Occupy Wall Street: How it Will be Remembered

Presented by Epipheo

American Military: Cutting Increases in Spending

The American Government is in the process of trying to cut $450 billion in spending.


How much and what programs would you cut?
Good news the N.Y. Times is here to help with this interactive article

The Future Military: Your Budget Strategy

American Military Changing Strategy: Defense Strategic Review

President Obama started off the discussion on forward defensive strategy in the Pentagon today, something unprecedented. This came at a time when our government is looking to reduce costs everywhere.

It seems that while now may have been the time to rethink military strategy anyway (with the withdraw from Iraq and deescalation of Afghanistan) the budget debate has forced this transition to the political forefront.

• The Strategy Review has included the President for the first Time

Obama noted that while the projected military spending will decrease the overall military budget will continue to increase (just at a reduced rate).

The new military strategy going forward for the United States includes $478 billion in cuts over the next 10 years and will, in Panetta's words, cause "some level of additional but acceptable risk."

Leon Panetta, Defense Secretary and former Head of the CIA, followed up the president's somewhat political announcement with more detail.

"Four Over Arching Principles":

1. "We must maintain the world's finest military, one that supports and sustains the unique global leadership role of the United States"
2. "We must avoid hollowing out the force, a smaller, ready and well equipped military is much more preferable to a larger ill-prepared force that has been arbitrarily cut across the board.
3.  "Savings must be achieved in a balanced manor, everything must be on the table including politically sensitive areas that will likely provoke opposition from parts of the Congress, from Industry, and from advocacy groups. That is the nature of making hard choices."
4. "We must preserve the quality of the all voluntary force, and not break faith in our men and women in uniform or their families. 

-The US force: will

• maintain its capability across the board
• be smaller and it will be leaner but its greater strength is that it will be more flexible, more agile, ready to be deployed more quickly, innovative, and technologically advanced 

-The Emphasis will shift to the Broader Middle East and the Pacific


-The United States will expand its allies and partners and will invest in NATO

• more of a partnership role like that shown in Libya and Latin America
• emphasis on rotational deployments

-Must maintain its Capability to Confront several Conflicts at the Same Time

• requires greater flexibility to quickly deploy anywhere
• how we defeat the enemy will vary across conflicts
• as a global force our military will never just be responsible for one thing

-Build up the Defenses of our partners and our Allies to more effectively defend their own interests and territory

• better use of diplomacy, development, and security force assistance

-Upon the withdrawal from Iraq and the ongoing downsizing of operations in Afghanistan:

• The Army and Marine Corps will no longer need to be sized to support the kind of large scale long term stability operations that have dominated military priorities and forces over the past decade

-Protect and in some cases increase our Special Operation Forces

• increase new technologies: like ISR (Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and unmanned systems in space and in cyber space as well as the capacity to quickly mobilize if necessary

-Reversibility in Downsizing Ground Forces

• maintaining a healthy National Guard and Reserve
• maintaining experienced cadre of NCOs and mid-grade officers
• maintaining defense industrial base
• different from the Cold War, the post-cold war of the 1990s, and the forces of the last decade that was built to engage in large scale ground wars

This broad strategy will be the frame work in evaluating specific programs. In some cases we will devalue projects that are no longer deemed to be of high importance. But in other cases

"we invest in new capabilities maintain a decisive military edge against a growing array of threats."

There is no question that we have to will have to make some trade offs and that

 "we will be taking on some level of 

additional but acceptable risk."

We will consolidate our duplicative operations and will reduce waste. But budgetary reductions of this magnitude will inevitably effect the size and capabilities of our military.

Conclusion:

I believe that in many ways that we are at a crises point but that in every crises there is opportunity. Out of this crises we have the opportunity to end the old ways of doing business and to build a modern army for the 21st century that can win today's wars and successfully confront any enemy  and respond to any threat and any challenge for the future.

Occupy Wall Street 101

Read the latest from the Movement's Website

84 Year old activist pepper sprayed in Seattle.

Occupy Oakland: Raw Footage

Hollywood seems to surprisingly supportive of the growing concerns against Capitalism

Occupy Wall Street: Two Perspectives

The Fed is supporting Bank of America and its $75 trillion in derivatives bets. What this means is that one quarter of the world's wealth (not income but wealth) is now gambling on the financial market.


The Dark Night Rises will use the Occupy Wall Street protesters as Extras

And in the other perspective of the day comes from Hollywood. While Occupy Wall Street Protesters find themselves attempted to be shutdown by the civil authorities, movies like the third installment of the Batman trilogy, The Dark Night Rises, continue to be filmed.

Masked Protector of Gotham Has His Eye on Wall Street Protesters

Occupy Walls Street October 16: World Edition 950 protests in 80 countries

Occupy Wall Street protesters outside the Chase bank in New York's financial district. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

A protestor hurls a canister clashes in Rome during a demonstration against corporate greed and austerity measures. Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP

Tens of thousands of people take a part in a demostration in Puerta del Sol square in Madrid on Saturday, part of the global movement against corporate greeed. Photograph: Arturo Rodriguez/AP

The New York City Occupy Wall Street movement continues to spread, reaching the UK, Spain, and Italy. Live feed from Spanish Television or read more from the Guardian

“I stood my ground and said that we were within our rights,” Mr. Wilder said .

London: BBC Take 

“Occupy Yoido” may have an unfamiliar ring, but Yoido is the neighborhood in Seoul where South Korea’s biggest financial institutions are based.

In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated Video

More on Occupy Wall Street

Manifesto:

"Declaration of the Occupation of New York City THIS DOCUMENT WAS ACCEPTED BY THE NYC GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON SEPTEMBER 29, 2011 As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known. They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage. They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses. They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization. They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices. They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions. They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right. They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay. They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility. They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance. They have sold our privacy as a commodity. They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit. They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce. They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them. They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil. They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit. They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit. They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media. They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt. They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas. They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. * To the people of the world, We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power. Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone. To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal. Join us and make your voices heard! *These grievances are not all-inclusive."

Occupy Wall Street Continues

New York Times:

Anti-Wall Street Protests Spreading to Cities Large and Small

Occupy Wall Street Live:
http://occupywallst.org/