"According to Planned Parenthood, its centers performed more than 4 million breast exams over the past five years, including nearly 170,000 as a result of Komen grants."

Cutting funding for breast cancer exams is a despicable political move as a result of extreme Right Wing pressure on the foundation. All men and women who are interested in eradicating breast cancer should exert pressure on them to reverse this decision. Until they do, we are urging all of our friends to withhold support for the Susan G. Komen Race for a Cure Foundation.

Send SKG a message on any of their Facebook pages, like this one.

Twelve protesters were arrested Sunday night on a march through Lower Manhattan to show support for Occupy protesters in Oakland, where a violent confrontation erupted on Saturday night between the police and demonstrators who tried to take over an empty convention center.

The crowd in New York, about 300 strong, occasionally surged into streets, and on at least two occasions someone in the crowd threw a bottle, apparently aimed at police officers who accompanied the march on foot and in vehicles. The police plunged into the crowd several times.

Three men were charged with assault and one with criminal weapons possession, the police said. Most of the rest of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct. Three of the 12 people arrested were women. One officer sustained an injured finger.

About 400 people were arrested and three police officers were injured after a weekend protest by members of the Occupy movement in Oakland, Calif., turned into a violent confrontation with law enforcement officers that led to an assault on City Hall.

The clashes began about 3 p.m. on Saturday when protesters marched toward the vacant Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center and began to tear down construction barricades, and the violence extended into early Sunday. The Oakland Police Department said in a statement that the crowd was ordered to disperse after protesters "began destroying construction equipment and fencing."

'Officers were pelted with bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices and burning flares," the police statement said. Officers responded by firing smoke and tear gas canisters and beanbags, and they initially arrested 20 people.

Several hours later, some protesters broke into City Hall, the police said, although some of the demonstrators said they found the building's door ajar. Mayor Jean Quan surveyed the damage there on Sunday, and the city administrator, Deanna J. Santana, said at a news conference that the protesters had broken a window and damaged a historic model of the building. Flags were stolen, she said, and one of them was burned in front of City Hall.

Omar Yassin, 42, a member of the group's media committee, said the vandalism was "not something I would have done."

"But I do understand that people were enraged by the brutality that they had already seen," he said. "There were children in that crowd; there were families in that crowd."

And finally, OccupyWashingtonDC is getting ready to be evicted:

In the wake of a recent Congressional hearing on Occupy DC, misleading threats from Mayor Vince Gray about nonexistent "health" concerns in the park, and yesterday's taser attack that hospitalized a resident of the park, the National Park Service has given Occupiers in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza until 12:00 noon today until they will begin enforcing a no-camping ban. Occupy DC has begun preparing nonviolent resistance and is calling for all supporters to join them.

More here from the NY Times.

This is JANUARY! Imagine what the Spring will bring...

The movement continues...

The big question going into this election in November is why we allow these hedge fund and private equity owners to be taxed at the long-term capital gains rate. Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate to supposedly encourage long-term investment (defined as longer than one year) by individuals. The stated goal is to encourage long-term investing of our own money into investments like stocks and real estate. But these hedge-fund owners aren't investing their own money. They're investing other people's money (same with Bain Capital). So why are they receiving this lower rate?

Romney's tax returns will shine a light on this form of class warfare, where those making far less than Romney (like his secretary) pay a much higher tax rate. Billionaire Warren Buffett has repeatedly spoken about this inequity.

He said this today in South Carolina, when asked about his tax rate:

"It's probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything," Mr. Romney said. "Because my last 10 years, I've -- my income comes overwhelmingly from some investments made in the past, whether ordinary income or earned annually. I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away."

Mr. Romney added: "And then I get speaker's fees from time to time, but not very much."

Americans don't mind their candidates being rich (see Mike Bloomberg as mayor of New York City). What they hate are rich folks who pretend to not be rich (or to show how completely out of touch they are with ordinary folk). Is Mitt Romney so clueless as to think that a few hundred-thousand dollars made from speaking engagements is "not very much" money?

In fact, in the most recent year, Mr. Romney made $374,327.62 in speaker's fees, at an average of $41,592 per speech, according to his public financial disclosure reports.

At least he gave the money away (so he says).

Romney's real Achilles heel, though, is the 15% tax rate that he pays. This income inequality will play right into the Occupy Wall Street movement, the main goal of which is to reveal the huge income disparities that exist in this country.

The Republicans just might be committing harakiri by nominating such a rich, tone deaf man as Mitt Romney.

More than 500 people associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement gathered in Zuccotti Park on Saturday and, in a return to scenes from earlier in the year, the evening began with the sound of drumming and calls of the now familiar slogan, "We are the 99 percent" -- and it ended with torn-down barricades and a scuffle with police officers.

Just after 10:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve, officers carried a person out of the park, prompting protesters to follow behind them, shouting "Shame!" The reason the person was escorted away was unclear.

About 20 minutes later, a group of protesters grabbed some of the metal barricades that surround the park and began piling them inside. As they gripped the barricades, police officers took hold as well, and a shoving match began, the silver bars trapped in between. At least one police officer fired an arch of pepper spray into the crowd behind those barricades.

Moments later, at least a dozen police officers charged into the park, plowing directly into a crowd of people, some of whom were trying to flee, pushing and shoving. One man was thrown down and pinned to the ground by several officers.

2012 is going to be a very busy year for #OWS.

No one could have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in a public square, it would incite protests that would topple dictators and start a global wave of dissent. In 2011, protesters didn't just voice their complaints; they changed the world.

Witness these female protesters in Egypt brutalized by members of the SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces):

So disgusting.

Meanwhile, here in America, the #OWS protesters are going strong. Witness this short clip of a demonstration here in Lower Manhattan last night:

And make sure to follow Mona Eltahawy on Twitter. She's an Egyptian writer and activist who is in Egypt and was just detained for 12 hours. Her tweets are powerful.

After nearly nine years, some 4,500 American fatalities and about $1 trillion, America's war in Iraq is about to end. Officials marked the finish Thursday with a modest ceremony at the airport days before the last troops traverse the southern highway to Kuwait, going out as they came in, to conclude the United States' most ambitious and bloodiest military campaign since Vietnam.

Iraqis will be left with a country that is not exactly at war, and not exactly at peace. It has improved in many ways since the 2007 troop "surge," but it is still a shattered country marred by violence and political dysfunction, a land defined on sectarian lines whose future, for better or worse, is now in the hands of its people.

In the hands of a people who still want to kill each other:

There are still roughly a dozen insurgent groups and militias active in Iraq: Sunni groups made up of former members of the ruling Baath Party and the home-grown insurgent group, Al Qaeda in Iraq; and Shiite militias supported by Iran and Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric.

And how many Iraqis did the Bush/Cheney War Machine kill before we got on the path of diminished violence?

While more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians perished in the war and its aftermath, violence has decreased significantly since 2007, when there were almost 7,500 attacks a month. But Iraq remains an extremely dangerous place. According to the American military, there were 500 to 750 attacks a month this year, including bombings, rocket attacks and assassinations.

Considering that the last surviving veteran from World War One just died this year and we have been paying his benefits for almost 100 years, the American Tax Payer can expect to be paying Iraqi War Veterans' benefits for about another 80 or so years.

Just setting aside the human tragedy of all the U.S. and Iraqi deaths, check out this Wikipedia page detailing how much all of these wars have cost us. And just as Vietnam turned into a non-issue after all of these decades, so will Iraq.

What a complete and utter waste.

Watch the slideshow of photos from this historic day here.

James Fallows over at The Atlantic has some cogent thoughts on this:

While the first 60 seconds of the 8-minute YouTube video are dominated by the shockingly calm brutality of the policeman, the rest of it is remarkable mainly for the stoicism and resolve of the protestors. You don't have to idealize everything about them or the Occupy movement to recognize this as a moral drama that the protestors clearly won.

What is going on is a war of ideas, based in turn on moral standing. This engagement, which started in Minute 1 with police over-reaction and ended in Minute 8 with nervous police retreat, was a rout.

Read Fallow's entire post to get a sense of how important this episode is.

And then watch this video for another angle, including the lead-up to the spraying. Notice the lethal weapons the police are using:

"I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation..."

And this AP Story reflects why Quan was so non-chalant about the whole thing - they were all talking to each other constantly!

Don't set a midnight deadline to evict Occupy Wall Street protesters -- it will only give a crowd of demonstrators time to form. Don't set ultimatums because it will encourage violent protesters to break it. Fence off the parks after an eviction so protesters can't reoccupy it.

As concerns over safety and sanitation grew at the encampments over the last month, officials from nearly 40 cities turned to each other on conference calls, sharing what worked and what hasn't as they grappled with the leaderless movement.

In one case, the calls became group therapy sessions.

The article quotes the director of a national police organization as saying it was pure coincidence:

"It was completely spontaneous," said Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a national police group that organized calls on Oct. 11 and Nov. 4. Among the issues discussed: safety, traffic and the fierceness of demonstrations in each city.

"This was an attempt to get insight on what other departments were doing," he said.

Interim Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said he participated in a call organized by Wexler's group and has talked with officials in the New York police department's civil disturbance unit and high-ranking police officials in San Francisco.

And this:

Mayors of mid-sized and large cities held similar calls twice last week, one of which was organized by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Portland Mayor Sam Adams said the primary issue among the mayors was how to get a message to a movement that didn't have any clear leadership. "A lot of time was spent on how do you effectively communicate with a group that doesn't have a leader?" Adams said.

Some departments didn't have to rely on the conference calls. Like most police agencies, they are constantly exchanging information.

Los Angeles police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said his department gets updates as much as several times a day from various sources, including other law enforcement agencies and media outlets that are monitoring the Occupy protests.

Some of the information shared among law enforcement officials included how many people are involved in the protests, if there have been any arrests and if demonstrators are planning any events. Smith said he was unaware of other agencies' plans to evict protesters.

It's that lack of a clear leadership that freaks out these law enforcement agencies. Which leads to the most disturbing claim by Rick Ellis, of the Minneapolis Examiner:

Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.

According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the least likely to be present.

Indeed, Wonkette has articulated best why this is dangerous:

Remember when people were freaking out over the Patriot Act and Homeland Security and all this other conveniently ready-to-go post-9/11 police state stuff, because it would obviously be just a matter of time before the whole apparatus was turned against non-Muslim Americans when they started getting complain-y about the social injustice and economic injustice and income inequality and endless recession and permanent unemployment? That day is now, and has been for some time.

And this from Yves Smith:

Martial law level restrictions were in place. Subways were shut down.Local residents were not allowed to leave their buildings. People were allowed into the area only if they showed ID with an address in the 'hood. Media access was limited to those with official press credentials, which is almost certainly a small minority of those who wanted to cover the crackdown (the Times' Media Decoder blog says that journalists are describing the tactics, as we did, as a media blackout). Moreover, reading the various news stories, it appears they were kept well away from the actual confrontation (for instance, the reported tear gassing of the Occupiers in what had been the kitchen, as well as separate accounts of the use of pepper spray and batons). News helicopters were forced to land. As of 10 AM, reader Wentworth reported that police helicopters were out in force buzzing lower Manhattan.

National coordination vitiates the notion that policing is responsive to and accountable to the governed. It is not hard to imagine that there was more that a little bit of, erm, help from the Feds. Police chief Ray Kelly has a tight relationship with the CIA and the FBI. Homeland Security has also trying to increase its influence over police forces in major cities. It is not hard to imagine it playing a role in this effort as well.

Frank would be quite dismayed at what took place here in New York City this week:

the raid on zuccotti park from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

#OccupyWallStreet Convening 9 a.m. Sixth Avenue and Canal Street.

From the #OWS site:

New York, NY -- We are a global movement that is reclaiming our humanity and our future. We have stepped into a revitalizing civic process, realizing that we cannot fix our crises isolated from one another. We need collective action, and we need civic space. We are creating that civic space.

Last night, billionaire Michael Bloomberg sent a massive police force to evict members of the public from Liberty Square -- home of Occupy Wall Street for the past two months. People who were part of a dynamic civic process were beaten and pepper-sprayed, their personal property destroyed.

Supporters of this rapidly growing movement were mobilized in the middle of the night, making phone calls, taking the streets en masse, and planning next steps. Americans and people around the world are appalled at Bloomberg's treatment of people who peacefully assemble. We are appalled, but not deterred. Liberty Square was dispersed, but its spirit not defeated. Today we are stronger than we were yesterday. Tomorrow we will be stronger still. We are breaking free of the fear that constricts and confines us. We occupy to liberate.

We move forward in the grand tradition of the transformative social movements that have defined American history. We stand on the shoulders of those who have struggled before us, and we pick up where others have left off. We are creating a better society for us all.

Occupy Wall Street has renewed a sense of hope. It has revived a belief in community and awakened a revolutionary spirit too long silenced. Join us as we liberate space and build a movement. 9 a.m. Tuesday morning at Sixth Avenue and Canal we continue.

The movement will only get bigger and bigger because of this...

Yeah, right. Linking arms is violence, but slamming your night stick into the ribs of a short Asian woman isn't? This is disgusting:

The movement just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger:

Occupy Dallas calls for General Strike, November 30th:

Then let it then be resolved by the General Assembly of Occupy Dallas through consensus that we call upon all people to engage in a General Strike on November 30th, 2011. We implore all people to:

Refrain from Buying or Selling any goods or services including but not limited to, any petroleum products, consumer goods or bank transactions; starting at 12:01 am to 11:59pm on November 30th, 2011.

Refrain from working for a wage starting at 12:01 am to 11:59pm on November 30th, 2011 excluding those individuals that provide emergency and necessary functions including but not limited to Police, Fire and Medical personnel.

Join or form local groups to peacefully protest against the above stated elements.

Occupy Wall Street and Teamsters Occupy Sotheby's. On September 22, 2011, nine activists from #OccupyWallStreet infiltrated Southeby's - the art auction house - during an auction in order to bring attention to the locking out of its art handlers by management. Note what the CEO of Southeby's makes:

In 2008, Ruprecht received a package valued at $6.4 million, which included car and driver, life insurance premiums and club membership dues. The year before, Sotheby’s earned a record $213 million and he was paid $10.3 million in cash and benefits.

Meanwhile, art handlers "who normally make between $16 and $30 an hour, have been out of work and without health insurance. They receive $400 per week in unemployment payments and each person also gets an additional $200 per week from the Teamsters Union, which sets aside funds for strikes and lockouts."

Watch the disruption by the #OWS plants while art works valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars get auctioned off:

And finally, please contribute what you can to #OWS:

http://occupywallst.org/donate/

On August 2, 2011 at the very first meeting of what was to become Occupy Wall Street, about a dozen people sat in a circle in Bowling Green. The self-appointed "process committee" for a social movement we merely hoped would someday exist, contemplated a momentous decision. Our dream was to create a New York General Assembly: the model for democratic assemblies we hoped to see spring up across America. But how would those assemblies actually operate?

The anarchists in the circle made what seemed, at the time, an insanely ambitious proposal. Why not let them operate exactly like this committee: by consensus.

It was, in the least, a wild gamble, because as far as any of us knew, no one had ever managed to pull off something like this before. Consensus process had been successfully used in spokes-councils -- groups of activists organized into separate affinity groups, each represented by a single "spoke" -- but never in mass assemblies like the one anticipated in New York City. Even the General Assemblies in Greece and Spain had not attempted it. But consensus was the approach that most accorded with our principles. So we took the leap.

Three months later, hundreds of assemblies, big and small, now operate by consensus across America. Decisions are made democratically, without voting, by general assent. According to conventional wisdom this shouldn't be possible, but it is happening -- in much the same way that other inexplicable phenomena like love, revolution, or life itself (from the perspective of, say, particle physics) happen.

Read on...

And then give them money and other goods if you can't go down to your local Occupy Chapter:

Urgent Needs:

insulated gloves, wool hats, scarves
long underwear / smart wool thermal socks
300 hand warmers, 300 foot warmers
waterproof boots in all sizes
disposable shoe covers
winter coats
hot beverages
thermal heaters
all weather sub-thermal sleeping bags
tarps
insulating tents; foam padding for inside of tents
wooden pallets to get tents off the ground
cots to get people off the ground
Emergency Blankets
Dry Socks, Gloves, and Hats
Payless gift certificates for Shoes
Towels
Plastic Bins
3 post tents

Shipping address:
118a Fulton St
PO Box 205
NY NY 10038

The beat goes on...rain or snow, cold or hot...America is waking up...

"The American people understand that not everybody's been following the rules, that Wall Street is an example of that," Obama said at a White House press conference. He stopped short of endorsing the movement that began three weeks ago in Lower Manhattan and has spread to cities from Houston to San Francisco with the help of postings on Twitter and websites.

Several thousand protesters set up camp today in Washington's Freedom Plaza, two blocks from the Treasury Department. They staged drumming circles, set up sign-making tents, held a mini-rock festival and spoke against Wall Street excesses. Shortly before 3 p.m., they began marching toward the White House, with plans to rally nearby outside the columned headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

And then there's the ever-eloquent Vice President:

"There's a lot in common with the Tea Party," Vice President Joe Biden said today in Washington of the protests. "What are the people up there on the other end of the political spectrum saying? The same thing: 'Look guys, the bargain is not on the level anymore.' In the minds of the vast majority of the American -- the middle class is being screwed."

Although basically leaderless, the movement does have some organization to it:

OccupyWallSt.org is the unofficial de facto online resource for the ongoing protests happening on Wall Street. We are an affinity group committed to doing technical support work for resistance movements. We are not affiliated with Adbusters, anonymous or any other organization.

The leaders of this movement are the everyday people participating in the occupation. We use a tool called the "General Assembly" to facilitate open, participatory and horizontal organizing between members of the public. We welcome people from all colors, genders and beliefs to participate in our daily assemblies. Visit the NYC General Assembly website to learn how you can become involved, read updates/minutes, or find out how you can adopt NYCGA processes to organize your own community.

And this is the official declaration of the Occupy Wall Street movement:

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.

Indeed, a determining factor behind these demonstrations is that corporations have way too much power in this country. It is time for the bottom 99% of the population to push back on the 1% of the population that controls 50% of all the wealth in this country. If corporations are given the First Amendment rights of individuals, then we should be able to punish corporations like we punish those who violate the laws. And if we don't like the laws that govern these corporations, then we must change the laws. It's all connected.

To get an idea of what it's like down there on Wall Street now, check out this video:

Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall St.) from Alex Mallis on Vimeo.

And lastly, make sure to get involved in an Occupy Wall Street event in your town:

Welcome to OCCUPY TOGETHER, an unofficial hub for all of the events springing up across the country in solidarity with Occupy Wall St. As we have followed the news on facebook, twitter, and the various live feeds across the internet, we felt compelled to build a site that would help spread the word as more protests organize across the country. We hope to provide people with information about events that are organizing, ongoing, and building across the U.S. as we, the 99%, take action against the greed and corruption of the 1%.

Get Involved and join the movement!

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.

Like our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Greece, Spain, and Iceland, we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America. We also encourage the use of nonviolence to achieve our ends and maximize the safety of all participants.

The original call for this occupation was published by Adbusters in July; since then, many individuals across the country have stepped up to organize this event, such as the people of the NYC General Assembly and US Day of Rage. There'll also be similar occupations in the near future such as October2011 in Freedom Plaza, Washington D.C.

You can follow them here, as they issue communiques along the way. This is their third communique:

We're still here. We intend to stay until we see movements toward real change in our country and the world. This is the third communique from the 99 percent.

Today, we occupied Wall Street from the heart of the Financial District. Starting at 8:00 AM, we began a march through the Wall Street area, rolling through the blocks around the New York Stock Exchange. At 9:30 AM, we rang our own "morning bell" to start a "people's exchange," which we brought back to Liberty Plaza. Two more marches occurred during the day around the Wall Street district, each drawing more supporters to us.

Hundreds of us have been occupying One Liberty Plaza, a park in the heart of the Wall Street district, since Saturday afternoon. We have marched on the Financial District, held a candlelight vigil to honor the fallen victims of Wall Street, and filled the plaza with song, dance, and spontaneous acts of liberation.

Food has been donated to the plaza from supporters all over the world. Online donations for pizza, falafels, and other food are coming in from supporters in Omaha, Madrid, Montreal, and other cities, and have exceeded $8,660 [admin: now $10,000]. (Link to donate: www.wepay.com/donate/99275)

On Saturday we held a general assembly, two thousand strong, based on a consensus-driven decision-making process. Decisions were made for the group to occupy Liberty Plaza in the Wall Street corridor, bedding down in sleeping bags and donated blankets. By 8:00 PM on Monday we still held the plaza, despite constant police presence.

We speak as one. All of our decisions, from our choices to march on Wall Street to our decision to camp at Liberty Plaza were decided through a consensus process by the group, for the group. We are building the world that we want to see, based on human need and sustainability, not corporate greed.

Planned and spontaneous actions will continue throughout the coming days. Expect us.

This movement is completely democratic in nature:

Two thousand strong, we held a general assembly, based upon a consensus-driven decision-making process. Decisions were made for the group to occupy One Liberty Plaza in the Wall Street corridor through the evening, bedding down in sleeping bags and donated blankets. By 7 AM ET Sunday morning, we still held the plaza under constant police presence. Another assembly is scheduled for 10 AM ET today.

We speak as one. All of our decisions, from our choices to march on Wall Street to our decision to camp at One Liberty Plaza were decided through a consensus process by the group, for the group.

Finally, a fourth communique has just been posted with the following video:

Early this morning at least five protesters were arrested by NYPD.

The first arrest was a protester who objected to the police removing a tarp that was protecting our media equipment from the rain. The police said that the tarp constituted a tent, in spite of it not being a habitat in any way. Police continued pressuring protesters with extralegal tactics, saying that a protester on a bullhorn was breaking a law. The protester refused to cease exercising his first amendment rights and was also arrested. Then the police began to indiscriminately attempt to arrest protesters, many of them unsheathed their batons, in spite of the fact that the protest remained peaceful. One of the protesters received a large gash on their leg, another lost a tooth. Multiple police tackled a protester and sat on him as he continually warned them that he was experiencing an asthma attack. One of the medics on site informed the police that they needed to call an ambulance because this was a potentially fatal circumstance. They ignored him. We have no current information on this protester, but we hope that he hasn't been murdered by the police.

Please support this movement by either showing up with your body or giving money to the food committee.

Make sure to post on Facebook and Tweet using #OCCUPYWALLSTREET.

The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred. Our brains evolved to “expect” stories with a particular structure, with protagonists and villains, a hill to be climbed or a battle to be fought. Our species existed for more than 100,000 years before the earliest signs of literacy, and another 5,000 years would pass before the majority of humans would know how to read and write.

Stories were the primary way our ancestors transmitted knowledge and values. Today we seek movies, novels and “news stories” that put the events of the day in a form that our brains evolved to find compelling and memorable. Children crave bedtime stories; the holy books of the three great monotheistic religions are written in parables; and as research in cognitive science has shown, lawyers whose closing arguments tell a story win jury trials against their legal adversaries who just lay out “the facts of the case.”

When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment, with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit.

In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety.

In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, he thundered, “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

This is the set-up that Professor Westen lays at our feet before delivering what really happened:

In contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public — a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far.

The truly decisive move that broke the arc of history was his handling of the stimulus. The public was desperate for a leader who would speak with confidence, and they were ready to follow wherever the president led. Yet instead of indicting the economic policies and principles that had just eliminated eight million jobs, in the most damaging of the tic-like gestures of compromise that have become the hallmark of his presidency — and against the advice of multiple Nobel-Prize-winning economists — he backed away from his advisers who proposed a big stimulus, and then diluted it with tax cuts that had already been shown to be inert. The result, as predicted in advance, was a half-stimulus that half-stimulated the economy. That, in turn, led the White House to feel rightly unappreciated for having saved the country from another Great Depression but in the unenviable position of having to argue a counterfactual — that something terrible might have happened had it not half-acted.

Which brings us to this:

The real conundrum is why the president seems so compelled to take both sides of every issue, encouraging voters to project whatever they want on him, and hoping they won’t realize which hand is holding the rabbit. That a large section of the country views him as a socialist while many in his own party are concluding that he does not share their values speaks volumes — but not the volumes his advisers are selling: that if you make both the right and left mad, you must be doing something right.

Westen attempts to answer that conundrum, but then ends eloquently with this:

But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.

Make sure to read the entire essay. It's very, very powerful.

And because this destruction came from abroad, we must always remember how violence can never be "cured" by more violence. Ever.