Town Hall Meeting

I have an account with them, and I will be closing it ASAP. I never use it, and so I don’t check the monthly statements often. I just checked them and they had been charging me $20 per month for the past 3 months! I haven’t made a single transaction with this account in almost a year. I called twice, and finally was told it was a glitch. They thought my account had gone under the minimum amount, but of course this was a mistake.

I had strong words for them, and they did fix the “glitch,” or so they told me. If I had stolen $60 from Bank of America, they would put me in jail. But they can steal from me and get away with it by saying its a glitch. How am I supposed to know it won’t happen again. I know one way, closing the account and moving my money to a credit union in my neighborhood!

A common sense idea is gaining steam to get your money out of those Wall Street, “too big to fail” banks, such as BofA, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase, and move them to your local bank. They are all FDIC insured up to $250k. Credit Unions are also a great thing to use and usually have higher interest rates for your cash savings. It’s a way of both punishing the banksters and making more money from whatever savings you may have.

Find a credit union near you here:
http://www.creditunion.coop/cu_locator/quickfind.php

The “Move Your Money” website with all the info:
http://moveyourmoney.info/

Tea Party Protests vs. G-20 Protests, do you think both are treated the same by law enforcement or covered by TV news in a similar manner? Once again, The Daily Show does a better job of reporting than all other TV news.

The passion is there for the public option in Los Angeles. Check out a couple pics here.

So as of today in the United States, foreclosure is a major issue. One article says that there were 2 million foreclosures in 2008 and could be up to 10 million in “the coming years.” While this article says that “19 million homes and apartments across the country – one in seven – are now sitting vacant as the foreclosure crisis takes its toll.” And 1.5 million foreclosures a year are due to medical costs (can we get single-payer instituted TODAY please!).

So a woman in Florida is one of many homeowners who have figured out a way to fight back — force the bank to prove that they own your mortgage and show you their paperwork. A huge part of this whole mortgage meltdown is due to the fact that banks could sell away your loan to others. This previously non-existent commodity would be known as “mortgage backed securities.” This insane idea was concocted in the 1980’s at the firm Salomon Brothers (now a part of the also infamous Citigroup) and is detailed in Michael Lewis’ great book “Liars Poker.”

Check out this article explaining the story and how it may work for you.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29242063/?gt1-42003

A group of folks at a dinner on New Year’s Eve in 2005 decided to “unplug from the matrix” and stop being a conspicuous consumer for one full year. This compact has gained a lot of traction because it not only does good for the community, but it also feels good to do things other than going to the mall. And saving a lot of money helps too! Check out one of the original newspaper reports here.

The basic rule is not to buy anything new for one year. They feel the current climate crisis and economic and socioeconomic crises are a result of out of whack consumerism. They have a blog, and a yahoo group.

Check out their original blog post from 2006: http://sfcompact.blogspot.com/2006/01/new-years-resolution.html

Here is the main picture on “The Compact” Yahoo Group web page, it explains it all…

It is about 5:30pm PST, and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich took to the floor of the House of Representatives to present 35 Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush. The House session is being televised live on C-SPAN. Check it out on your TV or watch it online here: http://www.c-span.org/

For those who may think that impeachment isn’t worth it since he will be out of office anyway in 5 months (ahem, Speaker Pelosi), I say that this is a very important thing to do, even if it comes AFTER he is out of office. The reason is we must prosecute Presidents that abuse their power in order to prevent future ones from trying to do it too. Whether it’s Obama or McCain, they will look and say “hey if Bush can break the law without consequences, why can’t I do it too?” And when it comes to Bush, he didn’t just break any law, he broke extremely serious ones like the ultimate crime of aggression by invading another country that did not attack it.

Same thing, different day. Go here for the pictures. The turnout was much smaller this year than the 4 year anniversary. I’d say 5,000 people showed up this time. It could be due to the news no longer covering the war. Apparently “only” around 30 civilians have been killed there per day in the past few months. What progress! Let’s just forget about it and talk about election politics instead, that’s much more important apparently. It’s heartbreaking to think we have more troops in Iraq than at any time during this war, yet news coverage is so minimal. I suppose it could also have to do with the fact that more journalists have died in this war than in any other war.

Another mass protest in Los Angeles, one of many around America this weekend. Here are some pictures. The war is 4 1/2 years old now. It is unbelievable how the reasons for the war were all completely proven false, yet the war goes on. WTF! I estimate the crowd at around 7500.

Another group of major protests are planned for October 27. Most are sponsored by the A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition, and you can view the locations here. Or go to our demonstrations page to see where else demonstrations may be happening. Please go. If you have never been to a peace protest before, then I encourage you to go even more, you won’t regret it.

Sign the Senate petition showing your disdain for this decision by President Bush.

http://www.dscc.org/makeadifference/petitions/20070702_libby.htm

Thanks Topy for the link!

I estimate about 20,000 showed up yesterday in Los Angeles to speak up for an end to the Iraq war and occupation. Check out the pictures here. Unfortunately, the local government no longer makes estimates, so we don’t really know, and the news media won’t pick up the duty. I made sure to get a sampling of the media coverage, so I watched the national NBC news and the local CBS news. Neither one covered the voices of the protesters for more than 10 seconds, and BOTH made sure to mention counter protesters. I was at the LA protest, and we outnumbered the counter protesters approx. 20,000 to 4. It is so sad that we can participate in such a huge showing of solidarity, but our voices are suppressed. When we behave peacefully, they don’t air our voices and they give us a few seconds of coverage. What do we have to do to be heard?!? This reminds me of the quote from John F. Kennedy, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”

It is very inspiring to see so many turnout here, and this wasn’t even the main protest, that was at the Pentagon.

This is a great story about giving a much needed water buffalo to a poor family in China. The amazing part is how this can be done so cheaply for the typical American yet it is so life changing for this family. Its an inspiring story. Check out the video by clicking the link below, it is only about 7 minutes.

http://www.thompsonjazz.com/movies/waterbuffalo/

Thanks Quinn for the link!

Surge the twins, George W. Bush! When will you listen: we reject your manifest destiny for capitalism. Click on the picture below for some images of the protest.

This picture is of a sign on the corner across from the protest. I am amazed at just how much Americans yearn for and idolize power and wealth. I don’t claim to be immune myself, but while protesting war and staring at this sign I have to ask, is there any virtue in wealth and power?

1. Torture
2. Held prisoner without a trial
3. No access to lawyers
4. No right to hear the charges (if any) against them
5. Taken prisoner without charges

Go to shutitdown.org to show your leaders you want the Guantanamo Bay prison center shut down immediately.

Working For Change has sent out an email asking people to email their phone company if you disagree with the NSA spying program and are not happy with paying a company for this kind of phone service. Here are the links:

* Contact AT&T: www.consumer.att.com/contact?source=body
* Contact Verizon: www22.verizon.com/CustomerSupport/ContactUs/
* Contact BellSouth: www.bellsouth.com/contactus/index.html

If you need any more motivation other than just being angry, I truly believe that direct action against a corporation is more effective than asking a politician to do it for you!

I marched in the Los Angeles protest on Saturday to mark the 3rd anniversary of the Iraq invasion by U.S. led troops. The turnout was once again great, I would say around 5,000-7,000 people came to represent. You can see my pictures here. This march was another sign of hope that we are not alone and in fact huge numbers of us want peace and justice. Los Angeles is such a huge, disconnected place with no open spaces and to see such a huge group gather like this for the 3rd time in a year is very promising.

The anniversary of the invasion of Iraq is coming up again. There will be mass protests all around. Demonstrate your disgust for militarism, greed, nepotism, cronyism, or just go out and meet a bunch of fellow peaceful citizens. Try a google search to find a protest near you, or any of the following links:

www.internationalanswer.org
www.unitedforpeace.org
www.campusantiwar.net
www.warresisters.org

If you are concerned about all the illegal actions taken by the Bush Administration, and would like to see them held accountable, Congressman John Conyers is there to help. He has a website made for getting organized to investigate the President and to censure Bush and Cheney.

These are his words from the website:

“I have taken steps to begin the inquiry into possible impeachable offenses by the Bush Administration, and have called for censure of the President and the Vice President. Now I am asking for your help to stand with me in fighting for accountability.”

This web site makes it simple to find places in your community that are looking for volunteers. Just enter your zip code and you will get a list of organizations looking for people near you. www.volunteermatch.org.