But that never happened in a society where private corporations own parks, lots and other possible Occupy sites. The corporate shareholders and boards of directors of those sites - a tiny minority of the population - could shut down Occupy encampments by invoking property rights. That tiny minority never wanted a national debate that questioned its disproportionate wealth and power. Private property enabled a minority with 1 percent of the wealth and income to make decisions affecting everyone regardless of what a 99 percent majority might want.

In the "public" sites chosen by occupiers, much the same happens. There, tiny numbers of politicians decide to evict, and usually for the same reasons. In New York City, for example, the billionaire mayor who bought his way into politics and power boasted publicly about "his" authority to evict occupiers from Zuccotti Park. In most cases, local politicians, dependent on donations from corporations and the 1 percent and on mass media owned by them, make the same decisions. No surprise there.

Public opinion polls consistently showed majorities of Americans in sympathy with the Occupy Wall Street movement and its basic goals of correcting the inequalities of wealth, income and power in our society. Yet capitalism's distribution of wealth empowered the 1 percent to overrule those majorities.

The solution for this denial of democracy is to Occupy the Corporation. In one important sense, the workers inside every corporation already occupy it. They are the majority inside every corporation, while the board of directors comprises one small minority and the major shareholders another. If the workers occupied the corporation in the different sense of democratizing it, they would transform corporate capitalist enterprises into democratic, workers' self-directed enterprises. Then the workers as a whole - a workplace community - would democratically make all the decisions now reserved for corporate boards of directors and their major shareholders. The self-directed workers would then decide what, how and where to produce and what to do with the profits. And they would collaborate with the residential communities that interact with them to build a society far more genuinely democratic than anything that now exists. Such worker self-directed enterprises would have considered, and likely arranged, a democratic decision about Occupy movement encampments.

If corporations became worker self-directed enterprises, many other decisions would likewise be made very differently from how they are made today. For example, workers would not likely overpay a few of their fellow self-directors at the expense of all the others. That would sharply reduce today's personal wealth inequalities, which corrupt our politics. Likewise, worker self-directors would not have stopped raising real wages in the United States after the 1970s while productivity kept rising. That made sense for capitalist boards of directors to enrich themselves and their shareholders, but it would not have made sense for worker self-directors. Had real wages risen steadily after the 1970s (as they had for the previous century), there would have been no need for the vast growth in workers' debts since the 1970s. That would not have been good news for private megabanks issuing credit cards and mortgages, but it would have better served the interests of a working class now mired in unsustainable debt. Occupy the Corporation is also a solution for the economic crisis now devastating this country and the globe, making "middle-class disappearance" a common term and generating mounting political and social conflict.

Capitalism's current crisis needs to be treated differently from the last one, the Great Depression of the 1930s. Then, reforms and regulations (including heavy taxation of corporations and the rich) were the preferred cure. Millions of Americans took to the streets and union halls in successful campaigns to change President Roosevelt's policies and win a New Deal of reforms and regulations, overcoming corporate resistance. But in the last half-century, corporations' boards of directors and major shareholders used the profits gathered into their hands - and the power those profits buy - to undo the New Deal. The liberals and left wing of the Democratic Party proved unable or unwilling to prevent corporations from achieving that goal.

If we had occupied the corporations decades ago - reorganizing them as cooperatives directed democratically by their workers - they would not have undone the reforms and regulations that so many people worked so hard to put into place in the 1930s. The lesson of the undoing of the New Deal is this: We cannot respond to this latest capitalist crash with another set of reforms and regulations that leave the organization of enterprises unchanged. If we do, we will have ourselves to blame as we watch corporate boards of directors and major shareholders undo them yet again. Only this time, it well happen faster, because they have had so much practice since the 1930s. The lesson of America's painful struggles with capitalism's instability is this: Occupy the corporations and democratize them.

Richard D. Wolff

Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan. Earlier he taught economics at Yale University (1967-1969) and at the City College of the City University of New York (1969-1973). In 1994, he was a Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Paris (France), I (Sorbonne).

Ever since the Dutch got tulips from Iran, and the British brought plants from all over their empire to Britain, we have mixed up the flora and fauna of all imaginable climes and circumstances, Airplanes see to it that insects and smaller organisms are spread all over the world. Quickly. Flowers from far away we think exotic. Animals from far away exotic, or a pest. People from far away speak a different language, more than likely have a different religion, different customs, diet, dress... But once added to the mix the mix has changed

Every location has its own ecology, its own mix of plants and trees that are adjusted to local conditions of soil, climate, latitude, altitude, and all the unique factors that make a local ecology. When a new plant or animal species is introduced into a new environment I imagine it looking around, feeling dazed and uncertain, but as any living organism, it must survive. Sometimes it finds itself a "niche" as ecologist call it, a place in the whole that gives it what it needs to survive. More often a niche that fits is already occupied, The new immigrant can find itself a similar niche, or push the resident species off the board.

I am deliberately humanizing the story. I don't think plants or coqui frogs think, but I see the introduction of a new plant species not all that different from a stranger coming into an established community. Ecologies are dynamic wholes, they change, and every change makes a new balance. Natural disasters demand great adjustments, and so do man-made disasters. However, I cannot imagine that rapid changes, whether natural or man-made, would not stress the ability of an ecology to find a new balance. The mixing that we, humans, made in recent times visibly stresses ecologies' ability to adjust. Before a new balance can be reached, new elements -- species, circumstances -- come in to make new changes. That is true for plants and animals, and also for human ecologies.

Once upon a time what was a nice potted plant in Brazil, with extraordinarily beautiful flowers in royal purple and bright red, was brought to the little village of Volcano, on this island. Maybe the plant was put outside, or someone broke off a piece and threw it outside. However it happened, the plant got outside and flourished. More than flourished, it covers trees and is now so widespread that thinking of eradication is useless. It does not seem to harm the trees it climbs in, and the flowers are indeed extraordinarily beautiful.
More recently a tiny little frog was brought to this island, from the Caribbean, I've heard, that found an ideal home here. No natural enemies: it multiplied rapidly. The coqui frog does not harm anything but has an extraordinarily loud voice. In areas were there are thousands of coqui the noise, apparently, is unbearable to some humans. Now we want to eradicate it.
Lately a tiny mite was found to kill bees, which not only means we might have to do without honey, but plants that rely on bees for pollination may not survive.
All these were accidental mixes. We have also deliberately introduced species for a variety of reasons.
Whether we planned the mix or not, the ecology must adjust.

We in the United States continue the strange idea the first settlers had, that they had come to an empty land. This continent was far from empty, of course. It had its share of unique plants, animals, and people, who lived in live ecologies. The newcomers almost eradicated buffalo, and tried their best to eradicate "Indians." The Indians were not eradicated, there are still (some) Buffalo, but the new dominant kind of humans continued to pretend that the land, its rivers and mountains, was empty, nothing but resource for humans to do with as they pleased. We did our best to make nature, as they found it here, to conform to our ideas of what nature should be. We changed the course of rivers, we cut the top of mountains, we covered large patches of earth with concrete, but forgot -- or ignored -- that everything we do to an ecology has consequences. Until the consequences hit us where it hurts.

We have lost the ability to think ecologically. We have lost the ability to think of the natural world as a complex whole, where if we force one change, the whole is effected. The nearest model that comes to mind is a spider web. If we touch one strand, the whole web moves. But ecologies are much more complex, imagine a three dimensional web. Our so-called civilization has forgotten complex wholes, it tells us we have to spell out all the elements, name the most minute variations, so that wholes become the sum of separate things. Seeing only the pieces it is easy to ignore consequences. There are always consequences. Always.

Native Americans thought ecologically. All Our Relations, they said. And all our relations are a circle, all part of the same whole. All the people, but also the animals, plants and trees that I relate to, one way or another, are connected and part of a whole. We relate to the family that raised us and then with the family we form, we relate to the plants and animals that feed us, that are around us, that we admire or that we consider a weed or a pest. We relate to the weather, the sun, rain, wind. The trees that give shade or provide wood for burning or building are our relations. And all our relations are connected, one part with every other part of the whole.

Scientists think that local ecologies changed slowly in the past. But with what we call progress has come a faster and ever greater change in the ways we live. Mixing species is behind many of the changes. Imports inevitably have consequences, changes to the "whole" of an ecology.

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Hawai'i, isolated in the middle of the Pacific ocean, has never had large animals, and perhaps because there were no grazers, there also were no plants with thorns. Now there are domesticated large animals -- and a variety of plants with thorns. The great majority of species that now form the ecologies of these islands were immigrants: brought in, or sneaked in.

Imagine: slowly, over thousands, millions, of years, a volcano under the ocean grows bigger and taller until its top pushes above sea level. Birth of an island. Land, but at first nothing but raw rock. So far from any land that few seeds will reach here. But over many thousands of years, the wind and currents in the ocean bring seeds; a few seeds grow. Slowly, very slowly at first, dead plants make soil. And now and then a storm brings a bird, or the ocean brings a floating tangle of wood that carries some small life forms. A meager cover of Life is spread over the island. Coconuts float, are cast ashore, grow coconut trees. It all takes time, more thousands of years to become a simple ecology.

Until people came. Perhaps two thousand years ago intrepid seafarers from islands four thousand kilometers, 2500 miles, south came to these islands. They must have found fairly bare islands, not much diversity of plants and animals. They probably brought coconut, taro, maybe sweet potato, some other plants and a few animals. The seafarers survived, multiplied, eventually spread to other islands of this group. Eleven hundred years later another group of people came, from Tahiti. They almost certainly brought more plants and animals. But the islands remained very isolated, the ecologies of the islands remained fairly simple -- and because of a relative paucity of different species, not strong. But, the Hawaiians lived, as all indigenous societies, in a sustainable ecology.

Then, in 1778, Captain Cook "discovered" these islands. A few years later other adventurous men found the islands, and before long,there was a small but growing population of westerners who made Honolulu home. These first settlers brought diseases -- the common cold, measles, syphilis, many others; diseases the local population had never known and so had no resistance to -- that wiped out 95% of Hawaiians in 80 years. The newcomers wanted plantations, so they imported people. First from China, Japan, then the Philippines, Korea, from almost anywhere and everywhere. These imports brought other imports, plants and animals that had never been here. The ecology of these islands suddenly, and very dramatically, changed. Almost all the flowers our Tourist Bureau proudly displays as "typically Hawaiian" are imports. The beautiful girls on posters and postcards are rarely Hawaiian, but mixtures. The twentieth century must have been the century of mixing. Mixing, plants, animals, and people.
Our hungry concept, "progress," replaced sustainability.

We, master movers, are indignant that the casual importation of a nice little bird (cardinal) is said to have caused the demise of many species of native birds. Some of us, in some of the Hawaiian islands, are distraught because a thumbnail sized frog with a loud voice has had a population explosion. It is said that in some areas the combined voices of "millions" of these coqui is deafening. We have a few coqui here, but we live with them. They are not many and they move around. The chickens eat them when they find them. We also have some very undesirable trees, that we pull out as they sprout up or cut when they have grown big enough to cut. But we have found it to be not only easier but much more pleasant to live in nature as it is, Every now and then my western self sees a plant that for whatever reason I think ugly, useless, an eye sore. My hands go to a tool to root it out. Now, usually, I remember that if I remove that plant, another will grow in its place. I tell myself: live with it, appreciate the mix, the marvel of nature's chaos.

For a long time now, our only response to sudden population explosions of plants or animals has been: kill. Spray poison. Introduce an animal that will kill the plant, or introduce a clever disease that kills only the one kind of tree that we don't like. We have never been very successful in any of these projects. The disease either does not work as expected -- it kills the wrong tree -- or there is "collateral damage" that the scientists had not foreseen. We discovered very quickly, for instance, that a chemical powder dusted on the leaves of plants kills coqui frogs, but even a little rain washes the powder off the leaves -- and this is a rainy climate. The Legislature votes millions of dollars each year to dust more areas with the poison. It kills a few coqui. They are smart enough to move; they thrive elsewhere. Them there is a tree that has magically appeared here that is known to have displaced forests in Tahiti. Our forests were destroyed long ago in order to get to the sandalwood trees that brought a good price in China. More millions have been spent to eradicate the bad tree, so far without result.

It seems, Man cannot change his thinking. We are raised to think that we are in charge of this planet. It is we who decide what is good or bad, and bad needs to be removed, eradicated, killed.
I cannot help but notice that Nature tells us again and again that we are not really in charge at all. Our obsession with "control" makes us blind to notice that force does not work. Force, always and inevitably, begets counterforce. Plants, animals and people fiercely resist eradication -- "ethnic cleansing" is the new word.

Eradicating coqui frogs is probably impossible, and any attempt to kill them almost certainly will cause more collateral damage than we had foreseen. The few coqui we have here call each other every evening, joining crickets and bull frogs at the pond. Last year I taught first one, then another coqui to sing co-qui-qui; I enjoy each evening's concert. After 9 PM they are silent; maybe one calls and is not answered.

What we could learn from plants and animals also applies to people. The United States is a country of immigrants. The first immigrants, strangely, saw the continent as empty and therefore theirs for the taking. For centuries the immigrants eradicated native animals and people. People who were here before refused to be eradicated. Then, as all other colonials did, the immigrants imported people to do their dirty work. Again, surprise, these imports refused to be kept down. Now new immigrants who are willing to do today's dirty work, are considered unwanted by some of the descendants of earlier immigrants. We don't learn, it seems..

Force inevitably and immediately brings counter force.

But of course we, humans, know better. We are the boss, the owner, the power on this planet. We even imagine that we can overcome laws of nature with overwhelming power, "shock and awe." And every time, over and over again, it is the collateral damage that bites us. Worldwide, Man has waged wars against forests, ending up making deserts. Man cut the tops off mountains to get at coal. We changed the course of rivers. And everywhere our wars on nature have caused collateral damage. Eradicating as many species as we do today threatens the planetary ecology, and so ourselves. Changing the face of the planet, is changing the climate, which at a minimum challenges our way of living. But we continue to think we know better.

Our efforts to eradicate what we don't like is called asymmetrical warfare. Twenty million dollars a year to eradicate a frog the size of my thumb nail. Pitting a modern army against "insurgents." A modern army with uncounted airplanes, manned and un-manned, to fight not another army, but people with home-made bombs. The collateral damage is always greatly more asymmetrical than the cost of the war machines..But Man is stubborn. If at first you don't succeed, do it again, applying more power -- making more counter power. What did not work yesterday, we do again, but more so. If this chemical does not work, we use a more poisonous poison tomorrow. More airplanes dropping more lethal bombs. We destroy not only the land where the enemy lives, but our own country. We seem unable to learn. We convince each other that if power does not work, we must use more power.

It does not take a prophet to predict that the end, this time, will be the nuclear eradication of who we call terrorists -- and we will be the collateral damage.

Where is our common sense?

Common sense comes from being aware and awake. Common sense is knowing that you nurture what you want to grow, rather than kill what you don't like. Common sense, in the end, is knowing that Man, in fighting nature, can win all battles except the last, as Thor Heyerdahl said many years ago. Common sense is straight thinking.

But we assume -- we don't even think about it -- that of course the way we think is the only way, or the best way to think. It is not easy to think differently. Modern man thinks that with force I can force another to do my will. And if he doesn't he is enemy and must be killed. We think that is normal; we cannot think any other way.

When I bring a new species of anything, plant, animal, human, to my garden, it will have an effect. If I cut everything to make a lawn, I create an empty space for other things to grow in. I must expect that. If I use pesticides and herbicides to "control" the piece of ground where I want to grow a lawn, the chemicals will cause collateral effects. Always; inevitably. If my country makes war, the "enemy" will fight back. Overwhelming force will just make the enemy more inventive, and all his neighbors will join in fighting us. Asymmetrical wars cannot be won; haven't we learned that by now? Perhaps no war can be won. All attempts at eradicating an unwanted plant or animal species have consequences that are worse than living with the unwanted species.

All this has nothing to do with morals or morality, it is a law of nature. If I force ever more air in a tire, it will blow up in my face. If I force a fluid through a small hole it will spread as a cloud of vapor. If I kick a stone, the stone will kick my toe. Force -- counter force. Violence begets violence. One of the lessons a child learns as soon as s/he crawls, but a lesson we have forgotten.
Or, perhaps, a lesson we think we no longer need.
Modern Man thinks he knows best. We weren't always so shortsighted.

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And a happy new year to you, too.

Rice's comments ran a shiver down my spine. Here she was encouraging "human rights activists" in Russia to struggle against the consolidation of power, while supporting the destruction of democracy in the United States. Her statements clearly show she understands what the consequences are for such a consolidation of power. Therefore she apparently knows full well what the implications are of all power residing within the president's office.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's concentration of power is stifling his country's transition to democracy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday.

''In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development,'' Rice told reporters after meeting with human-rights activists.

''I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and doubts about the Duma,'' said, referring to the Russian parliament.

...

The State Department has frequently criticized what Washington regards as creeping authoritarianism among Putin and other top Russian leaders.

Its most recent human-rights report on Russia notes continuing centralization of power in the Kremlin, a compliant legislature, political pressure on the judiciary, intolerance of ethnic minorities, corruption and selectivity in enforcement of the law, and media restrictions and self-censorship.

And why was Rice in Russia?

Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates later met with Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov for talks on trade and economic relations, including negotiations for Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization.

Moscow and Washington signed a trade agreement last November that removed the last major obstacle in Moscow's 13-year journey to join the 149-member group. Moscow must still conclude other outstanding bilateral deals and assuage the European Union's concerns about energy supplies.

I am constantly amazed at how people can so facilely engage in such lies and duplicity. How can she so clearly outline the threat to hegemonic presidential power and its underpinnings to Russian democracy, while actively working to create hegemonic powers and destroying democracy in the United States?

This just makes my jaws ache. For our elected representatives, and in particular the Democrats, to vote for these things is not an issue of "fear." If they are willing to destroy our rights because they are "afraid," then one must assume that they actually believe that Constitutional abridgements are "necessary" for our security. Bull. A total surveillance society (in other words not the one we thought we were living in) is not safer, and it certainly does not have the wall of privacy that is needed for a free citizenry.

While I appreciate Harman stepping up and speaking about this, it is just pure cowardice that our elected representatives would throw away our Constitution because they were scared. Apparently, that was a fairly self-serving fear, because the "hyped" threats were to Congress. COWARDS and fools.

How many times can the administration lie, deceive, obscure, cherry pick, and "hype" before the Dems wake up? What ever happened to "Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me?"

Or how about the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007 that passed the House on September 25, 2007? That is the bill to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard (their military) a terrorist organization. Excuse me? We want to declare a government's military as a terrorist organization? Seems to me that the U.S. is on very shaky ground there. What about the School of the Americas now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation? You remember SOA is the one that trains Latin American military and police in torture, supression of "insurgency" and other means of controlling an "unruly" population? Since this is part of our military, should it be considered a terrorist organization? Or what about the CIA? The U.S. has an fairly long list of "helping" certain factions to power, arming "insurgents" to overthrow their government, etc. In fact, the U.S. has been aiding "dissidents" inside Iran to take over that government. Sounds like any of those might make the U.S. ripe for claims that we are state sponsors of terrorism. In fact, we are even arming and training "insurgents" (or those formerly labeled "insurgents") in Iraq.

The list could go on and on, but I'll just add one more that sticks in my craw - the hyped indignation about MoveOn.org's add prior to the Petreaus report. What pray tell happened to free speech? Why are our elected representatives taking time to "condemn" free speech? Why did they not do the same for Max Cleland, John Kerry, or John McCain. Shall we really get into personal attacks and defamation of character? Yet a number of Democrats in both the House and the Senate somehow felt they need to spend time and breath on some sort of display of false patriotism.

I am tired of the cowardice of Congress. I am tired of Democrats supposedly taking a stand while too many seem to be voting right in lock step with the Republicans. I am tired of excuses that are totally off the point. They can all - Dems and Republicans - start representing us, or they can get the hell out of Washington. That same message needs to be sent loud and clear to the Presidential candidates. We (and by that I mean the almost 75% of citizens of the United States) do not want more of what we have seen and experienced for the last seven years.

Below, I have included the votes on the items mentioned in this article.

Who Voted How?

Link for Senate Roll Call Votes

Link for House Roll Call Votes

If you read the Washington Post article above, then neither the attack nor its "precision" should be a surprise. It is noted that half on the 101st had been redeployed elsewhere so security could have probably been stronger. The article leads one to believe that the attack required inside intelligence and a high level of sophistication. I heard this given air on Ed Schultz' program yesterday as well. While these claims may be true, neither "inside intelligence" nor "sophistication" would be necessary.

You have a mess tent the size of a football field. That doesn't seem like it would be hard to spot. Also the troops go to the mess tent on a regular schedule. That probably wouldn't be too hard to figure out either. According to the soldier on Schultz' show, someone would have to "pace off" the distance to fire an accurate round. That is certainly one way to do it, but there is both low tech and high tech ways to accomplish it. The low tech approach is something similar to the golf range finder above. The high tech is the US Army's "Micro-Laser Range Finder." There are thousands of products in between these two.

Why would the story of inside intelligence and sophistication be popular theories to air? Given the level of civilian casualties in Iraq, reinforcing the idea that you can't tell the "good" Iraqi's from the "bad" Iraqi's helps provide justification for attacks on civilians. Building the image of increasing sophistication and coordination of the "insurgency" saves the US face, while both explaining failures of the military (strategy and protection) and legitimating harsher "control" measures and attacks.

I want to make it clear that there is likely an element of truth in both claims by the military and the administration. Iraq is urban warfare with seemingly more Iraqi's stepping forward to expel the "intruders." It also makes sense that coordination of these groups would improve over time. My concern is how those logical realities get spun and used, and I have no doubt that they will be (are being) spun and used. I also have no doubt that a crackdown on Mosul and insurgents is in the offing.

What is clearly known is that more US troops are dead in this failed Bush administration plan. My heart goes out to the families and friends of the dead and injured. My heart goes out to the troops in Iraq who have had one more illusion of a safe place removed.

[UPDATE 12/23/04 NEW NEWS
12/23/04 Oppel & Schmitt, NYT, Suicide Bombing Is Now Suspected in Mosul Attack
12/23/04 Howard, Guardian/UK, Pentagon says suicide bomber hit army base
12/23/04 Al Jazeera, US forces seal off Mosul]

Sources
12/21/04 Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mosul Attack Kills 24, Wounds 64

12/22/04 AP, Toll of Blast in Iraq Include Seven Workers at Defense Contractor Halliburton

12/22/04 Ricks, Wa. Post, Precision of Base Attack Worries Military Experts

February 1999,John Nettleton, Dallas Barr, Brad Schilling, & Jonathan Lei US ARMY CECOM RDEC NVESD Fort Belvoir, VA; Samuel M. Goldwasser, Bala-Cynwyd, PA Micro-Laser Range Finder Development: Using the Monolithic Approach

Know the Distance Range Finder from D. W. Quail Golf