In an economy run into the ground by Bush’s $2 trillion tax cuts, after the unrelenting arrogance of Speaker John Boehner’s sole recovery strategy to continually tweet “Where are the jobs?” he has an answer: about 2 million more of them in the last six months, according to the latest jobs report.

It gets worse for the corporate raider that made mountains of money from firing people at other companies. The most talked about moment from the Super Bowl today is not Madonna or Manning but Clint Eastwood, and his Oscar-winning skills waxing a thank you from Detroit to Obama for keeping the auto industry (and its jobs) alive. So stirring and inspiring was this Republican filmmaker’s ode to Obama that Karl Rove, the master of anonymous attack ads and Super PAC media saturation, scoffed that he was offended by the Chrysler spot. Clint Eastwood and Halftime in America were trending the next morning on Twitter over anything else Super Bowl related, including the hash tag “#SuperBowl.”

It’s bad enough that Romney has to make repeated remarks about how weirded out he is about poor people. His handlers know that just looks bad, but it’s not like they’re losing any poor people’s votes.

But the reason Team Romney is walking off a pier in concrete wingtips is because his campaign represents the most clueless padded elite, at a time when most Americans are so desperate, they are devoid of the “fall back” mentality of automatically forgetting recent history, blaming whoever is in power and voting for the default alternative.

In the wake of Romney’s resurgence after the South Carolina primary, much attention was paid to the boost he received from his debate performance, where he embraced an angrier tone, imitating Newt Gingrich’s successful indignant white man outrage. Too much attention was apparently paid to Romney’s debate coach, Brett O’Donnell, because he was dumped from the campaign after receiving media recognition, according to Politico. Romney staffers chaffed at the credit, and O’Donnell was not invited on to continue with the campaign as had been expected. Romney himself wanted to be emphatic that he could come up with his own comeback, not anyone else.

And here is the abject failure of leadership in not just Mitt Romney, but of the interests he represents, the vultures who prey on society under self-righteous claims of capitalism, but whose innovation is the exploitation of their workers. Whereas free markets purportedly offer a justice and balance to the universe akin to karma itself, and successful ideas are rewarded with elevation, here we see the same shark-like, short-sighted sensibility that is the real Mitt: Where someone succeeds at their job, rather than reward, they are fired, so that Mitt can reap their rewards. At a time when people are struggling for jobs and being shoved the tired Republican tripe of letting rich people keep more money as a solution to your own problems, Mitt Romney is firing the one guy doing his job well, because he’s viewed as a threat. Anti-competitive practices are how he rolls. Romney and the rich giants influencing our legislation didn’t get rich by competing on an open market with a level playing field. They got rich by takeovers and consolidating their competition so that they can monopolize.

Here’s the problem with Romney: even Republicans don’t want to vote for Romney. Many conservatives hate Obama based on conjecture or manufactured misinformation or basic policy difference. But they know why they dislike Romney. He oozes insincerity as he seeks to empathize with the struggles of the nearly half of America that is near or below the poverty line. Inherent partisan diversions won’t work in his favor. Mitt Romney lacks something in common with pretty much everyone else in America: what it’s like to look for a job.

It was epitomized in the moment where Romney was campaigning last year and spoke to a Florida unemployed man and commiserated that he, too, was also unemployed. Romney’s tin-eared joke about his own presidential aspirations to a representative of the millions of struggling Americans kind of says it all about what he’s in this for. Romney’s only offering over the other Republican candidates for president is that he can speak without specs of spittle flying from a frothy rage venting at immigrants, Muslims, or debate questioners. That, and his quarter billion dollars taxed at half what you pay on your income.

All of this is not to assure Obama this is his to play safe, down the middle. If one has ever had an opportunity to lead in American history, if there has ever been a president with the wind to his back and his foes flinching in their petulant obstruction, that time is now. Obama knows what Romney will learn, that you don’t get to be president by default.

Filmmaker Donn “D.J.” Viola was struck by the odds of inclusion in the coveted landmark independent film festival: Out of 11,700 entries, only 180 were chosen, 1.538%. Parallel to the Occupy Movement’s empowering the bottom 99%, Viola sought to provide some kind of platform for the approximately 32 films made every day of the last year.

Going further, such a context could allow for more political films than might usually be included in the crop of Sundance selections. While Sundance has long been a strong supporter of environmental topics, the timeliness of a film festival is a unique challenge — where the transformative Occupy Wall Street movement sprung up in October and swept the national discourse, the deadline for submissions to Sundance was in September.

Occupy Sundance will be a chance to watch movies covering the range of topics that have fed the Occupy movement: documentaries covering the Federal Reserve and Wall Street’s incestuous ties, microfinance and social business, Citizens United and campaign reform, election integrity and voter suppression, media consolidation and broadcast activism, even the recent battle over public unions in Wisconsin. Going into a pivotal election year, these are issues that can’t wait to submit to Sundance next year and hope to make the cut in 2013.

Viola asks, “What’s the hardest thing to do at Sundance? See a movie. You have all these people who have come from all over, bundled up, packed in to this small town, just to see movies, and everything is always sold out.” In the meantime, Viola was discovering how hard it is just to get friends to watch a link to the short film he had poured his heart into, as people have become inundated with media to the point of meaninglessness. Bringing the overflow of quality content to the overflow of movie watchers in Park City seemed necessary.

And so Viola has set up a venue across from the Slamdance offices on Main Street at a restaurant where there will be a gallery of viewing stations to watch films from the Occupy Sundance collection. This offers another solution to the overwhelmed festival-goer – the opportunity to see films at one’s convenience. Some projected screenings of the timelier topics may be arranged, but as much as sharing films, the aim of Occupy Sundance is to facilitate connections and foster a temporary community. As the Occupy movement has brought thousands and thousands of people out from their insulated routines to discover like minds and organize, Occupy Sundance offers filmmakers, buyers, activists, and the uninitiated the chance to meet, learn about films and issues, and get the jump on how this medium will make a difference in 2012.

Occupy Sundance is open to those who show up, like the Occupy Movement. Filmmakers not attending but wishing to submit their films do not need to pay a fee, but do need to get their films in by January 17th. Visit the Occupy Sundance website for more info at www.occupysundance.com and follow on Twitter at @OccupySundance

Occupy Sundance will be at Cisero’s Good Times Bar at the top of Main Street, across from the Slamdance offices, running Jan. 19 – Jan. 29th, from noon to 8 pm daily.

Sunday, Jan. 8, will be the final day of Mr. Brainwash’s Art Show 2011, an exhibition which has drawn thousands each day to behold the childlike imagination of Thierry Guetta. This abandoned industrial space also happens to be adorned with a significant contribution from the street art community of Los Angeles, after Brainwash allowed 20,000 square feet of the ground floor to be entirely covered with other people’s posters, paintings, stickers and spray paint.

This mammoth art show will not be viewable somewhere else down the line. In fact, after this last day of viewing, the building is reportedly slated to be demolished. Street art is not intended to last, and here it won’t even last inside an empty building.

And yet, it was the barren behemoth building that first drew Thierry Guetta to tackle it with his vision of graffiti-fueled pop art installations and wild remixes of celebrity iconography. In this exclusive short documentary, Thierry Guetta shares his dreams and travails of trying to turn a dilapidated factory into a Street Art Vatican.

But where most of Hip Hop seemed to descend into a clatter of techno-fused beats and hooks about either partying in the club or partying in the strip club, there stood out a surprisingly positive groove that seems to best put a face on this year of the Occupy genesis.

Weaving an interpolation of Modest Mouse’s 2004 upbeat hit “Float On,” Lupe Fiasco uses his verses to unify the impoverished and privileged alike, urging courage to resist everyday oppressors, drawing strength from both childhood dreams and the power that a rarefied performer gets to observe when audiences are chanting his lyrics back to him around the world.

And yet in his open-ended challenge that “Ain’t nobody leavin, nobody going home, even if they turn the lights on, the show is going on,” there seems to be the prescient call for in-person assembly and energy that so many apparently desired deep down, across America, and around the world.

For those who still don’t get what the Occupy Wall Street movement has been about, think about it like this: it’s a like a vigil for a plan, or an intervention on behalf of an country all too obligingly suffering the painful cuts and deep gouging of corporate greed run amok in our political process. That outrage and alienation turns into empowerment with shared goals and the recognition that the voices of many are suddenly much louder than the voice telling us what additional austerity we should all endure because of some bankers’ rampant criminal enterprise, which goes unpunished.

When future generations look back at us and our time, I hope they can associate this song with this tumultuous, inspiring era.

Here are the lyrics and music video for “The Show Goes On” by Lupe Fiasco, from his album LASERS. Follow Lupe Fiasco on Twitter: @LupeFiasco

Lyrics via LupeFiasco.com

Chorus
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on

Verse 1
Have you ever had the feeling that you was being had
Know that shit that make you mad
They treat you like a slave
Put chains all on your soul
And put whips up on your back
They be lying through they teeth
Hope you slip up off your path
I don’t switch up off I just laugh
Put my kicks up on they desk
Unaffected by they threats
Then get busy on they ass
See that’s how that chi town made me
That’s how my daddy raised me
That glitterin may not be gold
Don’t let nobody play me
If you are my homeboy
You never have to pay me
Gon and put your hands up
When times is hard you stand up
LUPE the man
Cause a brand that the fans trust
So even if they ban us
They’ll never slow my plans up

Chorus
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on

Verse 2
One in the air for people ain’t here
Two in the air for the father that’s there
Three in the air for the kids in the ghetto
Four for the kids that don’t wanna be there
None for the n—s tryna hold them back
Five in the air for the teacher not scared
To tell those kids that’s living in the ghetto
That the n—s holding back
That the world is theirs
Yea yea the world is yours
I was once that little boy
Terrified of the world
Now I’m on a world tour
I will give up everything
Even start a world war
For these ghetto girls and boys, I’m rappin round the world for
Africa to New York
Haiti then I detour
Oakland down to Auckland
Gaza Strip to Detroit
Say hip hop on a destroy
Tell him look at me boy
I hope your son don’t have a gun, and never be a D-Boy

Chorus
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on
Alright already the show goes on
All night til the morning we dream so long
Anybody ever wonder when they will see the sun up
Just remember when you come up the show goes on

Verse 3
So no matter what you been through
No matter what you into
No matter what you see when you look outside your window
Brown grass or green grass
Picket fence or barbed wire
Never ever put them down
You just lift your arms higher
Raise them til your arms tired, let em know your there.
That you struggling, surviving that you gon persevere yea
Aint nobody leavin, nobody going home
Even if they turn the lights out, the show is going on

And in the center of Los Angeles, just off Santa Monica and La Brea, he found an urban adversary worthy of his determination: an abandoned industrial complex, over 80,000 square feet. What first seemed like a Russian temple waiting to be christened became a never-ending barrage of repairs, inspectors and maintenance, while he was hoping to use it as an art studio rather than an urban renewal project. “I almost gave up,” he says wearily. “It was too much.”

But perseverance paid off, and the long announced Art Show 2011 will in fact be opening in 2011. This marks an art opening not just for Mr. Brainwash, but for the scores of street artists that were welcomed to decorate 20,000 square feet on the first floor of the Brainwash building. Over several days in October, Thierry threw open the doors to the public to decorate his walls with street art. The open house that ensued was dubbed a “Woodstock of Street Art” by venerable street art blog Melrose & Fairfax. Local street artists could work without fear of arrest, and also get to watch other artists work that they might not get to meet otherwise. Many older artists showed up and contributed pieces of art they had made, which they would not dare risk putting up on streets. This cavern of creative contributions is the setting for only part of Mr. Brainwash’s show.

The space is now filled with grandiose sculptures and huge paintings that are signature to MBW’s over the top zeal. To apply conventional standards of artistic merit or technique is to somewhat miss the point of a Mr. Brainwash experience. In almost every direction, there are signs of kid-like inspiration, executed with realistic detail, on a scale of unrestrained aspiration.

Why would you not want to make a life size metal elephant, crushing a giant spray can? There are various old cars jutting out of the floor or piled up in the front of the building. Rock star iconography adorns the walls, with huge paintings of John Lennon, Yoko Ono, David Bowie, Slash, Kate Moss and others. One room is filled with a huge boom box sculpture that barely fits the giant space it is in. A massive sculpture of Poseidon rolling paint on the floor can greets guests. The scope of Art Show 2011 in many ways is defined by the building itself — an empty factory space with endless rooms and cavernous floors, setting a high ceiling, both literally and metaphorically, for Brainwash to maximize his larger than life vision of celebrating pop art about pop art.

The preview show Thursday night, Dec. 22, at 7 p.m. was free to the public, offering the first 300 new original limited Mr. Brainwash prints. Hundreds were lined up before the show opened. Official opening is Dec. 25 running through Dec. 29, at 960 N. La Brea Ave., LA, Calif. 90038, visit artshow2011.com.

View Slideshow photos by Melrose & Fairfax.

John Wellington Ennis is following street art for his upcoming film PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes.

Ron English’s latest collection, “The Seasons of Supurbia,” is a journey through pop surrealism, realized in English’s universe as tableaus of toys with twisted features in a foreboding landscape. Many of English’s motifs appear through the paintings – superheroes, action figures, and classic characters of his such as MC SuperSized, the bloated Ronald McDonald image seen in Super Size Me. But in a trippy world with the disorienting array of characters one might breeze past in a dream, this re-imagining of Ron English’s domain is both disquieting and compelling, with any graphic evocations softened by the subdued stationary setting of the subconscious.

But it is not meant to be all dark, says English: “The thing that is often misunderstood about pop surrealism is, especially my work, it seems very cynical. But it is also embracing, too. It’s like, ‘we love this stuff and we hated it.’ And I think that’s confusing to people because they want you to pick one side or the other. They don’t like if you can see all sides and actually see something of value on all sides.”

To discover inspiration for this show, English revisited the town he grew up in, which he hadn’t been back to for 30 years. While drawing from deep developmental attachments to Charlie Brown and long-forgotten favorite toys, English still summons the present context in his implicit commentary, invoking corporate hegemony, war, and the world we leave our children.

In this insightful interview, Ron English discusses what pop surrealism means to him, how he got started working for a protégé of Andy Warhol, and how Disney so closely guarded its corporate icon that it had U.S. Copyright Law re-written to protect Mickey Mouse.

Ron English’s latest collection, “The Seasons of Supurbia,” is at the Corey Helford Gallery until December 10th. His website is popaganda.com.

John Wellington Ennis is following the growth and impact of political street art for his upcoming documentary, PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes.

Actions included “reclaiming” houses that banks are leaving vacant, and “home defense” to stop banks from foreclosing and accept payments from the homeowners, which banks like Chase and Wells Fargo are refusing to do in some cases.

Some of the groups involved in the community resistance effort include ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), The New Bottom Line, ReFund California, New York Communities for Change, Occupy Wall Street, Take Back the Land, SOUL (Chicago), SEIU, and The Coffee Party.

In South Gate, CA, twenty minutes south of Los Angeles, dozens of supporters rallied around the home of Ana Casas Wilson, with several pledging to camp out in her front yard while she defies eviction, and face arrest if necessary.

Ana shared her story with the assembled media and demonstrators: Living with cerebral palsy and battling stage four breast cancer, she was stalked by loan reps assuring her they could lower her payments for the home she has lived in with her family since 1975. After relenting to get more money for her health care and refinancing in 2005, Ana eventually found that her loan was acquired by Wells Fargo, who has since refused to make any modifications or accept make up payments.

ACCE leader Lynn Motley asked the crowd to take out their phones and call the CEO of Wells Fargo, John Stumpf, at 415-396-7018, and ask that he stop the eviction of Ana Casas Wilson and her family, and work to modify their loan, since they have three steady incomes in their house. An activist and advocate for other disabled Angelenos, Ana has held off the eviction order from being enforced for the time being. Now, she is not alone.

This video covering the South Gate action shows the media interest and community support for this cause, as well as the energy building from the Occupy movement.

The Occupy Our Homes actions came on the same day that the Attorney Generals of California and Nevada announced a joint investigation into bank practices that precipitated the housing crisis as well as the handling of foreclosures.

As one might gather from her tales of debauchery, outrageous performances, and much wandering, Rev. Jen is a creature of New York, pedestrian and poor but outlasting the thriving gentrification which has seen her neighborhood evolve from immigrant marketplace to artist haven to college town. It was there, in that last century, she launched her own open mike to support oddball performers and alternative comics. Her hapless theatrical endeavors and self-deprecating humor won her a cult following among lovers of ironic and quirky comedy, including Janeane Garofolo, Moby, Jonathan Ames, and Amy Poehler. Above all, her stories of perseverance through bizarre part time jobs and continually disappointing relationships won her attention for their realness, disarmingly delivered in a chirpy voice by a girl wearing elf ears and dressed like a go-go dancer.

I had the pleasure and joy to work with Reverend Jen on my TV show Toolz of the New School on New York cable access from 1996-2001. A number of our escapades are detailed in her book, such as her wandering around the city dressed as a washed up Teletubby, or staging the reunion of an 80’s Christian Glam Metal band. Revisiting that time in pre-9/11 Manhattan when you could run amok with a video camera and costumes carefree, all I can say is: this happened. Vivid without sensationalizing, Reverend Jen’s style of writing is like Hemmingway detailing the exploits of a misfit looking for love and laughs on the Lower East Side.

A true writer invents language to express that which has no other description. Reverend Jen coined a term for which there is no other word in our vocabulary: Hal. When something is pathetically half-assed, yet sincere and somewhat beautiful, that would be Hal. Easily misconstrued with irony, particularly in a hipster vein, Hal is more than liking something that is so un-cool, it’s cool. Inherent in that term is a sincere effort, and sincere failure, with beauty and sardonic self-acceptance nonetheless. Having grown up an outcast picked on for being the weird kid, Reverend Jen has made it her mission to preach the principle that being different is cool.

In the spirit of Hal, we arranged a poolside photo shoot and interview with Reverend Jen lounging at the luxurious Days Inn on Sunset Blvd., next to In-N-Out Burger, for the morning after Rev. Jen’s book reading in Redondo Beach.

ME: Hey, who were those two guys leaving your hotel room just now?

RJ: One was Tommy Bigfinger, an art star who, years ago, engaged in some notorious misadventures with me that appear in the pages Elf Girl. The other was his friend, Dillon. We did karaoke last night across the street at Happy Ending bar and afterward, came back here. I’d like to claim there was some kind of wild trashing of the hotel room or rock star mud-shark incident but we- all innocently passed out fully clothed. However, this morning we convinced Bigfinger to go into the hall buck-naked and ask for more lotion. When he did, we sadistically locked him out.

ME: How did your reading go last night? What did you read?

RJ: It was swell. Mysterious Galaxy was full of sci-fi books and the crowd was mostly female. During the Q&A, I came out of the closet as a Twilight fan and was not shunned. I read a few chapters including one about when I used to dress as “Doo-Doo” the “Pete Best of the Teletubbies.” Doo-Doo appeared on Toolz of the New School (an old cable access show) doing things like getting tossed from toy stores, snorting lines and stage-diving. I also read an essay about when Bigfinger and I went to Church of the Subgenius’s X-Day, took acid and waited for aliens to abduct us.

ME: How have you enjoyed your visit to Los Angeles?

RJ: It’s been glamorous: lounging by the luxurious Days Inn pool, meeting West Coast Art Stars in Venice Beach, talking at length to a delightful Hare Krishna and helping a friend put up street art, which was relatively easy given all the cops were busy at Occupy LA.

ME: Can I have some of your truffle fries?

RJ: Those are from In-N-Out Burger next door. I’m not sure how they got here. What are truffle fries?

ME: Never mind. How has the rest of your book tour gone so far?

RJ: There have only been three stops: Atomic Books in Baltimore, Powell’s in Portland and LA. Baltimore is always tremendous, as it is an almost entirely hipster-free zone. It’s cheap, haunted and wrecked just like me. I’d never been to Portland, but I had a blast there too, going to seedy strip clubs and cheap bars and sleeping on the floor of a residential hotel — one of the comfiest floors I’ve ever encountered. There was, however, an incident on “More Good Morning Oregon” where I passed out in the green room and was deemed unfit to appear on the show. In the future, I will avoid appearing on anything with “morning” in the title unless of course, it’s “Good Morning America.” I could probably wake up for that.

ME: What is your book about?

RJ: It’s my memoir. There are tales of awkward adolescence, art school madness, bohemian extremism, disastrous love affairs, open mike hosting, cable access shenanigans and visionary underachievement. La Bohème meets Freaks and Geeks with plenty of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

ME: Why did you write it?

RJ: Because I really only have two skills – writing and painting. I try use this very limited skill set to rock the world.

ME: What did it take to get this book published?

RJ: My last book, Live Nude Elf did well. It was not Da Vinci Code popular or anything, but a few thousand copies sold so that an agent was willing to take Elf Girl on. I met her through Jonathan Ames who’d been Live Nude Elf’s agent (but had to quit being my agent after his TV show got hugely successful.) At first, there were a few rejections, but I’ve come to accept rejection as no big deal. It’s just someone deeming worthless everything you’ve poured your heart and soul into. Luckily Simon and Schuster recognized it as a remarkable work of genius or at least, great toilet reading.

ME: What have you learned from the process?

RJ: Don’t stay out all night before you have to appear on a morning show and always carry a sharpie in case someone wants you to autograph her breasts. Oh yeah, and work your ass off.

ME: Weren’t you supposed to leave for the airport?

RJ: Oops. Forgot.

Reverend Jen’s Hollywood Poolside Photo Spread

Here is the online premiere of “Doo Doo: Exile in Teletubbyland,” the award-winning short film starring Rev. Jen as the fifth Teletubby who was kicked out of the group before they hit it big.

This short was produced for the television series Toolz of the New School, which aired from 1996-2001 on Manhattan Neighborhood Networks public access television in New York City.

John Wellington Ennis’s current project PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes is a continuation of his work in documenting hilarity and chaos with pathos.

What is surprisingly unique about the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, and supporting actions across the country, is the broad immediate support without an immediately stated objective. With so little coverage and a yet unspecified goal, major unions lent their support, supportive occupations cropped up nationwide, and the numbers in Liberty Park are growing despite NYPD crackdowns.

Unlike anti-war marches, Tea Party gatherings, or other well-worn modes of protest, the notion of an in-person response to Wall Street’s unchecked looting of the economy apparently did not need much explaining. That is because many Americans have been living with painful awareness that their hardships in recent years are related in a myriad of ways to reckless trading, predatory loans, and manifold illegal banking practices, all perpetrated by the same executives still receiving multi-million dollar bonuses whose guilt is trumped by the notion that their companies are Too Big To Fail. 

None of these many abuses by financial institutions collectively referred to as Wall Street are new information. It’s not like people just flooded the streets upon hearing that Bank of America is trying to tack on another surcharge, just after laying off over 30,000 employees, just after widespread manipulation of their loan business was deemed not criminal, by their own accord. (No, that move by B of A was just easy pickings for Democrats trying to remember their purpose.)

It’s not like Americans did not wait while the federal government negotiated good-faith interest-free loans to keep huge banks and firms afloat, at the price to taxpayers, many of whom were struggling to stay afloat themselves under variable interest or inflated mortgages foisted upon them by said financial giants. It’s not like financial regulations weren’t proposed to Congress, with larger reforms left by the wayside, and in the final decision by the Federal Reserve on the Durbin Amendment of the Dodd-Frank Finanical Act, credit card companies somehow get to charge more for debit swipes than they had even hoped. Bank lobbyists paid off, in more than one sense.

And, it’s not like President Obama hasn’t trotted out some fine rhetoric of late, angling the ongoing Republican obstructionism to fuel his re-election campaign as it gears up. Yes, it’s math, not class warfare. But, if this were a metaphor of head to head competition between classes — namely, the top 1% Super Rich that owns 40% of the wealth versus the 99% rest of Americans — then Obama would be like a goalie, constantly swarmed by the offensive John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, Darrell Issa, bank lobbyists, and Goldman Sachs alumni in his own ranks. The Super Rich Team will continue to score point after point on Obama, because despite his considerable skill set, it’s like he’s playing at the company picnic, and really, you just don’t make your bosses look bad when they underwrite your existence.

Obama is looking for $1 billion to fund his re-election campaign. That may seem extraordinary, but after the disastrous Supreme Court decision Citizens United vs. FEC, it is a given that there will be even more spent against him in anonymous corporate money. Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have announced plans to raise and spend record amounts, over $300 million in outside ads running across the country in the 2012 races.

Obama is not going to get one billion dollars from $5 donations, no matter how many email blasts. Obama and his team have been currying favor like a schoolboy with Wall Street throughout this administration because they are waiting for the pay-off in their campaign coffers. The slap on the wrist following the financial meltdown was more drying their hands like a bathroom attendant so they can get back to work making important deals without consequence.

While the financial meltdown and ensuing bailouts came before Obama, the lack of reform or accountability does not win him any gratitude from either side, it only serves as precedent that selling bundled crap mortgages to old people goes unpunished. In fact, it is richly rewarded. Obama’s deference and endless capital to the banking industry has long made it clear where his priorities are. His jobs plan is well-intentioned, but probably a drop in the bucket and a few years late. For all the bitter clamor over health care reform, it’s quite likely that it will be deemed impermissible by the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas can’t wait to sit silently through the arguments before he punts our healthcare system back to the wolves that employ his wife, Ginni.

As the crowds grow, this will become Obama’s next oil spill. How long will he let Occupy Wall Street go on before addressing it as more than just a policy point to support his agenda? Many loyalists will defend the intentions and constraints on Obama, but this much is painfully clear: The President must act now. Because if he does not get in front of this parade, it’s about to surpass him.

If Obama really does aspire to be like President Lincoln, then he must recognize that his country is rent apart and it requires a true leader to keep our union from collapsing under debt and looted public services.

Because when people show up at the gates of their oppressor, the response is not: “What do you want? Can you bullet-point it for me?” You know what this is about. Our country has been decimated over the past three years, with continual revelations of financial impropriety, concerted fraud, and executive compensation the amount of a small nation’s GDP. This might be the one protest where, if asked why you were there, you could reply, “Are you fucking kidding me?” and that would actually be understood.

To dispel media misconceptions, here’s what Occupy Wall Street is not: it’s not another Tea Party, a corporate PAC-backed stab at populism consisting of right wing extremists. It’s not just young people in attendance, even though younger generations have more to lose anyway, and many are already crippled with student debt and no job possibilities. (Admittedly, younger people are better suited to sleep in inconvenient places and be fine with that. The kids call this “crashing,” which should not be interpreted as a roughhousing sort of thing.)

Occupy Wall Street is not anti-capitalism. We don’t live in capitalism. Capitalism is supposed to be merit based and left to the market — consumers — to decide where innovation and service is found. What has been foisted on us again and again is not a fair and open market. Massive companies spend huge sums to avoid paying taxes altogether. They then spend money to back politicians that will be friendly to them, in terms of regulations and tax breaks or pressure on rivals. This is a system of massive corporate welfare, where the biggest corporations pay the least to the country that allows them to prosper, while they spend their excess money in hopes of making more money through lower taxes, government jobs, or loosened environmental restrictions. Election cycles ensure ongoing opportunities for candidates to be wooed with money or threatened with ads. The more they spend on the race, the more indebted candidates become to their backers. Those that become elected repay their backers with loose oversight, no-bid contracts, and even accept their donors’ legislation pre-written. We don’t live in capitalism — that’s favoritism.

And most importantly, Occupy Wall Street is not one political party or part of a spectrum. This grassroots movement is fundamentally removed from both parties, because both parties accept vast fortunes from Wall Street to not rain on their parade. The reason abuses have thrived is because of the cost of running for office. Most people’s political persuasion or identity is based on their own sense of what’s just and fair. The nuance of foreign policy or civil liberties is lost when people are losing their homes due to manipulative mortgages from banks that have faced no discipline or reform and have been given federal money to loan to people which they still sit on.

Yet, it will take a political solution to retake our country from the Gollum of Wall Street. There’s no way any of these banks or brokers will willingly accept reform measures, even after taking trillions of taxpayer money following their own colossal fuck-ups. Wall Street execs thrive on extracting more and more profit per sale, and get off on boardroom backstabbing. Do you expect them to respond to people of all types camped outside their offices politely? The only thing they care about is if the market goes down.

Real financial overhaul will only happen if we reclaim our elections. We need real campaign reform, and we need to elect the people who will enact it. We do that through running and winning in primaries, where the party’s pick usually prevails with the most money. We innovate low budget campaign strategies to support candidates not backed by Political Action Committees, fronts for corporate money. We do it through becoming the media and covering these candidates where we live and across the country. And it starts in the streets. Where else is there but the streets?

America was born in the streets. Our first president was sworn in on the steps of Wall Street, where Congress convened for years. The framer’s dream of escaping monarchy is being eclipsed by the wealthiest 1% and their insatiable assault on anything the government provides to the public.

How can we not occupy Wall Street? Wall Street occupies US.

John Wellington Ennis’s upcoming documentary PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes explores how to reclaim our elections from corporate money. Find out more at www.pay2play.tv

Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Grameen Bank, which started out by offering small loans to Bangladesh’s poor women to help encourage self-enterprise and foster community development. As the practice of micro-lending has spread worldwide, Yunus and the Grameen Bank have deflected criticism as other predatory lenders have moved in to the small loan business. In Bangladesh, Yunus and Grameen’s work in upending societal norms have not gone unchallenged, as Grameen Board members face harassment, and Yunus is being threatened for removal from the bank he founded for working beyond the government retirement age.

It is a timely opportunity, then, for Holly Mosher’s new film to help the international community observe the breadth of Muhammad Yunus’s work and recognize that Microcredit is just the tip of the iceberg.

Bonsai People follows women who are borrowers from Grameen Bank and are applying their loans to self-betterment while developing income. The film shows how the Grameen Bank creates a local council of borrowers in villages, where women meet to share their progress. In communal support and involvement with the borrowers, the Grameen Bank helps foster enterprise on the most fundamental level in villages across Bangladesh, a country struggling with famine and natural disasters.

But beyond the Grameen Bank, there are scores of Grameen business ventures built as a response to the needs of desperate countrymen. From collaborating with Danone to produce affordable yogurt for malnourished children in Bangladesh to building eye care hospitals that will save hundreds of thousands of people from blindness, Yunus has pioneered social businesses. Bonsai People looks at some of these social businesses in action, while chronicling the main characters’ work toward a better life with their Grameen loans, everything from farming to opening a store to fixing a roof.

In these tumultuous financial times, a closer look by the international community at Yunus’s groundbreaking social business innovations is deserved. In the United States, where job creation seems to be only allowed by the wealthy, many across the political spectrum will be intrigued to see how people can prosper under extreme conditions with small support and a lot of encouragement.