products to treat cancer and gastrointestinal illness. Uh, since this smells like vertical integration, I should be worried, shouldn’t I?

It Begins with a Story

In many ways, the most powerful thing we have is our stories.

In 2006, Majora Carter blew the roof off with her TED Talk on Greening the Ghetto. Why? She told a very small piece of her story, her truth as a Black woman in America. One of the stories she shared was what happened to her neighborhood, the South Bronx, from the time her father first bought their home in the late 1940s, to 2006. In 2006, the South Bronx was home to:

• 40% of New York’s solid waste despite having just 16% of the city’s population
• 100% of the Bronx’s waste facilities
• Two sewage-treatment plants
• Four power plants
• 60,000 trash trucks passing through every week
• One of the lowest ratios of parks to people in NYC: 0.5 acres per 1000 people

Carter asks, and answers, the important question: how did it get this way? She details, through the experience of her own family, the reality of many Black families in the 1940s: redlining.

Read more »

Leymah Gbowee, mother of six, began a journey that would lead to nothing short of a revolution when she was working as a a trauma counselor in Monrovia. The backdrop? Fourteen years of bloody war in Liberia, the death of 200,000 people, the displacement of 1 in 3 people in the country, and the regular use of rape as a weapon of war.

The Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace group, led with spirit and dynamism by Gbowee, stood outside in the fish market, united by simple white shirts and placards, in a place Charles Taylor drove by each day. What followed was two-and-a-half years of protest, led by women united across religions. Their motto? “Does the bullet know Christian from Muslim?” This movement finally brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003.

These are the facts. The passion, the fierceness of Gbowee though, is best seen in the film, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” which documents the movement and the monumental changes it managed to effect.
Read more »

“Best Of” lists for 2010 are usually disappointing. They are filled with people you already know, rehash stories you’ve already read. I wanted to compile a list of eleven people you may NOT have heard of, but deserve your attention in 2011.

These are voices that would do the world great good to hear, and yet are drowned out by those we watch instead: those who shock us with crassness, or comfort us by making the grooves of our biases deeper, or entertain us by playing to our fantasies of obscene wealth and escapism.

I have tried to curate a different kind of list. A list that will challenge your biases, expand your notions, ignite your curiosity and move you to TRY. I know none of them, but feel indebted to all of them.

Here is the full list. Links will follow as I write up individual blogs for each person.

1. Leymah Gbowee: How to Fight a Dictator, and Win
2. Jessica Lin and
3. Jessica Matthews and
4. Julia Silverman and
5. Hemali Thakkar: Kick a Ball, Light a Room. Four Women Engineers Set out to Make a Difference in Africa.
6. Majora Carter: What does Home(town) Security have to do with Storytelling?
7. Peter Greenway: The future of Art is the Painting. But Different.
8. Janette Sadik-Khan: What happens in NYC happens in the rest of the country 10 years later
9. Jeri Ellsworth: How many self-taught electrical engineers do YOU know?
10. Cassandra Lin: Are you doing more for the world than this seventh grader?
11. Bill Hammack: How do you teach science in a new media world?

I hope you enjoy the list. Compiling it has been a gift. I encourage you to make your own lists, and to share any people you think are helping make a better world in the comments.

via summer burkes

This endangered baby Kemp's Ridley turtle was brought in for treatment in early August 2010. She seemed to be in terrible pain, and died six hours later.

One of the things I learned at Burning Man, thanks to the Burners Without Borders camp, is that BP has been using two kinds of Corexit, a dispersant that is BANNED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, to dissolve the oil in the Gulf.

So not only is British Petroleum fucking up the Gulf, they are fucking it up some more with chemicals they’d never use back home.

Why?  Well, the faster the oil “dissolves,” the better PR for them and fewer fines.  Fuck the sea turtles!  Fuck the cleanup workers!

So where’s the media blitz in all this?  Well, Mother Jones has some AWESOME FUCKING COVERAGE.

Why, you might ask, was BP able to pump the Gulf full of chemicals that have never been tested for their human and environmental safety?

The answer lies, in part, in the Toxic Substances Control Act, the 34-year-old law that governs the use of tens of thousands of hazardous chemicals. Under the act, companies don’t have to prove that substances they release into the air or water are safe—or in most cases even reveal what’s in their products.
–BP’s Bad Breakup: How Toxic Is Corexit?

Read more »