Occupy Wall Street

[a completely inoffensive name]

I love when a movement that is dissatisfied with the society it lives in, are ridiculed for "using" that society while they protest. "I dont like how 99% of corn is genetically modified." "LOL, BUT YOU STILL HAD CORN FLOUR IN THAT MUFFIN YOU HAD FOR BREAKFAST, WHAT A HYPOCRITE!"

[Samurai Waki]

I fail to see how living like a neanderthal would resolve anything. I never got the impression it was anti-corporate, just anti-monopoly-- controlling the resources, factories, and supply lines that fill your stores with goods; kills competition, and thereby innovation. There is such a symbiotic relationship between large corporations and large financial institutions it hardly makes a difference whether you protest in front of the national reserve, or Wall Street... except everyone knows Wall Street, but not a lot know about the Federal Reserve Bank.

[Vladimir]

I love when a movement that is dissatisfied with the society it lives in, are ridiculed for "using" that society while they protest. "I dont like how 99% of corn is genetically modified." "LOL, BUT YOU STILL HAD CORN FLOUR IN THAT MUFFIN YOU HAD FOR BREAKFAST, WHAT A HYPOCRITE!"

I see them as Al-Qaeda: They're using the tools of the system they hate to bring the system down.

When has this been anti-monopole? It's been anti-corporate from the start.

[Samurai Waki]

When has this been anti-monopole? It's been anti-corporate from the start.

The two are practically synonymous these days.

[Vladimir]

The two are practically synonymous these days.

Yea, I don't get that. If you mean the federal government having a monopoly then I can see that.

You may have to draw a picture for me.

[Papewaio]

If the movement lasts its demands will firm up and the range of ideas will either group together into ration sets or be trimmed down. Any new environmental niche has an explosion of options until it settles into an equilibrium.

Maybe the most powerful thing that could come out of this is a centre moderate party for the people. It could even incorporate the moderates from the tea party.

So I'm going to call this proto party the Tea & Scone Party.

Because some people really do want their cake and eat it ok.

[PanzerJaeger]

Here are the results of an interesting new poll.

Poll: Washington to blame more than Wall Street for economy

By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY

Most Americans blame Wall Street for the nation's economic predicament — but they blame Washington more.

And in the democracy that fancies itself the capital of capitalism, more than four in 10 people describe the U.S. economic system as personally unfair to them. A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken last weekend, as the Occupy Wall Street protest movement completed its first month, found that:

•Only 54% say the economic system is personally fair to them; 44% say it is not.

•78% say Wall Street bears a great deal or a fair amount of blame for the economy; 87% say the same about Washington.

Also, the president seems to be trying his hardest to co-opt the movement, even comparing it to the Civil Rights movement today at the MLK memorial (). Good move, or is he playing with fire? And will the movement welcome his endorsement?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Yea, I don't get that. If you mean the federal government having a monopoly then I can see that.

You may have to draw a picture for me.

Almost every major sector is dominated by 5 or less corporations, just like in the guilded age, the government has promoted or let big business get too big across the entire economy and to protest against a monopoly or trust might as well be protesting against all big business nowadays.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

More photos:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/201...obal_prot.html


Another problem with this inane (even for protesting) style that tries to be all inclusive or whatever, is that you attract all the crazies. Notice the "Occupy ground zero--9/11truth" sign.

Also see:




And this political add cherry picks a few more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=NIlRQCPJcew


The Rome version of the protest led to violence:

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...097038,00.html

Instead, the protest quickly fell apart. The march hadn't traveled far when groups of young men began pulling up sampietrini (the black cobblestones so characteristic of the Italian capital) and hurling them at shop windows. Others broke into parked cars and set them alight with Molotov cocktails, pulled down signposts to smash ATMs and crashed through the glass doors of a supermarket. Soon large parts of the demonstration had given way to skirmishes as men with masks over their face engaged the police with rocks and bottles.
By late afternoon, the protest route had devolved into a full-scale battle, with police vans engaging in charges against hundreds of rock-throwing protesters. Teargas floated like mist through the streets. Demonstrators barricaded the roads with metal barriers and dumpsters, and at least two members of the Italian paramilitary police escaped an armored van seconds before protesters set it on fire. A warehouse belonging to the Ministry of Defense was set ablaze, and a statue of the Virgin Mary was pulled from a church and shattered on the street. Seventy people were injured, three seriously. While the vast majority of those who turned up that day remained peaceful — indeed, hostile to those battling the police — only the most violent reached the march's planned destination. They seem to have dashed there to pre-empt the rest of the march, engaging the police in about two hours of fighting in front of the basilica. The rest, blocked by the fighting, quickly dissipated, their banners crestfallen; many detoured to the enormous field that marks the remains of the ancient Circus Maximus.

Suv graffitied with occupy wall street slogan and set on fire:
http://www.registerguard.com/web/upd...guard.html.csp

Also:

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Anyway, the above is just in response to the "they might as well go for it" idea.

This post does a good job expressing some of the things I was trying to say:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...YsL_story.html

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

What the Occupy protests tell us about the limits of democracy
Text Size PrintE-mailReprints
By Anne Applebaum, Published: October 17

On paper, it isn’t easy to reproduce the oddity of the Occupy the London Stock Exchange rally that took place on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral last weekend. It’s all very British — people are cooking pots of porridge on the sidewalk — yet reverent homage is being paid to the original Occupy Wall Street protests, too. The London demonstrators have even adopted the “human mic” used in New York’s Zuccotti Park — the crowd in front repeats whatever the speaker says, so that the crowd in back can hear — despite the fact that megaphones and microphones have not been banned in London. The effect, as can be heard on a Guardian online video, was something like this:

“We need to have a process.” (We need to have a process!)

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New Gingrich, Herman Cain and Eric Cantor on Occupy Wall Street.
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“This meeting was called for a reason!” (This meeting was called for a reason!)

“We know that you are there!” (We know that you are there!)

“And we have solidarity with you.” (We have solidarity with you!)

Unintentionally, it sounds a lot like a scene from the Monty Python movie “Life of Brian,” the one in which Brian, who has been mistaken for the Messiah, shouts out at the crowd, “You are all individuals!” The crowd shouts back: “We are all individuals!”

To my American ear, the resemblance is reinforced by the fact that the speakers are British and thus sound as if they belong in a Monty Python movie anyway. But this isn’t unusual: Inevitably, the Occupy movements — also known in Europe as the indignados, after Spanish protests that started last spring — have taken on different national flavors in different places. The Occupy Tokyo marchers shouted slogans about nuclear power. The Occupy Sydney protests fizzled out because, as a spokesman regretfully admitted, “we don’t have the depth of crisis here in Australia.” In Rome, where radical politics has historically had a violent fringe, marches have already turned into riots and caused millions of euros worth of damage.

Of course these international protests do have a few things in common, both with one another and with the anti-globalization movement that preceded them. They are similar in their lack of focus, in their inchoate nature, and above all in their refusal to engage with existing democratic institutions. In New York, marchers chanted, “This is what democracy looks like,” but actually, this isn’t what democracy looks like. This is what freedom of speech looks like. Democracy looks a lot more boring. Democracy requires institutions, elections, political parties, rules, laws, a judiciary and many unglamorous, time-consuming activities, none of which are nearly as much fun as camping out in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral or chanting slogans on the Rue Saint-Martin in Paris.

Yet in one sense, the international Occupy movement’s failure to produce sound legislative proposals is understandable: Both the sources of the global economic crisis and the solutions to it lie, by definition, outside the competence of local and national politicians. As I wrote at the time of the first Greek riots a few years ago, nobody much admires powerless leaders. Nobody much sees the point in voting for people who can’t stop another wave of economic pain rolling in from Beijing, Brussels or New York. If you’re upset about the austerity program being imposed on your country by indebted banks on the other side of the world, it doesn’t seem logical to complain to the mayor of Seville.

The emergence of an international protest movement without a coherent program is therefore not an accident: It reflects a deeper crisis, one without an obvious solution. Democracy is based on the rule of law. Democracy works only within distinct borders and among people who feel themselves to be part of the same nation. A “global community” cannot be a national democracy. And a national democracy cannot command the allegiance of a billion-dollar global hedge fund, with its headquarters in a tax haven and its employees scattered around the world.

Unlike the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, to whom the London and New York protesters openly (and ridiculously) compare themselves, we have democratic institutions in the Western world. They are designed to reflect, at least crudely, the desire for political change within a given nation. But they cannot cope with the desire for global political change, nor can they control things that happen outside their borders. Although I still believe in globalization’s economic and spiritual benefits — along with open borders, freedom of movement and free trade — globalization has clearly begun to undermine the legitimacy of Western democracies.

“Global” activists, if they are not careful, will accelerate that decline. Protesters in London shout,“We need to have a process!” Well, they already have a process: It’s called the British political system. And if they don’t figure out how to use it, they’ll simply weaken it further.

[Major Robert Dump]

I wish for once someone would have a protest with, like, an invitation list and doormen to keep out the scuzzies. This is one of the problems I have with Democrats and Liberals in general: while at the core I believe in the same social and economic causes, the fact that they get behind any fringe lunatic is a huge turn off. I mean, Al Sharpton has a prime time show FFS.

[Nowake]

Hey Kojiro
I do not see us agreeing, as I remarked before, as long we approach the phenomenon from opposite vantage points.


You continue to view these protesters through the lens of a citizen judging a political party.
I advocate their right to express dissatisfaction towards financial policy in their quality of citizens.
The purpose of their action is the protest itself in my view, the need to communicate the size of the community for which the status quo is unbearable, while in yours the protest is misguided for lacking a purpose easily contained in a manifesto.


And while I fully understand the reasoning behind the article you quote (which was well written by the by) I believe it also legitimizes the protests when it writes (and I do not believe it is taken out of context ):

The emergence of an international protest movement without a coherent program is therefore not an accident: It reflects a deeper crisis, one without an obvious solution. Democracy is based on the rule of law. Democracy works only within distinct borders and among people who feel themselves to be part of the same nation. A “global community” cannot be a national democracy. And a national democracy cannot command the allegiance of a billion-dollar global hedge fund, with its headquarters in a tax haven and its employees scattered around the world.

The problem of a society feeling the rule of law is not protecting it becomes an issue of sovereignty and it requires in-depth modifications of the system.
In this case, a public gathering is deeply rooted within the genes of a gregarious species and it should be properly channelled, not discouraged, in my view, as doing so implies an idealistic attempt to negate society’s limits. And what’s more, this public gathering is not actually attempting to impose the above mentioned radical systemic modifications, it is still waving and waiting for legislative proposals, this is no nascent revolutionary movement.
I would also think it sensible to split the OWS from ulterior protests world-wide, the later are unleashing social tension which preceded OWS and which has nothing to do with the American demonstrations more often than not. You cannot make your people responsible for it. And the amount of disorderly conduct and damage to public property are still in their ideal limits considering the size of the protests, you clearly have not seen what militant mobs can amount to in far fewer numbers by simply not policing their own actions, nevermind when they put their mind to it. These people have for the most part actively wished to demonstrate restraint.

[Nowake]

I was just perusing a few online articles and I found, as you did above, a neutral voice (to our debate) that adds a handful extra valences to the argument I developed in my above post. Sorry for the double post, but perhaps it will further our discussion and I did not want to squeeze it into an edit.

The boldfaced and underlined parts are my own doing:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The lead headline on the front page of Saturday's "Business Day" section of the New York Times: "In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated."

Is it possible to imagine a more obnoxious response to the Occupy Wall Street movement? "Sophistication" is of course a word defined by these bankers as seeing things precisely their way, as buying into the whole rigged system that the movement exists to protest. They clearly believe that, without an MBA, people lack standing to critique the very entities that are screwing them.

We've seen this sort of thing before, of course: Henry Kissinger regarded the anti-nuclear movement as naive. Opponents of the Vietnam War were initially dismissed as ignorant dupes with no grasp of geopolitics. Civil rights activists were shrugged off as utopian idealists lacking any sense of the country's history and traditions and the realities of federalism. And all were labeled, at one time or another, Communists. People with a stake in the status quo usually choose to see their position as natural and unalterable, and regard those in dissent as dunces or villains.

Which is not to say the movement isn't incoherent, inconsistent, and lacking a clear program. I recently heard Michael Moore give his version of the movement's demands, and it amounted, unsurprisingly, to a groaning buffet table of the progressive causes with which he's been associated, many of them unachievable from a practical point of view, and some of them far removed from the grievances that have actually driven people into the street. He seemed to be trying to take ownership of the protest, and in his zeal missed some of the point. And I recently heard Republican Nicolle Wallace assail Occupy Wall Street for its lack of any credible spokesperson who could speak responsibly for the movement as a whole. She too was missing the point, looking for a lobbying operation while watching a street demonstration.

Popular protest isn't about a neat, discrete set of demands, even when it pretends to be. Maybe the Boston (as distinct from the contemporary) Tea Party was an exception, although even there, I suspect the tea tax was in fact but one grievance among many. But with every protest movement I've witnessed personally, a poll of the participants would have revealed a cacophony of conflicting intent. When the issue was Vietnam, I marched with people who wanted to see Ho Chi Minh victorious, and people who merely wanted a finite pause in Johnson's bombing campaign, and those who wanted the troops brought home immediately, without negotiations and without regard to consequences. Anyone who took part in any civil rights demonstrations knows the spectrum of demands being advocated, from an end to segregation to financial reparations for slavery to some intimidating, unelaborated version of black power. When I went to march against the Iraq War in London in 2003, there were at least as many anti-Zionist placards on display as those specifically related to the war policies of Bush and Cheney. And as for today's Tea Party ... well, don't get me started.

No, public protest isn't about anything as mundane as ten-point programs and lists of demands. It has its purpose, and its justification, in manifesting public discontent with things the participants regard as profoundly wrong, profoundly in need of repair. It's far too messy a medium of expression to allow for a practical strategy of redress. In today's situation, after an almost inexplicable period of quiescence, a large number of people are finally willing to say, That's enough. Wealth disparity in this country is obscene. The absence of regulation of financial institutions has proved catastrophic. The decisive influence of money in our politics has distorted the process beyond anything the Founders could have imagined, let alone foreseen. These things are threatening democracy. They've already gone a considerable distance toward subverting it.

Every protester may have his or her own proposed solution. That simply doesn't matter. What does matter is that popular refusal to tolerate the current state of affairs appears to be reaching a tipping point. The prosaic, technical work of finding some ameliorating, and no doubt less than thorough, way of making things somewhat better is a matter for elected officials and those who beaver away in government agencies, and won't look exciting and won't provide much in the way of emotional release, and may well feel like a serious anticlimax after all the hoopla, all the tumult and the shouting. But it's the way politics works. It's the way things change. It's the way the unromantic, prosaic, desk-bound people who make our laws and administer our country get things done. I don't have a problem with that. It's every bit as essential as storming the barricades.

If enough law-makers come to understand that the situation is intolerable, and much more important, that it no longer will be tolerated, then it may just change. The Glass-Steagall Act wasn't, after all, The Marseillaises. It didn't have to be.

Source: The Atlantic Monthly The Occupation

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Hey Kojiro
I do not see us agreeing, as I remarked before, as long we approach the phenomenon from opposite vantage points.


You continue to view these protesters through the lens of a citizen judging a political party.
I advocate their right to express dissatisfaction towards financial policy in their quality of citizens.

Of course the have the right to...we aren't talking about their right to. We're talking about whether it's dumb or not, or a bad idea or not, etc.

And while I fully understand the reasoning behind the article you quote (which was well written by the by) I believe it also legitimizes the protests when it writes (and I do not believe it is taken out of context ):

The problem of a society feeling the rule of law is not protecting it becomes an issue of sovereignty and it requires in-depth modifications of the system.
In this case, a public gathering is deeply rooted within the genes of a gregarious species and it should be properly channelled, not discouraged, in my view, as doing so implies an idealistic attempt to negate society’s limits. And what’s more, this public gathering is not actually attempting to impose the above mentioned radical systemic modifications, it is still waving and waiting for legislative proposals, this is no nascent revolutionary movement.

I didn't really see what she was saying with the stuff about the global community and democracy. Sure, there can be a recession through no action of our country that our representatives could not have permitted. Don't see how that's a failure of democracy rather than a limitation of government.

I would also think it sensible to split the OWS from ulterior protests world-wide, the later are unleashing social tension which preceded OWS and which has nothing to do with the American demonstrations more often than not. You cannot make your people responsible for it. And the amount of disorderly conduct and damage to public property are still in their ideal limits considering the size of the protests, you clearly have not seen what militant mobs can amount to in far fewer numbers by simply not policing their own actions, nevermind when they put their mind to it. These people have for the most part actively wished to demonstrate restraint.

They should learn a little history, or have some common sense. You don't help create a volatile situation and then say "Oh but I would never have smashed any windows".

The purpose of their action is the protest itself in my view, the need to communicate the size of the community for which the status quo is unbearable, while in yours the protest is misguided for lacking a purpose easily contained in a manifesto.

I'm not really saying that "they don't have a focus, so the protest is dumb". The issue is the lack of possible focus. If you have a women's rights movement with a whole bundle of issues that aren't clearly laid out, and there is a law that bans women from X, then it doesn't matter that you don't have clarity because there is something definite to be done. But the complicated arguments about the dodd-frank bill don't fit that criteria.

I was just perusing a few online articles and I found, as you did above, a neutral voice (to our debate) that adds a handful extra valences to the argument I developed in my above post. Sorry for the double post, but perhaps it will further our discussion and I did not want to squeeze it into an edit.

The boldfaced and underlined parts are my own doing:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The lead headline on the front page of Saturday's "Business Day" section of the New York Times: "In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated."

Is it possible to imagine a more obnoxious response to the Occupy Wall Street movement? "Sophistication" is of course a word defined by these bankers as seeing things precisely their way, as buying into the whole rigged system that the movement exists to protest. They clearly believe that, without an MBA, people lack standing to critique the very entities that are screwing them.

We've seen this sort of thing before, of course: Henry Kissinger regarded the anti-nuclear movement as naive. Opponents of the Vietnam War were initially dismissed as ignorant dupes with no grasp of geopolitics. Civil rights activists were shrugged off as utopian idealists lacking any sense of the country's history and traditions and the realities of federalism. And all were labeled, at one time or another, Communists. People with a stake in the status quo usually choose to see their position as natural and unalterable, and regard those in dissent as dunces or villains.

Which is not to say the movement isn't incoherent, inconsistent, and lacking a clear program. I recently heard Michael Moore give his version of the movement's demands, and it amounted, unsurprisingly, to a groaning buffet table of the progressive causes with which he's been associated, many of them unachievable from a practical point of view, and some of them far removed from the grievances that have actually driven people into the street. He seemed to be trying to take ownership of the protest, and in his zeal missed some of the point. And I recently heard Republican Nicolle Wallace assail Occupy Wall Street for its lack of any credible spokesperson who could speak responsibly for the movement as a whole. She too was missing the point, looking for a lobbying operation while watching a street demonstration.

Popular protest isn't about a neat, discrete set of demands, even when it pretends to be. Maybe the Boston (as distinct from the contemporary) Tea Party was an exception, although even there, I suspect the tea tax was in fact but one grievance among many. But with every protest movement I've witnessed personally, a poll of the participants would have revealed a cacophony of conflicting intent. When the issue was Vietnam, I marched with people who wanted to see Ho Chi Minh victorious, and people who merely wanted a finite pause in Johnson's bombing campaign, and those who wanted the troops brought home immediately, without negotiations and without regard to consequences. Anyone who took part in any civil rights demonstrations knows the spectrum of demands being advocated, from an end to segregation to financial reparations for slavery to some intimidating, unelaborated version of black power. When I went to march against the Iraq War in London in 2003, there were at least as many anti-Zionist placards on display as those specifically related to the war policies of Bush and Cheney. And as for today's Tea Party ... well, don't get me started.

No, public protest isn't about anything as mundane as ten-point programs and lists of demands. It has its purpose, and its justification, in manifesting public discontent with things the participants regard as profoundly wrong, profoundly in need of repair. It's far too messy a medium of expression to allow for a practical strategy of redress. In today's situation, after an almost inexplicable period of quiescence, a large number of people are finally willing to say, That's enough. Wealth disparity in this country is obscene. The absence of regulation of financial institutions has proved catastrophic. The decisive influence of money in our politics has distorted the process beyond anything the Founders could have imagined, let alone foreseen. These things are threatening democracy. They've already gone a considerable distance toward subverting it.

Every protester may have his or her own proposed solution. That simply doesn't matter. What does matter is that popular refusal to tolerate the current state of affairs appears to be reaching a tipping point. The prosaic, technical work of finding some ameliorating, and no doubt less than thorough, way of making things somewhat better is a matter for elected officials and those who beaver away in government agencies, and won't look exciting and won't provide much in the way of emotional release, and may well feel like a serious anticlimax after all the hoopla, all the tumult and the shouting. But it's the way politics works. It's the way things change. It's the way the unromantic, prosaic, desk-bound people who make our laws and administer our country get things done. I don't have a problem with that. It's every bit as essential as storming the barricades.

If enough law-makers come to understand that the situation is intolerable, and much more important, that it no longer will be tolerated, then it may just change. The Glass-Steagall Act wasn't, after all, The Marseillaises. It didn't have to be.

Source: The Atlantic Monthly The Occupation

That article tremendously exaggerates the value of "people expressing their discontent" through protesting. Why would I take it as a positive that this crowd might have some influence on politicians? Will it have a good influence? Why on earth would I want politicians convinced that people are angry enough about stupid slogan level ideas like "the wealth disparity in this country is obscene" to do something about it? Where does this crazy idea that the people are pure and good and the when things go wrong it's because the government screwed it up come from? "If only the people had more say, we'd be better off?" Ridiculous idea.

[Tellos Athenaios]

So I'm going to call this proto party the Tea & Scone Party.

Main party point: where's the clotted cream gone too?

[Brenus]

"If only the people had more say, we'd be better off?" Ridiculous idea." Yeap. It is called Democracy...

[Nowake]

Morning Kojiro
Thought we would be debating current events and discussing the social commentary we find in articles and what not, but the disconnect between our world-views goes so much deeper. It seems so odd for an American citizen to ignore such connections which to me, an east-European, seem fundamental; yet best to explain myself while replying to your latest comments.

I didn't really see what she was saying with the stuff about the global community and democracy. Sure, there can be a recession through no action of our country that our representatives could not have permitted. Don't see how that's a failure of democracy rather than a limitation of government.

I initially understood you agreed with her, it was your quote. Her point is obvious enough though, surely there’s a straight line to be drawn between the global community and a sovereign democracy; but -- “Sure, there can be a recession through no action of our country that our representatives could not have permitted “ -- is not at all the connection you should’ve made. No, what she was writing was, and I will re-quote for the rest of the readers:

The emergence of an international protest movement without a coherent program is therefore not an accident: It reflects a deeper crisis, one without an obvious solution. Democracy is based on the rule of law. Democracy works only within distinct borders and among people who feel themselves to be part of the same nation. A “global community” cannot be a national democracy. And a national democracy cannot command the allegiance of a billion-dollar global hedge fund, with its headquarters in a tax haven and its employees scattered around the world.

Democracy is a system that prioritizes quantity. No matter the drawbacks we both see in it, it is an inviolable principle of what we stand for. Citizens have the right (though I hate the word; I would use privilege any day over it) to decide the actions of the state-entity they are part of based on an electoral quantitative system. The whole point of it, as one would say. Billion-dollar global hedge funds as the one she mentions are actors with world-wide interests which draw their human resources from said nation and use their large financial power and leverage to influence elected officials into furthering their economic plans. That’s not a limit of government Kojiro, that is a breach of democracy. A non-state actor with global economic interests wields more power over large portions of the elected officials than the voting citizens. While that is an ill which existed to a limited degree since modern democracies began to evolve in the XIXth century, never before has the fate of these financial corporations been more independent and divorced from the fortunes of their nations of origin while exercising such a vast power to bend the resolve of the citizens’ democratic representatives to their will. More to the point, they even hold an overblwon sway over which persons are ultimately elected to public office.

They should learn a little history, or have some common sense. You don't help create a volatile situation and then say "Oh but I would never have smashed any windows".

That’s total nonsense, we were talking about the separation of OWS from world-wide offspring movements. You won’t abstain to demonstrate against your government in the United States because of the possibility you might inspire an anti-nuclear demonstration in Japan, as it now happened. That’s too ludicrous to even consider taking responsibility for

That article tremendously exaggerates the value of "people expressing their discontent" through protesting. Why would I take it as a positive that this crowd might have some influence on politicians? Will it have a good influence? Why on earth would I want politicians convinced that people are angry enough about stupid slogan level ideas like "the wealth disparity in this country is obscene" to do something about it? Where does this crazy idea that the people are pure and good and the when things go wrong it's because the government screwed it up come from? "If only the people had more say, we'd be better off?" Ridiculous idea.

In my opinion, you not only misinterpret (“people are pure and good”? It must require tremendous effort to extract that from the article), but also misunderstand the author and thus the way you synthesize between quotation marks the main ideas expressed becomes a tad disingenuous. First of all, it was not stated within that a people’s protest is a positive development; it merely states that such a movement doesn’t need to legitimize its actions by issuing a political program. "If only the people had more say, we'd be better off?" is not even hinted at anywhere, you are presuming and drawing conclusions out of the blue Kojiro, sorry to remark upon it so bluntly, I do not wish to antagonise you

If at all it is implied a people’s protest is beneficial, it is because their homologous adversary pressure group is constituted by financial corporations with private interests colliding with their own, not government technocrats assiduously toiling away for the betterment of society. It thus seeks to provide a balance to the corruption of the democratic system through legitimate electoral pressure.

Why on earth would I want politicians convinced that people are angry enough about stupid slogan level ideas like "the wealth disparity in this country is obscene" to do something about it?

You don’t even understand where that is coming from, do you mister?
All right, a 101 on what taxation stands for.
Taxes pay for civilisation. Citizens pay them to ensure the existence of a police force, of a judicial system, of a transport infrastructure, of an educational system and so on and so forth. Among these citizens will appear those who ask for an expansion of these services, the entrepreneurs. Yep, despite all the libertarian crap so many fall for, it is this category of citizens which needs these to be expanded beyond their original purpose.

Take an example: you’re a manufacturer. You need a judicial system to be able to create and enforce contracts, to arbitrate complex economic matters and ensure the viability of your eventual partners; the common citizen will use the judiciary infinitely less and wouldn’t ever need the refined and very expensive arbitration process you cannot live without. You need a well-developed transport infrastructure to move about your goods and you make use of it every day of the year, using a lot of vehicles; compare that to the use a highway experiences from a normal family. You require a police force with a very long reach to secure your business nation-wide and even beyond boundaries. You have to have an educational system from which to draw your human resources – albeit it is the only one which you could consider to have a perfectly fair exchange with even in the absence of taxes, by ensuring employment. There are a lot more examples which can be added here, communication networks, patent authorities etc. For all these facilities, the group of citizens exploiting them the most must pay more in taxes than the common citizen.

The idea that "the wealth disparity in this country is obscene" is not at all a slogan. The fact of the matter is, this disparity in the US did not come about naturally, but through the waving off of a large percent of the financial duties the upper class was obliged to. Half a century ago, this category was taxed appropriately and those taxes allowed for the building of a social and industrial infrastructure which allowed for business growth and, inevitably, for the rise and consolidation of a prosperous middle class. Since, due to financial lobby pressure, taxes were progressively cut under the premise that the wealthy entrepreneurs would then use the capital to outset the financial losses this incurred onto the rest of the citizens by spurring unprecedented economic growth. The idea proved to be a failure and everyone but the upper class suffered. Its financial power growing exponentially through the use of said social and industrial infrastructure while its duties towards reinvestment in it were waved off, this category of citizens distanced themselves to a large degree from the rest of society. Now, with this infrastructure weakened by lack of support, the upper class seeks to entrench into their untenable position by obtaining further economic privileges and, in the process, corrupting the democratic process. Some call that obscene.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I initially understood you agreed with her, it was your quote. Her point is obvious enough though, surely there’s a straight line to be drawn between the global community and a sovereign democracy; but -- “Sure, there can be a recession through no action of our country that our representatives could not have permitted “ -- is not at all the connection you should’ve made. No, what she was writing was, and I will re-quote for the rest of the readers:

Ah, but that was the connection she made in the previous paragraphs. "Nobody much sees the point in voting for people who can’t stop another wave of economic pain rolling in from Beijing, Brussels or New York. If you’re upset about the austerity program being imposed on your country by indebted banks on the other side of the world, it doesn’t seem logical to complain to the mayor of Seville."

The emergence of an international protest movement without a coherent program is therefore not an accident: It reflects a deeper crisis, one without an obvious solution. Democracy is based on the rule of law. Democracy works only within distinct borders and among people who feel themselves to be part of the same nation. A “global community” cannot be a national democracy. And a national democracy cannot command the allegiance of a billion-dollar global hedge fund, with its headquarters in a tax haven and its employees scattered around the world.

Democracy is a system that prioritizes quantity. No matter the drawbacks we both see in it, it is an inviolable principle of what we stand for. Citizens have the right (though I hate the word; I would use privilege any day over it) to decide the actions of the state-entity they are part of based on an electoral quantitative system. The whole point of it, as one would say. Billion-dollar global hedge funds as the one she mentions are actors with world-wide interests which draw their human resources from said nation and use their large financial power and leverage to influence elected officials into furthering their economic plans. That’s not a limit of government Kojiro, that is a breach of democracy. A non-state actor with global economic interests wields more power over large portions of the elected officials than the voting citizens. While that is an ill which existed to a limited degree since modern democracies began to evolve in the XIXth century, never before has the fate of these financial corporations been more independent and divorced from the fortunes of their nations of origin while exercising such a vast power to bend the resolve of the citizens’ democratic representatives to their will. More to the point, they even hold an overblwon sway over which persons are ultimately elected to public office.

Other countries have always influenced large portions of the elected officials, and national businesses have too. Now international businesses are, since there are more of them. I can see where there are problems with that, but not where it makes sense to protest rather than taking democratic measures to change things, which is the issue.

That’s total nonsense, we were talking about the separation of OWS from world-wide offspring movements.

I don't think we were. We were talking about how protests very often turn violent, even if it is only minor violence, due to their nature and the fact that the attract such people no matter how nice the people who care about the politics are. Anyone protesting should weigh that possibility when deciding to protest. Those protesters in Rome should have thought about it.

In my opinion, you not only misinterpret (“people are pure and good”? It must require tremendous effort to extract that from the article), but also misunderstand the author and thus the way you synthesize between quotation marks the main ideas expressed becomes a tad disingenuous. First of all, it was not stated within that a people’s protest is a positive development; it merely states that such a movement doesn’t need to legitimize its actions by issuing a political program. "If only the people had more say, we'd be better off?" is not even hinted at anywhere, you are presuming and drawing conclusions out of the blue Kojiro, sorry to remark upon it so bluntly, I do not wish to antagonise you

If at all it is implied a people’s protest is beneficial, it is because their homologous adversary pressure group is constituted by financial corporations with private interests colliding with their own, not government technocrats assiduously toiling away for the betterment of society. It thus seeks to provide a balance to the corruption of the democratic system through legitimate electoral pressure.

Nah, the article doesn't "merely state" anything:

Is it possible to imagine a more obnoxious response to the Occupy Wall Street movement? "Sophistication" is of course a word defined by these bankers as seeing things precisely their way, as buying into the whole rigged system that the movement exists to protest. They clearly believe that, without an MBA, people lack standing to critique the very entities that are screwing them.

We've seen this sort of thing before, of course: Henry Kissinger regarded the anti-nuclear movement as naive. Opponents of the Vietnam War were initially dismissed as ignorant dupes with no grasp of geopolitics. Civil rights activists were shrugged off as utopian idealists lacking any sense of the country's history and traditions and the realities of federalism. And all were labeled, at one time or another, Communists. People with a stake in the status quo usually choose to see their position as natural and unalterable, and regard those in dissent as dunces or villains.

The message is clear. People are dismissing these people just like they dismissed civil rights activists. They don't have an education and people think they are ignorant, but that's just how it was in those other movements. But that's a pathetic argument.

There is a common bias in favor of the people and it seems clear that the author shares it.

You don’t even understand where that is coming from, do you mister?
All right, a 101 on what taxation stands for.
Taxes pay for civilisation. Citizens pay them to ensure the existence of a police force, of a judicial system, of a transport infrastructure, of an educational system and so on and so forth. Among these citizens will appear those who ask for an expansion of these services, the entrepreneurs. Yep, despite all the libertarian crap so many fall for, it is this category of citizens which needs these to be expanded beyond their original purpose.

Take an example: you’re a manufacturer. You need a judicial system to be able to create and enforce contracts, to arbitrate complex economic matters and ensure the viability of your eventual partners; the common citizen will use the judiciary infinitely less and wouldn’t ever need the refined and very expensive arbitration process you cannot live without. You need a well-developed transport infrastructure to move about your goods and you make use of it every day of the year, using a lot of vehicles; compare that to the use a highway experiences from a normal family. You require a police force with a very long reach to secure your business nation-wide and even beyond boundaries. You have to have an educational system from which to draw your human resources – albeit it is the only one which you could consider to have a perfectly fair exchange with even in the absence of taxes, by ensuring employment. There are a lot more examples which can be added here, communication networks, patent authorities etc. For all these facilities, the group of citizens exploiting them the most must pay more in taxes than the common citizen.

The idea that "the wealth disparity in this country is obscene" is not at all a slogan. The fact of the matter is, this disparity in the US did not come about naturally, but through the waving off of a large percent of the financial duties the upper class was obliged to. Half a century ago, this category was taxed appropriately and those taxes allowed for the building of a social and industrial infrastructure which allowed for business growth and, inevitably, for the rise and consolidation of a prosperous middle class. Since, due to financial lobby pressure, taxes were progressively cut under the premise that the wealthy entrepreneurs would then use the capital to outset the financial losses this incurred onto the rest of the citizens by spurring unprecedented economic growth. The idea proved to be a failure and everyone but the upper class suffered. Its financial power growing exponentially through the use of said social and industrial infrastructure while its duties towards reinvestment in it were waved off, this category of citizens distanced themselves to a large degree from the rest of society. Now, with this infrastructure weakened by lack of support, the upper class seeks to entrench into their untenable position by obtaining further economic privileges and, in the process, corrupting the democratic process. Some call that obscene.

But it isn't obscene. That's not what obscene means.

"We should reform the tax code in such and such a way" is not a slogan, it's a legitimate suggestion that can be talked about and debated in a democratic way. A sign saying that the wealth disparity is obscene is the opposite of that.

By definition the upper class is a small minority. When laws are passed cutting taxes for the rich it isn't because they control the government, it's because a large portion of the people support such laws. If they are wrong they need to be convinced of it--that's democratic.

Trying to fix problems by protesting rather than talking about them in an intelligent way and voting and campaigning is the opposite of what our system of government is about. It's the equivalent of a politician coming out and giving an empty feel good speech. That's really what we're talking about--not the banking system but the worth of protests and the situations where they are good.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

"If only the people had more say, we'd be better off?" Ridiculous idea." Yeap. It is called Democracy...

And that's why we aren't one.

Everyone I've met personally (maybe 30 or so people) and most everyone online who likes protesting has that same dumb idea. Mostly people are acting out a cultural drama rather than truly working for change. Scratch that, they are working for change all right, but in a feel good way not an intellectual way.

When democratic style governments work it is because the people are smart enough and educated enough to support the right things and elect the right people. The attitude people have towards protesting trashes that. It's people yelling simplistic ideas surrounded by a crowd that gives them assurance that their beliefs are good.

[Centurion1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=oSo-MEiMbac

[Nowake]

Hello again
After your last post, all I can write is that I believe I’ve more than made my point. In fact, you’ll forgive me for being a bit partial, but the situation reminds me of that anecdote involving Sun Tzu and the emperor’s concubines placed in the beginning of each edition of his strategy-for-dummies manual – “when everything has been explained... etc.”
That aside, I am not saying you are obtuse, I rather liked the couple of discussions I read in which you had been involved before. It’s just the state of the arguments ceased to provide me with any food for thought for now. Perhaps anyone else following the back-and-forth would find me to be mistaken.

Trying to fix problems by protesting rather than talking about them in an intelligent way

Kojiro, it’s 2011, three whole years after the events that sparked the current affair. If we’d see it as an experiment for “talking”, it would’ve approached the end of its trial period a while ago considering the situation has worsened due to clear inaction and corruption.

Night night, I believe it should be around midnight at this point no matter what coast you’re closer to there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=oSo-MEiMbac

For one, they're "trolling".
Secondly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=6yrT-0Xbrn4

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Yes, I think I stopped having anything new to say either, was nice talking to you though

[classical_hero]

I like this comment from the latest article Sasaki Kojiro.

The Occupy Sydney protests fizzled out because, as a spokesman regretfully admitted, “we don’t have the depth of crisis here in Australia.”

That is why it is good living here, since we have had so far responsible governance that has helped us to get out of the mess that much of the Western world has faced.

[Lemur]

Another graphic that gave me a laugh:

Source.

[Xiahou]

Alec Baldwin comes off as shockingly level-headed and rational when interviewed / harangued by Ron Paulites at OWS.

Color me surprised.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Alec Baldwin comes off as shockingly level-headed and rational when interviewed / harangued by Ron Paulites at OWS.

Color me surprised.

"Alec Baldwin works for NBC ! Guess who owns NBC? GE , that's who . So do you really believe Baldwin would bite the hand that feeds him and support Ron Paul who stands as advisary to the crony capitalism that GE is currently engaged in? Nope . Don't expect Baldwin to have any scruples whatsoever . He's a paid off crony."--SputnikMedia

[Lemur]

A very good question from Forbes: Why is OWS receiving so much more police love that the Tea Partiers?

Have the protests gotten a little unruly? Possibly, but if you watch this video you will see a good deal of NYC police swinging billy clubs, and OWS folks not fighting back. Most, it seems, crowded the police not to hurt them, but to get a better line of sight for them to document the melee, including one guy with an iPad. (Darn you OWS, with your hypocritical fixation on modern conveniences!)

One can’t help but get the feeling that OWS just doesn’t get it. If they had only yelled down an opposing congressperson, or stomped on a woman’s head, all would have been forgiven.

Now, I scratch my head as to why this double standard has proven true. One answer could be that Tea Party demonstrators are way better armed.

This would highlight the fact that law enforcement is demonstrably good at bullying peaceful protestors, but not so hot when facing anything like equal force. [Crazed Rabbit bait, sez the lemur.]

I would hate to think this is the case.

What are some other reasons? I am getting in the realm of speculation, but here we go.

Maybe the police feel more sympathetic toward the Tea Partiers, than toward the Occupiers. I don’t know why this would be so, seeing as how the Tea Partiers are totally against public sector employees, such as cops. (Although Tea Partiers become apoplectic when threatened with the removal of their publicly funded Medicare.)

Another possibility and what strikes me as more likely, is that OWS is doing something actually revolutionary, and this scares those in power that tell the police what to do.

This would only make sense as the Tea Party, for all its alleged anti-government language, is basically financed by people commonly referred to as pillars of society. Now these pillars may resent having to pay into the public kitty, despite reaping outsized gains from the benefits of our society, but they are still extremely powerful. The Koch brothers, for example, control one of largest privately owned firms in the U.S.

And the average Tea Partier tends to be older, wealthy, and white.

[Vladimir]

Is this tongue in cheek or serious? Did you see the picture of the Jesus attacking the cop? I can't find it now but it was pretty funny.

The parallels this guy is drawing make me think he's not serious.

[Ronin]

Is this tongue in cheek or serious? Did you see the picture of the Jesus attacking the cop? I can't find it now but it was pretty funny.

The parallels this guy is drawing make me think he's not serious.

what picture are you talking about?

and btw.....Nobody ***** with the Jesus!

[PanzerJaeger]

It appears that the movement is wearing out its welcome.

Dowtown New Yorkers furious with the continued presence of the Occupy Wall Street protesters vented angrily at a community board meeting Thursday, according to reports.

The desire to complain about the demonstrators was so widespread that the line to speak at the meeting wound its way outside the board’s office and into the street, the New York Post said. At least several hundred people showed up to the board meeting.

The major complaints from residents in the area around the Occupy Wall Street protests in Lower Manhattan were issues of hygiene, garbage, noise and respectfulness.

“They are defecating on our doorsteps,” said Catherine Hughes, who lives one block from Zuccotti Park, according to the New York Post. “A lot of people are very frustrated. A lot of people are concerned about the safety of our kids.”

Particularly annoying, suggested several community members at the meeting, was the repetitive drumming late into the night.

“The occupiers are not our neighbors, our neighbors do not beat on drums when they’re sleeping, our neighbors do not verbally attack on the way to work… Our neighbors do not break into buildings or defecate on our street,” another speaker said, according to FOX 5 news.

These people are increasingly looking like the same nasty hippies that show up to every leftist protest as a lifestyle rather than a group of concerned 'average Americans' taking action. Some kind of central authority needs to be established to reign these people in and handle PR and messaging if they hope to effect real change. Of course that's quite a quandary when you've got a group of people who are seriously dedicated too 'an open, horizontal, prefigurative democratic space'.