Another layer of support for cold-weather Occupiers

FireDogLake.com has been raising cash to buy union and USA-made cold weather gear for Occupations across the country, including warm weather clothing, sleeping bags and generators. Sourcing the purchases, writes Jane Hamsher, was not an easy task, and

it was extraordinarily depressing. The garment manufacturing industry in the United States has been decimated by NAFTA. Link after link to once thriving union shops were dead, even in the past few years. They went out of business. They were gobbled up and gutted, or the jobs went overseas. Or both.

Which leads right back to Occupy Wall Street. As American manufacturing goes, so goes the American middle class — which was built on manufacturing jobs. ”Decline” is too delicate of a word to describe what happened. American manufacturing and the middle class economic stability that went with it were sabotaged by cooperation between leaders of both political parties.

Check out the article on Common Dreams, here.