Two Years After Occupy Wall Street

Two years after the Occupy Wall Street movement shifted the conversation on economic inequality, Democracy Now looks at its origins in New York City’s Zuccotti Park and its continued legacy in a number of different groups active today. 
DN speaks with Nicole Carty, actions coordinator with The Other 98 Percent, and a facilitator of general assemblies and spokescouncil meetings during Occupy, where she was a member of the Occupy People of Color Caucus.  Also joining DN is Nathan Schneider, editor of the website Waging Nonviolence, and a longtime chronicler of the Occupy movement for Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, The New York Times, and The Catholic Worker.  Scheider’s new book, "Thank You Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse," chronicles Occupy’s first year.

Manhattan retained the dubious distinction of having the biggest income gap of any big county in the US.  The mean income of the lowest fifth was $9,635, compared with $389,007 for the top fifth and $779,969 for the top 5 percent -more than an eightyfold difference between bottom and top.  The New York Times

Naomi Klein - A global Green Marshall Plan

With her newest, yet-to-be named book, Naomi Klein turns her attention to climate change.
Naomi Klein's books and articles have sought to articulate a counternarrative to the march of corporate globalization and government austerity.  She believes climate change provides a new chance for creating such a counternarrative.  "The book I am writing is arguing that our responses to climate change can rebuild the public sphere, can strengthen our communities, can have work with dignity."
Klein came to the idea that climate change could be a kind of a "people's shock," an answer to the shock doctrine – not just another opportunity by the disaster capitalists to feed off of misery, but an opportunity for progressive forces to deepen democracy and really improve livelihoods around the world. 

No Logo: how brand names manipulate public desires while exploiting the people who make their products. 
The Shock Doctrine or how free-marketeers often use crises – natural or manufactured – to ram through deregulatory policies.

Inequality for All. Record Income Gap Is Undermining US Democracy

The divide between the 1 percent and the 99 percent is as great as ever. According to one recent study, the top 1 percent has captured about 95 percent of the income gains since the recession ended. “Since the recovery, almost all of the gains have gone to the very, very top.  People who are in the top 1 percent are doing even better than they did before the Great Recession, better than they have done since 1928,” says former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.  “Most Americans are on a downward escalator.  Median wage in the United States, adjusted for inflation, keeps on dropping.”  Reich is the focus of the new film, “Inequality for All.”