It's kind of weird that we aren't talking about this stuff at all.
I don't know about you guys, but I find this really exciting. Finally, we are getting a response out there that's not Tea Party, false grassroots
bullshit funded by the Koch brothers and embraced by Fox News. Hell, or even the rest of the mainstream media. The best coverage of this is coming
from leftist news outlets like Democracy Now! and RT(a curiously Russian English-language news source) that I've only been able to check out online
or.... in the Philly area on channel 35 MiND.
There's a lot of good stuff going on here. Cropping up in DC, Boston, LA, Chicago and elsewhere now. I don't know what it means, where it's going, but
I like that people are saying "we've had enough of this shit." And they aren't wandering around in tri-corner hats and harkening back to the "good ol'
days" when white people were the undisputed sole voice in politics and the direction of this country and only wealthy landowners mattered.
The very same people that cheered the Supreme Court decision that confirmed corporations as "persons" and granted them 1st Amendment rights and
unlimited capacity to donate to the political campaigns of their choosing, and there-by strengthening the criminal plutarchy holding this country's
political direction hostage.
Our banjo player is taking part in the Boston protest. The demonstrations have been largely peaceful, but that hasn't stoped an NYPD officer or two
from macing some folks point blank in the face. There's video of one particular guy doing it a few times. There's also one online of demonstrators
marching down Wall Street while folks hang out on their balconies, drinking champagne and waving down to the crowds like Marie fucking Antoinette.
Basically, it's people who are fed up with no one holding the big Wall Street firms accountable for their role in this whole financial mess.
Finally left leaning people are getting off their asses and taking to the streets and putting the blame for our current political and economic state
firmly at the feet of the corporatocracy. They have identified the problem that corporations and the super-rich have greater access to the halls of
power than the people, that our democracy has been effectively stolen(if it ever truly existed in the first place, because near as I can tell it's
always been this way right down to the drafting of the Constitution which initially granted voting rights only to white, male landowners) from the 99%
of us who aren't super rich, while the other 1% basically controls the way things are financially and politically.
For the most part a clear mission statement has not yet been reached, but I'm sure it will emerge organically as support grows, disparate groups come
together(there are certainly elements in the Tea Party that aren't zombies for Fox News) and hammer out just what it is they collectively identify as
the Problem and what their demands are for the Solution. Thus far the right has been content with mocking the protestors/occupiers as "hippies" and
what not, while the other mainstream media outlets have essentially been calling them disorganized and aimless. Both things, I would say, are pretty
far from the truth even in the absence of a list of demands or goals. I mean, they have organized what amounts to a pretty big sit-in at a park on
Wall Street, marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, and they've done no violence. They have a "General Assembly" in which they discuss all their goings
on and their ideas... and in the absence of funding for things like PA systems, they have implemented an innovative approach to making sure everyone
hears what is said by anyone by way of each and every person present repeating what was said by the main speaker. So, for instance, they had Professor
Cornel West out one night and he spoke, and every sentence he spoke was repeated by the crowd present. It's a very interesting, and communal way of
participation. No one, and everyone, is a leader in this thing... in a way.
Our banjo player is taking part in the Boston protest. The demonstrations have been largely peaceful, but that hasn't stoped an NYPD officer or two
from macing some folks point blank in the face. There's video of one particular guy doing it a few times. There's also one online of demonstrators
marching down Wall Street while folks hang out on their balconies, drinking champagne and waving down to the crowds like Marie fucking Antoinette.
Basically, it's people who are fed up with no one holding the big Wall Street firms accountable for their role in this whole financial mess.
There's also a video of a police captain smashing a protestor with a professional grade video camera head first into the grill of an Audi.
October 03, 2011
51
The 99% Talk Back
De-Colonize Wall Street
by VIJAY PRASHAD
False modesty does not become the media. When it comes to the Tea Party or the Taliban, reporters are quick to offer an explanation of their
motivations and their demands. When it comes to the protests of the Left, there is reticence to do any real reporting or analysis. Imagine this
sentence from the Associated Press’ Verena Dobnik that opens the second paragraph in her article (“Wall Street Protest Accrues Interest,” October 2)
on the Occupy Wall Street Protests (now into its third week), “They lack a clear objective, though they speak against corporate greed, social
inequality, global climate change and other concerns.” It seems to me that there are at least three clear objectives in this sentence itself: to end
corporate greed, to fight for social equality and to create mitigating policies to lessen climate change.
Then there’s the pure condescension. This is from Joanna Weiss of the Boston Globe (September 27), “It’s hard to take a protest fully seriously when
it looks more like a circus — some participants seem to have taken a chute straight from Burning Man — and when it’s organized by a Canadian magazine
and a computer-hacking group.” Is there now a dress code for democracy?
I spent an afternoon at Occupy Wall Street and in a few minutes got a flavor of the social vision have now inspired similar protests from Boston to
San Francisco. “We are the 99%,” say the people who are in Zuccotti Park (Liberty Square). What they mean is simple: social policy in the country is
dominated by the 1%, whose will dominates an economy that the International Monetary Fund says has entered the “danger zone.” They are right. In Ron
Suskind’s new book Confidence Men, he offers us a window into the advantages given to the financial sector by theObama administration. From one side
of the White House, Obama pledged to appoint Elizabeth Warren as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and from the other, more
powerful side, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner assured the banks that this wouldn’t happen. Much the same occurred when Geithner’s Treasury
Department prevented the restructuring of the far too powerful Citigroup. Suskind calls Geithner’s refusal to follow what appeared to be a settled
decision a “fireable offense,” although Geithner remains very much in office. If Geithner had been fired, he might have accepted the job he had been
offered in September 2007 by Stanford Weill, to take over Citigroup. Weill was no longer at the bank, so he had no business making a firm offer to
thehead of the New York Federal Reserve. A banking analyst told Andrew Sorkin that the offer has to be seen in another light. “How else can we
interpret this but as a nice juicy carrot being dangled in front of the President of the New York Fed by a bank that was going to need Fed help in a
big way.” This is the world of finance capital and its politicians.
The gargantuan financial sector got us into this. Even former U. S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress in 2008, “Those of us who
have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder’s equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief.” But
this financial sector has paid nothing for the problems it has engineered.
Instead, ordinary people have been stiffed with the bill for the outrages of the financial class. No wonder that the Occupy Wall Street say the
following, “We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are
suffering from environmental pollution. We areworking long hours for little pay and no rights, if we’re working at all. We are getting nothing while
the other 1 percent is getting everything.”Government data confirms this sentiment. The latest gloomy report from the Pew Center details the miserable
situation in the U. S. Latino sector of society. Latinos have the highest unemployment rate (11%), the greatest decline in household wealth from 2005
to 2009, the greatest food insecurity with a third of households in this condition, and 6.1 million children in poverty, the largest number for any
ethnic group. The only political vision for the Latino population, crucial to Obama’s re-election prospects, is going to be more anti-immigrant and
xenophobic rhetoric. These are the social consequences of living in a recession, governed by politicians in the pockets of banks.
Occupy Wall Street has a simple message: reduce the power of finance capital over the United States government. Absent such a reduction, there is no
rational social policy available for the United States. Neither the Obama government nor whoever wins the next election will be able to move an agenda
to benefit an economy in the doldrums. It is to the credit of several unions (including the Transport Workers’ Union and AFL-CIO president Richard
Trumka) that they have endorsed Occupy Wall Street. It is likely that on Wednesday, October 5, tens of thousands of workers might join the march from
Liberty Square to Wall Street. What would be equally valuable is if the unions declared from Liberty Square that their support in the election of 2012
is conditional on specific policies to constrain the power of the banks. It would be equally valuable if the unions extend their endorsement of the
Occupy Wall Street to the call for a primary challenge to President Obama. As our letter that calls for the primary challenge put it,
“In an uncontested Democratic primary, President Obama will never have to justify his decision to bail out Wall Street’s most profitable firms while
failing to push for effective prosecution of the criminal behavior that triggered the recession, or his failure to push for real financial reform. He
will not have to defend his decision to extend the Bush era tax cuts nor justify his acquiescence to Republican extortion during the debt ceiling
negotiations. He will not have to answer questions on how his Administration completely failed to protect homeowner’s losing their homes to predatory
banks, or even mention the word ‘poverty,’ as he failed to do in his most recent State of the Union Address, even as more and more Americas sink into
financial despair.”
A toothed challenge to the status quo would bring the unions to endorse this call. With the Republicans unable tosettle on a candidate who has any
room for reason, it is imperative that the election-cycle not go by without a serious challenge to finance capital’s chosen instrument, the Obama
team.
It proves the Occupy Wall Street movement right that the New York Police Department has now arrested over one thousand of their number, far more than
the government has arrested from the suites of the banks. The 99% pay the social cost, as the 1% condescends to reality.
VIJAY PRASHAD is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His
most recent book, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize for 2009. The Swedish and French
editions are just out. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu
October 15th is apparently the next big day of action. I might head out to the Brisbane one.
A lot of people ask me what kind of music I like. I love "soul music". My "soul music" isn’t a style, genre or niche. It’s music that is genuine. It’s
a painful lyric, a dirty bassline, it’s a harrowing vocal, it’s feedback, it’s an anthem, it’s a love song, it’s anarchy. I’ve got my personal
favourites but in the end it doesn’t matter who or where it comes from... so long as it’s good and it's real.
- Paul Morris, music director at 97.7 HTZ-FM
“I’m heading up there tonight in my dress blues. So far, 15 of my fellow marine buddies are meeting me there, also in Uniform. I want to send the
following message to Wall St and Congress:I didn’t fight for Wall St. I fought for America. Now it’s Congress’ turn.
My true hope, though, is that we Veterans can act as first line of defense between the police and the protester. If they want to get to
some protesters so they can mace them, they will have to get through the Fucking Marine Corps first. Let’s see a cop mace a bunch of
decorated war vets.I apologize now for typos and errors.
Typing this on iPhone whilst heading to NYC. We can organize once we’re there. That’s what we do best.If you see someone in uniform, gather
together.
A formation will be held tonight at 10PM.
We all took an oath to uphold, protect and defend the constitution of this country. That’s what we will be doing.
Hope to see you there!!”
And from his Facebook, this guy didn't create the message as the page indicates but relayed it on because he will also be there.
Quote:
To all my Facebook friends....PLEASE note that the message from the Marine who i...s going to "OccupyWallSt." with his buddies was sent to one of the
co-organizers of our organizing team for the Oct.6 action in D.C.
I am NOT the Marine that sent the message...(I was Army Infantry, '71-'74)....MANY hundreds of my fellow veterans are doing the same thing in D.C.,
starting on Oct.6. I simply shared the fine message from the Marine. :>) ....thank you all for making that message go viral.
I just find it incredibly awesome that troops who signed up to defend the country and constitution are doing just that, defending the right to protest
and be pissed off about a system that is shafting the millions of citizens within its walls. This is what the armed forces were supposed to be about,
I'm stoked there's folks out there who will stand up for their country regardless who the enemy is.
A lot of people ask me what kind of music I like. I love "soul music". My "soul music" isn’t a style, genre or niche. It’s music that is genuine. It’s
a painful lyric, a dirty bassline, it’s a harrowing vocal, it’s feedback, it’s an anthem, it’s a love song, it’s anarchy. I’ve got my personal
favourites but in the end it doesn’t matter who or where it comes from... so long as it’s good and it's real.
- Paul Morris, music director at 97.7 HTZ-FM
This is truth. There are more plebs than elite's, there are more people than police, and there are apparently military personnel who still hold true
their vows to defend the nation. Uprising is good.
As for banks, Thomas Jefferson said it best, a long long long time ago before any of this happened.
Quote:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to
control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will
deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken
from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
A lot of people ask me what kind of music I like. I love "soul music". My "soul music" isn’t a style, genre or niche. It’s music that is genuine. It’s
a painful lyric, a dirty bassline, it’s a harrowing vocal, it’s feedback, it’s an anthem, it’s a love song, it’s anarchy. I’ve got my personal
favourites but in the end it doesn’t matter who or where it comes from... so long as it’s good and it's real.
- Paul Morris, music director at 97.7 HTZ-FM
The problem with this video as amusing as it may be, some one would have to be naive enough to believe the people who got us in this mess were some
dolts that just bumbled us into this. If we were as smart as them it'd be you and I sitting on mountains of money now. Not them.
The problem with this video as amusing as it may be, some one would have to be naive enough to believe the people who got us in this mess were some
dolts that just bumbled us into this. If we were as smart as them it'd be you and I sitting on mountains of money now. Not them.
A very good point. We are in this mess because we were put in this mess on purpose by a group of incredibly intelligent and powerful people that knew
they would make a killing from it. Essentially it was the biggest heist ever pulled in human history and they all got away with it.
The problem with this video as amusing as it may be, some one would have to be naive enough to believe the people who got us in this mess were some
dolts that just bumbled us into this. If we were as smart as them it'd be you and I sitting on mountains of money now. Not them.
^^^^ Very true, but think of this. What if they are not done? What if what they want is not complete?
Each aspect of the soul has it's own part to play, but the ideal is harmonious agreement with reason and control.
I don't believe for a minute theyre done. why would you stop the push before your enemy is cleared from the field? They've kept us distracted with
video games and mtv and gay marriage and every other smokescreen in the handbook. Glad I don't have children tho worry about.
This whole Occupy movement really needs to turn into a revolution. I don't kid myself for a minute that it will, but that's what's needed. Wipe the
fucking slate clean. Get the crooks out of the halls of power. Maybe demolish the halls of power themselves and trying something completely new.
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