The Occupy Handbook, coming next week

Via Paul Krugman, we learn about what promises to be an excellent new book of essays, background, and analysis — The Occupy Handbook.

The work has 66 contributors include, including these luminaries:

• Paul Krugman
• Robin Wells
• Michael Lewis
• Robert Reich
• David Graeber
• Nouriel Roubini
• Matt Taibbi
• David Cay Johnston
• Martin Wolf
• Robert Shiller
• Peter Diamond
• Emmanuel Saez
• Amy Goodman
• Barbara Ehrenreich

Plus a great many others.

From the editorial description:

The Occupy Handbook is a source for understanding why 1% of the people in America take almost a quarter of the nation's income and the long-term effects of a protest movement that even the objects of its attack can find little fault with [sic].

Roger Lowenstein blurbs:

"More than a scrapbook of the recent Occupy Wall Street movement, The Occupy Handbook, a compilation by our best journalists, thinkers and economists, puts the story of America's revolt against inequality in welcome historical perspective.

From the barricades of 1848, to the barrios of modern Chile, to the improbable campgrounds thrown together in the shadows of New York skyscrapers, the Handbook examines the budding question of whether democracy can foster a more equal, and also a more prosperous, society.

Insightful pieces by Gillian Tett, John Cassidy, Bethany McLean and many more prepare you to think about the next outbreak of outrage and activism-which is only a matter of time."

The book will be available just in time for tax-deadline-day, April 17. You can pick it up at a local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.

Occupationally yours,

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)

Maddow on Mortgage Fraud—NC County Recorder sues big banks for dozens of instances of "fraud"

"The banks could start losing these cases," says Maddow. Yes, there's hope — the real kind.

This is an excellent primer on the mortgage mess (it's actually a crime scene, as you'll see). Very watchable, easily grasped. Please take time, if you have it, to view. This is ground-zero for the greatest challenge to our legal system in modern times. As Jeff Thigpen says in the clip, this is a "rule of law" story — writ large, in my view.

(Our primer is here, if you want a fuller explanation.)

Note especially that, despite the apparent impossibility of going through the Bush II–Obama I bank-fraud indemnification firewall, you (and your county clerk) can do it. As Maddow says (at 4:22):

Going after the banks by going through their paperwork turns out to be not that hard to do; regular people can do it, with a little training. ... It's looking more and more like they may be onto something.

Change "may be" to "are" and you have it.

It helps to have a Jeff Thigpen (4:50 in the clip; that's his face below), but there are lots of counties in the country. It won't take many of them to bust this wide. Watch:



This is about property rights (yes, good old libertarian property rights) versus hiding and indemnifying the massive criminal banking fraud that led to the 2008 crisis — and making sure that prosecuting said fraud doesn't bring down the entire U.S. banking system.

That's a really tough place to be, isn't it — caught between systemic banking collapse and protection of property rights. What's a money-hungry political ad campaign to do?

I'll have more on this — David Dayen and Digby have aired this issue in a recent Virtually Speaking episode that's a textbook explanation of this Scylla–Carybdis dilemma.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
 

Police make arrests in Occupy protest

Here we go again. Is it possible for the NYPD to show any restraint or is being a bunch of hooligans simply what they do?

Police arrested dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters on Saturday night during a protest marking the movement's six-month anniversary at its birthplace in New York's Zuccotti Park. The sweep of the park by police just before midnight capped a day of demonstrations and marching in lower Manhattan. There was no official word on the number of arrests but dozens of people were handcuffed and led out of the park. Earlier in the day, 15 people were arrested and three officers suffered injuries, police said.