According to Chris Hedges, this kind of thing is really scaring the insiders:
In other news, the NY Times hasn’t noticed other than the snide article I linked to yesterday. The Guardian reports that the name and info of the cop who maced people have been released:
Activists connected to the Occupy Wall Street protests have published the name, phone number and family details of a senior New York police officer they accuse of using pepper spray on peaceful female protesters at a march on Saturday.
The officer was named in Twitter posts and on various activist websites as NYPD deputy inspector Anthony Bologna, of Patrol Borough Manhattan South.
The posts also cite an apparent civil rights charge against the officer dating from 2007.
YouTube footage of the incident, which has been widely circulated since Saturday, appears to show a white-shirted NYPD officer firing the spray into the eyes of the protesters, who are penned in by other officers with orange netting. As the officer walks away, two of the women crumple to the ground, screaming in pain.
There were several clashes between protesters and police at the march in the financial district on Saturday, during which there were 80 arrests.
Hacker collective Anonymous claimed responsibility on Monday for posting Bologna’s details, which they said was in retribution for the attack.
There is even a sympathetic piece in the WaPo Post-Partisan, which no doubt gave Charlie Lane an aneurysm:
You may have heard about the Occupy Wall Street protests, now entering their 10th day in New York. Several hundred activists have taken over Zuccotti Park near Wall Street since Sept. 17, and this past Saturday they were joined by over a thousand more. The NYPD, displaying their famously light touch, has arrested dozens of activists, including members of the protest’s media team, and even maced innocent protesters. (The occupation’s Twitter hashtag, #occupywallstreet, and its livestream have plenty more details.) Despite this pressure, the protesters have vowed to stay in the park for the foreseeable future.
Then again, you can’t walk around New York without bumping into some demonstration, so does this protest deserve attention? It’s easy to say that these are just (mostly) college kids with nothing better to do; or to make fun of their demands, which range from ending wealth inequality to ending war; or to use more extreme protesters to dismiss the rest. And it’s easy to believe that the protesters’ cause will be forgotten as soon as the demonstration ends. It’s easy to react this way, because that’s how many protest “movements” have panned out in the past. But this movement is different because of the bleak situation facing the country, especially its youth.
Demonstrations are stronger when protesters are denouncing a target that directly affects them. In 1971, President Nixon’s decision to end student deferments sparked a new wave of antiwar protests on campuses around the country. Many believe the lack of a draft severely weakened protests against the Iraq war. In 1932, the Bonus Army was able to gather thousands of veterans to Washington because their cause was not someone else’s poverty but their own.
Similarly, these demonstrators are protesting not only for a cause but for themselves. Just as many young people in the ’60s and ’70s feared becoming cannon fodder in Southeast Asia, so, too, do many today fear for their futures. The figures are astounding. Three years after Wall Street crashed the economy, youth unemployment stands at 18 percent, double the national rate, while youth employment is at its lowest level since the end of World War II. And because the graduate who spends a year unemployed will still make 23 percent less than a similar classmate a decade later, the young unemployed will feel these effects for years. The average college graduate now carries over $27,000 in debt at graduation; not surprisingly, then, more than 85 percent of the Class of 2011 moved back into their parents’ homes, the highest number on record. Not to mention, when this long recession is finally over, the young get to face reduced Social Security, Medicare and other benefits, largely (though not entirely, of course) because their parents and grandparents decided to let their descendants pay for their tax cuts, their wars and their bailouts.
The Business Insider, which is basically what you get when you cross a Wall Street insider/fanboi blog with TMZ (Where are the Stars of Baywatch Now? or Click Here to See Tech Execs Before They Were Famous!), had the ultimate piece in trolling from some blue-blood CNBC hack:
We decided to take a stroll through their encampment at Zuccotti Park this weekend and here’s some things we noticed:
Poor hygiene: While wandering through the camp site, I asked several people how long they’ve been there and if they’ve taken a shower. Some people said they would go to friends’ apartments to clean up. However a bunch of the protestors confessed to me that they have not showered since the start of the movement. In my opinion, the smell is extremely pungent. And the camp site is littered with trash, cardboard and garbage bags piled up.
Nudity: At least two women had their naked breasts exposed. Apparently, it is legal. (I asked a police officer nearby.) But there’s no question it’s inconsiderate. The site is surrounded by popular tourist destinations in the Financial District and there are tons of families with young children that frequent those locations.
Drugs: Another thing that caught me by surprise was the use of marijuana. I walked right by a protestor smoking weed in broad daylight. The police must have been just 20 feet away too. If you’re at a protest site surrounded by hundreds of police officers and trying to get out your important message out, then it’s probably not the best idea to light one up!
I’m relieved to know that exposed breasts are in fact legal in NYC, and that is something I can completely endorse. At any rate, the protests appear to be spreading despite the media blackout from major news organizations, who only noticed the protests (like me) when the cops started acting like thugs. So maybe once again, I was wrong, and they didn’t need a coordinated message- they just needed people to get up off their ass and to get out there and do something. Even if that means a DFH drum circle.
Mnemosyne
I’m convinced that the banksters are starting to regret their massive support of the republicans in 2010 since all they’re getting for their money is gridlock and government shutdowns that are hurting the stock market and their investment portfolios.
It will be interesting to see where they send their money in 2012 — will Rove be able to get them to send massive donations to Crossroads again, or will they decide that slightly lower profits are better than worldwide financial collapse?
geg6
Yeah, all those teachers, firemen, nurses, and assorted other working and middle class people I know are going to just FLOCK to Wall Street to join in with the unwashed, pot smoking coeds baring their breasts as a message to Da Man.
This might actually become something if they get rid of these assholes and get Rich Trumka and his troops to take it over.
singfoom
Thank you DFHs in NY for Occupy Wall Street.
I can’t get out there and support them because I have a job and responsibilities. If I didn’t have said job and responsibilities, I’d be in NYC with those DFHs.
Yes, maybe most of the trading firms have moved locations to Uptown or what have you, but I think they will have an effect if they stay there for long enough, just like Tahir.
Of course, I may just be a DFH with no time to protest.
PeakVT
That BI piece reads like it’s made up.
Amir Khalid
I wish exposed breasts were legal in Kuala Lumpur too.
Zifnab
The Occupy Wallstreet posts have been getting top billing on Reddit and other social media sites. I’d be surprised if many tech-savvy folks under 30 haven’t at least heard of it.
Once The Daily Show or Colbert gives the event some coverage, the story will explode. That’s the way these things usually work.
Kola Noscopy
Cole, this is the part of your BJ schtick that works most effectively: Just when I am about to swear off BJ and try to wean myself from the addiction because of some reactionary post of yours, you backpedal and express sanity.
Is this authentic, or not? The never-answered question; also a part of the schtick that works.
cleek
ok. could someone rescue my comment from the spam filter? apparently quoting JC’s ‘brestz’ is bad.
fuck it…
the cop’s name is Tony Baloney ?
srv
The hippies went to Wisconsin and Ohio, but Wisconsin and Ohio will never go to Wall St. Too many boobies.
The Beeb lets a crazy person on. As “Tyler” says, he won’t be getting an invite to CNBC.
Amir Khalid
@Kola Noscopy:
Would you like a teddy bear?
Kola Noscopy
@geg6:
Wow. You really, truly are a reactionary, Dem establishment, ass-puckered jerk.
These “assholes” show you up for the tiny person you are.
singfoom
@geg6: So, the college students I saw in Madison during that rally were OK because the Teamsters and other union people were there and they were supporting labor?
It’s a fair cop to make fun of the DFH element of the protesting left, but their goals are in line with a lot of labors goals, so why all the hate? Labor can’t get out to NY and support these folks?
Citizen Alan
I don’t know if these protests will achieve anything positive or not. My hope is that it causes the banksters to wake up to the realization of just how despised they are in this country. Because if they aren’t willing to respond to the fear and anger of these mostly harmless young people, then they WILL be forced to respond to the fear and anger of the protesters who come later and who will make their feelings known, not with puppets and hackey-sack, but with smoke, bullets, and the occasional loud BOOM!
Kola Noscopy
@Amir Khalid:
No thanks. I have an awesomely cuddly boyfriend.
But thank you!
BGinCHI
Here’s a contrast for you:
–Older white people with solid incomes vote for the GOP who spiked the deficit, while also clamoring for lower taxes
–Which led directly to lower state revenues that forced colleges and universities to raise tuition to cover the loss
–In voting for the GOP they also tanked the economy so that young people, who now have MUCH higher debt upon graduation, can’t get decent-paying jobs, if they can get anything
They ought to move from Wall St to their grandparents.
Linda Featheringill
May the FSM bless you John for that supportive post.
I have no idea where it’s all going, but it might prove to be interesting.
Tom Hilton
@cleek: I had exactly the same reaction. You just can’t make up shit like that.
sparky
a post with Chris Hedges in it? i guess this means that like poster #7 i can’t quite quit you either.
thanks
Zifnab
@Citizen Alan:
People keep saying this, but the violent outbursts haven’t been terribly frequent – and most of them have been on the right-wing side.
Fetishizing a military revolt is just obnoxious. You’re not going to see hundreds of armed young people go toe-to-toe with the NYPD or the state National Guard. Aside from being suicidal, most people recognize that it won’t accomplish a damn thing.
What you may start to see, however, is some more aggressive economic action: boycotts, sit-ins, strikes, etc. These are quite effective in getting a message across.
But drop the gun/bomb porn. That’s just silly.
Chuck Butcher
The media will play stenographer and soon get bored with both this and the FEMA mess and move onto to some “interesting” TP narrative – Americans will mostly ignore it from the outset and most of the rest will soon forget.
Besides, there’s football or Dancing With Stars to pay attention to…
That works for the owners of this country –
Brock
“… there are tons of families with young children that frequent those locations”
I think it’s safe to say that never, in the history of the world, has a child ever been harmed by the sight of a woman’s bare breast.
Splitting Image
If the mob is large enough, they don’t need a coordinated message, only a coordinated target.
geg6
@singfoom:
Look, I’m a veteran of the DFH, pot smoking, showing your tits crowd at various protests. All it does is turn off the very people you need to actually make a movement happen. The pictures on teevee that inspired people across the nation and the people who began, organized, and controlled the messaging in WI and OH weren’t the DFHs. They may have provided bodies to boost the numbers, but I know for sure that were they in charge and the “face” of those protests, they’d have had as much impact on the national conversation and politics as the Yippies did.
ruemara
goddam. Bared breasts are inconsiderate? Fucking crashing the economy was far more inconsiderate. Fucktards. I still say some sort of coherent, not co-ordinated message is important, but if it pisses off these yahoos, I’m all for it.
cleek
bare brests have been legal in NY since the early 90’s IIRC.
well, sure. that’s what those ‘locations’ are for: feeding young children.
mclaren
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Wait till riot-armored police start wading into the crowds of peaceful sit-down demonstrators and spraying ’em with gasoline and setting ’em on fire.
You’ll see the Pentagon’s microwave painray projectors wheeled out and used at full power. You’ll see LRAD military sound cannons blasting demonstrators until their eyes turn to pulp and blood runs out of their ears.
Pittsburgh city officials believe their police department’s use of a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) at last week’s G20 protests was “the first time the sound cannon had been used publicly.”
Police used the device to emit a painful shrill that forced demonstrators to cover their ears and withdraw while police threw tear gas and stun grenades. “Other law enforcement agencies will be watching to see how it was used,” Pittsburgh’s police bureau chief told the NY Times. “It served its purpose well.”
Whether or not you think the protesters have a right to demonstrate or are anarchists without a permit to march, it’s still pretty eye-opening to see tech like that used at home.
As a non-lethal weapon, sound canons have been mounted to vehicles by the U.S Army, installed on American warships to warn incoming vessels, defended private cruise ships against Somali pirates, and were at the ready (though not used) at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York.
But this is the first time LRAD has been used against U.S civilians.
Source: “LRAD Sound Cannon Used on Pittsburgh G20 Protesters,” Gizmodo, 28 September 2009.
If the protests persist, I predict napalm airstrikes against the women and children who sit down on the pavement, ordered by President Obama. And of course the obots will defend his actions by pointing out “Obama never said he wouldn’t roast non-violent women and children protestors with napalm when he ran in 2008.”
Southern Beale
I posted the link downthread but Anonymous has outed the identity of the cop who pepper-sprayed the protestors. Posted his address and everything.
I am losing sympathy very quickly. I don’t think taking your cues from Michelle Malkin is the way to go.
Citizen Alan
@Zifnab:
Whatever. You can talk about boycotts and sit-ins till the cows come home, but nothing is ever going to get any better in this country until the top 2% have some fear for the consequences of their actions.
cleek
@mclaren:
fuckin obots.
Davis X. Machina
Pikes on heads is just ostentatious. An actual labor party with a thumping great majority will do the trick.
But nothing short of that seems to accomplish much.
eemom
well, ya gotta say one thing for these protesters — they sure smoke out the apocalyptic lunatics amongst us.
Never seen mclaren this ecstatic.
cackalacka
That BI piece read like a horse-back riding debutante from Virginia wrote it.
Then I read the by-line. Wow. UNC grad ta boot.
singfoom
@geg6: I’m not saying that the DFHs were behind the protests in Madison. No argument there, whatsoever. I went up there to support my schoolteacher friends, it was clearly a Labor gig.
Not a question. There were tons of hard hats, tons of 18 wheelers. But, at the same time, if you’ve ever been to Madison, you should know it’s full of DFHs, and they were out there supporting their brethren in labor in large numbers.
I just think it’s pretty shitty to call them assholes, like they don’t get enough shit from the right and from the MSM. Labor should get out there and help them be more coordinated, their goals are mainly the same….
Southern Beale
@mclaren:
I remember when 60 Minutes did a nice piece of propaganda on that weapon. You can find a link to the piece here if you haven’t seen it.
The Pentagon’s demonstration video showed hippie-types carrying signs that read “End The War” and “Love For All,” and then the voice-over said:
Riiiight … sure, got it. Thanks.
Dumbasses.
Stephen1947
One of the many things I love about John Cole is that he isn’t embarrassed to change his mind about something publicly when conditions warrant.
Citizen Alan
@Southern Beale:
Seriously. You are losing sympathy with peaceful protesters because after some of them were brutally assaulted by a psychopath with a badge, someone revealed his identity on the internet? Perhaps we could alleviate your concerns if the NYPD took to wearing white hoods to conceal their identities. Stupid civil rights protesters were probably asking for the water hose anyway!
Mino
@BGinCHI: Uh, the article claims 80%+ of 2011 grads have moved back home because they can’t find work; one removed from grandparents, I guess.
And this is purely anecdotal, but I’ve read that this protest is having some effect because the children of Wall Streeters are becoming critical of their parents ethics.
Kola Noscopy
@Southern Beale:
Good for them. Maybe that storm trooper mace sprayer will think twice next time. As for Malkin, yeah you’re right: the LEFT must always play nice while the right does whatever the fuck it wants. Fuck that.
Southern Beale
John Cole:
An important point to be made in all of this, one I made during all the Tea Party “protests,” is that the reason you didn’t have arrests and tear gas and crowd control weapondry deployed at those events is because the Tea Party threatens nothing and no one. They are defending the status quo. That is why Teanuts can waltz around in a “protest” with guns strapped to their hips and no one says a fucking thing.
Imagine if the Wall Street protestors were armed with more than drums and signs?
Every time liberals gather on the streets to protest something the first thing you hear from the media is fearmongering about violence. You have cops sent out and tear gas canisters readied. That tells me right there that we scare them. Our mere existence frightens the crap out of them.
burnspbesq
If you are older than 15, I fear for your future. Extreme youth and inexperience are the only valid excuse for your kind of ignorance and lunacy.
Gilles de Rais
Lotta juiceheads here rubbing one out over the prospect (however faint and utterly unrealistic) of some good old-fashioned ultraviolence.
Enlist. Ask to go to Afghanistan. Our guys could use the help and you’ll get all the stroke material you could want. Win-win.
singfoom
I’m sorry, I just don’t get it. Why all the scorn and cynicism projected at these protesters?
Yes, many are DFHs, but at least they had an idea and followed through with it and are committed to it and are doing something they think will help change this country for the better.
Here’s the link for donation to support these people: Link
While I laugh at their DFHness, I support them 100%. Hopefully the story will spread and more and more people will go down there and get the message out.
some guy
Hedges makes it clear: “This is the only weapon we have left.”
Hedges has just come from Imollakee, and makes the connection between what the Coalition of Immolakkalee Workers are planning and what the Occupy Wall Street crowd is doing. good on him.
Hedges on the proto-fascism of the Teabaggers. this too
Judas Escargot
[jadedLibReflex]Oh, how droll… dirty hippies and spoiled rich kids are having a protest. I’m much too sophisticated and pragmatic to buy into such jejeune antics.[/jadedLibReflex].
That’s a self-defeating narrative, programmed into to us by the other side some decades ago. Don’t buy into it.
Coordinated messages are the easiest to co-opt. And movements with a single figurehead, spokesman or leader present a single, simple target that can easily be discredited, blackmailed, bought off, arrested or ‘disappeared’.
I wonder if what we’re seeing is the country’s immune system, slowly waking up. But most folks have actual dayjobs, families, financial and/or time constraints that prevent them from going camping down in NYC for weeks at a time. So you end up with the demographic that can actually drop their lives to do this: Young, reasonably free, and well-off (aka DFHs).
Think of the DFH/trustifarians as our culture’s T-cells, if that makes it more palatable. Just by virtue of who they are, with their ample leisure time, they’re going to be the first on the scene.
NYC is a cultural and media center, so the lack of MSM coverage must of course be intentional. But if this goes on for a few more weeks, it’ll get more attention (probably through the Stewart/Colbert shows, as these things so often seem to now).
John Weiss
@Southern Beale: I agree. Behaving like a thug doesn’t have a left or right lean and behaving like MM should be a crime.
Southern Beale
@Citizen Alan:
No, I’m losing sympathy with Anonymous.
BGinCHI
@Mino: That “moving back in with parents” stat is amazing.
I was trying to get at the vicious cycle involved here. This generation of 20-somethings is getting the shaft by the very people who keep claiming the moral high ground for them. It’s not just Wall St (though fuck them too).
The GOP crowd are wrecking the future prospects of these young people in the name of short-term disinvestment. ALL these assholes are Joe Walsh (R-IL): claiming to be saving children while stealing from them.
Mino
@Southern Beale: Let me make sure I got this right–hippies carrying signs are to be expected in Iraq. Jeezus.
SnarkyShark
ge-6
You are a dick.
Pangloss
No restrictions whatsoever on total public nudity in San Francisco.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/us/san-francisco-nudity-restrictions-provoke-the-nakedly-ambitious.html
Southern Beale
@Mino:
Yes according to 60 Minutes hippies carrying signs reading “Love For All” no less.
Fucking morons.
Mnemosyne
@Citizen Alan:
Depends on where you do the sit-in. So far, it looks like doing it where the Wall Streeters have to walk past you on the way to the office is pretty effective. Doing it from inside the comfort of your own college campus, not so much.
Stefan
Pittsburgh city officials believe their police department’s use of a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) at last week’s G20 protests was “the first time the sound cannon had been used publicly.” Police used the device to emit a painful shrill that forced demonstrators to cover their ears and withdraw while police threw tear gas and stun grenades. “Other law enforcement agencies will be watching to see how it was used,” Pittsburgh’s police bureau chief told the NY Times. “It served its purpose well.”
You know who would have loved this? Mubarak and Gaddhafi. Imagine if Mubarak had been able to use this against the protestors at Tahrir Square! Man, it would have cleared those democracy-loving hippies out of there right quick. Maybe we should see if the governments of Syria, Yemen and Iran are still in the market for this. No need to worry about worrisome TV images of your henchmen shooting into peaceful crowds when you can torture them with extremely painful and yet invsible heat and sound rays….
Corner Stone
@geg6:
Let’s make sure they check off your boxes to gain legitimacy. Well done…”DFH”.
jefft452
“…the unwashed, pot smoking coeds baring their breasts as a message to Da Man.”
That’s what Glenn Grothman called “…all those teachers, firemen, nurses, and assorted other working and middle class people” in WI
Didn’t work in Madison, wont work in NY
middlewest
Yeah, for the first time ever, a bunch of white kids aimlessly protesting the system is going to accomplish something. Just like how the Vietnam anti-war protests led to a smaller military budget and less war.
Chris Hedges is an idiot. The “insiders” LOVE this shit. They would be terrified if the kids were organizing, fundraising, building connections between interest groups, or holding voter drives. But this? Half these kids are going to be so disappointed when they don’t get their pony that they’ll become bitter non-voters who refuse to take any action ever again. All according to plan.
Corner Stone
@Southern Beale:
I get your point, I think. But I don’t know. That white shirted cop was a “Higher”. He didn’t make a mistake in judgement. That was a purpose.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
I know I wait until school starts to go vacation and my kids love to visit Wall Street. /sarcasm
Dude, I’ve been there and everything you said is wrong. Lying seems to be a knee jerk reaction with jerks.
Corner Stone
I never really know why I turn everything you write into an emofest, or apply my special patented Triple Suck Multiplier(tm) to every thread.
Mnemosyne
@Judas Escargot:
I think it’s an understandable reaction to the fact that, for many years, most protest/sit-in types of actions were done very ineffectively. The guys who stand out on the corner of the main intersection of my city ringing cowbells and holding signs against the Iraq War aren’t going to be very effective in stopping the war, but it sure makes them feel like they’re “doing something.” That’s what most of these kinds of actions have devolved into: letting people feel like they’re “doing something” without actually doing anything effective.
Holding your protest in a spot where the actual people that you’re angry with are going to have to see you every day? Probably a whole lot more effective than standing on a street corner in your hometown.
EconWatcher
@geg6:
This.
Culture of Truth
Stroll down Wall St any evening and you will see investment bankers, traders, etc standing on the sidewalks and streets drinking martinis and whiskey and smoking cigars. Inconsiderate, not legal, but they can’t smoke inside, ya know
Southern Beale
@Corner Stone:
No. Just no. You don’t do that. You don’t post his address and put his wife and kids at risk. I don’t care if Michelle Malkin did it. It’s not right.
And I have a hard time viewing the cops as fellow soldiers-in-arms during pro-union battles (Wisconsin) and as the enemy representing THE MAN in New York.
Just, no.
Southern Beale
It’s Meatless Monday. Off to cook some dal and pakora. Laterz.
BGinCHI
@middlewest: How’s your lawn?
You keeping the kids off it?
Corner Stone
@Southern Beale: Ok, I agree. But the NYPD has officially stated his actions were “appropriate” or something similar.
What’s to be done about him?
mclaren
Corner Stone, the point of a non-violent protest isn’t to send any kind of “coordinate message.” It’s to provoke the authorities into the kind of insane violence that reveals their moral bankruptcy and destroys their social legitimacy.
The dirty little secret about non-violent protests is that the protestors don’t have to do anything. The people in power are usually so bloated with hubris, so crazed with power, so enraged by the mere thought that anyone could possibly even think of questioning their Galtian right to rule the universe, that they overreact with ultraviolent frenzy and hysteria.
That’s the entire point of the protest. To show that the people in power are sociopaths with no political legitimacy.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Citizen Alan:
I’m thinking he meant losing sympathy with Anonymous, rather than the protesters. At least I hope so. In that specific aspect, I’d agree. I usually side with Anonymous in these kinds of circumstances, but outing someone’s address like that with the express purpose of getting people to go after them or something is not the kind of support I want to see.
Martin
Yeah, there’s a name for that: Port Authority. Time was you needed two out of the three just to get into there. Figures the bankers would never have heard of it: Fucking buses, how do they work!?
eataTREE
I have less than no use for anti-globalization anarchist whackjobs, but if they’re going to be anywhere, let them be where they annoy the people I’m really annoyed with.
I’ve been buying them pizzas.
Corner Stone
@mclaren: Which post of mine are you referring/adding to please?
Gilles de Rais
Shorter Juicers: Killing people you don’t like is awesome
Donald G
@cleek:
Someone had to work his way up ranks at Manhattan South to make up for the retirement of reactionary ol’ Inspector Luger after the closure of the Twelfth Precinct back in the early eighties.
Ol’ Luger underwent rejuvenation treatments and plastic surgery and changed his name to something more Irish sounding and has, for the last fifteen years or so hosted a Fox News opinion show where he bloviates about liberals and marvels about the inexplicable nature of tides.
Mino
@some guy: I think the unions are realizing that they probably have to do things for themselves, not count on unreliable Dems.
Card check was an eye-opener. And nothing since has altered that view much.
Too bad the Reagan Dems took so long to take off the blinders, but it looks like commonality of interest is reuniting the wings of the union. The attacks on public unions have caused some stock taking.
Montysano
My complaint with Chris Hedges has always been that, while he’s a brilliant describer of problems, he tends to be short on solutions…. or at least realistic solutions. His prescription/desire for “national rebellion” is all well and good, but of course there’s no indication whatsoever that such a thing might occur.
OTOH, I myself have no idea what to do against such powerful forces.
Jax6655
@Southern Beale:
I’d bet that those in Congress who walked through a crowd of Tea Partiers on their way to pass healthcare reform who were spat upon, called the n-word and other epithets weren’t threatened at all. Yeah, they didn’t threaten anyone. They came unarmed . . . this time.
Not threatening at all . . . oh, wait!
singfoom
@Gilles de Rais:
Yes, because a canvass of this thread at 75 comments has one or two people fantasizing about violent protest and the rest arguing about the effectiveness of the protest itself.
Good talk, coach.
wrb
If only Corner Stone, McLaren, Colon Diver and the rest who spend their days showing their tits for progress had better tits.
BGinCHI
@Gilles de Rais: Shorter Gilles de Rais: I am not a skilful generalizer.
Stefan
And I have a hard time viewing the cops as fellow soldiers-in-arms during pro-union battles (Wisconsin) and as the enemy representing THE MAN in New York.
Policemen have always been, at best, inconstant allies with labor. They are happy to have a union, high pay and benefits for themselves, and will march with other union members when their own pay is threatened, sure.
But in general cops always see themselves (and are made to see themselves through a constant and none too subtle propaganda campaign) as set apart, somehow never quite one of us, and they are always happy to protect the status quo and beat down anyone attempting to threaten it. When Jay Gould said that he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other working half? He was talking about the cops.
ppcli
@cleek: But he’s not as skinny as a stick of macaroni.
James
@Southern Beale:
Why? The person he hosed down with chemical weapons just had her address sent out to every single member of the NYPD and law enforcement across North America. She’ll be harrassed and intimidated from now on every time she comes into police contact.
Her job prospects will be crushed, she may lose her right to vote. She was caged and tortured on her way to being disenfranchised, made a non-entity in the framework of democracy. You do know she was arrested for Obstruction of Justice and Resisting Arrest, right?
Officer Freedomhose will at worst get twenty pizzas and a thai lady-boi showing up at his front door. Where do you get this ‘at risk’ shit from? Do you seriously think someone is gonna shotgun this guy on his front doorstep or are you being a non-sensical concerntroll jackhammering the panic button?
Stefan
@Jax6655:
Umm, practice more critical reading skills. They didn’t threaten the status quo. They didn’t threaten power. So power was happy to leave them alone.
Stefan
@James:
I’ve never quite figured out how you could be arrested for resisting arrest….
Shinobi
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: What other way do we have to fight back? He’s obviously not going to face any serious discinary action from his employer.
Of course, I am sure there is some kind of slippery slope argument to be made here about allowing “information terrorists” to control the actions of an individual through threats. There is an anarchist bent to it that I don’t particularly like.
But I also don’t particularly like seeing a group of defenseless people being maced.
What’s the solution? Do nothing? Go home? Let the middle class disappear without a fight?
ppcli
” exposed breasts are in fact legal in NYC, and that is something I can completely endorse.”
In theory, I’m with you. But I remember when I was teaching at Berkeley in the early 90’s, and there were a couple of topless protest marches. I learned then that the breasts that got exposed were invariably the ones you would prefer had not been.
joes527
@Corner Stone: I don’t care if he is Hannibal fucking Lecter.
Outing his wife and kids is way, way, way over the line.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Wait, someone is emotionally invested in Anonymous?
What a maroon.
Oh, and John, I still want to know: how did you avoid the icky crowds at the Dead show?
Shinobi
Ooo a first hand account from one of the women who was maced. The servers are down right now, but maybe someone will be able to read it eventually.
Corner Stone
@wrb: What a sexist pig.
Corner Stone
@joes527: See my #66.
BGinCHI
Dennis Miller endorses Herman Cain.
Well, Barack, you had a good run there for a while. Sorry it didn’t work out…..
Genine
This protest really seems to be gaining some traction. I hope it grows and becomes more effective.
And I think that is something we can all agree on here. The poo- flinging over coordinated vs. non-coordinated discussion is ridiculous.
James
@joes527:
Do you actually know he has a wife and kids or is this more of the ‘Trustifarian scum’ concern trolling?
What if he’s a complete shitheel, which going by the evidence seems a strong possibility, and his wife took the kids and ran long, long ago?
aisce
@ pangloss
san francisco should be nuked from orbit.
wear some fucking pants, you freaks. clothing isn’t slavery.
PanurgeATL
@geg6:
That may be. But why isn’t Dick Trumka there now?
And what if he gets there and says, “You know, these may be DFHs, but that’s a helluva lot better than banksters”, and forms an alliance? Then what?
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Genine: I don’t agree with that.
Satanicpanic
DFHs want to protest, let ’em. Unless someone else has a better idea.
PanurgeATL
@mclaren:
Unfortunately, too many liberals are so invested in the idea of Not Being One Of Those DFHs, and have been for so long, that I wonder if they’ll ever get the message. “DFHs: A Damn Sight Better Than Powerful Thieves With Haircuts And Ties” just doesn’t get any traction for some reason.
For once, “both sides” really are at fault.
Berto
I hope the fascist cop’s wife and kids shit in his cereal bowl and Ex Lax his beer in solidarity with the working class.
joes527
How does this differ from any other day in NYC?
Southern Beale
@Jax6655:
I meant the Tea Party threatens no one IN THE ESTABLISHMENT you fucking moron. Or don’t you understand what is meant by the “status quo”?
Mino
@PanurgeATL: Well, that would be a change, for sure. When labor first faced the DFH crowd it scared them into the arms of the Republicans for a generation. Let’s see if they can avoid that mistake this time.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
The kids are alright.
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
@59
The protestors don’t have to do anything to provoke crazed violence in response. During the G20 protests in Spain, the police went so berserk they began beating university students who had nothing to do with the protestors, screaming curses and calling them “communists” and “hippies.”
mclaren
Incidentally, for those of you who proclaim “I don’t care if he’s Hannibal Lecter…”
Share traders more reckless than psychopaths, study shows.
Mino
@mclaren: Several of the folks killed at Kent State had nothing ot do with the protest. Collateral damage.
Police riots are not uncommon and neither are agents provocatour.
aisce
hippies are societal poison. give me john galt any day of the week.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
How long till the “hard hats” join in?
Alex S.
Well… with the new media we’re able to follow these protests from their embryonic state on. 20 or 30 years ago a protest had to have a certain kind of impact to be featured in the news. Protests of such a size need to have clearly defined goals and an organisational framework, if they don’t, they are just a chaotic display of angry people. But now with blogs, Twitter and Facebook, the people make their own news. And so we get to see how protests form, and at this stage it’s really not necessary to have a clear agenda and a suit.
Kola Noscopy
@middlewest:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….HAHAHAHAHAHA…TAKES BREATH…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh yeah, voter drives will do it.
Where have you been the last 12 years? When the elites who run this place don’t like the so called vote count, they simply steal the election thru other means.
So cute…
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@aisce: and we are very proud of ourselves. . .
Shinobi
@aisce: Are they really that different? Galt’s gulch is sortof like a commune for psychopaths.
LT
Good job, John.
It’s going to be interesting to read the game of Twister that this thread must be.
Kola Noscopy
@Southern Beale:
Ah…poor baby, fascist cop, can’t go to work and heedlessly mace people without fear of severe consequences anymore…boo hoo…damn, that sucks.
Let him move his wife and kids if he has to. Behavior has consequences. I love Anonymous.
OzoneR
uh yeah, like I said yesterday, 20 dead protesters and you’ve got a movement, because then you’ve got a message.
Kola Noscopy
@wrb:
I don’t have tits, just nipples. Sorry.
But thank you for including me in your disdain among such esteemed company. I am indeed honored.
LT
@Corner Stone:
Heh-shizzzle.
Mino
At least this thread has a little consensus. Pretty good for Democrats.
OzoneR
@Montysano:
that’s true of almost everyone on the left.
Zifnab
@Kola Noscopy:
Gore lost in Florida because he didn’t take the idea of election fraud seriously. Democrats have learned and have since become more aggressive in monitoring the polls. You live and you learn.
Alternately, you can stick your head in the ground and declare the American experiment a failure – as hyperventilating granola crunchers have been doing since the Whiskey Rebellion. Or you can throw on a Che Guevera t-shirt and shake your fist at every man in a business suite screaming “When the revolution comes!” and pointing at the nearest brick wall.
In my experience, voting works sometimes. Crying and threatening works none of the time. So I’ll keep registering to vote. You can do as you please.
susan
“…Even if that means a DFH drum circle.”
My husband and I are professionals. We live in an upper middle class neighborhood in Littleton, CO. We are clean, neat, well spoken, and I usually keep my breasts covered.
We are leaving tomorrow to join the protesters; I hope the the CNBC blue bloods take notice. They will be surprised to see people who look much like themselves out on the streets lending our support to the people Chris Hedges describes as the “true Americans.”
We will be proud to be among them.
ruemara
@ppcli:
That’s the inverse ratio of visibility to desirability in bared teatage equation. One that any regular afficianado of Pride Weekend in SF would do well to heed.
B W Smith
@Mino: Careful, buddy. There’s some folks on this thread that don’t want to be called Democrat.
Cat Lady
Why aren’t protesters accosting employees coming and going from the media headquarters? If the media is blacking out coverage of protests, then that’s a bigger problem than Wall Street right now. . The teamorons get 2 reporters to every attendee at their FAIL astroturfed non-conventions, so there needs to be a concerted effort to pressure the networks to answer for their sins. The Villagers need to be first up against the wall, and New York would be a good place to start. Press coverage is a force multiplier, and it’s time to work the refs.
Mino
@B W Smith: I’m too old to change just because of some Republican framing.
Zifnab
@Southern Beale:
It’s not right. But it happens. That’s the risk you take when you start macing sympathetic people on camera.
What Malkin did was deranged and cruel because she aimed her guns at a family that did little more than speak out. When the Graeme family starts macing people in the street, my opinion on her actions will change.
Frankly, I’d rather live in a world where cops that mace innocent protesters get thrown on unpaid leave while their commanders file their discharge papers. But since I don’t, I’ll take one where they get their names up on websites rather than one where they are coddled from facing any kind of culpability.
fleeting expletive
I’m following long threads on FB about upcoming OccupyWallStreet protests in Dallas, Tulsa and Oklahoma City. LOTS of young folk making plans to go. I offer a bit of advice on assuring media attention, first aid for mace victims, lawyers for those who may get arrested. I’m there with ’em in spirit.
Elizabelle
I’m ready to join a protest, in person.
We should surprise our finest MSM by doing so.
urizon
Damn straight.
Elizabelle
@susan:
Good for you! That’s the way!
I’ll be in DC later this week. Anybody know of anything going on there?
Mino
@fleeting expletive: Heh, heh, Republicans may come to rue their refusal to pass jobs bill. All these 20somethings with time on their hands might get the habit of taking to the streets. Then what???
Odie Hugh Manatee
I think it’s wrong to allow women to bare their breasts in public. Imagine the horror of seeing some 50+ year old woman lying on her towel that is spread out on the warm park grass, working on her tan with a breast in each armpit.
/shudder
Lyrebird
I miss Steve Gilliard.
FTFY.
(why is this relevant? he had some good stuff to say about protesting to make a point.)
…even though I think a move towards Civil Rights march style would be good, I had to laugh at the CNBC hack. Small children seeing bared breasts! ! ! Shocking, I tell you! How do you think those children got big enuf to walk around, moron? Bare breasts.
Mino
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Or some gentleman doing the same.
Samara Morgan
I pointed this out wednesday night when it was happening, and linked anonops livestream.
you werent interested.
nancydarling
@Odie Hugh Manatee: AS a still somewhat perky old lady, I object.
BGinCHI
@Samara Morgan: We’re just not that into you.
Valenciennes
Anyone decrying the occupiers for their lack of coherent message or hygeine or nipple-covering is completely missing the point. Maybe it’s just because I’m a 26 year old recent graduate with few job prospects and have been engulfed by desperation and despair over the plight of myself, my family, my friends, and the post-Boomer generations in general, but these people are doing something. They’re putting themselves out there for you, and for me, and for us.
Their media handling leaves a lot to be desired, and they’re fairly unorganized, but if we are ever to have an organic uprising that actually forces the one-percenters to acknowledge the existence of the rest of us, it has to start somewhere. They’re cashing the checks all of our mouths have written, and I salute them for it. I wish I could join them, and I hope this is emulated across the country.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Mino:
If public nudity is ever allowed, naked guys bending over to pick something up would have to be outlawed.
Crouching only. There’s only so much horror that people need to see in their life.
@nancydarling:
If that’s the case, I wouldn’t (object).
Not a bit. ;)
Mino
@Valenciennes: Word.
Cat Lady
@Samara Morgan:
If you weren’t a constant annoying gnat-like presence in every fucking thread, you’d get more attention. You are on the wrong end of the signal to noise ratio.
Linda Featheringill
@susan: #122
Very good!
Are you going to wear suits? Might be nice.
Citizen Alan
@Zifnab:
Oh good, I’d been told repeatedly in another thread that Gore lost because of NADER, NADER, NADER and not because George Bush’s brother scrubbed the voter rolls to disenfranchise something like 80,000 African-Americans because their names were “similar” to those of convicted felons.
gbear
So is there a pizza joint near the protest that people from around the country can call and order pizza for the protestors? That actually got quite a bit of press during the Madison protests and was a cool way to show solidarity.
Cacti
@singfoom:
I would guess that labor is busy “laboring” at their jobs. Somebody’s gotta pay the freight so Taylor and Dakota can go beat their drums.
Linda Featheringill
@fleeting expletive:
Wow. It’s spreading.
Unless things have changed over the years, those protesters in TX and OK might have some violence done to them. By civilians.
However, if the civilian populations tolerate the protests, it probably means that they sympathize with their cause.
Sehr interessant.
Omnes Omnibus
Real life having intervened until now, I have not yet had a chance to weigh in on the Occupy Wall street threads, but I think it is very valuable to have people out there doing this. At the same time, if one really wants the protests to affect vaguely left-leaning, but conventional and conformist people, it certainly helps to have attention focused on the the people who look, sound, and behave like the one is trying to reach. This can mean that the drum circles and the like are counterproductive. In Madison six months ago, there were a lot of counter-cultural types around. A lot of them worked the supply stands, making sure that that people had water and hand warmers. They, I think, rather deliberately did not seek the spotlight because their presence could have turned some people off to what was going on. Would it have been foolish for someone to stay home out of fear of hippie cooties? Yes, of course. In the world in which we live, some people are foolish. So the dreadlocked kids and their pony-tailed elders organized, helped, and took a backseat and the faces of the protests were 40 year old teachers, nurses and firefighters. I say, good for them (the DFHs). Eyes on the prize.
Elizabelle
@Samara Morgan:
Props, Samara. You did indeed.
Linda Featheringill
@Valenciennes: #139
Amen.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Omnes Omnibus: Fuckin right!
singfoom
@Cacti: Yes, all of those naive young people are just awful trustafarians. Come on, that’s old hat and already been played on this thread.
I was just observing that at the Madison, WI protest which was organized by organized labor that there were drum circle types in large numbers marching and supporting them…
But here in reverse, I don’t see any evidence of organized labor supporting these people, even though their supposed aims as I understand them are the same.
Plus, we’ve got normal people on this thread itself saying they’re on their way there to join the protest.
Cain
@Zifnab:
Even more effective, boycott TV.. The teen-30 something market is the main demographic for music and entertainment. You start messing with those and there will be a lot of shit that is going to fly. Give the finger to wall street, but you can punish wall street even greater with your market power and demographics.
singfoom
@gbear: You’re looking for this page, which does include a pizza place….
Elizabelle
@Linda Featheringill:
Agree. I think that dressing in a professional manner will go a lonnnng way.
If jeans, wear a nice shirt and blazer. Take water.
Make signs.
Spell them correctly.
What would you guys put on your signs?
I would say: I support President Obama AND I support Elizabeth Warren.
If you can get Professor Warren even more into the spotlight, she can make our case cogently, truthfully and in an appealing manner.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): All that being said, I fucking hate giant puppet heads.
Linda Featheringill
@gbear:
http://www.liberatospizza.com/
Liberatos Pizza
17 Cedar Street
New York, NY 10038
(212) 344-3464
[according to the internets]
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Omnes Omnibus:
This is what I was saying yesterday, that the ‘face’ of the protest needs to be such that it appeals to a large slice of the population in order to gain their support. Drum circles are not something that a majority of Americans can relate to. I think the best kind of protest optics are those that make someone who can’t be there want to be there, which will lead them to support the protest in spirit. This ‘in spirit’ support could be bombing their representatives with letters of support, arranging food deliveries to the protesters or whatever.
Make the protest something that the average American can look at and say “These are people like me, people who are suffering and are demanding change.” Do that and you will have more support than you know what to do with.
Good post OO, well stated.
piratedan
just what is it with all of these chickenshit far-left purity trolls?
If you guys are spoiling for a fight and are busy looking to convert the great unwashed and ill-informed, get thee hither to http://www.redstate.com . Hanging around here dealing with all of us “establishment dems” and “obots” is simply tiring for those of us who are working and looking for work and come here to keep tabs on what the media doesn’t tell us.
Zifnab
@Citizen Alan: Yeah, Nader-blamers were annoying as all get-out. Butterfly ballots, missing boxes of votes, Katherine Harris as Secretary of State, widespread voter disenfranchisement, on and on and on – and the thing you focus on was a couple thousand hippie kids voting Nader? *eye-roll*
piratedan
@Elizabelle: I would put on a sign the following:
Dear Wall Street:
Thanks for selling out the very people that saved your jobs
Sincerely,
The American Taxpayers
Elizabelle
@piratedan:
That’s good. Very good.
Valenciennes
If I were out there protesting I would probably look like a “trustifarian” (except I dress more like a mormon). I’m young and white and well-educated, but my mother is being refused treatment for cancer right now because she’s been too sick to work her whole life and this country is too corroded by Capital to have anything resembling a safety net anymore.
I am intensely worried and intensely depressed about where we’re obviously headed, and anyone who’s trying to tell the truth and stop this — be they “trustifarians” or burnouts or teamsters or Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders or, egad, topless women — has earned my full admiration and support.
mclaren
@piratedan:
We were born bad, and we’ve only gotten worse. The only answer?
Euthanasia.
joes527
@Odie Hugh Manatee: That’s it kids. You put your asses on the line (after all, we would be there with you, but our days are filled commenting on a blog that is mostly about cooking pets)
But do _try_ to look more like us, will you?
Zifnab
@Cain:
Well, TV boycotts aren’t terribly effective unless you are a Nelson viewer or some other variant of calculated consumer. TV gets its money from ads, not from viewers. If you want to boycott a TV show – like folks did when they targeted Glenn Beck – you bombard the advertisers until the show looks really unappealing. Simply turning off the boob-tube isn’t really effective in and of itself as a form of protest, although it may have some secondary benefits (weight loss, personality improvement, improved social life).
piratedan
@mclaren: hell no Mclaren… you and I have danced here once or twice before, what I’m referring to are these folks that seem to think that we’re ‘anti-progressive’ as if realistic and pragmatic is some kind of curse for not believing in unicorns or the power of rainbows.
Dee Loralei
@susan: Oh ^5 Susan. I’m trying to schedule a business trip for NYC in the next few days and build and extra day or two into it. But even if I can only go for an hour, I will be down there with them. And I’ll wear my high end business suit.
Omnes Omnibus
@joes527: That wasn’t what was being said, but do try to start a fight.
mclaren
Neuroscientist Molly Crockett explains why people like piratedan asks the kinds of questions they do in this TEDx talk in Europe.
Turns out the level of brain serotonin and oxytocin significantly changes peoples’ judgments about moral behavior. She suggests that the main difference twixt David Hume and Emmanuel Kant’s moral philosophies boils down to certain brain chemicals. By giving test subjects a pill (an SSRI, as it happens), she was able to get them to espouse either Hume’s or Kant’s moral belief system.
It also turns out that by changing your diet, you can also change your sense of right and wrong. For example, studies show that whether a prisoner is granted parole by a judge hugely depends on whether the judge had a snack before the parole hearing. The effect is not small: it’s enormous. Adding tryptophan to your diet (a precursor of serotonin) increases the probability of getting parole; reducing tryptophan in your diet decreases the probability of the prisoner getting parole.
Sharl
That Boston Review site that someone linked above is now back up, with the account from one of the young women who was maced by Tony Bologna. Whole thing is worth a read, but here are a couple paragraphs:
Odie Hugh Manatee
@joes527:
Responses like yours tell me that the person making it isn’t worth engaging because they are locked into creating their perfect fantasy world where there would be a chicken in every pot and a unicorn that shits gold bricks in their back yard if people would just agree with and support the ragtag band of discordant street protesters who look nothing like them!
Keep banging your drum Little Drummer Boy, I’m sure someone will pay attention to you sooner or later.
FYI, some people may not be able to attend because they barely make enough for them and their family to survive on. I’m sure that you would be more than happy to pay their bills and give them a round trip ticket to the protest, right? Maybe they are old and infirm, yet of sound mind and have the ability to harass their reps in support of the protesters?
Or a thousand other life scenarios out there since I’m sure that everyone in America isn’t wasting their time posting on a blog, as you believe.
Dee Loralei
@fleeting expletive: Can you link to those? I’d love to see if one were in Memphis, I know a bunch of un and under employed you folks and would love to get them down there.
piratedan
@mclaren: and all this time I thought I was under the influence of Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello…….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RVDQgVxprE
whocoodanode?
Valenciennes
@Odie Hugh Manatee: You’re actively denigrating the protesters while cracking misogynist jokes and scoffing at the idea that they’re doing anything worthwhile, so for you to make that outraged post about people being “too poor to go” (implying that those who ARE there are inherently NOT in rough straits themselves) rings unbelievably false.
I’d be homeless right now without amazing friends, so I fully understand people being unable to make it to a protest, but at the same time if I were just a little more/less desperate or a little more/less hopeless I could easily see myself out there protesting for lack of any other option. A lot of people out there had to sell their belongings just to get there. Your snide remarks are offensive, diversionary garbage.
Omnes Omnibus
@Odie Hugh Manatee: It is also possible that many of them have been involved in protests elsewhere as recently as this year or as far back as the 50s and 60s. Fuck it, man, I was in Grant Park in ’68; I had just turned 4, but I was there.
MattMinus
@Southern Beale:
Even on the left, there are always plenty of badge lickers just waiting to give a good tongue bath.
If our faceless stormtroopers aren’t faceless, then how will they commit criminal acts of state violence with impunity?
Won’t somebody please think of the faceless stormtroopers?
joes527
@Odie Hugh Manatee:If you want to start a blue collar march on Wall Street (or any other street for that matter) then go for it. I will cheer you on!
I just find it odd when folks that aren’t doin’ it decide that their contribution to “the cause” is to tell the folks who are doin’ it that they are doin’ it wrong. You want a say in how it goes down? Then stop making excuses and get your feet on the street.
BTW: I don’t think that everyone in America is wasting time blogging. Just us.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattMinus: I have no problem at all with Anonymous posting his name, precinct, and similar information, but posting his home address goes a bit far. My objections are not so much related to concerns about him, but rather this family. Do they deserve it?
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Bullshit. Look at Odious’ #172. He’s saying exactly what joes527 nailed him on.
If you don’t look establishment then we just can’t take you poor dears seriously. And you’re hurting the effort. Because we can’t take you seriously because you don’t look the way we want you to.
mclaren
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Everyone is worth engaging. We’re all human beings. Our differences remain minor compared to our similarities.
Eventually, most of the American population is going to find themselves in the positions of these Wall Street demonstrators. As technology moves on, more and more jobs which formerly required advanced skilsl and high education are getting taken by machines/robots/computers/algorithms/the internet (either in the form of open source peer production “crowdsourcing” or offshoring to MIT-educated PhDs in Bangalore eager to work for 50 cents per hour).
Will Robots Steal Your Job? You’re highly educated. You make a lot of money. You should still be afraid. Farhad Manjoo, Slate magazine, 26 September 2011.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Valenciennes:
Your CONCERN has been noted and filed accordingly.
/round file
@Omnes Omnibus:
You are right about that. Local protests don’t get the coverage (whatever little) that the national ones do. I was fifteen and protesting Nixon at the World Expo in Spokane back in ’74. When I was twelve I was going door to door handing out brochures for a Democratic candidate my Mom, a union worker, was campaigning for.
A movement happens everywhere, not in one place. A popular uprising is called “popular” because it’s just that.
Popular. A ‘message’ doesn’t just happen, it has to be put together in a way that gets out to people.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I disagree with your interpretation.
Corner Stone
I love it that last night Cole called the smelly hippies out, got taken to task repeatedly and then today gives the nod to what’s really going on.
But some diehards just can’t fucking help themselves. Just don’t get it.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@joes527:
Would it shock you if I said that I lack the organizational skills to run such a movement? That even though I lack those capabilities I am still able to look at something and say “the optics of that are not good” and then offer a suggestion or two?
It is possible you know. Some people know their limitations and yet they can still offer useful advice.
It’s those that think they know it all who don’t.
James
@Omnes Omnibus:
What family? Does he even have kids and a wife? How do you know?
Is there actually a Lulzsec Martyr’s Brigade who’d burn down his house after locking the doors?
They’re hippies and malcontents, not the villains from a Tom Clancy novel.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Indubitably.
Emma
@mclaren: Jesus Lord you really love your anti-Obama fantasies, don’t you?
MattMinus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not my problem. Maybe Officer Bologna should have thought about that before he decided that he was allowed to inflict violence upon innocent people.
Look they’re trying to hit him where it hurts, to cause him the kind of anxiety that he obviously relishes inflicting on others. he doesn’t care if you post his name and precinct. He knows officialdom will protect him. They went after the stuff he might care about.
Nobody’s wishing harm on anyone, but I hope he doesn’t sleep a wink either.
Valenciennes
@Odie Hugh Manatee: So engage them. Engage the people who can help them, and encourage “respectable people” to lend their support to a cause that anyone posting on this website should know needs any scrap of support it can get in the face of incredibly powerful opposition.
Stop calling them smelly hippies and chuckling to yourself about how much better you are than them. You’re trying to cut a nascent populist movement off at the knees out of a sense of smug superiority over people wearing clothes you don’t approve of.
handsmile
As someone who has actually visited the site of the “Occupy Wall Street” protest, I wish to express at last my utter disgust at the ignorant, credulous, and cowardly remarks posted by far too many commenters on this and yesterday’s related threads.
I am a 54-year old, straight white male, married, a well-educated professional. I have been a registered Democrat and an occasional political activist for over thirty years.
Many of you should simply be ashamed at how willingly skepticism and critical thinking was jettisoned having read one or two sensationalistic newspaper articles. You should know that Ginia Bellafante, the NYT reporter who wrote the article posted yesterday by John Cole, is an arts and culture reporter who reviews television, music, and theater. As a NYT subscriber, I have never seen her byline on any other subject until she was assigned to cover the protest.
The trashy Business Insider story (drugs, boobs, body odor) is beneath contempt. To post a comment based on that article is despicable.
Dismayed by the lack of coverage of the protest by New York print and broadcast media, I twice visited the site last week. I wanted to observe first-hand the activities of the protesters and discern their coherence and cohesion. as well as to witness the presence and activities of police and security personnel. On both occasions, I was dressed in a sports coat, button-down shirt, trousers, and laced shoes. From my experiences with political activism and longtime residence in several large cities, I have a pretty good sense of how to behave around police.
Sympathetic to the protesters’ objectives if skeptical of their methods, I spoke to about ten men and women, most but not all in their twenties. I also provided a small amount of food, water and paper towels. On neither visit did I observe any drug or alcohol use whatsoever, nor inappropriate or aggressive behavior among themselves or towards passersby or police.
On each visit, I was photographed by non-uniformed security personnel and was harassed by police several times, e.g., informed I was loitering as I stood on the sidewalk adjacent to the protest and had the contents of my shoulder bag removed and examined. Compliance to these demands was not optional.
I believe it is worthwhile, indeed important, to write here of my own experience at “Occupy Wall Street”, as a response to the profusion of ill-informed and obnoxious commentary. Engaged questions about organization, tactics, and ultimate results of this protest merit reasonable and reasoned debate. Ad hominem comments as to the motives, beliefs, or personal backgrounds of the protesters, on the other hand, merely betray the writer’s weak-minded Babbittry.
If I am mocked or vilified for what I have written, so be it. This issue has bracingly clarified for me the fellow commenters whose typing can be ignored hereafter.
jwb
@Genine: Interestingly, the more scorn it receives, the more powerful it appears. Why bother bringing the rhetorical hammer down on something that doesn’t matter?
OzoneR
@Citizen Alan:
It’s both.
Omnes Omnibus
@James: Whatever. As I said, I am not utterly opposed to what they did; I just think they pushed it a little too far. Also, I wonder if Anonymous was actually responsible for the posting; they normally are wittier in their attacks.
singfoom
I don’t see why the drama here. It is true of most people that they are more likely influenced by people who look more like them.
Peer groups, anyone
I don’t think that pointing out that a group will be more receptive to those that appear to be in their own peer group.
I applaud all of the people down at Occupy Wall Street regardless of their age, orientation, or appearance.
But, when thinking about making a movement bigger, you do want to move beyond the normal anarcho-protest archetypes usually involved.
Pointing that out doesn’t mean you’re denigrating said archetypes, at least it doesn’t to me…
Cain
@Southern Beale:
Wooo. pakoras.. btw a great dish to make at a party with beer.
singfoom
@handsmile: Thank you for your awesome comment.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattMinus: We disagree.
harlana
this is what i was jumping up and down and yelling about 8 years ago and everybody thought i was possessed by the devil or something. but it has to affect one directly for one to care or even pay attention, and this is what’s finally happening. and i don’t even have kids. compared to most of my counterparts, i have no skin in this game. i truly am amazed things had to get this bad for people to get this pissed.
Valenciennes
@handsmile: Thanks for the much-needed dose of pragmatism and understanding, and for sharing your first-hand experiences. How are we ever supposed to overcome our moneyed overlords if we’re bickering over which pants everyone is supposed to wear?
PanurgeATL
I understand the “Clean For Gene” argument, but I’d just like to point out that the ultimate solution is to expand the definition of “clean”. I mean, it’s been nearly a half-century now–surely by now we ought to be over the idea that Freeky Peepul Are Freeky, shouldn’t we?? Making too big a deal over it is walking right into the right-wing narrative–I can’t imagine that anyone who’d be willing to listen to a left-wing narrative would be of a particularly conformist bent otherwise. IOW, it may seem shallow, but this is a fight that needs fighting as well. So the media makes hippies look bad–so what? Is there no way to use that to our advantage?
Omnes Omnibus
@Valenciennes: We are supposed wear pants?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Valenciennes:
You started out just fine and then…
Fuck you very much but I never said any such thing, I’m not chuckling to myself, I don’t feel superior in any way to the protesters, nor do I care what they wear. I offered suggestions from an outside-looking-in perspective and that’s it.
Final note: I have a pony tail to my ass crack that I’ve been wearing proudly for almost forty years now.
Fuck YOU.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Let’s face it, posting his precinct information and having people protest there would be risky for the people who are angry with the cop — people might get pepper-sprayed again, or beaten, and you can’t possibly expect someone to put themselves in physical danger for a principle. That would be, like, totally stupid.
No, better to phone in death threats to the guy’s wife and kids than to put oneself in actual danger defending civil liberties — totally risk-free for the phoner plus you get to have the fun of terrorizing innocent people. Anti-abortion protesters and KKK members have been attacking people through their families for years, so why shouldn’t lefties do the same?
/heavy sarcasm, for those whose snark detectors need repair
Corner Stone
@mclaren: I’m confused so I want to be clear. I was quoting Cole in my #59.
He and I have a different view on just about everything.
Dee Loralei
@handsmile: Briliant comment and ^5 and thanks for the in person reporting. That’s what we need more of.
During the Madison protests, over at FirstDraft they had Scout and Jude every day sending in reports and videos to the blog. It became my go to source for information. They posted everything they say and experienced and even links to pizza places etc, where we could send food to the protesters.
It’d be awesome if some of the NYC locals here could do what you just did and Doug or Tim, AL, or any front pager post one or two accounts every day, just as Athenae did back then.
If we want this to become a movement, then we’ve got to make it a movement.
I wonder if any locals could go to the sets of the AM tv shows and hold signs asking why Matt or Merideth aren’t covering the protest.
Why can’t we who can’t be there, not call the major stations asking them to cover it? Shouldn’t some frontpager be able to get us contact numbers, etc?
Corner Stone
@Odius:
Yeah, it’s your “asshole detector” and it’s been 100% correct every morning you’ve gotten out of bed for 40 years.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Citizen Alan:
Fixed that for you. Wisconsin showed us all how it should be done.
Mnemosyne
@MattMinus:
Yes, terrorizing a cop’s family will totally solve the institutional problem of police brutality.
Valenciennes
@Omnes Omnibus: I wear (nearly knee-length, because I’m a boring prude) skirts sometimes. I’m such a rebel.
@Odie Hugh Manatee: I’m really sorry I got so personal, for what it’s worth. I’ve just seen so much thoughtless negativity about something that represents a tiny sliver of hope that we may escape the neofeudalist paradise our corporate masters are building for us, and it’s unbelievably tiresome. Toss in your jokes about older women’s bodies being inherently disgusting and I got upset, and ascribed negative characteristics to you that might have been hurtful to read.
The main thing I want in all of this is to get past this stupid phase where everyone is bickering. The one-percenters don’t bicker, they just steamroll everyone in their path. Meanwhile we’re arguing that everyone else isn’t “doing it right,” and it’s unbelievably frustrating.
Guys who can rock ponytails longer than I do are awesome, so at the very least I hope there’s that common ground we can agree upon.
Linda Featheringill
@handsmile: #191
Welcome! A first hand report is always very good. Tell us more.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Corner Stone: You win the Internet, sir/madam. Perhaps for good.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Corner Stone:
Yeah but I wouldn’t need it to detect that you’re an asshole.
You wear it like a badge of honor.
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Boy are you easily impressed. It must be that Evolving you did in the deep south.
You shouldn’t have stopped.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@Mnemosyne:
What if it helps just a little bit, Stockholm Mnematoad? Ginni always says it’s a game of inches…
.
.
James
@Mnemosyne:
He’s not married. No wife, no kids.
What’s with all the lies?
Omnes Omnibus
@James: Link? And do try to stop being an asshole. Thank you.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Valenciennes:
I can understand where you are coming from but not all ‘criticism’ is that, some of it is actual advice from people who want to see something like this protest succeed. I WANT them to be seen and heard, there’s absolutely no doubt about that. I just don’t think that what is going on right now is that effective as a message. If I am wrong I will be glad to say so but that is where I’m at now.
Wearing a pony tail for that long leads to some interesting times in the life of a person, that’s for sure…lol!
Thank you for your apology and I likewise offer mine to you for offending you. The ‘boob jokes’ are something my wife and her friends talk about all of the time (as they all get older) and absolutely nothing misogynistic was intended. If you notice, I followed up with a slam against guys bending over while naked if public nudity were allowed.
My wife and her friends inform me that it can be a horror to see at times. I take no offense at that because I think they are right…lol!
DFH no.6
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I don’t know, I’ve gone back and forth on the whole protest/demonstration thing here in America.
I’ve participated in a few, going to back to a pretty large anti-war protest right after Kent State in ’70 in nearby downtown Cleveland (I was in HS at the time, and if nothing else, that experience radicalized me for life) up to the march in Manhattan August ’04 protesting the fascist National Convention there (where the vast majority of the 500,000 protesters looked like they could have walked right off a Norman Rockwell painting, or had just left Sunday morning services at a typical “casual dress” suburban megachurch – my wife and I included. Man, it was humid as hell).
Anyway, my current view is that most such protests/demonstrations in America have been fairly ineffective in modern times, with the notable exception of the Civil Rights protests and marches of the 50s and 60s.
jwb
@Corner Stone: You’re worried about mclaren misunderstanding you??? That’s funny.
Valenciennes
@DFH no.6: That ineffectiveness — not universal ineffectiveness, but at the very least the limited effectiveness of even the biggest one- or several-day events — is precisely why I’m excited about the possibilities inherent in occupation. Making this class war a daily slog (instead of a series of occasional battles springing up in response to individual injustices then fizzling out) can only make reality more apparent to both our enemies and potential allies.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@DFH no.6:
I think much of that ineffectiveness is because of the narratives spun out of our ‘news’ bureaus.
They have to keep their rich masters happy.
handsmile
Singfoom, Valenciennes, Dee Lorelei, Linda Featheringill:
I am very grateful for your kind replies. Whew! Though I have posted somewhat regularly at BJ for the past year (often with a link to the Guardian), this was the first time I was provoked to do so with real anger. (Thus I suspect the personal nature of my comment.)
To Linda’s request (#211), I am not sure what else of value I can contribute to the discussion. I must emphasize that I was only a visitor to the protest, albeit one well-intentioned and supportive. My personal and professional duties and frankly a jaundiced unease with this method of activism would seem to preclude more direct involvement.
I will be scrutinizing the coverage, mostly online, of the security forces’ response to the protest. Having personally experienced the tender ministrations of the New York City police force during the 2004 Republican convention, this is an area of acute interest.
True to my usual behavior here, a link to the most recent Guardian article on the “Occupy Wall Street” protest: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/27/occupy-wall-street-anthony-bologna
There is no more indispensable news organization.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@Valenciennes:
Given the unemployment rate, I support you in turning this into an occupation. It would be a fine entry-level position, at that, suitable for all ages and skill levels. It might even grow into a Professional Left-accredited guild or union. Jobs for all!
.
.
Cain
If people ever organized as a demographic and just started to not buy a number of things.. it would fuck wall street over big time. Imagine huge losses. People out of work in the entertainment industry.. (hey it’s the only thing that hasn’t been outsourced) California and a number of others would suddenly wake up..
You don’t really need to be out there protesting, just create an organization, and then start a twitter revolution and then sit back and watch as a cluster fuck begins. Young people have enormous power if they choose to organize and build it. They don’t need to do the kind of old fashion protesting they are doing now.
Satyagraha baby.. twitter style.
Arundel
@handsmile- Thank you for that. I’m sort of appalled at people taking Bellafante’s NYT hit-job on the young people down there to heart, demanding they have an organized message, goal, point. Oh, and dress well, present themselves better, because that would work, right?
The Mattachine Society in favor of gay rights picketed the White House in the early 1960s. Men had to wear suits, women had to wear skirts. They were meticulous about their image and message, as polite and as presentable and unthreatening as possible, purposefully. Admirable and brave as hell, but it got them, and gay rights pretty much nowhere. It took raging queens at Stonewall to set things off a few years later. Unruly sorts.
So I’m disheartened to see so many people buying the media narrative that it’s all just smelly beatniks we can mock and ignore down there. No, that’s not the whole story. And there’s a kind of grinding literalism at all the people here slagging the Wall St. protestors. Demanding spreadsheets of a battle plan, goals and objectives and oh stfu.
Symbolism matters. Symbolism has power. The mere presence of those protestors, down in the financial center of the media center of our world- it has power. The media’s been ignoring them except to mock them, and there’s a crowd here gleefully joining in. I won’t knock those kids for exercising freedom of expression, or nitpick them about their presentability or hygiene. Their presence alone is only meant to be symbolism, but in a city like New York, visuals and symbolism have power. Like parading tumbrils before the aristocrats, guillotines. It’s theatre, and believe it or not, it has an effect that can snowball. I’m glad those kids are down there, making the Street nervous, I won’t knock them for doing that and being there. When their generation aren’t getting jobs, aren’t seeing a place for themselves in society because Wall St etc. wrecked the joint- well, they are a huge cohort with the youth and energy and dashed dreams- they have every right to protest, to gather and express as they see fit, all First Amendment style.
To protest against things like traders who are praying and hoping Europe’s economies collapse and we have another recession here, as in this astonnishing BBC interview where it’s made clear: they really are out to fuck the rest of us to death, that’s where the big money for them is. Trader: ‘I Go To Bed Every Night and I Dream of Another Recession’. The kids are all right with their protests. Let them do their thing, I am glad they’re there.
DFH no.6
@mclaren:
“Eventually” is a long way off.
I think this country, overall, is nowhere near the boiling point/critical mass needed to move us off the general rightward drift we’ve been on since Nixon’s day.
Sadly, though I’m with them in spirit, I don’t believe these protests in Manhattan will accomplish a damn thing, because the majority of the American electorate is not ready for a message outside the Villager-approved narrative.
Think about it. Rightwing policies get us into another stupid war (Iraq) that most Americans sour on eventually, and gets us an economic downturn second only, in the past century, to the Great Depression.
So what happens, politically? OK, Nancy Pelosi gets to be Speaker for a couple Congresses, Obama gets elected in ’08, but then WHAM, back even harder to the right in ’10 (nationally, and even far worse at the state level). And, ridiculously, the dominant economic concern segues to the federal debt and deficit.
And we see western Europe in much the same boat.
The left and center-left plays this political game at a distinct disadvantage, for all the reasons we know.
There won’t be a “revolution” any time soon (thank the FSM) but we will, I think, be able to hold the line (just barely) on most of the political and cultural gains of the past century or so. For a while.
Then “eventually” finally happens, when global warming gets us all (I’ll have probably sloughed of the coil long before). I don’t think things change much before that, but when they do the American Empire won’t go nearly as quietly as the British Empire did.
This time, with our 10% unemployment and economic stagnation, will be viewed then as the gold old days.
On that cheery note…
Brendancalling
Haven’t read comments ( I am on the boltbus to Philly) but I was down at the occupation today interviewing protestors. I will be spending much of tomorrow editing video and will try to get it uploaded. Oh, and the coverage I have seen so far has Bern DISGRACEFUL.
Amedras
@Southern Beale:
The one demonstration I’ve ever attended ended with me hospitalized by an officer I didn’t even see for failing to heed an order to disperse.
Needless to say, when I was no longer in the neurological ward relearning how to walk and not vomit at the same time, the entire department swore up and down that they were six blocks away when it happened.
So I’m gonna have to disagree with you on this one: good on them for getting enough information to out an officer. They’re more likely to get justice than I was.
dlnelson
The cops are incredibly right wingers. I live in No Cal, the cops and the prison folks vote right the majority of the time. I live in Folsom with the prison guards, etc., some of them look like hell angels. tats and all. I know I dropped some apostrophes, and capitals, but I do not want to get into moderation. My point is, we in California protect them, and they vote against the democrats. The prison union is so powerful here, they do not even understand the republicans want to privatize their monopoly. I would rather pay a teacher 100 grand a year than a tatted up booted up guard at the prison. There is so much graft going on. It makes sense to stop behavior when children are young, than put them in prison as a teen.
tofubo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LaAEnB9owY
the pepper spray @ the end was a nice way to spice up the activities
Brendancalling
And may I add, if you haven’t been down and actually talked to the protestors, commenters should avoid stereotyping, because it ain’t like what some of you are saying. This is, I think, the start of something interesting. I came away more impressed than I expected to be, and anyone who’s read my blog or comments knows how jaded and bitter I am.
LT
@handsmile:
Handsmile, thanks.
Linda Featheringill
A diary at dkos about local occupation organizations springing up.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/26/1020425/-OccupyWallStreet-Has-Officially-Gone-Natl,-Headed-Overseas!?via=siderecent
harlana
@handsmile: welcome to my world, circa 2003; it ain’t exactly fun.
are our nation learning?
DFH no.6
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
That’s part of it, sure – it’s one of the reasons I mentioned that puts the left/center-left at a disadvantage.
But really, it’s much bigger and deeper than that.
Jay Gould’s “I can hire half the working class to kill the other half” is just as true today. That’s the biggest disadvantage of all, IMAO.
Anecdotal, certainly, but though almost every very affluent person I know is a teabagger (or votes like one, anyway) the much larger number of people I know who are teabagger/tea-curious are working/lower middle class.
Of course, we know these working/lower middle class people vote in direct opposition to their own economic interests, but they don’t think so. And even if some suspect that may be true, they fall in line with that bit about living in a box under a bridge, but being glad that they have a sparrow to roast while the other guy in the adjacent box doesn’t (or crabs in a bucket, etc.).
I think my admittedly limited experience of the electorate around me is nonetheless a microcosm of the nation as a whole (not too damn conceited, am I?). We’re in a rough 50/50 stasis, but around 50% is all the fascists need, apparently.
I’ve gotten all goddamn cynical, and I miss feeling the way Valenciennes does. Really miss it.
And fuck Uncle Cracker Thomas, and all such fascist motherfuckers. That feeling I’ve never lost, not one day since that May afternoon in Cleveland in 1970.
Corner Stone
@jwb: You’re flailing now.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@DFH no.6:
I’m fully in agreement with what you said above. Completely. Maybe I should have said that the M$M is good at narratives that influence that thin slice of America that those of us on the left want to court at election time.
We are in a mess and nothing frustrates me more than hearing people (locally) talking about voting against their own interests and not being aware of it. Sometimes I want to smack them upside the head and ask them how in the fuck they got where they are (opinion-wise) in life. I see people who would benefit from progressive legislation (and who do suffer from conservative legislation) who hate progressives for reasons that are absurd and I just shake my head at them.
Right now, too many Americans can afford to be ignorant of what is really going on. One day they aren’t going to be able to afford it any more, it’s going to hit home hard.
Maybe then they will start to think for themselves. Maybe.
Corner Stone
@Brendancalling:
Well, it’s kind of a wonder isn’t it?
Somehow Cole and his authoritarian followers all hated on the fucking “kooks” and smelly fucking hippies with the drum circles(tm) H/T Davis X. Machina.
I mean, I for one am so happy to have the judgement call from Cole and his Steely Eyed Centrists(tm) to guide me on who is an acceptable and responsible torch bearer for movement politics.
Lyrebird
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
This.
And if you discover more ways to actually get this idea across, pls make a blog post or something, ‘kay? Because this is a notion I regularly fail to get across.
cynn
@Valenciennes: Sorry to be so late, but thank you for your thoughtful opinion. I would urge all young people to wake up from their electronic trance and challenge the stupid, flabby class (generation?)that is draining their blood.
BrianM
@Judas Escargot:
My understanding is that a lot of these T-cells have ample leisure time because they’ve graduated from university and have no jobs.
wilfred
The NYT article and most blog comments mirror the kettling tactics of the police. Here it’s meant to continue marginalizing anything that doesn’t nest into the parameters of the two party system and the already decided list of BIG IMPORTANT THINGS.
The DFH put on their ‘marchin’ shoes’…and got maced for their trouble. Up the rebels.
cynn
One thing I’ve noticed in these comments is how many of you are qualifying the power of this younger generation: as DFH, or T-cells, or minor agitators, as in smelly disorganized kids just smoking pot. And then I consider Anonymous, and I am reminded of the disruptive and potentially overwhelming strength of even a loosely coordinated and fluid group of people can exert on not only the web tea-room but potentially entire markets. They are our creations, folks. They can take us down. Oh, yes, they can. If I were a kook, I’d say we have our own al-kaida brew in our teapot.
Well, maybe I’m a kook.
brendancalling
oh FUCK YOU cornerstone.
Cole’s post has been, IMO, entirely supportive of these young people. Don’t rope me into your war with cole.
Evelyn
@handsmile:
Thank you SO much for this comment. I have been getting really upset with all the negative BJ comments on this topic, to the point where I wonder if maybe I’m just too young to be a fan of this site anymore (which I have made my homepage for the past two years). I feel personally judged, as I have a lot of friends who are out there, both in NY and Chicago, and if I hadn’t just been through surgery would be protesting myself. I’m a 24-year old ivy-league educated, hard-working, responsible, meat-eating, and completely financially independent woman, and the people I personally know who are protesting are similar. They are not a bunch of trustafarian idiots who are stupid enough to consume illicit substances or dangle their tits in public because, believe it or not, they are aware that people are watching and trying to label them DFHs. They are aware that people are actively trying to write them off, many people who should be out there trying to help them!
I’m so angry right now, I actually can’t write anymore.
eemom
@brendancalling:
you’ve just won yourself my respect.
@Evelyn:
Ouch. Easy there, young’un. Someday you’ll be a 49-year old ivy-league educated, hard-working, responsible, meat-eating, and completely financially independent woman like me with a kid heading to college in 2 years, wondering what the hell happened.
I TOTALLY support the protesters.
Corner Stone
@brendancalling: Hmmm. Ok. brendancalling, I’ll be more circumspect from now on.
Sorry to sully your good name here.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Again I ask: What are they trying to accomplish?
The optics matter, but not nearly as much as that what they seem to be saying- “Banks are bad, mmkay”- is way too fucking broad. Who doesn’t agree that the banks have been guilty of dealing dirty?
Focus, hippies, focus! What is the ultimate goal of these protests? What steps need to be taken to achieve those goals?
Corner Stone
@brendancalling: I’ve thought a little more about this, and I have to conclude, fuck you.
Cole’s posts have been “Ole!”, and not supportive in any way, shape or form.
You’re a fucking fool if you think he “supported” them.
You’re a fucking derp.
karen marie
@James: There are crazy people everywhere on the political scale. His home address was over the line. Even if his wife (if he had one) has already left him, he’s still got neighbors who probably won’t appreciate disturbances.
Valenciennes
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Someone affiliated with them released an admittedly open-ended manifesto a few days ago, which I thought was underwhelming in a brass tacks sense but actually served as a pretty good anti-corporate/capitalist starting point (a la the 15-M movement in Spain): http://bit.ly/qSe66c
It’s not perfect, but I like the cheekiness and I like the general message. More importantly, though, I think their presence is their message, to a large extent. They’ve turned indignation and desperation into, “Hey assholes, we’re going to camp out on your stoop until you stop raping and pillaging our communities.” And that’s a good place to work from.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Lyrebird:
No luck yet but I haven’t given up either. Don’t hold your breath though, I think this will be a tough nut to crack. Insiders tend to ignore anything that someone on the outside says, even if they support them, if it comes across as critical of them or their tactics. Even if it wasn’t they still think it was. It makes it tough to talk to them, that’s for sure.
Much of their attitude can be summed up as you’re not there so shut up! Yeah, like that will get them lots of help or advice. If they fail then it was because we didn’t unquestionably support them enough when they needed it. With them, it’s never the tactics or optics that lead to failure.
Nope. It’s everybody else who failed them.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Valenciennes:
I couldn’t disagree more.
Their presence could mean they’re protesting anything- this same crowd is, in its constituent parts, present at peace rallies, PETA rallies, Troofer rallies…Name a progressive/lefty cause and they’re there.
They need to make it clear about what they want done: Reinstating Glass-Steagall and other regulatory measures, pushing for constitutional amendments that define corporations as something other than legal persons and that limit campaign donations and lobbying gifts as something other than protected political speech. But they’ve got to keep it fairly simple if they want to achieve the critical mass they need to implement these steps.
ETA: Just read the link, and that’s exactly what they shouldn’t be offering.
PanurgeATL
Four, count ’em, four “fuck you”s in this thread. You people don’t even WANT to help each other.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@PanurgeATL:
How many of those are from or directed at Corner Stone?
eemom
I’m just kind of glad the protesters are still out there protesting and not at home reading this pearl-clutching, obsessive-compulsive bullshit.
“Mercy me! WHAT IS our message??”
eemom
@Valenciennes:
I’m wichoo and the young ‘uns.
Ever since the Bush administration I’ve believed, on an intense visceral level, that the ONLY thing that can stop the Wall Street and Washington thugs is mobs in the streets — furious guillotine-wielding mobs who mean, um, business.
We ain’t there now and probably never will be — but at least these young folks are taking a step in the right direction. For that I respect them more than eleventy zillion bloggers, anywhere on the Obot-Firebagger spectrum.
Dustin
@PanurgeATL: fuck you. fuck you. fuck you. fuck you.
There, now that I’ve doubled the quotient does that mean the thread is 100% more hostile? How about if I direct them all at Corner Stone, just because? No… damn. If you can’t handle pointless vulgarity this probably isn’t the place for you. Either that or I suggest you do what I do and just skim over the bickering whenever it pops up.
As an aside I just donated $100 dollars to the protester’s food drive and emailed that macing post to everyone on my contact list. You should do the same (or whatever you can afford). If you’re looking to help and not just bitch at each other BJ-style. It’d probably be a better use of your time.
Chuck Butcher
Every once in awhile I check around to see if there’s any reason for me to reasses my decision to bow out, of politics and the economy. This thread didn’t make me particularly regretful.
Odd as it may seem, this place is pretty reflective of the opposition to the autocrats and plutocrats – that is depressing; maybe?
You’d think that by 2011 the ’60s would’ve died or maybe the good ideas would be out front – not happening, not here… Same bullshit, different millenia.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@eemom:
Sorry, eemom, but I can hear the troofer chants starting up in a lull.
I wrote this elsewhere about that list of demands linked by Valenciennes:
Mohandas K. Gandhi was an Indian, a Hindu, a pacifist and someone who wanted independence for his land. When leading the campaign for independence, however, he did not ask for an independent, Hindu, pacifist India, just an independent India. Had he asked for a Hindu and/or pacifist independent state he would have lost the critical mass required to gain independence.
There’s a lesson in this: Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Chuck Butcher
Heh, if I could afford it I’d go camp out with those folks on Wall St. Not to get anything accomplished other than the personal satisfaction of sticking a big middle finger in the money-grubbers’ faces.
kay
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
They’re a general assembly, so it’s a consensus demand list. That’s what they chose as a “process”, if you will. It’s akin to direct democracy, ie: a referendum.
I just think that if you want to understand where they’re trying to go, you have to understand how they’re getting there.
It makes sense to me. They’re saying they aren’t represented, so they set up a process for (better) representation. I just don’t think that’s going to fit within marketing or “messaging”, by its nature.
In any event, however they run it, I’ll say it again: I love them for showing up.
They said they’re going to set up in Cleveland (among other places). If they do, I’ll go, and I’ll bring some people with me.
kay
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
And don’t dismiss the general assembly method so blithely. They came up with Phoenix and Cleveland using it, and those are two good Ground Zeros for the mortgage crisis.
Not a bad day’s work :)
eemom
Right on, Kay, as usual.
If I didn’t have a shit ton of work to do this morning I would wax eloquent on my disagreement with the folks insisting on a “coordinated message.”
As it is I will have to content myself with, you people are out of your fucking minds.
eemom
@Chuck Butcher:
bingo.
That is NOT accomplishing nothing — that is turning the HEAT on these bastards. Maybe not one middle finger, but thousands and millions — stuck right the fuck up in their faces, and breathing fury right the fuck down their necks, making them shit their pants in fear.
It’s possible. It’s been done.
Kane
Why is it that the media can provide live streaming video of events unfolding in Egypt, but they wont provide live streaming video of protests on Wall Street?
Catpause
place de la concorde, baby!
Some times the money tree must be watered with, well, you know the rest.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@kay:
And when you do go to Cleveland with your group, will you be leading chants to end the death penalty?
What has this to do with Wall Street?
Or this?
kay
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
No. I’m not much of a “chanter”. I’ll stand there and hold a sign, though, and there is virtually no one with whom I won’t speak, one on one. Really. Anyone at all. Send them over my way :)
This isn’t how I would have done it. I like an orderly set-up, myself, because I’m fairly conventional and usually pressed for time. But I didn’t do it. They did.
I’d be joining it, not running it, thank God.
I have enough to do without running everything in the world from my chair here in Ohio. I’d be a happy peon, taking direction, then I’d go home.
kay
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
When I went down to hold a sign to oppose SB5 (and talk, a lot, let’s not forget my other job!) it was very well-run, which is a relief to me, because I like that, and I have, say, 2 hours. But it was run by union activists who have been working together for 20 years. There was a (paid) AFL-CIO organizer.
They’re making this up as they go along. It’s just not the same thing.
Valenciennes
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): If you cannot understand the idea of calling out an entire system that’s actively working to crush you and everyone you care about, I don’t know what to tell you. Hundreds of people coalesced in the park to produce that list in response to the constant mockery for not having an articulated position. By its very nature it wasn’t going to be as precise and targeted as you’re expecting.
Our society has been willfully broken, and they want the people responsible to be held accountable. They want the myriad cancers which have been inflicted upon our daily lives to be eradicated. How anyone can call this an unworthy platform is beyond me.
PanurgeATL
@Dustin:
Well, most threads don’t have any “fuck you”‘s in them. I usually do skim over the bickering, but this was one time I decided to point out something worth pointing out–namely that left-of-center bickering has gone far past a mere distraction from the bigger task. People really would rather get apoplectic on a blog that get up and do something, apparently. And WHADDAYA know that it would all blow up again over DIRTY HIPPIES?? Who’d’ ‘a’ thunk it, eh?
PanurgeATL
@Dustin:
Well, most threads don’t have any “fuck you”‘s in them. I usually do skim over the bickering, but this was one time I decided to point out something worth pointing out–namely that left-of-center bickering has gone far past a mere distraction from the bigger task. People really would rather get apoplectic on a blog that get up and do something, apparently. And WHADDAYA know that it would all blow up again over DIRTY HIPPIES?? Who’d’ ‘a’ thunk it, eh?
Corner Stone
@PanurgeATL:
They don’t?
Why are you trying to single me out here? What did I do to get you to go on record saying I’m failing my job? If most threads here don’t have enough “fuck you’s” in them then I hardly think it’s all my fault. Other people could step up and throw down some appropriately placed “fuck you’s”.
This is a community, after all.
I resent your accusations sir/madam.
Ross Wolfe
Certainly the OccupyWallStreet demonstrations have created a lot of buzz and enlisted a lot of leftish celebrities like Chomsky, Michael Moore, Cornell West, and others to support their cause, but I believe that the rather inchoate, generalized discontent expressed by the protestors needs to be given adequate theoretical clarification in order that the participants in this phenomenon might dedicate themselves to a longer-term program of reconstituting the Left. Michael Moore quite transparently wants a return to neo-Fordist Rooseveltian capitalism, Chomsky is a self-proclaimed “anarchist” who voted for John Kerry in 2004, and so on down the line. I therefore offer the following (Marxist) critique of the protests to this point.
Of course, I realize that it is not enough to relentlessly criticize from the sidelines, but it is essential that these protestors be engaged so that their understanding of global capitalism is deepened and their politics radicalized. This means more than waving a few placards with populist slogans and other such theatrics.
Regressive “Resistance” on Wall Street: Notes on the Occupation
or
http://wp.me/pgGDG-JC