By Michael Collins

"The problems we are facing were not created by us, but we deign to shed light on them and so we are blamed for them. The truth is, every person at our protest is there because the system is broken." Samuel Rutledge, Open Newswire, Portland Indymedia

The fascist financiers of the Money Party are growing restless. Occupy Wall Street began with a call to action from the activist online group Anonymous in August. It was barely featured in the mainstream or alternate media. Instead of a small crowd that could easily be ignored then disbursed, fifty thousand citizens showed up at the headquarters for the world financial system, Wall Street. Despite the best efforts of Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD, the Occupy Wall Street continues. The message went out to the country and the world. Now, there are over 100 occupy events in Oakland, Kansas City, Washington, DC, and elsewhere. (Image: K. Kendall)

Occupy Portland began on October 6, 2011. It has maintained a steady presence in downtown Portland, a major West Coast center of commerce. The participants refuse to leave until the government addresses their grievances. Police scare tactics, planted provocateurs, and the elements are no barrier.

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By Rady Ananda

Dr. Jack Kevorkian passed away on June 3, at the age of 83. His “compassionate and common sense approach to ending human suffering is but one facet of his decades-long advocacy of the Ninth Amendment.”

So I wrote in 2009 after hearing him speak in a gymnasium packed with 2,500 people.

Best known for assisting 130 terminal patients to end their lives, and actually even killing one who was too weak to do so himself (for which he was imprisoned for eight years), Kevorkian was a fierce opponent of growing government intrusion into our daily lives, including the right to end it.

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By Jonathryn posted by Michael Collins

Special Emergency Powers Legislation

The news from Wisconsin today is that Wisconsin State Troopers, under the direction of a political appointee of the Governor, are visiting the homes of legislators who are resisting the Governor’s deeply unpopular legislation. By what reckoning can an executive, using armed men in state uniforms, dictate a legislator’s prerogatives, or the prerogatives of a caucus of legislators? If you chose “brute force,” you answered correctly.

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Michael Collins

Renewing the Patriot Act: The Patriot Act will be renewed this week. What is the Patriot Act? The government claimed that it was a vital law necessary to protect us against future terrorist acts.

Who would oppose that? Shortly after 9/11 the act became law. There was public shock at the devastation caused by the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Surely, the government would make good use of the legislation. Failing to do so would violate the public trust since the act eliminated major constitutional protections of privacy, the right to a fair trial, and other civil liberties.

Before the act, you had an unqualified right to a "fair and speedy trial:"

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