Occupy Chapel Hill-The Occupation Begins

Couldn't resist. I hauled out the camera and went down to check out the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street protest in Chapel Hill on October 15th.


Not being in the mood to talk to the attendees right away, I sat on the wall of McCorkle Place across the street and just watched for a little while.  Others sitting on the wall were trying to figure out what one of the signs said. It said "Top 1% Y U no pay taxes??"  That sign was just a little ironic, and I said so. The top one percent pays very close to forty percent of the federal taxes. 

One of the young men sitting with me looking at the gathering crowd  was shocked by this idea and told me that I had it all wrong. He went on to explain that "the rich" get capital gains, and pay a very low rate on capital gains. And capital gains are not included in those figures, he said. But capital gains taxes are reported on the income tax return, and the IRS analyzes actual tax returns and tells us that the top one percent pay a full 38.02 percent of the federal income tax--including capital gains taxes. The same table shows that 69.94% of the federal income tax is attributable to the top ten percent of returns filed.  On the other hand, some 47 percent of people pay no federal income tax at all.


There is no denying that there is a "fair share" issue underlying the payment of  federal income tax. But to say the rich are not paying their fair share is disingenuous. 


The young man went on to speak of other "unfairness".  He works for National Geographic and is doing pretty well, but wants to go back to school and can't afford to do so. This, he explained is because our invasion of Iraq drove up the cost of college. Yes, I see your jaw dragging down. I could not figure that one out either.  People are making all kinds of very odd associations lately, as the left throws out ridiculous figures and tries to convince us that we need to be taken care of by their growing and lucrative government structure.


It was Game Day in Chapel Hill so the place was bustling so I got up and followed various groups who were talking about the protest. They all struggled to remember the name of the thing. One lady was telling her daughter that these are the same people who poop on the cop cars on Wall Street. Another man was disgusted with the entire thing.....said the protesters will only drive voters to the Republicans in November.


There were some pretty sophisticated posters plastered all over Franklin Street, on phone polls and on vacant store fronts. Some were in Spanish. When I finally got to the protest area and started to mingle, I saw a huge table of literature. All leftist stuff, would you believe? 


There was a general feeling that the people in the top one percent each got there through cheating, stealing, exploitation  and general unfairness. I listened to a self-described anarchist being interviewed. He said he doesn't guess that these people are going to willingly give up that money; therefore, the protesters are going to need to forcibly remove the assets from the top one percent. For some reason, the reporter did not ask the salient question: HOW?


It seemed like a nice bunch of people, but some of the signs were just incorrect and misleading, and the literature was pretty scary. Hearing the anarchist speak made me understand why they thought it necessary to post a phone number for legal help on their agenda.

I did not see any tents when I was there during the preliminaries. But the next day when I happened to drive by, I did spot about a dozen tents set up, and a group of people sitting in a circle. So this could go on for awhile. If so, I will try to post some more information about the OWS at the post office on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, NC. 



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OWS Publications

Here's what's on the Publications Table at Chapel Hill's OWS event as of  October 15, 2011




You can tell a lot about people by what they read. And by what they offer up for you to read. I took a picture of the literature table at the local occupy thing and then came home and looked some of this stuff up. If you dig into some of the links below, you might begin to see something of a pattern. 

The Unabomber Manifesto 
by Ted Kaczynski who who killed three people and injured a couple of dozen others through a mail bombing  campaign spanning some nearly 20 years. 


20 Years on the MOVE
MOVE "is a family of revolutionaries, of naturalist revolutionaries, founded in Philadelphia in the late sixties/early seventies, who oppose all that this system represents". -- Mumia Abu-Jamal"


Earth Liberation Front 


Rob Los Ricos Manufacturing Dissent


Antitecnologia
"We recommend you read these texts in the woods, where the fanzine and we belong."
http://www.antitecnologia.acracia.net/english/





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CBS Calls Obama Insane. In pictures.

Someone recently asked me to analyze what CBS was trying to tell us with a certain photo.


There is tremendous symbolism in this photo, where CBS put two men to the right of Obama and two men to the left. The network clearly persists in the delusion that Obama is some kind of a centrist! Notice how even though Obama is old enough to be needing glasses, he refuses to wear them. CBS is trying to tell us that Obama is not yet ready, even after the tsunami election, to see things clearly. One of each pair of the other men, however, IS wearing glasses, which means that no matter which house of the legislature Obama tries to work with, he can expect some problems seeing eye to eye.

The depicted group includes no women at all, which conveys to us that over at CBS it is still a man's world. Not only that, but CBS wants us to know that, from Obama's perspective, Cantor and Boehner stand on the left, while Schumer and Reid sitteth on the right hand. This language calls to mind the Apostle's Creed. CBS wants us to be thinking about religion. CBS has been bashful about criticizing Obama for sitting in Jeremiah Wright's church for twenty years and never listening to a single sermon. That shyness is over with the publishing of this daring photograph.


CBS depicts Obama as all mixed up in the head. The man is so far to the left of everyone else, that he can't even see which pair of men, might be more liberal than he is. And of course, none is, and none ever will be. CBS is starting to make a little sense now.

Only seven stars appear in the flag. This reflects an understanding that Obama will favor a very small number of states as he makes his plans about what to do going forward. Clearly one of these states will be California, which Obama will be wanting to bail out sooner rather than later.

I don't see anything else in this photo. I think it is pretty simple and obvious. Oh, except for the line down the middle of the President's face. CBS thinks he Barack Obama has developed a mental illness, perhaps schizophrenia. Things are seeming more and more ominous for the Obama/Media lovefest.

Social Justice in Our Public Schools

Wondering why your kid's teacher took all the new school supplies you painstakingly bought and labeled, and sent to school with your kid? And dumped them unceremoniously into a common bin? Social so-called "justice" has weaseled its way deep into your child's classroom, that is why.

Teachers are now being told that the “oppressive hegemony” of the capitalist social order replicates itself through the traditional practice of public schooling and that they must take it upon themselves to obliterate this oppressive system. They take it into science and math as well as elementary ed school supply procurement.

“Science pedagogy framed around social justice concerns can become a medium to transform individuals, schools, communities, the environment, and science itself, in ways that promote equity and social justice. Creating a science education that is transformative implies not only how science is a political activity but also the ways in which students might see and use science and science education in ways transformative of the institutional and interpersonal power structures that play a role in their lives.”

Find out much more at Discover the Networks.

This effort goes pretty deep. There is a math book which which depicts the United States as an evil nation rife with injustice and uses math problems drawn from examples of same. After they show the kids math concepts such as percentages, by using an income distribution chart, they ask the kids how they feel about those charts. Yep. They really truly are using your dollars to fund schools in order to teach this way.


Many of the education schools across the US are embracing the concept of social justice teaching and showing that they want new teachers to have the approved leftist “dispositions,” which will qualify them to teach in the public schools. They don't need to be good at teaching, mind you. They just need to show that they are willing to bring down the country.

The National Council on the Accreditation of Teacher Education, the chief accreditor of teacher-education schools, now monitors how well the schools comply with social justice requirements.

More here if you can stand it. It gets pretty ugly and a lot of it stems from terrorist Bill Ayers.

In the meantime, my advice would be not to send any school supplies to school with your child unless you have confirmation that the supplies will not be confiscated for the public good.
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