I don’t understand why I am supposed to care about this whole #OccupyWallStreet protest. There is no platform, no legislative vehicle, no coherent call to action, no overriding message, and very little in the way of any point.
I have been liveblogging the events at FDL for over a week, and there is a huge point that the media until yesterday obtusely refused to get. And it shaped what little coverage there was.
It is worth giving a shit about.
The point of OccupyWallStreet is that the political process and culture of the United States is broken, that a lot of people know that its broken, and that the anger has gotten to the point that folks want to deal with it. But in order to deal with it, you cannot deal with issues or with legislative agendas, or with predefined principles of a specific ideology. What has to happen is to build the national consensus again from the bottom up and not depend on the manufactured (marketed) consensus created by the media (and that includes the political blogs). So the demand is for a new grassroots political process to arrive at consensus outside the media. And the demand is for restoration of the public space — physical space as well as cultural space in which to deliberate and assemble to demand redress of grievances.
The don’t deserve the pepper spray because in the current security state (and New York understandably is more in lockdown than most cities), just holding a march in the street is illegal. An event permit to assemble for anything in NY costs $4200. That’s a high price for freedom to assemble.
Part of the local coalition is Critical Mass. And they point out that a part of the reason for the high permit cost is that vehicular traffic has priority over pedestrians. But that is just one of the many side issues that feed into the conversation.
The fundamental grievance is that the 1% of top income earners have gained the power to create the economy, political institutions, and cultural norms that benefit them—no surprise there. But that creation is not working and the 1% would rather the 99% be impoverished and oppressed by law that reform the institutions. And folks in the 99% are finally saying “No” and undertaking a very detailed look at the alternatives.
The fact that they don’t deserve it is not a problem with the actions going on right now in (renamed) Liberty Park. It is a problem with the NYPD and the security state that the PATRIOT Act has built.
To keep up with what has been developed (and consensus is a slow and agonizing process), check the New York City General Assembly site. Let folks know that they can participate for a day or whatever. See it from the inside instead of the media’s view.
The current work is on a principles of operation (“Principles of Solidarity”) document, which is still open to discussion. And a call to action, which is still under discussion.
Unlike what you are demanding, these folks have not come with a ready-made set of ideas that they are marketing. And they are seeking that the discussion be ideologically and demographically inclusive. Because the 99% are ideologically and demographically diverse.
The point is re-establishing the lower-level connections of small-d democracy that is now seriously disconnected after 30 years of conservative dominance.
Another site is Occupy Together, which is coordinating the replication of general assemblies across the US (seemingly beginning with cities that are home to a Federal Reserve Branch).
A site to understand the strategy and tactics is Waging Nonviolence.
It is too early in the process to tell whether this will work. But if it does, it fundamentally changes the basis of the political conversation from that established by the Tea Party media campaign of 2009-2010. And by January, I suspect that folks will have seen through what the Tea Party really was.
The success of the OccupyWallStreet process depend on the number and diversity of people who get involved in it. And the extent to which the process is not co-opted as media exposure grows.
Well, at least Lawrence O’Donnel came out swinging. Well worth watching.
http://youtu.be/7UHsLccXQUY
(I can’t find the old embed codes – how to embed at BT?)
Hey ask,
You can embed videos here by clicking Share, then Embed, and then check the box that says ‘Use old embed code’ towards the bottom of the options.
Thanks ejmw
I failed to click the Embed-button. I though that clicking ‘Share’ used to give all options…
That is a good and forceful statement of opinion.
But unaccountable police brutality is only one symptom of the dysfunction of US political culture. Remember is was Nixon and the Republicans in the 1970s who rolled out the whole “get tough on crime” meme just at the time they were violating the law in order to suppress growing popular dissent over the Vietnam War.
Compare the tone of Booman’s Wall St. post with the attention he offers the GOP candidate debates.
One is deadly serious, one is about wanking.
This is how media makes reality.
All I know is that it is a strange kind of movement that gets organized before it knows what it is organizing to do. Maybe that’s how something new gets started but it’s hard to see how they can morph this into anything lasting and relevant.
Also, I want to be clear that I care about the NYPD macing people and hitting them with clubs. That’s not what I don’t give a shit about. I just don’t see why the NYPD is doing it because I don’t see much of a threat.
If anything, meeting non-violent protestors with violence finally got the protestors some attention.
It got more than the “protesters got attention”.
It got attention to the issue of the impunity of police misconduct.
It got attention to the limits to free speech and assembly that now exist in our security-crazed political system.
It got attention to the fact that police now routinely try to suppress the photographing or videotaping of their official actions.
It got attention in some quarters to the fact that the blue shirt police, some of whom were appalled by their boss’s attack on innocent bystanders, are facing a 21% cut in their pensions.
Not bad for 10 days work.
(Actually this goes back to the Bloombergville protests against city budget cuts last spring. A lot of the folks involved in organizing this organized the Bloombergville protest.)
I hate to have to point this out, but the hashtag isn’t #endpolicebrutality.
It doesn’t have to be. Those are in fact the social consequences thus far.
Being goal-focused can create tunnel vision that misses indirect tactics that can move things along. Business found two decades ago that this was one of the problems with management-by-objectives techniques. And the groups that started some of the most long-ranging and effective movements have left few historical footprints outside of some obscure PhD thesis. That is later rediscovered and popularized.
Rove/Luntz all the material they need to counter it, one target at a time.
The level of police presence indicates clear fear on the part of at least SOME of the power elite.
That’s where the news is, imho. That’s the point of contact that deserves attention. Where is the vulnerability that needs protection? Is it just a matter of maintaining order? What order?
I don’t see the protests as having arisen out of a void, as some type of initiation (though that sure may happen for some) that must eventually yield a result. It’s just another expression of the natural will to live, against incredible odds. That’s no small thing; It just may be the biggest thing, really.
.. may not indicate anything of the kind, either. It could be a meant to goad protesters into acting up & scaring the folks at home. Part of the overall basic strategy to divide the public against itself. You could argue that this does, in fact, reveal fear in the power elite, but in that case it’s just the usual fear, not a new one.
That would certainly be consistent with data Bob Altemeyer collected a couple decades ago, where scenarios involving violence erupting at protests led to increased acceptance of authoritarian attitudes compared to scenarios involving peaceful protests.
Sure. What’s to keep agents provocateurs from being the police?
I’m sorry I can’t make it down there myself.
Agents provocateurs as plants – yeah, that’s as old as the hills and very damned effective. There are very few situations where the general public will accept violence on the part of protesters – and usually if there’s general public acceptance I suspect the collapse of the regime in question is imminent, meaning no one is believing that the regime will keep them safe. We may be headed for hard(er) times, but we’re a ways off from total collapse.
No, martini. It indicates a clear purpose on the part of at least some of the power elite to induce fear in the minds of those who might sympathize with the aims of the protestors. The level of threat and violence is being quite carefully parsed so as to maintain the “threat” (and thus the fear) without actually stepping over the Kent State line into real, bloody, mortal confrontation.
Watch.
The NYC cops are very good at this sort of thing. They have been trained and they have been practicing.
Remember…they’ve got CIA help now.
Bet on it.
AG
A truly amazing opinion By David Weidner currently resides at MarketWatch (a WSJ online publication).
The “an administration” should read “administrations” to be more than a political hit job.
I’d go further and say not only administrations but note that Congress has also been a willing patsy in the fleecing of America – which is really what we’re describing here.
As Dick Durbin noted in the failed attempt to pass “cramdown” legislation, “the banks own this place”.
If this is the beginning of a popular front approach, I’d say they might be onto something.
It’s how the Tea Party started. Inchoate anger.
Is this the beginning of a Left Wing Tea Party? I hope so, but all hope was beaten out of me between 2008 and 2011.
I’ve been saying for a few years now that this current generation of youth and young adults (the millennials) is something special. Keep an eye out. They have some potential, they’re finding their voice, and that gives me hope.
Recommended and tweeted, fwiw.
site for a media reality check.
Zero…that is goose egg, nada, ain’t happening…coverage of this movement as of 3:30PM, 9/27/11.
If it’s not covered by the corporate media, it doesn’t exist.
If it doesn’t exist, then it is not worth covering.
Catch 22, over and out.
If the media can duck Ron Paul and his millions of followers…a tactic that is beginning to break down under Paul’s starfish-like tenacity, I might add…then it can disappear a couple of hudred white, peaceful middle class student types with no problem whatsoever.
Which it has done, quite successfully. Only those who comprise the preached-to leftiness choir even know that it is happening.
Unless the sensationalist content of its actions is ramped up quite seriously this little movement will disappear beneath the waves of inconsequential so-called news that the media uses to keep people engrossed in fantasyland issues like tits, ass and mainstream Republicrat/Demoplican politics.
I will continue to push on this idea until something begins to happen regarding the problem. The media is the single most effective weapon that is being used against the American people by the oligarchic, corporate-owned Permanent Government. Cripple that media and you cripple that PermaGov, or at the very least force it to show its iron fist sans the velvet media glove that has been hiding it since the JFK murder.
Check it out.
AG
Maybe not overwhelming, but news for “occupy wall street” as a search term yielded 2,730 hits as of 3:56 eastern time on Google News. Not exactly a goose egg. Also even though twitter has effectively censored the “occupywallstreet hashtag, if one is plugged into even a handful of the right folks (such as USDayofRage or OccupyWallStreet or variations thereof), one can get quite a bit on one’s feed. Doesn’t hurt subscribing to a few Marxists on twitter as well. 🙂
AG, this one’s for you 😛
I personally am out to neutralize the (equally if not more) “viral” belief that the media actually report the news, myself.
A virus that has been spreading since the JFK assassination or even longer.
Cynicism, eh?
I guess it depends on how you define your terms, Tarheel.
One person’s belief in Obama-style faux-left politics and the possible efficacy of the Democratic Party in helping to cure the ills of this country might be called faith or it might be called total media-induced blindness, just a another’s lack of faith in that system might be termed realism based on the evidence of the last 50 years just as easily as it could be called cynicism.
We shall see how it all works out.
Won’t we.
AG
I was pulling your chain.
I jolly well hope so. But we also may never see a definitive result one way or the other. In our lifetimes.
I’m afraid that I don’t have any more chains, Tarheel. Had to get rid of them so that my mind was lighter and more mobile. The heaviest one? The chain that locked me to my television set. Phew!!! What a relief!!!
Later…
AG
voices on dkos? Lots of linkity biznez over there, but discussion of the benefits could use a boost.
Also, you’ve probably seen this, but perhaps worth sharing here:
And empathy, I suggest, is exactly what the psychopaths on Wall Street completely, utterly lack. Empathy regained betwixt/among the 99% is the only cure that’ll last.
And Arthur needs to get out more, the media (lower case) that is being shared via twitter, youtube, G+, and other linkages, is all mano y mano, people to people, and in the past few days I’ve seen sleeprs waking up, all “WTF? pepper spraying women?? what in hell’s going ON??” and then they start googling the keywords…
http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
by the people, for the people. TUNE IN.
.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."http://occupyportland.org/
Occupy Portland is a nonviolent movement for accountability in the United States government. At 12PM on October 6th, 2011 we will assemble at Tom McCall Waterfront Park, 1020 Southwest Naito Parkway in Portland, OR.
We will gather in solidarity with the ongoing protest in New York City, Occupy Wall Street, and the growing number of cities whose people will no longer sit back watching corporate and special interests run their government. We are citizens of the United States, and this country is ours. We will take it back.
It is no longer enough to vote and to participate in the political system because our political system has been altered drastically from its intended and proper function. Currently, we are allowed to pick from a few candidates whose campaigns are funded more and more by large organizations, corporations, and special interests. The success of their campaigns depends entirely on how the corporate mass media presents them. When our elected officials enter office they then pander to the small groups responsible for their election. Even good men and women cannot make real improvements that benefit the American people.
We are one city in a growing national movement of people who no longer feel that their government works in their best interest. We will assemble on October 6th to demonstrate peaceful, substantive democracy and work for real change.
Our government is divided. We, the people, are united.
.
Keep up the good work Damnit Janet.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Wait and see what we have in my for Ms. Rice soon. We chased her out of Portland once already this year.
I might diarize it in pictures. Not sure. I’ll be infiltrating with “bloody” hands to put in front of her face so may not get any pictures myself.
Wanted to say “hey” just in case you’re still reading this thread.
.
Those were the days … 2006. Plenty of (((((((((DJ))))))))))
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."That they were. Some have drifted away, some still around. Quite a number of us aren’t on speaking terms any longer. Sigh.
The Teabaggers have “one voice” because they don’t require any critical thought process. It’s all regurgitated junk.
Liberals on the other hand are CUHRAZY. 🙂
We have many passions. Many reasons why we are doing what we do. Many experiences. Many ideas.
The problem comes when we don’t agree to everything. Which I don’t think is possible. As we aren’t “one voice”. We are voices of many. We don’t have one message. You go to an antiwar rally and you’ll learn about global warming or direct trade. 🙂
We are scattered and unorganized. UNORGANIZED is the key. If we could solve that, I don’t think we’d be liberals. Even in my personal life, I’m so disheveled and uneven LOL.
Republicans let others do the organizing and they just show up and grunt their mantras of hate and fear. Speaking with anger is so easy. Speaking with concern, compassion and passion is HARD.
We want to be all inclusive and in trying we become so mixed up. We want everyone to be “onboard” but we have many ships. We are an ocean of concerned people – not just one lifeboat. If we can see the ocean and not just the beach… I think many of us would be more tolerant.
No, I don’t speak for all. My ways are my own. But I do come from a place of peace. I’m not just Anti-War. My journies are my own. I’ve gathered bits and pieces from my travels and many marches. I am now HUGE when it comes to stop the war on hunger. It’s a big part of my family. But I can’t expect all anti-war people to be as passionate about anti-hunger as I am. Some have ideas that I see as “odd”. But we have to march together. Not as one voice, but at least side by side. Knowint that we are speaking from different angles or notions but at last we should have each other’s back.
I think we can evolve into a bit more orgnaized movement… a movement of many indviduals. I don’t want a crowd of people exactly like me. But I sure as hell want people to get out of their comfort zones and wake the hell up. Join in and find their own voice. find their own passions and focuses – without dismissing others own passions and focuses.
We all have or own niche. Some are great at writing letters or these damn blogs 🙂 we need people who can write letters and do press releases. Others are better at marching daily to the food bank to help families eat.
I have an idea that the people I have met here and who I have also lost here have taught me and changed me… for the better. I was lucky to have met those I have met here. They made me a better person, better citizen and a better one of many.
You’ll love this:
For the OccupyPortland, I’ll be wearing a V is for Vendetta mask with my solidarity with Iraqi women and children scarf draped over my head.
I see that mask, and I’ll always think of you. 🙂
Awesome. Rock on. 🙂
You’re an inspiration, DJ!
I guess I’ll have to abandon my self imposed hiatus to focus on a tad more direct action now that at least some of our citizens have decided they’ve had enough.
We’ll soon have another financial collapse, after which I predict the numbers of US indignados in the streets will be enhanced by several orders of magnitude.
Non-Violent Action has a much great potential for results vs. focusing solely on the political process, which should be fairly obvious since Obama
=> TrojanHorse.See my link below for more on that;
yep, the non-violence action has to go both ways. Non-Violence on part of the people and the police/security etc.
Non-violent training is a real eye opener. It’s the main reason why my spouse doesn’t attend many “OUTTINGS” with me (as he call them) because he is ex-military and he will not stand down when he sees abuse. At a weekly vigil here near our library, a pick up truck drove recklessly nearby and threw out a soda container at some of our kids, Danni and a little girl with a peace sign. Wayne took off down the road. Cussing and Yelling and Fists in the air. He almost caught up with the truck. We were all in shock as we watched my husband in a CodePink shirt running down the “you assholes!”.
We tried to explain non-violence and his reply? “Fuck that noise”. So he stays at home and mans the phone and tries to remain calm and hopeful while I go “out”.
However with non-violence training it is clear that the “cops” – I have no respect for any of then anymore. None. My husband is a bicyclist, my oldest is neurologically disabled and me and my daughter are hell raisers. Our home is not one that can count on any “police” to “serve and protect” us. The cops here have every intention of beating you up, verbally abusing you, macing you, using scatter shot and just downright abuse of power. Militant brownshirts is all there are. It’s just that OccupyWallStreet is showing the world the police brutality.
The police at these actions that are spreading are showing that they are there to protect Bank of America. Not the Mom and Pops they have destroyed who are there to protest. There are times when our police here in Portland, Beaverton – actually look like military personnel. It’s scary. Big presence, big guns. They even threaten to use “chemical warfare” on us.
My non-violence training won’t protect me from cops if they want to hurt me. Putting my hands over my face and head is seen as “threatening gesture”. Laying in a fetal position no longers displays submission. It just makes it easier for them to kick you in the back. Knowing the proper way to allow yourself to be dragged by the feet or coat… why should we know this? Why aren’t we allowed to assemble and speak?
It’s crazy isn’t it? And no matter what we do, we will be either ignored or injured.
I will continue to be non-violent but I will not go gently.
To know that the only person you might be “big enough” to keep you from doing stupid shit is .. yourself .. and then to be big enough to keep yourself out of the temptation zone … makes Wayne bigger than himself, really.
Hopefully that makes sense 🙂
GO WAYNE!
Thanks! 🙂
He is pretty damn cool.
He doesn’t do peace and justice. He goes out and feeds the housebound via Meals on 2 Wheels (his bicycle) He’s pretty radical. 🙂
We had to work out an agreement about me going out. He has to be the first to know about everything that goes down. He doesn’t like hearing from others that some wadhole threw something lit at my face….
One time I got hit in the face by a ‘Wage Peace” sign when two older ladies hugged each other. My mouth was pretty effed up when I got home. Black and Blue and bit bloody. He about went through the roof. He needs to know that he can trust me to tell him all and not keep the bad stuff or my concerns hidden. It’s a good contract. as he needs to be reassured 100% so that he can do his part in getting me home safe and him be sound. 🙂
He gets called first and he gets told first. It’s not a submission thing, it’s really so that he can live with me. Plus I just feel better about not keeping things from him. I can tell him that “once things calmed down and we chased Rove out of the bar… I slipped away from the group I was with and threw up in the bathroom because that’s how upset it made me and my nerves just went splat.” He “KNOWS” all.
please email me
I love the non-violence link. I’ll be sharing that link with our lending library pinkster types.
Hope you do, DJ – and that you become a regular feature again…
Good to ‘see’ you!
You do know that one of your posts about landmines had a huge impact on my spouse right? Knowing that they are people out there doing such things gave me the courage to do the little things.
As to blogging. Meh. I don’t know. Yesterday, I put up a diary in DK about an action alert in Portland regarding Rice. I hadn’t made a diary in many years. I wrote to CodePink and told them of my post and that I kinda felt weird doing it. They thanked me for it and say it needs to be done and not just at the national level or arrest/witness stuff. So maybe I’ll share more.
It’s just been a horrible 3 years for me personally and I wasn’t able to get out as much and it seemed that the events I ended going to were um… really “hard” ones. Karl fucking Rove… I mean come on. That’s not light, happy shit. I went to that just a few weeks after the death of a friend. So I wasn’t mentally able to infiltrate as first planned but CP and Veterans for Peace saw that and I stayed outside with BOHICA and as he bullhorned I stood in silence with the signs of the bloodied and disabled Iraqi children. This was a Howard Dean and Karl Rove fundraiser. THey both suck ass.
But what I’m getting at is… this stuff takes a toll on you. For the past 3 years I could only really get out for the things I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t attend. I had to pick and choose – which is hard. But now I have more time, I’m healing from surgery (don’t ask – as I write it’s my 22nd anniversary and I’m going to EAT and EAT as Monday I have “one more” medical procedure/test to make sure I can go back to hitting the streets.
I am a street marcher. I feel energized and complete. But it has it’s costs. I haven’t been arrested like most. I get scared when the pushing starts. But I’m trained and we have many supports here but I knew enough that I had to take some time and heal from many losses and my own physical health.
Marching is what I do. I haven’t been able to in a while. I think the last one I did was the Wisconsin support march and the Iraq war anniversary… not sure. But with long periods in between. But I didn’t lose my voice or my passion.
I also needed to find a balance. I work. Many I march with… it is their “work”. Many aren’t fortunate to have a job and family. I can’t take off on a Wednesday afternoon to occupy a politicians waiting room at the drop of a hat. But I can help plan and plot, I can act, I can be radical and I can “pick up the trash” 🙂
If you want me to share the next event or thought or whatever… I will do it for you, Ask.
I remember a comment you made early this year mentioning a lot of troubles for you and family. Hope your surgery was successful and that it means the end of any medical problems.
I know you like to get out there and it must have been very frustrating for you to be unable to do so (at least not as much as you want).
My last outing was also in support of Wisconsin (see my diaries – it should be on the first page). Followed by an impromptu speech here in Geneva a few days later to a small crowd also demonstrating in support of WI (mostly US expats)- right at Place des Nations. (BTW it was right under the Broken Chair “It symbolises opposition to land mines and cluster bombs, and acts as a reminder to politicians and others visiting Geneva.”)
I didn’t realize that my post(s) back then had affected your hubby, but very glad to hear it. Also hope your daughter found a satisfactory solution in her college search – you mentioned her stress last we ‘spoke’.
Be good – and do post, as you said you will…
PS – I looked for DJ on FB; several profiles but none that fit you.
I don’t have facebook. My kids would freak out 🙂 I just have a few sites I hang out at. A San Jose Hockey pool chat site that I’ve been at for at least 15 years and have met most in “real life” – it’s my main “political” chat actually as we’re mostly crazy liberal hockey fans. I chat with AndiF at her picture site. I rarely anymore do political blogs. The past two months I’ve done alot of posting because Ive been home unable to life more than a laptop LOL. But as to political blogs… I find them… dividing. Instead of using the diversity of the very people they attract, it seems to split them into little clusters.
But I’m forever grateful for the people I have met here and elsewhere.
Huge impact. Wayne quit his job. Took us a year of plotting and planning to escape California. Put his resume up on expat sites. That’s how the company he’s with now found him. Moved him to Oregon. He’s so happy. Doesn’t even drive anymore. Only goes by “non lethal” bike.
Danni is going to get community college under her belt before she heads to Oregon State for Zoology. We think it’s best she gets her general studies done that way and then she can focus on her major.
Me…. I’m fine. I allowed my body to deterioate for 3 years while my mom was dying. I continued on till I couldn’t do so. I knew something wasn’t right during the Wisconsin march. During the march itself my body was hurting. I ended up in surgery on a Sunday for gallbladder removal. It had made me toxic and I was in the hospital for 3 days. Made me grouchy as hell being in there that long. My arthritis medicine allowed me to be a “bleeder” during surgery… yadda yadda yadda. Complications followed by some revelations.
I’m going in for the same procedure that in the end my mother died from. So it’s mentally hard. It’s just a colonoscopy and endoscropy (sp) but as soon as they said “colon cancer check” I shut down. I’m just going through the motions to get to Monday. You know? Then I should be fine or at least on a track to fine. Right now… it’s just the breathing and trying to not think that it’s Friday and not Monday LOL.
But the good news is I lost 22 pounds in one month. Okay not really good news… hell, I can’t even be happy about weight loss. Geeze Louise 🙂
But I’m telling ya, the next time I hit the curb… it’s going to hurt alot more than it did three years ago.
Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Just gotta get through this hurdle. As my GI doc says, “it could be at least 4 other horrible rotten things beside colon “c” word. And there’s at least another 10 othings things it can be after that.” Hell, it most likely is an infection in my intestines from the surgery itself. Oh… and the Ct scan showed I do have a hernia near the bellybutton area where they sliced me up. So regardless… I have some surgery time ahead again.
Obviously I won’t be modeling bikinis… in this lifetime 🙂
I don’t need worry.. just laughs. I’m very fortunate that I have health insurance and a progressive place of employment.
xoxox!
Oh – I’m so sorry. All those complications. And more surgery. But listen to the doctor; what he said makes absolute sense. Glad to hear your husband is satisfied with the life changing moves, what a relief to find a job that makes you happy.
All best wishes to you. Our thoughts and prayers will be in support.
Tomorrow I start the fluid diet.
I was able to go back to work two weeks ago. I’ve taken Mon and Tue off this week. Then things should go back to “not so crazy”. Untill hernia surgery. ROFL.
I’m really looking forward to Occupy Portland on the 6th and then the Condi Rice protest on the 19th. As that’s what the doctor should be ordering. Take two smack downs and then call me in the morning. :&
Good to see you, Janet, and that you are still out there fighting!
Why?
Because the majority of the voting public of the United States are not…and will not in the foreseeable future…able to relate to the demographics of this demonstration.
This is not the “Arab Spring” that so many people wish that it was. It is a demonstration that is dominated by a very limited demographic…20-something middle class (and ex-middle class), white, university-educated people.
Just look at the vids for all that you need to know on this account. Then go look at the vids of the Middle Eastern/North African uprisings.
Here? There are maybe 20 college towns and a few urban neighborhoods (like Williamsburgh in NYC) where the demonstration’s main demographic is even close to a majority. The rest of the U.S., including most state college towns? Nope. The “students” at most state colleges more resemble the drunks and fools that flock by the thousands to the bars on 9th Ave. in midtown and on the Upper East Side of NYC every night than they do the several hundred people who are manning this movement at present, and the rest of the country? These protestors are the nerd-like, intellectual outcasts of most of the high schools on this country, which is not to say that they are in any way “wrong.” In fact, they are too smart for their own good in many respects. As my own son…who would fit right into this Zuccotti Square scene if wasn’t too busy getting his doctorate in environmental biology and too smart to allow cops to hit him upside the head with no hope of a positive result from the situation…opined to me one day whle he was in middle school, “Dad, did you ever notice that nobody really likes the popular kids?”
Yup.
But “the popular kids” rule the world, don’t they.
Most of the time, anyway.
Then go to the “Arab Spring” vids…especially the ones early on, from Cairo…and look. These crowds are/were a cross-section of the working people (and middle class as well) of the region. Nothing more and nothing less.
A cross-section of the working people and middle class of the United States would look nothing at all like the people presently engaged in the Wall Street protests, especially not the ones most often featured in mass media coverage of the situation.
Bet on it.
Result?
Minimization of impact, over and out.
Bet on that as well.
Next?
Maybe images of Ron Paul supporters.
I got yer “cross-section of the working people and middle class of the United States.”
Right here.
Yup.
Watch.
Smells like third party spirit to me.
Yes it does.
Watch.
Later…
AG
“right on the money”
Especially with regard to OWS.
What the “media” shows of most rallies, vigils, events, protests, street marches is what they want you to see. They never show the parents with their kids, they don’t show you the grandparents waving peace signs. They don’t show the professors with the students.
They show you ‘dirty fucking hippies”.
The only way to see the “cross section” of American Protestors out in the street is to be out in the street protesting with them. We are the undercounted, the ignored, censored, shuffled and downright lied about.
And… Ron Paul? Seriously? Let me say, he doesn’t speak for me at all. He’d smile as my son died on the couch from our healthScare debacle. “Let him die” is what he stands for. So what if he wants to legalize pot… So what if he has better media pictures of his audience. I’d rather see the Dirty Fucking Hippies Faux News photos of “Me” than all the happy shiney faces of Paul supporters. Racism, bigotry and ignorance comes in all colors, shapes and sizes.
He reminds me of the broken clock. It may be correct twice a day but one really should look into getting one that works.
But what do I know. I’m not in that “cross section” of pretty photo ups for Faux News. I’m one of those silly Kucinich gals. I still wish I just wrote him name in the ballot in 2008. The alternative was just too crazy and dystopian.
Ron Paul Supporters… they stomp on people like me and my family that they disagree with. I’ve seen it. Just don’t have any right on the money pictures to show it.
Here is what is interesting. Ron Paul supporters are organizing Occupy [your town] movements in Clarksville TN and Appleton WI so far.
And they are circulating this video of a speech by Adam Kokesh, an Iraq War veteran.
The problem for them right now is that they cannot let Ron Paul’s campaign get “tainted” by those DFH’s in New York City.
Is Ron Paul building a base to run as third party candidate?
h/t AG for getting me to look for this.
Yes, I believe that he is. Furthermore, I believe that he has already at least partially built that base…with the kind assistance of several generations of assholes in DC and the truly disgusting greed of the corporate ruling class, of course.
Of what and whom is it comprised?
Lissen up. I have written about this here before. The lowest “approval rating” that any sitting president has polled in the last decade or so here in the U.S. has been right around 30%. No matter how godawful stupid Bush appeared…no matter how stupid he was, truth be told…and no matter how completely Obama has fucked up his mandate by half-assing and okey-doking with the Tea Party-run troglodytes who have totally defeated him in Congress, the 30% thing still pretty well holds.
That means about 60% of the people normally perceived as “likely voters”…and why would the polling companies waste time on them if hey were not likely voters?…absolutely, positively will not to vote for anyone but their chosen party’s candidate. That also a leaves 40% “undecided” vote. Further, it does not take into account the “unlikely” voters…the ones who have basically given up on this system and its ongoing charade democracy. No one knows how many people like that are lurking out here in the shadows. Minorities, the disaffected, the permanently poor of every race…lots and lots of people.
I’ll tell you one thing, right here. I have a fairly large family/friends circle in rural Maine. Working people. Ain’t one of ’em who doesn’t think that the whole system is broken and needs to be totally rebuilt. There are people like that all over this country, in the sticks, in the suburbs and in the cities. If Ron Paul can reach a good percentage of that traditional 40% undecided vote, an appreciable part of the many disaffected and even some of the “normal” Ratpublicrat/Demoplican locksteppers…why, there’s his “base,” right there.
Bet on it.
Do the math. Forty percent plus is better than two thirty percent plusses. If that happens in states that have the right electoral vote count?
Hmmmm…Preznit Paul, I presume?
Watch.
Could happen…
Bet on it.
AG