Occupy

Russia had "tovarish" (comrade), now America has "solidarity."

Neglect of poverty and people in it, as well as a drug war that has pitted people in government directly against all ranks of our society (but mostly the poorest, and hence, ethnic), has created a state where politicians and police departments are entirely disconnected from any wishes or grievances of the majority of their constituents.

They proved this in gruesome detail:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ05rWx1pig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRvcEQ0_iEQ
and those are just the pepper spray incidents!

When hedge funds make more in an hour than any of us make in a year, we are left to fight over the remainder of the pie, dividing us amongst ourselves (one of those divisions being between the police and the poor). Meanwhile, the top 1% can easily throw a few million dollars here and take out a few politicians, or manipulate billion dollar markets and take out entire countries (like Greece, whose assets are now being sold as greek people lose their sovereignty), to increase their power. For example, the NYPD got paid millions of dollars from JP Morgan *during the protests* with mass arrests following.

That is what happens in an oligarchy, a police state, an authoritarian dictatorship. WHATEVER YOUR POLITICS, left or right, this is bad news for all of us.

I've already linked the bad news. The good news is that the occupy movement still stands because of numbers. Over 1,000 cities in the U.S. and double that in the world have large occupy protests, and it's all about your say (everybody has a chance to speak at general assemblies, and general assembly consensus dictates the actions of the occupy movement--there are no leaders).

All of these protests are linked on the internet, and many are linked sending supplies and personnel to each other. You may have thought otherwise if you've been watching any cable news from inside the United States, but this movement has huge potential and staying power.

The best way to help is to at least go check out the protest site at your town and talk to them. Bringing any blankets, food items, donations etc is also helpful. Many cities have a general assembly each night, and GA's are fascinating to witness--they are "what democracy looks like," literally. I highly recommend stopping by during a GA.

What kind of country are we, and what can you do about it? Are you going to go on pretending that you cannot influence politics, or will you speak up and stand in solidarity with those on Wall Street and the rest of the United States?

Glider

 

Agreed! The Occupy movement, while still very young, resonates very strongly with me. I've been loosely involved in the local camp; provided dinner on a couple of evenings and sat in on one GA. We're facing another call for eviction, due tonight at 11:00.

Since the camp is fully winterized - it was nealy -30 overnight this weekend - it would not be a simple task to pick up and go. Also, since the land is privately owned, but used freely as a pseudo-public park, the camp is in an interesting legal position. Land owners could serve them with trespassing papers, but then what of those who use the otherwise completely open park on a regular basis? The fact remains that this was little more than a vacant lot that the owners were waiting to become valuable enough to build upon or sell. They call it a park, only because the city required them to throw some grass seed down to keep it from being horribly ugly.

This camp was served with eviction notices a while ago, which went unenforced. All safety, sanitation, and health concerns brought up were dealt with, including visits by inspectors. Should they make it past this eviction, the winter will still be very hard. But they are fighting to bring humans, and human concerns, back into politics. If corporations want to be given the same rights as citizens, then they should be beholden to the same responsibilities, and be subject to the same limitations of influence. The financial industry is beyond fucked, but removal of corporate personhood and the attendant tax breaks would help immensely. I dig the idea of a Robin Hood tax as well, but that would have to come after removal of personhood, or else it would never pass.

Even if this round of occupations are quashed, the ball is in motion. People are discontented, and now they are aware of how many others there are out there who are as well. Lessons will be learned, and new Occupations (or whatever grows out of Occupy) will replace the old. When the system is broken, it is irrelevant to try to produce change within it. Canada has never had anything but a play democracy, and now even that is gone. With a Conservative majority in Parliament and Con majorities in most provinces (overwhelming ones in some, like Alberta), there is no real opposition within the system. People have stopped caring. Here's hoping that they will awaken soon-- those that have power over us only have the power that we choose to give.

 

Strangely, I had been thinking about the "Occupy" movement and posted just after QWE posted this. Unfortunately though I have a much different take on the demonstrations. As has been proven, and as I noted in my post, the movement is a scam financed by investment bankers themselves. As trust fund wanna bes camp out illegaly on private party (vis a vis the actual Wall Street), the organisers are staying at 700 Dollar a night rooms in the "W," one of the city's trendies hotels. As gourmet chefs cook tofu for hypocritical vegetarians (I feel like banging them on the head with a copy of "The Secret Life of Plants"), they have denied the actual homeless of New York even that pitiful sustenance.

America is the freeset nation on the planet and while it certainly has its faults- indeed, personally I hate the country- those seeking actual change need only wipe their apathetic asses and get out there and vote. Moreover, link with similar minded people and vote en masse. All the rest is self absorbed childish bullshit...Just a thought.

 

Have you a source on this statement on the financing of Occupy? I'm genuinely curious about this.

Also, hypocritical vegetarians what?

And if one considers the system to be broken beyond repair, then working within said system is an exercise in futility. I agree that one always needs to vote, but especially in the 'States one's vote means nothing. You can vote for the Unabashedly Ultra-Corporate party, or the Slightly-Less-Corporate party. That's no choice.

Occupy may not be the way to go, but the Obama administration has, unfortunately, proven how little the US government can do. It can basically wage wars, and imprison its citizens, and the rest has been sold off to private concerns. I fear now that the same is coming to my country-- while we have, hypothetically, more choice-- we have upwards of 5 viable parties on the national scale, our model of democracy is designed to concentrate power far more than the American version. With a basic majority in Parliament, despite having a minority of the popular vote, Harper can run the country like a king, which is exactly what he's been doing. I'd say that he should learn from the US's mistakes, but he has learned from them: how to concentrate wealth by selling off governmental services to for-profit concerns.

Oy. Too much politics before bed.

 

It's great that a few are starting to notice a few of the social and economic inequities in this country, but could the "occupy" movement be another Puppet Party? (as were the Egypt protests last spring. The same hand, the military, still controls the puppet. Only difference is that same ruling hand wears a new Sock Puppet.). Also, it upsets me to learn that the camper activists are causing small struggling businesses such as cafes and coffee shops to go under by blocking their stretch of sidewalk. So what would be a better way to bring attention to the cause?

Yes,, vote for one. I agree.That's a good start. But they need to target the weak spot (money) of the corporations they protest. If they want to make a point and make something happen, I think mass boycotts of the worst corporations in the financial industry is the way to go. Pick somebody who is heavily leveraged, little cash and lots of obligations. Take Bank of America for example. Simply close your account, or if you have a credit card, don't make a payment for a month. BoA needs that monthly cash flow. My understanding of the financial industry, what little I know of it, is that if that cash flow dries up even for a month, it will collapse. Even those "too big to fail" will collapse. Instead of spending all of their energy organizing nationwide encampments, they should organize boycotts. So if enough people on a national scale were to withhold payments (even for 1 month) and close their accounts, BoA will fail.

 

^buy silver, crash JP Morgan (from the keiser report)

i wrote some more, don't want to make a whole new blog post...

the unifying issue is "solidarity" with the protesters who have been beaten/maced while acting completely peaceful and reasonable. that's why the tents went up, and each tent that goes down brings up many more. i think this movement will survive the winter and play a role in the elections, and should be taken seriously.

we should all act to help make it more organized, in addition to complaining that it's not organized enough... because police brutality and the concentration of capital that they were protesting matter even to the 1%... a group of people can only take so much before something pops. to metaphorically visualize the problem: the "upward flow of wealth" is a large, deliberate process, spreading like a cancer or disease, fuelled by "the 1%", reducing the wealth of communities wherever possible. and once the wealth is drained in your community, you see why the protests are happening when you live with a public and private system based only on wealth/money.

the biggest advantage to the movement is that it is leaderless and decentralized. rachamim's comments on "the organizers" make no sense - maybe in some cities there are wealthy organizers behind the scene, but if say they left, the occupy movement is ready to have other people take over their responsibilities. it's totally local. it also has a key ally, anonymous... the cyber front is covered, and i think this may prove to be a really important aspect of whatever change takes place.

 

My point is that "occupying" isn't enough. The existence of the 1% themselves need to be protested. How? Mass boycotts of their investment banks. If they could organize a boycott that would shut down just 1 bank, its major shareholders who are among the 1% would feel it. Their shares would lose value. They would be less rich.

 

Yes, but the occupations give venue for building communities around protest. This is still a nascent movement, and is still finding its legs. It has some lofty goals: I love the idea of ending corporate personhood.

The camp in my city was shut down last night. At 4:00 in the morning. Interesting, how the cops chose the complete dead of night, where any possibility of community support or witnesses would be minimal. Anyway, now the owners of the site have removed the pesky little camp that reminded all of the office workers in the area that there are people that disagree with the concentration of wealth that most of them (myself included) work toward, and replaced it with an eyesore of a construction fence-- reminding us that the right to assembly, dissent and organization only matters if one has the wherewithal to obtain the space in which to perform said actions.

Silver is relatively cheap right now. $31/oz. Looking back 10 years, it was $4 an oz.

 

Dave, most anyone else I would refuse to source it. I feel handing out sources is like handing out 100 Dollar Bills. People don't appreciate that which they don't work for, and don't retain the information. Moreover, the info is all over NY papers and on the internet, which is where I am forced to find it because of my locale. That said, you are one of perhaps three people on the site that I would always oblige;

The movement is rooted in the Soros web of superficial bullshit and intrigue. A billionaire Holocaust Survivor who funds Anti-Semitic crap like the Tide Foundation and its wonderful and thought provoking "Adbusters," the bullshit publication that first got this clusterfuck going. Jews own all the banks, Jews tricked Americans into dying for them in wars that only benefit Jews and their Apartheid State of Israel, and other nice and compassionate thoughts like that.

If you want to start with the 20-something front men, look at Harrison Shultz. On MSNBC he described himself as a "Sociologist." In a way he is since he is an analyst with a marketung firm. He just took that position after having worked at the Bank of America since graduation.

While kids got pepper sprayed in the face at Zuccotti Park the leadership of the movement were actually ordering room service at the "W," as I noted in my earlier comment. On and on and on.

---

NSFW:

Dave, "Hypocritical Vegetarians"...Plants are just as alive as any mammal. They posses a different set of parameters but there are plants that consume small mammals and birds, where do you draw the line? Vegetarians usually base their lifestyle choice upon principles of compassion and empathy and yet they will chow down on plants like there is no tomorrow. In my religion, Judaisim, it is a lot like Gaia Theory, in that the entire planet is akin to a single organism. We are made from the earth, and when we die, ideally we decay back into the earth. Eating a humanely dispatched cow or chicken is no more worse than eating a head of lettuce or some soybean curd- nor is it any less brutal.

Humans have a psychological tendency to empathise with anything resembling humans, and to a lesser degree, anything that positively interacts with humans. Ergo dog is a far less popular meat than beef. A dog plays with us, shows us affection, but a cow doesn't give a shit about us and therefore, psychologically, we see cows as prey and are shocked and horrified to even think about people halfway around the world barbecuing a puppy.

Yet cows resemble humans to a degree on that they have distinctly recognisable faces, plants don't. Lettuce not only doesn't look like us, it doesn't interact with us in any meaningful way. Therefore, "Fuck the meat dude! Meat is murder! Pass the watercress, red onions, and squash blossoms!" If you consume what you kill it really doesn't matter what you kill or consume. We are here to propagate.

---

NSFW:

Dave: "If the system is broke beyond repair, how do you use the system to affect positive change?": First off, the system is far from broke. The majority of Americans (and to a lesser extent all Westerners) never even leave their own borders. The majority of those that do merely travel to Canada, a carbon copy of the US, or south to Mexico and then only on day trips to sleazy border towns catering to American vice. Should Americans ever actually travel virtually all will return convinced that they are the luckiest fucks on G-D's green earth.

Yes, the American political system HAS been co-opted by special interest groups, i.e. LOBBYISTS. Yes, it takes a shitload of cash to even run for a local office thereby alienating the majority of Americans from full on participation in their own electoral system. Yet, when you come to a place like...say...the Philippines, and you literally have thousands mowed down by automatic weaponry each and every election, even at the municipal level, things look a tad bit better in the States. Despite the problems cited above, in the US, one can easily organise a movement that can take back what is rightfully theirs non-violently and within the letter of the law.
Especially in the electronic age...not to sound like anold fart but I came of age in a different technological epoch. Had you been born back then we would probably never exchange ideas. Today it is rather simple to do so. IF people in America devote the time and effort needed, they have everything they need to fix the system.

I saw a hilarious and oh so telling streamlined interview earlier from a New York channel:

Interviewer: 'What do you hope to achieve?"

Organiser: "We want to end the capitalist stranglehold on the average American, out wirh the old, in with the new!"

Interviewer: "New what? What would you implement in place of capitalism?"

Organiser: "I don't know, anything (laughs)." (actual exchange).


There is no game plan, just destroy, destroy, destroy. That is insane. Again, on Americans and travel, should any of those (mostly) tatooed and body pierced dunderheads actually travelled they might appreciate what "anarchy" truly means, and I can assure anyone considering the notion, it is nothing that any sane person should desire. I basically live in a state of anarchy, where the bigger gun is always right. Indeed, fact of the matter is, tatooed and body pierced people couldn't even step foot here- and in most places in the world. Ironically it is only in advanced capitalist systems that such rights of free expression are permitted.

"One vote means nothing, all parties have the same agenda.": Dave, anyone can run, and ayone can vote (with few exceptions to both). If they feel there are no viable candidates find their own or run themself. The opposite extreme is the country I live in, weak political parties with no real platforms leads to off the chart violence and poverty. Given a choice, most people would choose the current American environment (notice that noone climbs into the wheelwells of jets to immigrate to the Philippines, as they do to America. Three fourths of the planet dreams of living their life).

 

Yes. It is a nascent movement, that is built around consensu-building, so it is unsurprising that there isn't much in the way of a solid idea of 'what's next'. It's more a general expression of dissent by those who have been disenfranchised. Sure, they have stated some loose goals, but they've only learned to crawl-- we can't expect them to run a marathon just yet.

Thanks for the tip regarding your funding comment. I am aware that it was Adbusters that suggested the original idea, but I'm unsure as to the bankrolling of it. I'll start digging though, and see what I find.

Regarding vegetarianism: first of all, don't make assumptions about the motivations of anybody but yourself, please. The only common thread among vegetarians is that they choose not to eat animals. That's it. Some people are motivated by compassion for things they see as being similar to themselves, others do it for health reasons, others for environmental reasons, others still for social reasons. Plus, I've found that an 'all-or-nothing' absolutist mentality, when applied to anything, but especially dietary choice, is counterproductive and impossible to achieve in reality. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I recognize that any steps toward improving things is better than the status quo, even if I can't do everything perfectly.

Just because plants are alive too doesn't mean that eating a steak is equivalent to eating a quinoa pilaf, from any standpoint other than perhaps in a simplified black-and-white philosophical discussion. I'd love to discuss this further, but it's pretty off-topic in this post. PM perhaps?

When it comes to 'anyone can run, anyone can vote', that may technically be true, but if you are not aligned with a major party it is a pointless waste of money to run, and you may as well not vote (from the american perspective) if you vote for a 'third party'. Broken electoral systems are a bigger, and different, problem than what Occupy is hoping to address.

I'd love to give more in-depth responses to your very thorough responses-- something that can always be counted upon from you -- but I've got one foot out the door. Hopefully I'll have time tomorrow to flesh out my reply.

 

Dave: "It is a nascent movement, so noone should expect them to have concrete objectives. Instead, people are merely expressing their dissatisfaction.": It wasn't a spontaneous action. It was planned AND strategised. Naturally people will have had an agenda, good or bad. It was orchestrated to express anything. With the money the Manhattan organiers received from just nickels and dimes (apart from the main financiers) was 500,000 US the last time I examined it. With that amount of money they could have bought full page adds in all leading American newspapers, or even buy a 30 second spot on an American metwork and reach many more than they ever will from this ridiculous demonstration.


I didn't say "ALL" vegetarians,I said most. Some do it for religious reasons, others for health reasons-as you noted, but the majority are into "meat is murder" type nonsense. As for health, meat is very important until physical maturity but after that is merely a lifestyle choice, just like the choice to consume meat.

On noy equating steak with a plant, etc. The distinction you allude to is proof of my contention; why would a cow be did different than a plant? Both are alive, although arguable, cows have more developed concsiouness, but in terms of self, neither conceptualises it.

 

rach please single post. i put your posts in the nsfw tag so the page is readable. thanks

The movement is rooted in the Soros web of superficial bullshit and intrigue. A billionaire Holocaust Survivor who funds Anti-Semitic crap like the Tide Foundation and its wonderful and thought provoking "Adbusters," the bullshit publication that first got this clusterfuck going.

no fucking idea what you're talking about. this movement is rooted in a global internet culture, anonymous, consciousness expansion as people realize that we could be running our communities in much more fair and sustainable ways, etc.

 

qwe, I think trying to reclaim public land for use by the public, as long as people stay out of each other's way, is great, but the movement needs to broaden its vision. if the Occupy movement is deep, then why were there record sales of baubles during the annual "Consumer Holiday" known as Black Friday last week? This is an example of what Occupy should be actively boycotting. I don't have the resources to look for a link between this Puppet Party and the investment banker Soros but I smell bullshit as well.

 

QWE: Your blog is your blog, but it doesn't change reality. You are being played. Obey bankers telling you to hate bankers, its your world.

 

^ i may have some rosy glasses, but let's take a look at your world for a second. your political statements are full of generalizations and emotionally charged words, e.g. "jews this jews that."

i don't hate bankers. i just think that we are beginning to realize some things as people, and it's about time: we've become disconnected, depersonalized, in so many ways, from our reality, as we focus more and more on the mathematics of finance.

money is consuming us, the numbers/finance/money system is decoupling us from each other even to the point where we let people *DIE.* occupy is against the largest such rational, but inhumane, movements of capital. and it has been effective in shifting these movements.

when our leaders have shown that they will use any tools at their disposal, napalm, tear gas, even the atom bomb, to retain their power and stay in their position in the money game. we do have to act. we can't afford to have another war, we can't afford more toying with the economy at the expense of everybody.

 

Sorry I don't understand this logic. They haven't cared about public opinion (or to quote Rachamim, "Our world") since day 1. Whether you hate the bankers, politicians, society, blah, blah, it's all been hated on before but somehow the initial problem remains. Capitalism.

Ironically it is only in advanced capitalist systems that such rights of free expression are permitted.

Ah but that is an unfair judgement, the West's world supply of soil has done nothing but grow these economies irrespective of their designed functions and sustainability domestically. If any market capitalist economy were left to supply itself with minimum food requirements, poor rights, dictators, blah, blah, something else would have to emerge out of necessity.