Close Your Bank Account and Get Arrested!

After joining with Occupy Wall Street as they took Time Square [see my photos] last night, I woke up to THIS earlier event being featured on Chris Hayes' new MSNBC show, UP with Chris Hayes. It features members of the 99% being arrested for requesting to close their Citibank accounts, including one young woman who was dragged back into the bank by NYPD to be arrested. -- NOT so fine, New York's Finest! -- AFTER I found it on YouTube's nicadyme's channel, blogger extraordinaire Ms. ToniD at BlueRootsRadio.com posted a reference to it via blogger The Agonist (Sean Paul Kelley)'s excellent analysis. Good stuff all around, check it ALL out, starting with the video:

Said on the White House Contact Page - Taxes

Left on the White House Contact page, under policy issue - Taxes:

Extending the unfunded Bush tax cuts to the rich people who don't need it while talking about freezing middle class working people's wages is an OUTRAGE. We NEED the Middle Class. They did not cause the economic crisis.

Listen to Dr. Howard Dean -- hear what he said on Rachel Maddow Monday night. Listen to the POLLS. People don't want to extend tax cuts past the first $250,000 in income.

We need a strong White House who tells the truth and sticks up for WE the PEOPLE rather than seeking to please Republicans who only want to please the rich and powerful and make YOU a one term president. Please stand up for the other 98%. Be Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We need FDR and stimulus to the REST of us.

Chris Hayes: Strategic Mortgage Defaults - contracts are for...

Great reporting from The Nation's Chris L. Hayes and reason for follow-up: Wealthy people strategically walk away from underwater mortgages [when a homeowner owes more than the place is worth] but big banks want to force the rest of us to sink or swim in deep water and pay up so they can make money on OUR backs. "Contracts are for 'little people'." (When Chris is there, I don't miss Rachel Maddow quite so much. He does great stuff!)

Wealth in America: the Hard Facts

"Wealth has become even more concentrated during the Bush years. Today, the richest one percent of Americans has 22 percent of all income and about 40 percent of all wealth. This is the biggest concentration of income and wealth since 1928. In 2005, average CEO pay was 369 times that of the average worker, compared with 131 times in 1993 and 36 times in 1976. At the pinnacle of America’s economic pyramid, the nation’s 400 billionaires own 1.25 trillion dollars in total net worth - the same amount as the 56 million American families at the bottom half of wealth distribution." MORE

Great and eye-opening statistics quoted by Peter Dreier in his essay Bush's Class Warfare posted at CommonDreams.org and at Huffington Post. Dreier refers to this To-Read book by Robert Kuttner: The Squandering of America.