If you want to kill the Wall Street protests, ur doin’ it rong:
The more this happens, the more news it makes, the more people hear about it, the more pissed off people get, the more people show up, the more the cops over-react, the more news it makes, the more people hear about it… You get the point.
So yeah, I’m looking back at my snide post where I called the vanguard of this “trustafarians,” and once again, I feel like an idiot. This may still fizzle out without any real change, but right now, it seems to be building, and the reason it is is because a small group of people went out there and publicly voiced their displeasure with the shit I’ve been sitting on my fat ass writing dyspeptic posts about for the last year, but not really doing a god damned thing to enact change. Yeah, it was some jackasses with a drum circle, and no, they didn’t have a point by point plan or coherent media strategy like some anal retentive douchebags like me were demanding. But they went out there and did something, and it seems to be working. Let’s hope it keeps growing.
*** Update ***
Oops. Now they maced Fox News:
Corner Stone
I accept your apology. Thank you.
Corner Stone
“And they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and they tell…”
arguingwithsignposts
Apparently, today at noon, there were walkouts on college campuses around the country. OccupyCollege or something. Not sure how big it was though.
ETA: somebody is filming that on an iPad!
C.J.
But even the liberal New York Times won’t give them the time of day, so clearly it’s the really dirty hippies at work.
I honestly thought they were internet dumbasses doing very little, but I guess the message reverberated.
Matto
“trustafarians”…”jackasses with a drum circle.”
Hippie-punch much, John?
Seriously, good post, and you’re taking them seriously and giving credit where it’s due. Let me also point out that, as the person who sits on his fat ass and writes, you do a hell of a lot more than I, who sit on my fat ass and merely read. this is a great blog, and I am one of a silent multitude who check it many times a day.
Corner Stone
I never really know why I turn everything you write into an emofest, or apply my special patented Triple Suck Multiplier™ to every thread.
David in NY
Any details on When, Where, Why, for this one?
lol chikinburd
What’s the over-under on the NYPD’s first unprovoked shooting of protesters? I have Thursday of next week in the pool, but I’m worried I may have been too cautious.
wonkie
There’s a growing list of Dems in Congress supporting them. The city council of LA wrote a statement in support. I’m…afraid to hope?
Amir Khalid
Great minds think alike, it would seem. I was suggesting in the previous thread that a daily thread, or more, on the Occupy Wall Street protest would give us in the Balloon-Juice commentariat a chance to say our piece on key developments. So how about it, John Cole?
virag
dyspeptic. heh, indeedy.
lots of folks are getting some learnin’ out of this wall street stuff, and it’s all over the news and shit now, so this just might be the start of a subtle realignment of attitudes on the economy and society. major changes are not in the cards, but just a bit of reconsideration might be enough to change the dialog along with some leading political leaders like elizabeth warren. that seemingly small change could do a bunch to undo the coors/mellon/koch hegemony of discourse constructed over the last 40 years.
arguingwithsignposts
I think leaving the giant puppet heads at home was key.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
To be honest, I don’t think you need to ask.
This movement is the Center of the Universe (TM) everywhere now, and it’s getting bigger, no matter how much the vile slime of the Lamestream Media tries to suppress it.
This thing as, as they say, legs. And the NYPD is only helping it along with this incident.
I now have some hope that there’s a way out of this mess that does not involve a lot of tumbrel action. Fingers crossed.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
They’ll be in front of my office building tomorrow morning in Houston. Will be curious to see the size of the crowd…
handy
@Corner Stone:
But what do they REAAAAAAALLLY want?
amk
@Corner Stone: How are you any different ? For all your sanctimony, you’re here 24×7 trolling. I bet you weren’t in any of these protests.
Linnaeus
@virag:
Okay, I know this is all fortune cookie-y and all, but a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step…
Linda Featheringill
@David in NY:
According to YouTube, it was uploaded today at 8:45.
Don’t know where or what started it. Sure would like to know.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
I think DougJ* indicated earlier today that he’s on it.
*(can’t keep track of what his nym is this week, but you surely know to whom I refer)
Corner Stone
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: Hey! Let’s have lunch. Well, not tomorrow, maybe Friday?
Corner Stone
@amk: Different than Cole shit canning these protests from jump? Different from ABL mocking, denigrating and laughing at the very idea of these protests?
Different from that mindset you mean?
RossInDetroit
In this day and age, visuals rule. Look at all of the cameras visible in that video clip. Gone are the days when you could nail your manifesto to a door and start a revolution. The revolution will be televised. In fact, it will be mostly television for the majority of people.
Corner Stone
@handy: “What do they waaannnttt ??”
General Stuck
I liked the part where some of the one percenters were out on the veranda sucking down martinis and smugly acting like they are superior and can’t be touched. For all their money, they are sure some stupid motherfuckers in the image department.
I think we are at the stage of economic disintegration in this country, where large numbers of middle class citizens are trying to shut out what they sense is the ugly truth, and pretending everything will go back to what it was. Things aren’t quite bad enough for it to sink in that there is no going back, and there is only going forward, and some big changes have to occur, or else.
And the irony of it all is that the arrogant asses on Wallstreet and elsewhere, that have figured out how to drain the country of wealth, without making anything of real value, will also, at some point, be in the same sinking boat as the rest of us. It’s called supply and demand for a reason, and one without the other is the death of the golden goose for everyone.
singfoom
Jesus, he’s just swinging his fucking stick and hitting whoever is closest to him. These white shirts sure get all beaty a lot more than the other cops.
It takes balls to admit you’re wrong, especially in a specific public way. Good to see it John (not trolling)
I’m sure M_C will be so proud.
We are all the 99&. Let’s keep it rolling.
Corner Stone
@RossInDetroit:
Someone may want to take a minute to inform DMX of this simple fact.
He seems to be stuck circa 1776 or so.
David in NY
@Linda Featheringill: Thanks. Like, teh NY Times seems barely to have noticed. Somthing about people actually wanting to go to Wall Street, heaven forfend, maybe! The police I say up till about 6:15 certainly had the look of assholes. And I have, until now, had relatively high regard for the NYPD crowd control. But I think an investigation needs to be done of the Giuliani-Bloomberg style of speech suppression and intimidation. My guess is that the St. Paddy’s Day, Puerto Rican, and Carribean Day parades have far more public disorder than these and that the police adopt far different attitudes to the two types of parades. Wonder if the City Council has subpoena power (or would use it)?
Gin & Tonic
That’s quite a tag.
Amir Khalid
i wonder how the scuffles started between the cops and the protesters. The Guardian’s liveblog doesn’t seem to have any reporting on that. If I were in charge of the cops, I would have warned them not to react with too heavy a hand; anything from their side now with even the faintest whiff of Tony Baloney is only going to invite more sympathy for the protesters.
econtutor
I don’t expect much, but nobody thought a fruit vendor getting fined for selling on a corner would have been the spark that led to several dictatorships being toppled. So really, who knows?
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
the best thing i read all day, was basically just asking what would have happened if the cops had beat the shit out of tea party protestors.
wilfred
The political apparatus that drives partisan politics has no place in these protests, which are the first glimmers of genuine political consciousness. The reason that its objectives seem unclear (to some people) is because people are starting to think for themselves, instead of having their agenda set for them.
People like Cole aligned themselves with a political party. This movement arose from the failure of party politics at a basic level. The unifying element is class struggle. Fifty years of conditioning by state run apparatuses like schools, political parties and, most recently, blogs, taught people that class struggle was wrong.
It’s not. It’s the only politics that matters.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thanks. Wasn’t quite sure if that was what Dougerhead (such is his latest nym) meant. Figured it couldn’t hurt to ask The Cole Himself.
Gin & Tonic
@David in NY: The Times’ “City Room” blog has been doing a pretty good job of covering the action.
Cat
Weren’t you complaining the other day about FP’s making one of tags for posts… :-0
Villago Delenda Est
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
We’d all be deaf from the screaming on Faux Nooze, for one thing.
Thymezone
Wait, this post from the guy who used to write about how he hated protests? Okay, irony died a long time ago, so whatever.
But OWS is leaderless, and messageless. It’s angry people milling around, which I have a lot of experience with. I call that “my family.” It can amount to nothing good.
Right now it is a sitting duck for a ratfuck by the Koch-Rove machine, or a takeover by some idiot leftists … I heard one on the Ed Shultz show a while ago. “These are not Obama supporters, they wanted the profit-makers OUT of healthcare and got Obamacare instead. They are disappointed.” REally? Really? That’s the message? They are fucking idiots. Eight presidents failed to get the reforms we have today because of Obama, and they are disappointed? That’s great.
Somebody better lead this trainwreck, and give it a message that has some kind of political value, or it is just going to be an ugly mess. The GOP is already calculating and trying messages to use this to energize THEIR base. What is our base going to be energized to do? Primary Obama?
amk
@Corner Stone: So in short, you didn’t do any of the protests. You just prefer to troll the innernets.
beltane
@Amir Khalid: From what I was reading on Twitter, it seems like it began when the police started blocking the marchers from re-entering Zuccotti Park, but it’s hard to tell. OWS’s media team was rounded up and put into a paddy wagon so there is no more livefeed available. Also, a Fox News crew was maced and the cameraman hit over the head with a baton about an hour ago. (I’m not going to joke about this, because if they’re macing Fox reporters it doesn’t look too safe for anyone else covering this).
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
So. In a twist on the old liberal-conservative jokes, do we now figure that a liberal journalist is a Fox news reporter who’s been maced?
THE
@Linnaeus:
DaoDeJing–Laozi (J. Legge trans.)
Trakker
A lot of us have been waiting for the simmering anger to show itself, but I didn’t see the early Occupy Wall Street encampment for what it was, and what it has become, so you weren’t the only one.
What annoys me most is the way the MSM dismisses this movement because there is no major focus to their grievances.
Really? That didn’t stop the MSM from giving the early Tea Party movement plenty of respect.
Even now I don’t know exactly what the Tea Party is for and against – and I suspect the many TP organizations around the country don’t agree amongst themselves, and yet that tiny 20% of the electorate gets the majority of the MSM’s political attention these days!
So, more power to you OWS! May you become bigger and mightier than the Tea Party by this time next year.
andynotadam
Self awareness is a rare and special thing, especially when shared with friends. Good on you. I actually got off my ass this afternoon and tried to find the General Assembly for the Santa Rosa, CA Occupy group. I think I found it, but it was kinda small and I’m not particularly brave nor big on organizing things anymore (good ol’ self awareness at work), so I kinda wandered off. Their event is planned for October 15th and I will definitely be there.
Thymezone
@General Stuck:
Take heart Stuck. It works, if everyone keeps their eye on the ball and votes their true interests. Let the one percenters vote their elite interests. We outnumber them. If we work together and vote our true interests, we will do fine.
If there is anything to worry about right now, it’s that our side doesn’t know how to articulate its real interests and to formulate policy and action based on that. OWS is not doing it so far. Maybe some leadership will shape it up, I hope so. But like I said, if all they can do is mill around and be angry, then they are just my relatives at another Thanksgiving dinner turned to shit. If they can formulate a message, and that message is win for the working class in terms of votes and action, then … good.
PeakVT
What the hell is wrong with NYPD cops in white shirts?
@Cat: No, it was categories.
Cain
@wilfred:
Well said, sir.
Comrade Kevin
@Corner Stone: Because you’re an idiot?
/Heathers
mclaren
Exactly the point I’ve been making. The entire point of non-violent protests is to entice the authorities into overreacting, which destroys their legitimacy and makes possible social change. Even the most powerful elites can’t continue to govern without perceived legitimacy.
cbear
Don’t feel too bad, John. After all, we’ve only had 8 years to try and beat the gooper out of you and you were infected with a near lethal dose. With luck you shoud be disease-free around 2020.
Kola Noscopy
I also accept your apology to me, John.
Consider this incident forgotten.
Lojasmo
I love this.
Anonymous has threatened to remove Dow Jones from the innerwebz on 11/10. Love those fuckers too.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Trakker:
I thought it was quite clear that they want government to keep its hands off their Medicare.
Corner Stone
@Comrade Kevin: You’re not even close amigo.
Get back to me when you know what my blurb there is referring to.
mclaren
@General Stuck:
See, what these erstwhile Masters of the Universe don’t understand, is that Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu had a lot scarier more evil and more sadistically brutal thugs working for the elites than these cops…and Ceausescu and his buddies wound up dragged out their houses and beaten to death and hung from trees as a warning to the rest of the punk-ass thugs who thought they were in charge.
The only way to stop something like this is for the one percenters to call out the national guard and hose down the protestors with gasoline and set ’em on fire and let ’em burn slow, screaming, and cover it on national TV. If they could make Americans accept that, their rule would be secure. But, see, in America, people won’t stand for that kind of sh*t, and the wannabe-Masters of the Universe don’t have the balls to start a full-on genocide complete with boxcars ‘n ovens… So those one percenters are going down.
History shows that the only real way to prevent oligarchical regimes from being overthrown is massive genocidal assaults on the population. That works. Genghis Khan did that, and it worked. The Romans wiped out entire nations, all the women, all the children, all the men, the dogs, the cats, they sowed the fields with salt and poisoned the wells — and that works. The Ottoman empire and the Persian Empire did that, and it worked.
But unless the one percenters are willing to go there, they ain’t gonna stop this.
Corner Stone
@Kola Noscopy: Forgotten?
Fuck that to the fucking fjords of fucking no fjording way.
Fuck Cole.
Dude hasn’t glommed onto a clue in the first instance of its life since he’s been bjorn.
He’s been the wrongest wrong that ever wronged a wrong since Wrongville earned incorporation.
Comrade Kevin
@Corner Stone: My comment had nothing to do with wherever your “blurb” came from.
Corner Stone
@mclaren:
Didn’t P Diddy do something like this after Biggie Smalls got got?
mclaren
@Comrade Kevin:
No, because you went through the express lane at birth: 15 IQ POINTS OR LESS.
You’ve got a mind like a steel trap, m’boy…always either empty or closed.
Stick a fork in yourself, you’re done here. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be listening to Corner Stone, one of the few people who’s been consistently correct in his insights.
Corner Stone
@Comrade Kevin: Dumass.
Kola Noscopy
@Corner Stone:
Well, I didn’t REALLY mean “forgotten.” I was trying to pretend to be magnanimous in victory.
mclaren
@Trakker:
FOR: The Koch brothers’ cash.
AGAINST: Democracy, equality, justice…the usual suspects.
Video proof that David Koch pulls the strings of the Tea Partiers.
Comrade Kevin
@mclaren:
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
@Corner Stone: Awwww….. smooch to you too, sweetie!
General Stuck
This thread is going well. /rolls eyes
Montysano
A quick trip through some wingnut blogs and I’m hipped to the fact that it’s ZOMG! ACORN! that’s behind OWS.
Pro-tip, morons: once you’ve destroyed your favorite punching bag through a campaign of doctored video and misinformation, they’re no longer available as your punching bag.
Buck up: you’ve still got UNION THUGS!
Idiots.
Comrade Kevin
@General Stuck: Did you expect anything else?
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
Our friend Comrade Kevin is a true prophet. The prophet Nostradumbass.
Shade Tail
Hey everyone, just pretend you have Corner Stone blocked by cleek’s pie filter. He’s such a blitering dimwit that he’ll actually fall for it. And it’s really fun to watch him splutter and scream when he gets trolled.
suzanne
John, don’t sell yourself short. You have a pretty good-sized platform here, and you use it for good. Lots of fundraising and awareness-raising, not to mention all the stuff for the pets.
But I’m glad to see that on this issue, you were wrong. I hope this grows.
Thymezone
@General Stuck:
What do you expect from a blog where the blogowner throws a year long tantrum over hating protests because … shut up that’s why, and then comes along now to sing the praises of … a protest?
Imagine how I feel, being a failed Episcopalian, and all.
Elie
@amk:
Heh, heh, heh… Who the Almighty Selfrighteous Corner Stoned? Ahhh nawww — he just likes to provide color commentary on other people’s risk and activities.
Where is UCT? He let you out for the night?
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Never hurts to ask.
Gromitt Gunn (formerly JMC_in_the_ATL)
@Corner Stone:
I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at Guadalupe & Cesar Chavez!
Thymezone
@suzanne:
We can all get behind pets. At least animals are smart enough to stay the hell out of politics.
fuzz
I think their lack of one unified message (even though that’s not really true, its just repeated as true in the media) can work for them. The worst thing that can happen to the protests is that they all get tied up into one message or movement and can be discredited. IMO I also think it would be bad if politicians started trying to endorse it and capitalize, the whole reason people are camping out in the street is because they’re fed up with the political class.
Linda Featheringill
@mclaren: #48
Interesting statement. The protesters are questioning the legitimacy of the domination of the upper crust. And they are leading others to question.
Elie
@General Stuck:
You nailed that. Very well said and very unfortunately, true.
We are in for it I am afraid… In.For.It…
In 2008/9 I thoght that just in time policy changes such as another stimulus might soften the fall — but with what is happening to financial markets and banks world wide, not sure anymore.
Bill E Pilgrim
@General Stuck: Champagne, mon ami. Those were flutes most of them were holding up, and not the musical kind.
I swear you couldn’t script a more self-damning response to this if you hired a negative image consultant expressly to make people hate you.
The cops also, crowds that big develop momentum of their own, as anyone knows who’s ever been inside of one, I mean even non-protest crowds, just a big bunch of people. It’s impossible to control the flow or direction it all goes by standing there whacking at a handful of people at the front with nightsticks; they have nowhere to go at that point, just like those women penned in the other day.
Corner Stone
@Gromitt Gunn (formerly JMC_in_the_ATL): In Houston. JPM Chase down to Hermann Square Plaza. Vamos hombre!
NobodySpecial
Aw, it’s OK, Cole. At least you didn’t call them firebaggers.
Richard S
Corner Stone’s building fell down a long time ago – something about substandard bricks.
Corner Stone
@Elie: “Color” commentary?
RACIST!!
Thymezone
@fuzz:
Yes, but … the political class has the power. I almost can’t stand to listen to Tom Brokaw, but a couple of weeks ago he said something distubrhingly true: (slight paraphrase, I don’t have the transcript): You have to give credit to the right wing. They went out and organized, did the work, engaged the process, got some seats, and leveraged their action into political clout. That’s how you do it, that’s what all those instructions in the Constitution are for, to tell you how to do it. They did it.
The message is, there is a difference between unrest, and politics. Any gang of fools can mill around in the street. But what are they doing last November when we got a 42% voter turnout in a critical midterm election? Where were they then? Nowhere. Being angry, I suppose.
In politics, victory goes to the people who do the work. If OWS can’t even fashion a couple of good policy statements that are relevant to the issues of the day, then what the hell good are they? “Down with Wall Street” is not a policy statement.
Corner Stone
@Shade Tail: I’m never sure how many levels of teh suck you represent. It’s gotta be a few by now.
jwb
@arguingwithsignposts: I didn’t hear about it until tonight but I was missing about a third of my noon class today.
trollhattan
Fucking NYC cops, next thing you know a protester will pull out his wallet and get ventilated like a hunk of Swiss.
Why hasn’t the brass pulled up these guys by the shorthairs and explained to them their every move is captured on vid? It’s as though they’re taking their marching orders from…somebody else.
Warren Terra
The clip from the local Fox station was interesting – especially the part where the reporter mentions that he got clubbed with a nightstick. I’m guessing the reporter wasn’t exactly engaging in riotous and violent behavior when he got clubbed.
Queensbridge
I was at the march tonight; it was big, and the spirit was good, positive; I peeled off about 3 blocks north of Zucotti Park, the police had barricaded off Broadway so they could strut around in the street while this massive crowd was pinned in on the sidewalks of a very narrow part of the city. I could feel the tension rising and knowing that there was no way to funnel this massive moving crowd into the narrow zone there; it was just designed to frustrate the crowd, treat them like cattle. Earlier the barricades had several unnecessary choke points that backed everyone up, stalled things and forced a slowdown under the eyes of the police shooting film and standing around.
The pressure was building when I left, no surprise it burst out in anger. But all in all, a great experience, I feel more hopeful than in years. The kids are all right.
Villago Delenda Est
I think that’s painfully obvious from the time line of the genesis of the teabaggers.
They want the near guy out of the White House.
Comrade Mary
Q. If a conservative is a liberal who got mugged, what is a Fox reporter who gets maced?
A. A start.
(Oh fuck, that’s two totally different jokes I mashed up there. Sorry.)
(And really, as much as I hate Fox, I don’t relish their staff getting hit and maced. Sucks that it happens to anyone.)
Lynn Dee
@Matto:
Jeez I’m sick of hearing the term “hippie punch.” The self-absorption — gah.
Villago Delenda Est
@mclaren:
David Koch came out and SAID he didn’t like Obama because Obama was an “egalitarian”.
You know, like Jefferson and that lot in 1776.
Elie
@Thymezone:
I think sometimes it takes a while for a movement to clarify itself.
On the left, we really haven’t headed up any big change in a while. We like to bitch, but not necessarily take responsibility to do anything — so that has to be sorted out..
Last year, I don’t think that the realization came to a head like it did this year watching the assholes against the unions and flagrantly anti working class initiatives. Still, the tools for mass movement are new to the left. The Koch brothers organized the tea party, paid for things, paid for hauling people around. This is not that sort of thing and comparing the Tea Party to this is to compare fake fur to the real thing. The Tea Party was a trumped up vehicle for white anger — not a much broader complaint against the whole system like this is.
I hear your point though… I am just gonna wait and see — but I think that similar to the solar system, the mass is accumulating to make planets. Looks a mess at the beginning, but then, whatdoyaknow, in time you get Saturn.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I would like to thank mclaren for my new nickname on the blog.
trollhattan
Seattle:
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016411868_westlake06m.html
I’m expecting something in Sac by next week, although they’re quite rigid about anything at the capitol.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
Eat it —
Like I asked earlier, where is your owner? Did he let you out of his boxers for a little fun?
Platonicspoof
Another place for people to show up and prove we’re not all drained dry zombies (yet) is D.C., starting Oct. 6th,
for the Tenth Anniversary of the War In, On and Around Afghanistan .
fuzz
@Thymezone:
I basically agree, and it really is depressing. The right wing has an info ops machine that really is amazing. I’m not saying the OWS marches should be incoherent, just that they shouldn’t be co-opted by one group. The media will treat them like trust fund hippies and/or communists no matter what, but they might lose appeal to “fence sitters” if they’re portrayed as just being the democrats’ version of the tea party.
Corner Stone
@Elie: Racist fuck. Stop spreading your simple minded backwoods racist bile all over this blog.
Corner Stone
Emphasis on the “simple”.
mclaren
If people wonder what the message of the “we are the 99%” protests is, how about this?
New survey shows one third of all Americans now live one paycheck away from homelessness.
That’s not just “poor Americans” or “Americans who make less than $30,000 a year.” We’re talking about families with two college-educated earners who make $100,000 a year…and between the 35% credit card interest rates and the brutal interest payments on their hundreds of thousands of dollars of college loans or the downsizing of their paycheck due to the threat of offshoring and the late payment fees on their underwater mortgage for the house they can’t sell because it’s now worth half of what they bought it for (or the constantly increasing rent on their apartment that’s getting forced up because the rental market is so tight due to all the families who’ve been foreclosed out of their houses) or the monstrous debt they incurred because their kid got sick and their slimeball insurance company wouldn’t cover the necessary hospital procedures, they still can’t make ends meet.
There’s just something completely and obviously wrong with that picture. It’s not a recipe for a sustainable functioning economy.
A Humble Lurker
I think what this protest has had is luck. Luck that it started now after Eqypt, after Wisconsin, after Ohio, on the heels of the American Jobs Act push, and that the unions see the opportunity in waiting and are joining them. In other words, they didn’t get the success they’ve gotten do to planning and strategy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that they’ve gotten their success. But to keep it, they need to develop their message and strategy to keep out the ratfuckers as posters up thread have said.
I do not question anybody’s motivations or intentions. I question their methods of carrying them out. That’s all.
Shorter: I don’t think Cole should feel so bad about being cynical, but I appreciate his being man enough to admit he was wrong. Also, death to the rodent copulaters!
Also:
@Corner Stone:
Projection, much?
Thymezone
@fuzz:
I like that trust fund hippies label. It reminds me of about half the pundits I see on tv. Trust fund hippies who sold out to the media machine for dough. “Both sides do it” philosophers.
mclaren
@Elie:
Spoken like a true master of debate tactics. Against such elegant syllogisms, even the keenest mind must admit defeat.
We look forward to hearing even more perspicuous ripostes from you, including the wittily devastating “NEENER NEENER NEENER I CAN’T HEAR YOU” and the subtly eviscerating “I’m made of rubber and you’re made of glue…”
Elie
@Corner Stone:
Hey, I just call it the way I see it. You were all hot on UCT, playing palsy and all..
Also a great thing to offend you. Must be doing something right! Hmmmm.. what else can I say to piss you off?
HOw does it feel in that damp warmth in UCT’s boxers? I bet you just love it! You can just nestle in like a little bed bug who has found a home.
Carry on little bed bug…
Corner Stone
@A Humble Lurker: Racist fucking scumbag.
This fucking blog is infested with it.
Corner Stone
@Elie: You do not have the horsepower to offend me.
You’re one of the worst examples of first culture thinking I have ever seen. If “thinking” could be confused with whatever malfunction you’re guilty of. And you’re a racist. Just a horrible human being in all respects.
Elie
@mclaren:
You talking to me?
Well don’t.
Thanks.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
Oh shut up….
And you got your other nice hommie Mcclaren chewing on my pants leg.
Again, I thought that UCT was supposed to keep you penned up. He promised but as usual, is unreliable.
Corner Stone
@Elie: Whatever, racist.
suzanne
O/T, but it looks like I’m in the new district! Huzzah!
David Schweikert can go fuck himself, YAY!
Lysana
Good thing I have dinner. If not, Corner Stone’s emphasis on pie would get me very hungry.
mclaren
@A Humble Lurker:
Maybe. Or maybe, as economist Umair Haque has speculated, this is a global metamovement — a movement of movements.
Haque has been hammering away for years at the fact that our current way of running capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union is simply unsustainable. It’s as though the collapse of communism yanked the moderator rods out of capitalism as a system, and now it’s in meltdown mode.
Time will tell.
The overriding question now is: will this movement spread?
Will people occupy the offices and hallways and streets of congress, until congresscritters can’t even get into the House or the Senate anymore? Will people occupy the driveway to the White House and stand silent vigil in front of the White House fences to the point where Obama can’t get in and out anymore?
Will non-violent protestors block the entrances to Goldman Sachs with their bodies until the billionair bankster thieves can’t get into their office buildings anymore?
Will the protests spread until all of the New York financial district gets shut down because traffic can’t move?
We don’t know. Time will tell.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I think someone needs to be sat in the corner with his dunce cap again.
mclaren
@Elie:
If your intellect was converted into pure energy, you wouldn’t even generate the power to toast bread lightly.
Corner Stone
@mclaren: Toast bread?
She couldn’t de solidify butter in a room temp break room.
Elie
Awww — found new friends…..
And for the two of you, Mclarynx and corner pebble, this is a big important step in the effort to teach you socialization skills.
Very heartwarming. Makes me optimistic about your eventual rehabilitation. Don’t want to rush things now, but its a good sign that you are making the right moves on each other.
Allan
@trollhattan: Occupy Sacramento is tomorrow morning at Cesar Chavez Park, 10 am.
Platonicspoof
@Platonicspoof:
And the Juan Cole link is actually from a year ago. His headline should have been to the effect that last year on this date was the start of the tenth year.
I’d offer a more relevant link, but probably now OT for this thread.
Corner Stone
@Elie: Shorter Elie: “Derp.”
mclaren
Not clear if this alleged “leaked Citigroup memo” is real, but if it is, it certainly provides some insight into the mentality of the people running America and the reasons for the Wall Street protests:
Citigroup “Plutonomy Symposium – A rising tide lifts all yachts”
Corner Stone
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
I agree and nominate that fucking idiot Comrade Kevin for the first corner.
mclaren
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Don’t worry, we won’t notice your absence.
trollhattan
@Allan:
Ooh, great. I’ll try to get down there with a camera.
The prophet Nostradumbass
There seems to be a buzzing in my ear about pie.
trollhattan
Also, too, somebody give Dungaree Boy a hot [let’s try fireplace tongs to avoid moderation] up the arse.
Fuque you, George Will
washingtonpost.com/opinions/elizabeth-warren-and-liberalism-twisting-the-social-contract/2011/10/04/…
PeakVT
@suzanne: That first district is nuts. Fredonia to the Mexican border?
Cliff
That’s why I like you, Cole, you can admit to being a dumb fuck on occasion.
Now if only there was a way to beat that same trait into our press corps.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Corner Stone:
If the state of Texas were to have an asshole it would be located at your home address. I am enjoying the laugh at you, Timmeh and Insane in the Membrane all giving each other congratulatory reacharounds for your perceived wit, brilliance and insight into the world around us.
You’re legends in your own minds.
Allan
@trollhattan: I look forward to seeing them. I don’t think I can make it due to a backlog of work, but I know several people who will be there.
Corner Stone
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Were you saying something, or just chewing teh ankles again?
suzanne
@PeakVT: The current second district is even nuttier.
Since my Congressfucker is that doosh David Schweikert, who wants to deliver us all from the evil that is dollar bills into the loving arms of the coin, I’m pleased at the prospect of no longer being in his district. Especially because the new district would be far more liberal. AWESOME.
mclaren
While the Elies and the General Crackpot Fake Names of the world busy themselves in pointless name-calling, the rest of us actually have something to contribute as the protests unfold.
This from Chris Hedges:
“There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.”
handy
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Wait, you’re talking about a state that gave us Bonnie and Clyde, Sam Bass, Mark David Chapman, and Rick Perry, not to mention GWB. And you want to nominate a guy on a blog for that?
fryshyguy
That wasn’t Fox News, it was a local Fox affiliate.
Difference is, compared to Fox News, they don’t matter for shit to the people that matter.
The rare time I wish network news *did* matter.
Elliecat
@Lysana:
That explains the Perkins ad on my page: “Entree, Beverage & Pie.”
handsmile
@Queensbridge: (#87)
Thanks very much for your post, and for your spirited decision to participate in today’s march in New York.
I joined the gathering at about 7:00pm and struggled my way down to City Hall Park. By that time there was no marching, just eddying and churning among the sizable and full-throated crowd.
It was evident to me as well that police tactics of blockade and barricade, employing fleets of NYPD and Emergency Service vehicles and hordes of uniformed police and other security personnel, was deliberately calculated to incite aggressive reaction on the part of protesters, Fortunately within the cohort of which I was part there was great camaraderie and encouragement to maintain personal discipline. Frustration was channeled into louder shouting, more imaginative chants.
Under Emperor Mike Bloomberg and his minister of security Ray Kelly, the NYPD has a woeful record of wanton and bellicose crowd control management. While immensely heartened by the burgeoning success of the OWS protest and its broadening embrace by those once skeptical of its mission (as evidenced by commenters at this blog), I am concerned that the heedless actions demonstrated thus far by the NYPD augur a volatile stage in the protest’s development.
PeakVT
@suzanne: Yeah, the 2nd has a weird shape because of the Hopi-Navajo thing. Despite the craziness of the new 1st, it seems to be a reasonably good map for Dems. It could have been worse, certainly.
Genine
I don’t think John of anyone else has much to feel bad about. Asking if a protest has a message or suggesting that a protest have a message isn’t hippie-punching.
What’s so hard about a simple exchange of “I think the protests should have a message because X” “I disagree. I think having a message could corrupt what’s happening because X.”
But no, you get wailing, cries of hippie-punching and name-calling. Why? For what? Is the debate over having a message versus not having a message really worth such venom? We all agree on what the problem is but not necessarily the tactics. Is that really worth treating an ally like an enemy?
Was John’s questioning of OWS tactics irreverent and intemperate? Yes. But then a lot of what he says is irreverent and intemperate.
The over-the-top reactions to simple questions or disagreements about tactics is utterly ridiculous.
Uriel
@mclaren:
So, rather than the blind leading the blind, you’re going for a the “rageaholic leading the unmedicated lunatic” kind of thing.
Well, you’ll have to let us know how that works out for you.
JenJen
Was struck by this tweet from @tinadupuy tonight; sums it up:
Kane
You might want to see a physician to get your knee examined. It appears that it has a tendency to spontaneously jerk to the right on occasion.
mclaren
@Genine:
The Occupy Wall Street protests erupting nationwide provide hard evidence of Barack Obama’s catastrophic failure to unleash the DOJ hounds of hell against the financial thieves who wrecked the economy. To the fanatical obots on this forum, such criticism is unthinkable: treason and infamy, monstrous villainy and evil incarnate. Anyone who suggests that Barack Obama screwed up (most optimistic assessment: or simply betrayed his campaign promises outright in return for giant campaign donation payouts by Wall Street, the more realistic conclusion) by failing to order his justice department to indict the Wall Street criminals must be showered with invective, hounded into invisibility, assaulted with envenomed verbal abuse and screamed into silence.
Meanwhile, the protests get larger and larger, showing the magnitude of Obama’s folly and failure to deal with the perpetrators of the financial crisis. Which, incidentally, is now taking another steep downturn and will soon engulf not only America, but Europe and most likely the world in another round of downward-spiralling economic hell.
John Weiss
@Corner Stone: Don’t feed the troll, man. The horror! The horror!!
AA+ Bonds
the troll…………………………….
AA+ Bonds
Is that, like, a troll that lives under a bridge? Or a fishing tackle? I don’t get the reference.
AA+ Bonds
Anyways it’s good to be on the Internet and John should probably give himself more credit for becoming a strong advocate for the left over the past year
Uriel
@John Weiss:
There are three trolls hoping around in this thread. 2/3 of them are not Corner Stone.
I’ll leave the rest of the math to you.
piratedan
@suzanne: kinda nice when the bipartisan committee actually tries to draw districts that aren’t gerrymandered like the state ones are…..
spartacus
@RossInDetroit:
I think it’s more that television itself has changed. The panopticon is not, at least at present, under full central control anymore. It’s been burst into as many instances as there are cameras and these points of view can still be distributed widely.
A least for now….
jpe
Protest > baton beating > tax reform. Theoretically possible, but I highly doubt it. For the protest to work, it’s gotta lead to progressive (D) wins at the polls in 2012, and I just don’t see it. You’re not going to shame the (R)s into supporting campaign finance reform, after all.
fish
Yeah, it was some jackasses with a drum circle
Jesus, can’t even eat crow without one more punch.
William Hurley
OWS = Unbama
elftx
I suspect the White Shirts are/were paying back for Tony.
And it seems they don’t give a flying fvck who sees it.
So McClaren may have a point and it may have begun in a so so subtle way.
Barry
@Thymezone: “I like that trust fund hippies label. It reminds me of about half the pundits I see on tv. Trust fund hippies who sold out to the media machine for dough. “Both sides do it” philosophers.”
I really doubt that – it’s a myth to make rightwingers feel better about themselves (‘See that! Some Hippies sold out, so ignore what anybody said!’).
I’ll wager that the majority of pundits are guys who never had a real hippy moment in their lives, but concentrated on sucking up and climbing the ladder.
With the exception of some ‘trust funders’, but they were never hippies either, just guys who were born comfortable, and decided to have a hobby/job whitewashing the Comfortable Class.
A Humble Lurker
@Corner Stone:
Well, obviously. You’re still here.
chopper
@mclaren:
you joined in? which demonstration were you a part of?
i was down at zuccotti park this morning, didn’t see you there.
MarkJ
@General Stuck: People should have been lobbing rotten vegetables onto those balconies, that would have wiped the smug looks off their faces quick.
What I don’t understand is why the cops aren’t marching with the protestors. They’re union, they’re part of the 99%, and and if they think those Wall St. dickwads won’t raid their pension funds along with everyone else’s they’re dilusional.
Anna in PDX
Will be at part of our sympathy protest in Portland today. Love this post, I am a huge fan of Balloon Juice because of posts like this. Too much of the Internet is made of of “people who are never never never wrong because shut up”.
Janeane The Acerbic Goblin
@MarkJ: Let’s not forget that Kasich’s anti-union bill included busting (or severly limiting their bargaining power) police unions and fire fighter unions along with public worker unions. And to think Bloomberg (or any other Republican or blue dog Democrat) won’t try and screw the police union is foolish.
Janeane The Acerbic Goblin
@MarkJ: Let’s not forget that Kasich’s anti-union bill included busting (or severly limiting their bargaining power) police unions and fire fighter unions along with public worker unions. And to think Bloomberg (or any other Republican or blue dog Democrat) won’t try and screw the police union is foolish.
PWL
This is the Republican wet dream come true: The forces of Law and Order flogging the shit of of progressives and hauling them off to jail.
This is what America will look like if they ever get the “permanent Republican majority” Karl Rove dreams of.
ChrisNYC
I know that it’s so outre to dampen the outrage but — the batons came out after the marchers said, “5-4-3-2-1” and rushed the cops. Oops, as they say.
guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/oct/06/occupy-wall-street-protests-live
From a protester there last night:
Brian Phillips, a former Marine, said that, following Wednesday’s march, a crowd of protesters wanting to go to Wall Street were urged against it by others.
“There were these guys just got up and did a mic check and said: ‘We’re marching to Wall St’ and we had people booing and doing their down fingers and stuff. But they still went.
“There’s a lot of people here who are upset about it. It’s enough to have a march of 30,000 people there’s no reason to continue marching. We had the numbers we got the attention.”
He said a small minority went looking for trouble.
“I look at it this way – it got rid of the bad ones. Let them weed themselves out.”
But oh so sad hippie punching.
celtidragonchick
@Allan:
Occupy Greensboro NC is meeting tonight. I will try to be there.
celtidragonchick
@Allan:
Occupy Greensboro NC is meeting tonight. I will try to be there.