In 2010, in an attempt to insult the students (and their families) that it has recently indebted for decades, Syracuse University invited Jamie Dimon to deliver the commencement speech. His speech, which you can read here, was a moralistic lecture in which he instructed everyone on how to hold themselves accountable:

I am honored to be here today, but I also know that some of your fellow students have raised questions about me being your commencement speaker. When I heard about these protests, I wanted to understand what was behind them, so I called one of the students leading that movement, and we had a good conversation – I’m sure she’s here somewhere. I heard her concerns about me, the nation’s banking system and about capitalism itself. Some I thought were legitimate, others I disagreed with. But whether I agree with her or not, I say “good for her;” I’m proud of her for speaking up. In fact, it is completely appropriate to hold me accountable for those things I am responsible for. We all should be held accountable. But what does it mean to hold someone accountable, and how do you make yourself accountable? Today I will talk about what it takes to be accountable, in the hope that it might be valuable to you in years to come.

He then goes on to tell how courageous he was during the banking crisis for doing the difficult but right things when so many others didn’t have the backbone.

Here he is describing how scared his kids were after he lost one of his executive jobs. But don’t worry, he told them they can still have everything!

My youngest daughter—she’s here today—, she was eight at the time, she has not graduated yet, that’s next year —asked, “Dad, will we still keep our house, will we have to live in the street?” and I said “Of course not, darling.” My middle daughter, who always looked forward to going to college, asked “Dad, will I still be able to go to college?” and I said “Of course, sweetheart.”

See, he understands what it’s like to lose your job and how scary it is.

The guy is a real piece of work. It’s nice to see the media turn on him slightly as he becomes the poster child of Wall St. corruption and the reason why we need to regulate finance.

Turns out Kodak had a nuclear reactor. As if that wasn’t troubling enough, no one seems to have know that they had it or the weapons-grade uranium it produced.

Kodak may be going under, but apparently they could have started their own nuclear war if they wanted, just six years ago. Down in a basement in Rochester, NY, they had a nuclear reactor loaded with 3.5 pounds of enriched uranium—the same kind they use in atomic warheads.

But why did Kodak have a hidden nuclear reactor loaded with weapons-grade uranium? And how did they get permission to own it, let alone install it in a basement in the middle of a densely populated city?

Nobody really knows. Kodak officials now admit that they never made any public announcement about it. In fact, nobody in the city—officials, police or firemen—or in the state of New York or anywhere else knew about it until it was recently leaked by an ex-employee. Its existence and whereabouts were purposely kept vague and only a few engineers and Federal employees really knew about the project.

When I think about the future of 3D printing/nano-tech I wonder how we will prevent things like this from happening on a routine basis. When any corporation, small group or individual can produce weapons of mass destruction how will anyone else know about it? Could we prevent it or regulate it in some way? And if we could what form would that regulation take? The “war on drugs” is impossible and stupid and is already leading to the militarization of police and an overall drift towards a police state. Now imagine a war on uranium when it’s as easy to get as a pirated mp3. Is there some way to regulate this future that doesn’t turn into a something similar to a fascist state?

It’s hard to underestimate the important psychological force that comes from the President of the United States, for the first time in history, recognizing the right of same sex couples to marry.

David Graeber from Naked Capitalism:

Arbitrary violence is nothing new. The apparently systematic use of sexual assault against women protestors is new. I’m not aware of any reports of police intentionally grabbing women’s breasts before March 17, but on March 17 there were numerous reported cases, and in later nightly evictions from Union Square, the practice became so systematic that at least one woman told me her breasts were grabbed by five different police officers on a single night (in one case, while another one was blowing kisses.) The tactic appeared so abruptly, is so obviously a violation of any sort of police protocol or standard of legality, that it is hard to imagine it is anything but an intentional policy.

For obvious reasons, most of the women who have been victims of such assaults have been hesitant to come forward. Suing the city is a miserable and time-consuming task and if a woman brings any charge involving sexual misconduct, they can expect to have their own history and reputations—no matter how obviously irrelevant—raked over the coals, usually causing immense damage to their personal and professional life. The threat of doing so operates as a very effective form of intimidation. One exception is Cecily McMillan, who was not only groped but suffered a broken rib and seizures during her arrest on March 17, and held incommunicado, denied constant requests to see her lawyer, for over 24 hours thereafter. Shortly after release from the hospital she appeared on Democracy Now! And showed part of a handprint, replete with scratch-marks, that police had left directly over her right breast. (She is currently pursuing civil charges against the police department)

For many, the thought of police officials ordering or condoning sexual assault—even if just through a nod or a wink—seems so shocking that absolute proof would be required. But is it really so out of character? As Naomi Wolf has recently reminded us, the US security apparatus has long “used sexual humiliation as a tool of control.” Any experienced activist is aware of the delight police officers so often take in explaining just how certainly they will be raped if placed in prison. Strip searches—which the Supreme Court has recently ruled can be deployed against any citizen held for so much as a traffic violation—are often deployed as a tool of humiliation and punishment. And one need hardly remark on well-documented practices at Guantanamo, Bagram, or Abu Ghraib. Why target women in particular? No doubt it’s partly simply the logic of the bully, to brutalize those you think are weak, and more easily traumatized. But another reason is, almost certainly, the hope of provoking violent reactions on the part of male protestors. I myself well remember a police tactic I observed more than once during the World Economic Forum demonstrations in New York in 2002: a plainclothes officer would tackle a young female marcher, without announcing of who they were, and when one or two men would gallantly try to come to her assistance, uniforms would rush in and arrest them for “assaulting an officer.” The logic makes perfect sense to someone with military background. Soldiers who oppose allowing a combat role for women almost invariably say they do so not because they are afraid women would not behave effectively in battle, but because they are afraid men would not behave effectively in battle if women were present—that is, that they would become so obsessed with the possibility of women in their unit being captured and sexually assaulted that they would behave irrationally. If the police were trying to provoke a violent reaction on the part of studiously non-violent protestors, as a way of justifying even greater brutality and felony charges, this would clearly be the most effective means of doing so.

There’s a good deal of anecdotal evidence that would tend to confirm that this is exactly what they are trying to do. One of the most peculiar incidents took place on a recent march in New York where police seem to have simulated such an assault, arresting a young women who most activists later concluded was probably an undercover officer (no one had seen her before or has seen her since), then ostentatiously groping her as she was handcuffed. Reportedly, several male protestors had to physically restrained (by other protestors) from charging in to help her.

Why is all this not a national story? Back in September, when the now famous Tony Bologna arbitrarily maced several young women engaged in peaceful protest, the event became a national news story. In March, even while we were still hearing heated debates over a single incident of window-breaking that may or may not have been by an OWS activist in Oakland four months earlier, no one seems to have paid any significant attention to the first major incident of window-breaking in New York—even though the window was broken, by police, apparently, using a non-violent protestors’ head!

I suspect one reason so many shy away from confronting the obvious is because it raises extremely troubling questions about the role of police in American society. Most middle class Americans see the primary role of police as maintaining public order and safety. Instances when police are clearly trying to foment violence and disorder for political purposes so fly in the face of everything we have been taught that our instinct is to tell ourselves it isn’t happening: there must have been some provocation, or else, it must have just been individual rogue cops. Certainly not something ordered by the highest echelons. But here we have to remember the police are an extremely top-down, centralized organization. Uniformed officers simply cannot behave in ways that flagrantly defy the law, in full public view, on an ongoing basis, without having at least tacit approval from those above.

In this case, we also know precisely who those superiors are. The commander of the First Precinct, successor to the disgraced Tony Bologna, is Captain Edward J. Winski, whose officers patrol the Financial District (that is, when those very same officers are not being paid directly by Wall Street firms to provide security, which they regularly do, replete with badges, uniforms, and weapons). Winski often personally directs groups of police attacking protestors:

Winsky’s superior is Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, former director of global security of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns:

And Kelly’s superior, in turn, is Mayor Michael Bloomberg – the well-known former investment banker and Wall Street magnate. The 11th richest man in America, he has referred to the New York City Police Department as his own personal army:

One of the great themes of Occupy Wall Street, of course, is the death of US democracy—the near-total capture of our political system by Wall Street firms and the financial power of the 1%. In the beginning the emphasis was on political corruption, the fact that both parties so beholden to the demands of Wall Street and corporate lobbyists that working within the political system to change anything has become simply meaningless. Recent events have demonstrated just how much deeper the power of money really goes. It is not just the political class. It is the very structure of American government, starting with the law and those who are sworn to enforce it—police officers who, as even this brief illustration makes clear, are directly in the pay of and under the orders of Wall Street executives, and who, as a result, are willing to systematically violate their oaths to protect the public when members of that public have the temerity to make a public issue out of exactly these kind of arrangements.

As Gandhi revealed, non-violent protest is effective above all because it reveals how power really operates: it lays bare the violence it is willing to unleash on even the most peaceful citizens when they dare to challenge its moral legitimacy. And by doing so, it reveals the true moral bankruptcy of those who claim authority to rule us. Occupy Wall Street has demonstrated this time and time again. What the current spate of assaults shows is just how low, to what levels of utter moral degradation, such men are really willing to sink.

Our Bookshelf is a great project that is worth your support. I just pitched in a modest pittance.

And my confidence is unshakable, that if a single Satyagrahi holds out to the end, victory is absolutely certain.
-Gandhi, Satyagraha in South Africa

 

Over on BagNews Notes (which together with Sociological Images is the best place to practice seeing what you’re looking at) we were looking at the Romney campaign’s horrible logo design.

Based on the Bag post I worked up that I’m hoping will catch on. I fussed around and hoped to morph the R into a $ but it didn’t look very good so I’ll have to leave that to better giffers than me.

 

 

 

Above is a brief “ad” that we’ve made promoting our Public Praxis class for the coming spring semester. Besides having all kinds of interesting projects that we want to pursue, to me the most exciting aspect is trying to create a class that will hopefully gain recognition and support within the library world without teaching it through the university.

Low has a new album out. It took me a couple days to warm up to it, but now it feels like I’m 14 years old and in a Minnesota snowstorm. And hey, look at this, John Stamos is in the video (the payoff comes at the end).

This just fills me with such joy to see him come out and support OWS. If we can establish a camp at Trinity the NYPD and Mayor 1% won’t be able to do anything to stop us, although I’m sure they’ll get creative. From here.

Sisters and Brothers, I greet you in the Name of Our Lord and in the bonds of common friendship and struggle from my homeland of South Africa. I know of your own challenges and of this appeal to Trinity Church for the shelter of a new home and I am with you! May God bless this appeal of yours and may the good people of that noble parish heed your plea, if not for ease of access, then at least for a stay on any violence or arrests.

Yours is a voice for the world not just the neighborhood of Duarte Park. Injustice, unfairness, and the strangle hold of greed which has beset humanity in our times must be answered with a resounding, “No!” You are that answer. I write this to you not many miles away from the houses of the poor in my country. It pains me despite all the progress we have made. You see, the heartbeat of what you are asking for–that those who have too much must wake up to the cries of their brothers and sisters who have so little–beats in me and all South Africans who believe in justice.

Trinity Church is an esteemed and valued old friend of mine; from the earliest days when I was a young Deacon. Theirs was the consistent and supportive voice I heard when no one else supported me or our beloved brother Nelson Mandela. That is why it is especially painful for me to hear of the impasse you are experiencing with the parish. I appeal to them to find a way to help you. I appeal to them to embrace the higher calling of Our Lord Jesus Christ–which they live so well in all other ways–but now to do so in this instance…can we not rearrange our affairs for justice sake? Just as history watched as South Africa was reborn in promise and fairness so it is watching you now.

In closing, be assured of my thoughts and prayers, they are with you at this very hour.

God bless you,

+Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town