There are now Occupy Together movements in 280 American cities.
David Callahan of Demos sums the movement up well:
Angus Johnson, one of the most astute bloggers following the protests, wrote recently that if you think that the protesters have “no message, you’re not paying attention.” They clearly believe that there is “something seriously broken” in America’s economy and politics and that “an accelerating concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small minority” is to blame.
That reading jives with my own visits to Zuccotti Park – aka, “Liberty Square” – just blocks from the New York Stock Exchange. The clear thread linking a mish-mash of grievances – on everything from education to healthcare to corporate campaign cash – is that the wealthy are running America at the expense of ordinary people.
If this sounds radical, the hyperbolic blathering of dreadlocked twentysomethings, consider that a slew of top political scientists have been saying the same thing for nearly a decade. For example, one of the most authoritative recent studies of democracy and inequality, by the Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels, found that “the preferences of people at the bottom third of the income distribution appear to have no apparent impact on the behavior of their elected officials.”
Commenter Cat has an idea that I like:
This maybe too militant, but a union cap with a patch with “99” on it could turn into a powerful symbol.
Consider this an open thread to discuss the Occupy Together movement.
cervantes
Well okay, it’s a beautiful thing, but it’s going to have to cohere around some concrete program pretty soon or it’s just going to be an Autumn of Love. Organizing usually goes in the opposite direction, from demands to people. This is still just a pretty blob.
Amanda in the South Bay
Poor people need to stop voting for Republicans and pretending that they are middle/upper middle class. Its the culture war.
Xecky Gilchrist
if you think that the protesters have no message, you’re not paying attention.
Or paid to claim that.
ETA: but Cervantes @1 is right. I think the gatherings do have specific policy goals – or at least the website shows some – but that needs to be much more loudly trumpeted.
redshirt
From the Portland (ME) Press Herald:
Tea Party/Occupy similarities…
david mizner
Ezra asked labor organizer-historian Rich Yeselson for his thoughts, which are well worth reading.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-four-habits-of-highly-successful-social-movements/2011/08/25/gIQAeifVNL_blog.html
AA+ Bonds
I’ve been operating on the assumption that it’s a good idea to wear clothes with union names and logos on them, especially in places where unions are scarce.
In my case, my workplace is banned by statute from collective bargaining. This gives me a good ‘in’ to discuss the issue when asked the snide/friendly question, “so, are you a Teamster, then?” (Which is fair enough, especially coming from a Teamster.)
I smile and respond, “No, I’d love to be. But did you know . . .”
AA+ Bonds
@Amanda in the South Bay:
That’s definitely not the problem.
For one, low wage earners are more often than not Democrats; for another, poor people who vote Republican may not be voting against their interests, per se. Or rather, they’re making calculations as to what interests they’ll support. Satisfying resentment is a genuine interest – lefties have a hard time grasping this even as they act it out.
The problem is, more generally, middle class people who vote Republican believing that the Republicans are good for the pocketbooks of the middle class. Like the far-right movements of interwar Europe, the Tea Party is mostly made up of middle-class xenophobes, kneejerk reactionaries, and iconoclastic students and intellectuals (the working class base of Nazism is pure myth). Their enablers are people with the wrong idea that the Republicans promote general economic prosperity.
eemom
all I have to say is Yaaaaaaay!!!
well, I do have ONE other thing to say: whiny-ass finger-wagging scolds like #1 above really need to go read Rude Pundit today.
redshirt
I have to say, conceptually I am 100% Pro Union. Practically, however? Ug. I get involved in construction projects frequently enough, and Unions are usually the bane of getting anything done, such that the Powers That Be will go out of their way to avoid working with any Unions if possible. That said, it can’t be avoided in some cases.
I wish the Unions would get the message and get competitive, but fair. They need to work on improving not just their image, but their deliveries.
I’ve dealt with way too many Verizon union members lately, and they are almost uniformly stereotypical “don’t give a shit” union guys, and it really disappoints me.
Roger Moore
@redshirt:
It’s an interesting article. I did find the following quote from a Tea Partier to be rather ironic, though:
I guess it takes a useful idiot to know one.
sherparick
Millions of unemployed and underemployed people having been sitting at home hearing that they are “losers” and that it is all their own fault now are now finding out they are not alone.
As for a program, try this: Pass the jobs bill, start a second WPA, lets get America back to work, surcharge on 10% of all income over $1,000,000 starting in 2014 to pay for it.
Meanwhile the boy with a moustache is boo-hooing about Governor Christie (the fantasy Christie, not the actual Christie who has been demolishing his way through New Jersey), not running for the nomination. He is mad tha Obama won’t adopt the Cat Food Commission’s program for cutting social security benefits. I doubt that he is aware that the average monthly social security benefit in August 2011 is the princely sum of $1081.00 a month for a retired worker. This is the benefit he wants to cut.
eemom
@AA+ Bonds:
how exactly is ANY poor person who votes republican — and doesn’t have an “interest” in getting fucked in the ass –not voting against their interests?
Stooleo
I wish the protesters would bring a couple of these things to the rally.
AA+ Bonds
@eemom:
Because, as I said, satisfying resentment is a genuine interest. Economic interest is measured in terms of pain and pleasure. Voting because it makes you feel aroused against perceived cultural foes, and because the people you elect continually stimulate that arousal, addresses a genuine interest.
david mizner
@Xecky Gilchrist:
They have a message but no policy platform. 99ers itself is a message. They don’t need a policy platform; at least for the moment; its looseness adds to its power. I’ve seen a few people suggest a financial transaction tax — a great idea to be sure, but it’s an esoteric and technocratic proposal for a movement right now thriving on passion.
As Yeselson says in the piece I link to above, eventually to be successful they’ll need to connect the movement to potential solutions that would have a tangible effect on people’s lives, but surely that could wait till, oh, month 2.
If it ain’t broke…
Kay Shawn
What’s needed is a better articulation of exactly WHAT is broken, an explanation that would cover all the problems “Occupy” is demonstrating about. I think what’s broken is the Social Contract. It’s not socialism to suggest that we’re all in this together, though wingers love to say so. If those with power/money would have BEHAVED themselves, maybe all the regulations they complain about would not have been necessary. This applies to banksters, the big media, you name it. The Social Contract means not selling out Americans for the maximum profit possible, and hiding behind “it’s just business” to excuse destroying companies, contracts, home mortgages, etc etc etc. Once the S.C. was pretty much abandoned 30-odd years ago, [I remember when the Fairness Doctrine was dropped, I thought, “Oh-oh…”] this horror show began to accelerate, and now we have all this mess. Call me naive.
AA+ Bonds
@redshirt:
I think probably your first step would be to talk to the unions and not complain publicly that union members “don’t give a shit”, that is, unless you’ve been hired by the Kochs to spread that message on leftwing blogs.
beltane
Is it “union cap” or “Union cap” as in the Union Army, like the cap Jesse LaGreca wore during his interview? I love the Union Army symbolism on many levels. It is full of win, literally.
AA+ Bonds
@eemom:
Additionally to what I noted in my first response, there is also a real debate over the economic interests of poor whites in the South during the Civil War, for instance. Maintaining a system where your not-yet-born progeny have a cultural advantage from birth in the labor market may provide marginal economic benefits that people perceive on some level.
jncc
If people think wearing a particular hat might be “too militant”, I suspect the 1% will be safe for quite a while …
El Cid
If you wanted to make it a bit more early 20th Century when there really were movements of labor solidarity, they’d call themselves something like “the 99-ers”.
I think it’s perfectly all right to acknowledge that actual human beings do, and properly do, have a variety of issues which motivate them about their protest interests and a variety of goals.
That there isn’t such a coherent program now is perhaps quite natural; that it may develop is neither impossible nor inevitable.
Not to use too grandiose a comparison, but the Egyptian mass movement built upon years of labor protests against brute and neo-liberal exploitation and miserable conditions, and began in mass as more middle class (in the Egyptian context that is) [activists and labor leaders] made sure to go out and organize the working class neighborhoods.
But the US population in a way faces a task far less easily simplified — it’s not just about the toppling of a tyrant, or even the creation of a Constitution respecting basic rights and democratic processes of governance, but a complicated agenda of reform?
When has this ‘coherent’ reform program ever emerged on a national scale in the last several decades? I know you’ve had some pretty successful [local] living wage movements, and some strikes / farmworker organizing with a degree of national success.
But organizing a mass movement of broad numbers of Americans in favor of a plan of reforms of the plutocratic exploitation underway at full thrust since the late 1960s — is this really such an easy task?
Are we once again putting on the shoulders of other people a truly, extraordinarily difficult task which none of the people who know how to do such things failed to do?
slag
The best thing about Occupy so far is that it seems to be on the verge of giving liberals something to unite behind. Here’s hoping it lasts long enough to compel some change!
Brian R.
If we’re looking for mottos, how about appropriating a little Jay-Z?
“We got 99 percent and the rich have 1.”
TooManyJens
The BBC Global News podcast had a segment on Occupy Wall Street yesterday morning. They interviewed one man in particular who I think put his finger on what could become a unifying theme. At first I was thinking, “uh-oh, another liberal laundry list,” but he tied it all together.
redshirt
@AA+ Bonds: I’m no right wing plant. I am 110% behind the concepts of Unions and would love to be in one myself. But when a Union guy waits 2 hours to change a lightbulb and physically threatens you if you do it yourself (Javits Center, NYC), it borders on the ludicrous.
AA+ Bonds
@jncc:
Wow, you’re pretty good at Republican propaganda. You should see if they’re hiring at the Koch factory.
Public, provocative endorsement of left-wing ideals that have been shunned as embarrassing by the DLC moneybags? That’s exactly what we need to climb out of the hole they’ve put us in.
We need to show people we’re proud and they can be proud, too.
MikeJ
@Brian R.: I would call that Ice-T, not Jay-Z, even if the latter had the bigger hit.
beltane
Herman Cain says it’s the 99%ers own fault that they are not rich. The Republicans are furiously re-tweeting this thinking it is a brilliant, winning message.
Brian R.
@MikeJ:
I know, but we’re going for popularity, not originality here.
TooManyJens
Also, too: Fuck these guys.
Linda Featheringill
Dougerhead?
AA+ Bonds
@redshirt:
Well, that sure is a great cherry-picked horror anecdote that you have there. Maybe you should go work for the Kochs? Or maybe the local news, where you can report on how everything in your home that makes your life better will kill you, Kent Brockman style?
Pace you, the real story of unions is a better life for all Americans, and a morally upright, democratic world.
Farah
@david mizner:
very true- when Van Jones complimented the Tea party the other day for the same reason- there is no ultimate leader of the network- it’s a loose i.d. and this 99 tag is even looser http://www.truth-out.org/van-jones-americas-uprising-its-going-be-epic-battle/1317822661
point being
specificity could marginalize those morons who vote against their interests
i think the notion of the 99 is the only way to create a notion of enfranchisement of people so diverse- power to the people yo!
slag
@beltane: Agreed. As someone noted in an earlier thread, we should be more than happy to let the Tea Party relive the Confederacy. Or, to steal from The Onion, The South Postpones Rising Again for Yet Another Year.
redshirt
@AA+ Bonds: Ah. Everyone who says something you don’t like works for the Kochs. Roger.
cleek
@eemom:
people have multiple interests. those interests often conflict.
geg6
I haven’t even read the post yet, but Doug now owes me a new keyboard just because of his new handle. Pepsi all over the place.
Amir Khalid
It appears to be an international thing. I clicked on the link and the world map has a flag planted on every continent; the two in Asia are at Pusan, South Korea; and Kuala Lumpur. As it happens, the Bersih 2.0 rally/demonstration happened here this past July. So the spirit for this, or something like it, is definitely here in KL. I think I’ll keep an eye on it.
Gilles de Rais
@redshirt: This is the second piece in two days that I’ve seen where some reporter insists that the
NaziTea Party has common cause with the Occupy Together folks.Plain and simple, they do not. The Tea Party, no matter what anyone claims, did not start as a populist movement. It has been a FreedomWorks funded operation since day one.
One has to laugh at this attempt at High Broderism on the part of the press. They want nothing more than to insist that “both sides do it”, but the reality of the situation is that there is no right-wing equivalent to the Occupy Together folks, and there never will be. That’s not how the right rolls.
trollhattan
After the Stewart-Colbert DC thing last year I couldn’t help but wonder whether those folks who attended, and others like them across the country, might not be ready for something more. Perhaps this is that something more?
j low
Martin Luther King said “I have a dream”, not “I have a plan”. That is what made the message reverberate so powerfully in the hearts and minds of everyone who heard it.
geg6
The always excellent Charles Pierce has a great post up about OWS:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/occupy-wall-street-demands-6506089
AA+ Bonds
@redshirt:
On the Internet? It’s a safe bet a lot of the time. That’s how they spend a ton of their money.
Certainly someone who comes on “well I’m totally for unions but also this one time a union man killed my entire family and that’s a sad reflection on the current state of unions” – that is exactly the Koch operative playbook for running the WSJ editorial board line for 2012.
I’m not saying you work for the Kochs. I’m saying you should avoid presenting the image that you work for the Kochs. It’s in everyone’s interest, including yours.
Looking at your blog, I assume you know the danger of anecdotes.
cleek
for the record (will the secretary please note): my earlier doubts about the efficacy of this protest are being eroded by the “99%” message. that’s what this whole thing needed, IMO: a quick, simple, pithy message that encapsulates the issue in a way that can resonate with people who don’t care to wade through manifestos and Statements Of Purpose.
so, kudos to whoever got that thing going.
deep cap
@redshirt:
Your use of the word “but” means you are not 110% behind. You fail at logic my friend.
Lit3Bolt
I read this from a reader email at Andrew Sullivan’s, but it made me lol. The reader was deservedly castigating some of the sneering emails at OWS one of Andrew’s interns had up earlier.
That quote demolishes about 90% of the Heathers’ complaints about OWS.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
The Bersih 2.0 rally I was mentioning.
beltane
@TooManyJens: Ah, I see Rick Santelli and friends are at it again. Maybe Erin Burnett will show up with pom poms to cheer them on.
JGabriel
Amanda in the South Bay:
No, it’s a class war. Culture is a tactic; it’s the wealthy appealing to the prejudices and superstitions of poor religious conservatives to split people in the bottom 95% of income and assets.
.
Linda Featheringill
@beltane: #28
First Romney and now Cain. It looks like the occupiers are making the Republicans uncomfortable.
I declare a win for the protesters.
Warren Terra
Not topical, but important:
Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, an Elder Statesman for Civil Rights, Dies at 89
eemom
There’s also a good column today by Harold Meyerson that “lack of message” trolls should read.
redshirt
@Gilles de Rais: I’d agree with you from the national press. But this columnist in Maine has been fiercely critical of most everything Tea Party related since they first reared their ugly heads. And while no doubt the leadership and funding of all Tea Parties is astroturfed, the members are probably sincere – deluded, but sincere. I read the article as the columnist attempting to point out to Tea Party members that they have a lot in common with these protestors, even though they think they don’t.
j low
@AA+ Bonds:1. There was an episode of the Simpson’s where Homer had a slouching contest with the Teamsters. 2. The Simpson’s writers are from Hollywood and generally liberal. 3. Even Democrats think Teamsters are lazy.
AA+ Bonds
@redshirt:
This is a Koch plant line. Did you design it that way? Maybe not. You may simply have been fooled into repeating it. I’m just here to make sure it ends there.
eemom
@j low:
The devil, he has a plan.
wrb
@jncc:
I think the question is whether we really want to make it a north against south thing.
There are people in the south suffering from the plutocrats. And the plutocrats aren’t in the south, by and large. Is Civil War symbolism the right symbolism?
But maybe it is, and we go for succession. A north + west coast country, or north and west coast countries would be more liberal, possibly (they would contain the plutocrats, who might control).
Maybe our country has become too big to manage.
However succession is a mighty ambitious goal.
GregB
Shorter Cain:
Blessed are the One Percenters.
AA+ Bonds
@j low:
I know? That’s why I’m helping fix it and you should too?
Jeez, this isn’t very hard to grasp.
The Teamsters are, historically, to the right of me. But I’d be hard-pressed to find better advocates for the right issues right now.
beltane
@cleek: The right wing response to “We are the 99%” has been “We are the 53%”. Does anyone know what this could refer to? It seems they chose this slogan without first consulting Frank Luntz.
geg6
@cervantes:
I think you’re about to see it become something. You’ve got the big unions signing on, with Trumka about to announce the support of the AFL-CIO. You’ve got some congresscritters sending kisses (the Progressive Caucus anyway). You’ve even got the White House saying they are paying attention.
I’ve been one of the skeptics here, but I am coming around to thinking that a hard plan of the type that I typically favor might be the wrong way to go with this sort of thing. I think keeping it all focused on the 99% and their concerns (which are myriad, but all economic in nature) is all they need to do. That and stay non-violent and accepting of all. Read the Pierce article I just linked to. It was the final thing that convinced me that this might be real. I think I’ll plan on going to Point State Park on 10/15 for the march there. It can’t hurt, so why not?
Robert
There’s obviously an idea in play. I just wish that the initial group of protesters had actually stated from the beginning a singular overriding goal. It would have avoided a lot of this “they’re aimless” nonsense. They’re fed up with the disparity of wealth in the country. That’s clear. It would have been clear from day one with a statement rather than an itemized list of grievances.
Roger Moore
@TooManyJens:
Nice to know who to put against the wall when the revolution finally arrives.
redshirt
@AA+ Bonds: Well, sorry, but I have to deal with Unions quite a bit, and I’ve noted stark differences in the attitudes of some of these – you can see the difference in attitude, for example, between the elevator union guys and the Verizon union guys.
Some of these groups could certainly stand to improve the quality of the services they represent. If that’s too “Koch” for you, so be it.
trollhattan
@geg6:
A-yep, took me a second or three to get it, but I are slow like that. {Shakes fist at
cloudDougR}RandyH
Right now on MSNBC they are out covering the Occupy Wall Street effort Live – on the scene. Glad to see it. Hosted by Tamron Hall with Dylan Ratigan and Ezra Klein and more to come. It will go on all this hour and I hope they’ll keep covering it all day. This is better than the usual nonsense they try to over-hype all day.
xian
@beltane: they’re probably cherry-picking the non-FICA federal income-tax base
gmknobl
Count me in on a cap. Make it look like the Union 76 logo but with the number 99 instead. The added subtext of an oil company can’t hurt. If someone is serious about this, you can contact me at comcast dot net (seriously).
I wonder who will be listening in though since I’m on comcast now?
cleek
@wrb:
the answer is No
JCT
@beltane: Well, given all of their previous math “FAILS” …… this could just be more “Math is Hard” from these nitwits.
j low
@AA+ Bonds: I’m going to assume you are having a bad day? If you are not, you should read this.
sar·casm/ˈsärˌkazəm/
Noun: The use of irony to mock or convey contempt.
AA+ Bonds
@JGabriel:
I have to reiterate again: poor people are not overwhelmingly Republican. Are they more Republican than they should be? Sure, but so is everyone but the One Percent.
The far right rarely succeeds at appeals to the poor or the working class. That’s why the Nazis dropped their socialist appeals very quickly and doubled down on nationalism – they never succeeded in peeling the numbers from the Social Democrats and the Communists that they wanted. The Nazis were a middle-class movement that successfully aligned with the upper class.
Brandon
I think that there would be no faster end to this movement than linking it with policy goals being promoted traditional political structures or even those structures themselves. To do so would leave them open to the typical attacks that OWS are just tools of X group and having actual policy positions would put them in a place where those positions could be attacked in the typical doubt sowing way enabled by the media of OWS say X, VSP’s say Y. Even if there is no truth to Y. They need to remain vigilent about being outcomes focussed and not to get involved in the policy minuitae. The benefit is that if they actually can reach a critical mass, politicians may propose the policy solutions themselves in the hopes of appeasing the monster. Right now is perfect for them. No leadership means no one to get their counter tops inspected and no policy agenda means nothing for the media/PR machine to sow enough doubt to discredit. It’s odd to me that so many people on the left who seem to be the same people who think Obama is a poor poker player are trying to say that OWS cannot be taken seriously until they show their hand first. Couldn’t be more wrong.
AA+ Bonds
@j low:
No, I’m just vigilant. I’m willing to accept getting some furniture wet when putting out fires. I apologize, though.
Bill E Pilgrim
@AA+ Bonds: That’s a lot of fail in one comment.
“People voting against their own interests” is a clear enough statement, and includes plenty of room for the interpretation that they’re voting out of resentment.
The whole point is that they’re resentful toward the wrong people, i.e. not the ones who are hurting them, but the ones who those who are hurting them have convinced them to hate.
Taibbi had a great post about this a couple years back, TrueSlant seems to be down or something but here’s a quote from it:
cleek
@beltane:
53% who pay federal income tax, i think.
for example: this boot-licking douchebag.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@beltane:
Hey! That’s Dr Frank Lutz!
GregB
@beltane:
I am simply guessing that they are using the phony and oft repeated wrongwing, Fox News tested statistic that 47% of Americans don’t pay any taxes.
eemom
I have to say, when I saw Romney’s “class warfare” response I just about got down on my knees and thanked God I’m not a republican.
That is literally the BEST he can do? Regurgitate the most threadbare soundbite in the box? How can any human being be THAT. FUCKING. TEDIOUS? Has anybody ever thought to check his ass for a battery compartment?
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay Shawn:
Ever since the fall of the USSR (the “Evil Empire”, the “existential threat”) this has been coming.
The people at the top suddenly no longer had a reason to hold themselves back. Before the Berlin Wall fell, we were all in this together. Then, suddenly, there’s no longer an incentive for those at the top to hold back gratifying their most immoral appetites. The governors on their behavior had been disabled.
What we’ve got now is the result.
elftx
Anyone here sign on to Dylan Ratigans’
http://www.getmoneyout.com yet?
As one sign stated..
“I won’t believe corporations are persons until Texas executes one of them.”
Also too..seems to me that more than less identify with 99% whether or not they wish to.
AA+ Bonds
@gmknobl:
For you and everyone else looking for a cap to wear immediately, there is always this:
https://www.unionrags.com/Default.aspx?tabid=65&pid=410
It’s one of my favored wardrobe items nowadays.
janeform
AA+ Bonds and deep cap: I don’t see why you’re piling on redshirt. I’ve seen the same sort of thing from unions, and it only hurts them. You can bury your heads in the sand all you want, but it’s not going to make these issues magically disappear.
Gilles de Rais
@redshirt: You read the author’s intent correctly. The article is grossly wrong, however, and is a textbook example of High Broderism at its finest.
The Teatards have nothing in common with the Occupy Together folks, and never will.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
does he factor in the voting patterns of that bottom third?
Amanda in the South Bay
Oh please, you don’t need to be pro-union to realize that in practice, there are some pretty fucked up irregularities, as redshirt noted. There’s no reason to go the opposite extreme as the GOP and defend absolutely everything every union has ever done.
Geez, enough with the ad hominem/calling people trolls shit just cause you disagree with them?
Villago Delenda Est
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Exactly.
This is why I call the teabaggers natural serfs. They are utterly unworthy, as a group, for the freedoms that so many have fought, bled, and died for.
AA+ Bonds
@janeform:
There are always issues to address with the workplace. I’m not sure that “I am 100% behind unions but practically blah blah blah union people suck in stereotypical ways” all over a public forum for Democrats is a good way to address them, though.
In fact, I’m certain that it’s not, and that it’s also the main way that the Republican media machine intends to split the left before 2012. I admit, it’s weird that they’re picking unions NOW, but if you pay attention to right wing media sources (and I mean REALLY pay attention, like read them yourself every day) it’s very, very, very clear.
geg6
@trollhattan:
Well, dawg knows, the whole Stewart part was nothing but his usual “both sides are the same” shit.
Why anyone would leave home and rally for that douche is completely beyond me. Biggest asshole ever that, for some completely incomprehensible reason, liberals love. The guy fawns all over every wingnut or GOPer that comes on his show, shits on every liberal or Democrat that does same, and gets more tongue baths from people I usually respect that he deserves.
Colbert is awesome but I wouldn’t give a single-handed clap to that asshole Stewart.
eemom
@El Cid:
you should totally read Meyerson’s column — he is basically saying the same thing you are.
I wish I could figure out how to get this POS computer I have at work to let me post a link.
gelfling545
@eemom: I know a few people like this. They put their interest in opposing abortion or otherwise enacting their moral agenda ahead of financial interests. Some of them are now suffering for it as their income is slashed or gone. Whether they still feel the trade off was a good one, I can’t say.
AA+ Bonds
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I think Taibbi would actually agree with my comment 100%.
Taibbi (and Ames, and the eXile) are some of the best examples of how resentment IS a real need and interest of people, and how that resentment can be positively harnessed on the left.
You have to admit the need and then pursue it with vigor. And that is exactly what the Tea Party has done, because it’s easier, since the rise of Rand, for the right to claim base needs as in line with their political positions.
As Taibbi experienced with the eXile, it’s much harder for the left, especially the timid snifflers among the moneyed left, to recognize this interest and capitalize on it.
eemom
@geg6:
my daughter told me she saw on FB that Stewart is a “friend” of John McCain. I had a hard time ‘splainin that one.
gmknobl
@Kay Shawn:
I was taught in middle school, by a pretty blatantly, commie hating conservative that corporations were, by definition, unimoral. That is, it is a mistake to call them amoral because they do have a moral but only one – making money. The will always do anything they can, over time to make more money. This makes all sorts of legislation, restrictions and inspections necessary because without them, you end up with what we have today.
By the way, while liberal, I agreed with her on the commie thing too. It’s just another side of the same coin. I don’t “hate communists,” whether it be the people of the traditional Stalinist style government or Chinese style communism, I see that it’s another side of the same coin, that of a few trying to gain all the riches and power from the many.
arguingwithsignposts
Not time to read through all the comments right now, but Chicago Traders have responded with their own signs: We are the 1 percent (Think Progress link).
Chris
@AA+ Bonds:
… and, who think the Nazis will protect them from uppity working-class movements like Communists or Social-Democrats, who were still a big deal back then. Middle class fear of the working class and how much they might lose if the latter threw a revolution was a big factor in terrifying people into the Nazis’ arms.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TooManyJens: “We are the 1%”? Wow. really? Taunting the electorate? Makes “Let them eat cake” seem like a cleverly crafted bit of pro-aristocrat messaging/
@geg6:
I’m sure his interview with The Mustache of SuckOnThis provided some unintended moments of comedy, but I still couldn’t bring myself to watch.
NonyNony
@arguingwithsignposts:
“Let them eat cake” clearly would have required too many windows.
ETA: Scooped on the Marie Antoinette reference by Jim. Damn.
Dougerhead
@trollhattan:
Yes, this is making me think that the Colbert-Stewart thing wasn’t the waste of time that I originally thought.
Villago Delenda Est
@gmknobl:
Stalin’s model of the USSR (which up until Gorbachev, his successors did not fundamentally change) was basically a state capitalist society, with a single monopolistic conglomerate running the whole shebang.
Poorly.
Roger Moore
@beltane:
I think 53% is supposed to be the people who pay federal income tax. So they’re claiming to be the producers who are actually paying to keep things running (ignoring all the other taxes people too poor to pay federal income tax pay) while the OWS people are the moochers who aren’t paying their fair share.
AA+ Bonds
Time to go but I’m hoping that the pro-union position will get held down by some of the faithful here. It’s imperative that Democrats listen to it and absorb it, that is, if they want their country back.
Brachiator
As an aside, BBC History magazine has an interesting article about a strike by largely working class school kids.
In 1911.
Even though the total number of striking students were small, the strikes were widespread.
The kids had been radicalized by their parents. This scared the crap out of the authorities.
Kids.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@cleek:
Or to give the same answer from a different direction: it was already a north against south thing and has been for some time. On the whole, that hasn’t worked well for us. Time to change the rules of the game.
trollhattan
@geg6:
I agree to a point but also think but the reason folks turned out–and there were a lot of folks there–had little to do with how Stewart crafted his message. I suspect they’d have accepted the gift of raw meat had it been offered up, and run with it.
They’re still out there, reachable.
Nemesis
Its the media and the rw opposition, not mutually exclusive, who are clammoring for a clue as to what Occupy is all about. There is an information vacuum currently. Expect the status quo lovers to step in with a VSP-worthy, decidedly incorrect, answer.
Frankly, its early in the birthing of this “movement”. Who knows what is to come. But one thing is for sure.
Apocolypic levels of shit will rain down on Occupy from all the usual suspects. Can we, or can any fledgling movement, sustain such an onslaught?
Amanda in the South Bay
@AA+ Bonds:
Jesus, no one is being anti-union here. Scott Walker’s existence doesn’t negate the fact that unions sometimes do engage in fuckwadery. No person or institution is perfect.
joeyess
Handy map to an Occupy event near you.
AA+ Bonds
@Chris:
Hey, and if I thought that threat was realistic in America, I’d say, “calm it down, you extremely successful left-wing revolutionaries!” (Although I don’t really think the Social Democrats were perceived as a threat by anyone except the traditional right in Germany, just as impotent to solve Germany’s problems.)
As it stands, though, any comparisons of the American left to the Weimar KPD is facile propaganda that must be countered immediately. The “fear of the fear of the left” is an overwhelming weakness of the Democrats that owes a lot to mis(?)calculation by the moneyed DLC interests that captured it in previous decades.
geg6
@eemom:
I don’t understand why you’d have a hard time with it. I would just tell her that he sucks up to “power” as much as or possibly more than anyone else in the MSM and why would she think he’s any different than David Gregory?
He’s not. Colbert, OTOH, totally is. And that is why the David Gregories of the world hate, hate, hate him.
Culture of Truth
That reading jives with my own visits to Zuccotti Park –
It jives with my own visit as well. Having said that, it helps to visit the park itself, something few people can do. And even visiting, let’s be honest, it is indeed, a “a mish-mash of grievances,” in which a clear unifying thread becomes clear, yes but with some effort to tease it out.
gmknobl
@Villago Delenda Est:
So then, we agree.
One area I never liked studying in college was Russian History. Call it what you will but it was obvious just a power grab by a few. So, your statement says what I’ve been thinking. No real difference except in how much money was made by each side.
However, if you want to talk history of technology or civil war a know a *bit* more.
Rob Eberhardt
I just registered 99hat.com and would gladly donate the domain to any kind of hat effort
AA+ Bonds
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Yeah, but this is not the time nor the place. That’s what I keep saying, over and over and over. I don’t come onto public forums to slime my friends “for their own good”.
This is something that right now, the right handles well and the left handles poorly. The right is opening up the gap by departing from economics departments across the country over the debt ceiling, cap & trade, etc. and the Obama administration is very cleverly capitalizing on it.
The Republicans will attempt – hell, they ARE attempting – to make the union issue into something that splits Democrats, counting on the way the Democrats split themselves over the issue as the DLC spread “unions are lazy, unions are against progress, union workers don’t care about non-union workers” all over the media in the 1990s.
These narratives need to die, and you and I need to kill them, especially as unions quickly become some of the ONLY advocates for social programs that benefit non-union workers.
Now it’s REALLY time for me to go . . .
ChrisNYC
Total straw man. I haven’t heard or read people saying there is “no message.” I have heard and have said that there is no goal. I’ve also been told that that’s a totally awesome and necessary feature. Don’t be so defensive — embrace it!
The unions got a permit for today. :)
Bill E Pilgrim
@AA+ Bonds: I don’t think Matt Taibbi or anyone else you cite would agree with you that poor people voting against their own interest “is NOT the problem”, to quote you.
Of course resentment can be aimed in in different directions, harnessed, or not. That’s my whole point.
If someone’s resentment has been twisted into hating “hippies” or gay people or some other group that’s doing them no harm, economically or otherwise, and then voting based on that, then they’re voting against their own interest.
Somehow turning that into… “no they’re not, because their resentment is real” — that’s missing the point entirely, or turning it in some weird direction just for argument’s sake or who knows what you’re doing.
Yes, their emotions are real. Having them manipulated and aimed in directions that hurt them, rather than help them, that’s what Taibbi’s on about in the above. And I agree.
geg6
@Roger Moore:
Funny thing is that the vast majority of people I know who are most pissed off about the economy (and who are raving liberals, for the most part) are a part of that 53%. And we hate those assholes who are dimwit enough to think that this somehow trumps the label of 99%.
@arguingwithsignposts:
And these dickheads make more $$ than I do? Oh well. At least we know where they are when we roll out the tumbrels.
beltane
Thanks, everyone for explaining “We are the 53%” to me. It fits in perfectly with the wingnut response to all this, which is something along the lines of “Be grateful we don’t exterminate you, you ungrateful moochers.”
Most of the RW tweets at #OccupyWallStreet look like they were written by RealityCheck or Brick Oven Bill. My arthritis has been awful these past few days so I’m really grateful for the therapeutic laughter the wingnuts have provided.
wrb
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
agree
cleek
everyone should probably avoid looking at 1percent.com at work.
unless your boss has a liberal drug policy…
Jennifer
For everyone who’s concerned that there isn’t a coherent enough “message” here, to me it seems it’s the one I’ve been ranting about lo these many years when lamenting why the Democrats suck so bad at messaging that they won’t just pick it up and say it:
“There’s something profoundly anti-democratic in the notion that the highest calling for a supposedly democratic government is to help aid those with the most in accumulating more, at the expense of the majority.”
Because that’s what we have, in a nutshell: a government bent towards always helping the comfortable at the expense of the afflicted. That’s why farm subsidies are set up in such a way as to help huge agribusiness concerns put small farmers out of business. It’s why the tax code incentivizes corporate mergers, offshore tax havens, and offshoring jobs. It’s why instead of being able to take your case to a jury of your peers when a huge corporation blatantly ass-rapes you, you instead get to go to an arbitrator paid by the huge corporation that ass-raped you, who, surprise surprise, finds in favor of the corporation cutting his check something like 95% of the time. It’s why the wealthy get bailed out while the poor get shit upon. The whole agenda is to make serfs and slaves of us all. It’s not enough that these fuckers have to have ALL the damned money…they won’t be happy unless the rest of us actively suffer as well.
Cat Lady
There are necessary and sufficient conditions for OWS to make the impact we all want. The protesters have created the necessary condition and NO ONE here has a problem with that. To deny that it’s sufficient is just stupid though, and that’s where the right message for the right goal comes in. “We’re the 99%” appears to be the right message since it’s making it’s way into the discourse – but now the tricky part comes. It has to start coming into more focus, sooner than later.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
In the case of the teabaggers, there are other factors in play that drive their fears, not purely economic ones, which skews things for quite a few observers. Noam Chomsky, for example, sees the economic aspect, but does not grok the other things. Ralph Nader has the same blinders when he dismisses casually cultural aspects like gay rights as “distractions.” The fear of the brown and darker, of people in the streets speaking a language you can’t understand, the fear of the “liberal”, of someone who doesn’t share your sexual hangups flaunting those hangups, the fear, quite simply, of change.
It drives the train…things are changing, it’s out of their control, and we have to go back to a past that never was.
It never, ever occurs to them to do what they so often advise when they get their way…”get over it”.
eemom
@geg6:
because we’ve always liked Stewart in our household. I haven’t watched him in quite some time but AFAIK he’s still at least funny.
I also don’t think I’d put him in the same class as David Gregory. He has at least done some great work in the past.
RP
Maybe the next step is to organize some sort of brief nationwide strike. A few million people refusing to work for a half day or something would send a powerful message.
Paul in KY
@AA+ Bonds: If your resentment is misplaced, & when you vote for that misplaced resentment, you ‘satisfy’ something in yourself. Thus, that’s a reasonable reason to vote (is that what you are saying)?
RP
Here’s a more colloquial version:
We’re sick of getting screwed.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jennifer:
I’m convinced that there are sociopaths amongst the top 1% who simply cannot enjoy their meals unless they know, with certitude, that others are starving.
singfoom
Agreed. Anyone who doesn’t get the issue at this point either can’t read or is being deliberately obtuse.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
I don’t know how true this is. Fact is, the ball got rolling with Thatcher and Reagan around 1980, and it was already well on its way by the time the Berlin Wall came down. Winning the Cold War may have given a lot of prestige to Thatcher/Reagan (never mind whether they actually did it, they were perceived as having done so and that’s all that matters), in the same way winning World War Two did to Roosevelt and his people, but as with Roosevelt, much of the agenda was already in place. The only difference winning the Cold War made was that it allowed neoliberalism to spread to even more places.
Fear of communism made people react in different ways. Yes, some people were scared into making concessions for poor and downtrodden people so they wouldn’t revolt. But others were scared into hysteria and crack down on these people twice as hard as before. By the time the Berlin Wall came down, the latter were already running this country, and much of the “free world.”
Cat Lady
deny=insist. Ugh. I hate the mobile app.
Roger Moore
@cleek:
Oddly enough, that’s just fine with my company’s web filter, but occupylosangeles is blocked. Priorities!
singfoom
@Villago Delenda Est: I dunno, I would say sociopathy is a necessary requirement for being in the 1% at this point. Though, I’ve only met two people in the 1%. Anecdotes are not evidence, but I can say IMHO Charles Koch fits within that category.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
This.
It’s even more of a fail when you realize that many of them realize exactly how much control the richest 1% have over this country, but react by saying that we should bow even lower and cut their taxes by even more, and for GOD’s sake don’t look them in the eye, we can’t provoke their righteous wrath.
eemom
@Bill E Pilgrim:
This. I don’t see the point of engaging in linguistic contortions over what the meaning of “interest” is, or trying to come up with some farfetched theory about future generations which is pretty laughable as an explanation of what actually motivates these people.
These people are always, always, ALWAYS voting against their RATIONAL ECONOMIC interests, and that is not only a HUGE fucking problem, it is a tragedy.
TooManyJens
@cleek: I am so glad I work at a university.
cleek
@Roger Moore:
i can see it too. but i’d rather not have that one showing up on my web logs at work!
lame.
Mino
This go-round there isn’t much middle class left to align with the industrialists. No Nazis for us, I guess. Even the upper middle is eyeballing their betters with worry.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: The ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ as it were. It all depended on what the meaning of ‘of’ was ;-)
cckids
@TooManyJens: Amen. Bring the guillotines THERE. Brag about your luck in being wealthy in this country? Fuck you. If you cannot see that a huge part of getting rich here is LUCK, you are a blind fool. Sure, you may have worked hard, but thousands work harder than you–I guarantee it.
Paul in KY
@AA+ Bonds: I think the Domocratic pols saw how skillfully Nixon/Agnew manipulated selected images of late 60s young protestors & that has scared the shit out of them ever since.
Paul in KY
@gmknobl: I loved Russian history. Very, very interesting, IMO.
Paul in KY
@eemom: Stewart has to get big name guests from both sides (or feels he has to). Thus, he has to make nicey with some of them.
Colbert just doesn’t give a shit. He could do a whole show without guests & it wouldn’t hurt him or change his shtick.
gmknobl
Very simple, not so great, logo.
Do with these what you will.
What I like about them:
1) red, white and blue
2) parody of the Union 76 gas company logo. I think that’s appropriate
3) It does say Union to anyone who remembers the parodied symbol
4) Should be easy to make a patch and sew or print onto anything, like a cap, especially with the gif being transparent outside the red circle
What I don’t like:
1) edges aren’t sharp
2) quick and dirty so a little un-professional
I hope someone can use it. Consider it my contribution.
Union 99 version 1
Union 99 version 2
These can be viewed as a parody, which they are.
El Cid
Can someone please remind right wingers who moan that about half of American workers pay federal income taxes that it was Ronald Reagan and the Heritage Foundation who expanded the EITC so much that this happened?
Because income taxes were evil and that this immoral burden should be lifted off the poorest workers so that they could lift themselves up to a better life
Could people please tell them to take it the fuck up with their SuperGod Ronaldus Maximus Reaganicus?
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
I always thought “state capitalism” was just the communist way to wipe the slate clean by applying the C word to Uncle Joe and saying “well, he wasn’t REALLY one of us, he was really one of THEM” – kind of like teabaggers who run around going “Bush was a liberal! Bush was a liberal!”
So, what’s the difference between “state capitalism” and the traditional, orthodox “state control of the means of production” (IOW a state-run monopoly of the economy)? Which is to say, the Socialist stage of social evolution as predicted by Marx? That’s not a rhetorical question, I’m genuinely curious to know if there’s a difference.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Chris:
I can’t speak for VDE, but the dynamic which I’m thinking about when I post similar ideas (that we are in a self-inflicted crisis of post-Communist capitalism) has as much to do with bad corporate governance as it does with public policy. With regard to the latter I could post counter-examples of reasonably rational (or at least not-insane) decision making by GOP leaders during the Reagan and GHB administrations which would never happen today, but the larger point is that today our top level owner/manager class has lost its collective mind and is running the corporations they have stewardship of in a manner which even a reasonably bright and well informed 5th grader can see is non-sustainable and if not reformed quickly is heading directly for collapse both at a corporate level and at a broader social level.
Bad corporate behavior prior to 1991 tended to be parasitic but out-and-out looting in which even the shareholders get raped, of the sort which came to public attention via the 2008 financial crisis, was a rarity. Today it is much more widespread and IMHO it looks like we’ve passed a tipping point in that regard. Both our public policy making and our corporate governance structures are in a state of systemic crisis.
Chris
God damn, I HATE WP.
@Villago Delenda Est:
I always thought “state capitalism” was just the communist way to wipe the slate clean by applying the C word to Uncle Joe and saying “well, he wasn’t REALLY one of us, he was really one of THEM” – kind of like teabaggers who run around going “Bush was a liberal! Bush was a liberal!”
So, what’s the difference between “state capitalism” and the traditional, orthodox “state control of the means of production” (IOW a state-run monopoly of the economy)? Which is to say, the Soshulist stage of social evolution as predicted by Marx? That’s not a rhetorical question, I’m genuinely curious to know if there’s a difference.
Cat
My English is terrible even though ostensibly its my first language, but I dispute that.
“This maybe too militant [for Balloon Juice], but a Union [Army] cap with a
patch with“99” patch on it could turn into a powerful symbol”We’ve declared war on this foe twice in our history, most recently it was the Civil War. This foe is the people who believe they are entitled to fruits of your economic labor with out giving you any compensation for it. If they are forced to compensate you they will give you the least amount of compensation they can even if leads them to ending up with less in the long run.
I don’t believe you can reason with them, you just have to make the consequences of them not being reasonable so obvious that only the very anti-social of them will break to social norms of tit-for-tat fairness.
El Cid
@Chris: China’s Communist Party did something wildly innovative [in the past few years] in Marxian theory by allowing capitalists to be part of the Communist Party.
‘Cause, you know, fuck it. We’ll do whatever the hell we want because we can. Our tyrannical feudal capitalism (there are still roughly 900 million peasants in China) can have all the contradictions in the Universe, as long as we get the money we want.
gmknobl
If someone needs the originals, I can email them. They aren’t big. And someone with better photoshopping skills can do a better job. Just give me some credit somewhere, somehow.
Morzer
Can we call it a “liberty cap”? Too revolutionary? Too much like class warfare?
wrb
@Chris:
Both are true.
The fall Soviet Union has led Americans to risk the country, to no longer treat its health as something on which all of our very existences depend, to an extent that would have been unimaginable. The Republicans would have been fried in the media and in public opinion for what they did during debt ceiling crisis.
However, independently, by the the beginning of the Reagan administration, the generation that had felt the pain of the Depression were out of power, and the safeguards they had installed were being removed.
TooManyJens
@El Cid:
What, that RINO? He’s just popular with the liberal media because they want to marginalize REAL conservatives.
…OK, I’m freaking myself out here.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
The more time passes, the more the rule of the Chinese Communists circa 1949 to present looks like a recapitulation of the early years of the Ming dynasty. They’ve been acting very, very Chinese and not really all that Communist, except where the latter overlaps with the former.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Cat:
Big difference today vs 1865 is that this time around Wall St is on the side of the Confederates. Of course I’d argue that this is because revolving consumer debt as it has mutated and metastasized over the last couple of decades is 21st century sharecropping in disguise, but it doesn’t change the fact that the poles of power are aligned differently today.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
Chris, I think a lot of Communists/Marxists are about as ignorant of the philosophical roots of their own momevent as free marketeers are of theirs.
Marx was inspired by Adam Smith. The central paradigm of The Wealth of Nations is that all wealth is derived from the efforts of human labor, and all measurements of wealth are measurements of the human effort that brought it forward. Everything else is commentary on the details of distribution, and furthermore on how division of labor increases the value. It’s the labor theory of value that is so often decried as “Marxism” just because Marx was pointing out how the system was skewed to allow moochers, if you will, to withhold value from the people who did the production for the benefit of the moochers.
Rand turned this entire thing upside down, and her followers don’t get (her heroes certainly do not) that no matter how clever their ideas are, to implement them requires the efforts of others for those brilliant ideas to be made real. Yet Rand dismisses everything that makes it possible for her words to go out to the masses…this is illustrated by her insistence on sabotaging the film adaptations of her works through rigid control of the presentation…which results in FAIL. She refuses to accept that some people MIGHT have a better idea of how to get her ideas out there than she does…and thus they’re “mooching” off her brilliance.
Kay Shawn
@gmknobl:
It’s not that the corporations are “unimoral,” but that they now behave like mob extortionists…demanding protection money, in the form of tax breaks and looser regulations, so they won’t move their business away. Why do businesses get a pass when it comes to upholding the fabric of society??
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
To answer this directly, that depends on the nature of the state, does it not?
Corporations are VERY authoritarian things. The degree to which they are less authoritarian (input from the lowest levels is welcome, for example) varies a great deal.
If the state is a rigid authoritarian, top down model, as Stalin’s paradigm was, then you’re going to see something very similar to the top down model of the MBA controlled corporation, where the goal is to maximize “shareholder value” (which has become a euphemism for “make the MBAs richer”), crush competitors and make things as static as you can, so that you can implement your brilliant plans without the interference of, um, reality.
Svensker
@redshirt:
The Ministry of Truth will be in touch shortly. Prepare for Reeducation!
gmknobl
@Kay Shawn
They are unimoral. They do anything just to make money, whether it’s right nor not. They do extort, bribe, etc. because the overriding moral to “make money” is the only thing they follow. Greed is good. Ayn Rand would be very happy with them.
A while back someone analyzed a few corporations based on the idea that they are people, which everyone knows is ridiculous, even in law. They found that corporations are sociopaths. This fits right in with what I’m saying and I think you’re agreeing with.@Kay Shawn:
Cain
@redshirt:
I’m with you as well.. I’ve had the same problem as well. They won’t even let you plug something into a wall socket. They take the rules very seriously and I’m okay with that, but for godsakes do it in a reasonable time frame. There is a certain lack of “customer service” that don’t get.
My brother who works in Detroit, has a lot of complaints against unions. I would love to discuss those things with union members just to understand that perspective but right now all I got is my perspective.
Chris
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
This. I think a lot of liberals just don’t appreciate just how much of our past victories were owed to cooperation with the bad guys – namely, we passed the reforms of the last century largely by playing the Confederates against the robber-barons. (Not unlike how Americans like to ignore, say, the Russian contribution to World War Two).
Liberals + Confederates (the racists who eventually left us in the 1960s) = New Deal.
Liberals + Robber-Barons (the Republicans who actually contributed more votes to the Civil Rights Act) = civil rights.
Today, like you said, the Confederates and the robber-barons are on the same side, so we can’t do that anymore.
LBJ knew (and said as much) that we were handing the South to the Republicans, he could probably see this coming a mile away… but I think he made the bet that liberals would be able to hold the line until the country became less racist, to the point that you could fight against the robber barons AND the Confederates simultaneously, and still have a winning coalition. Jury’s still out on that. Here’s to him having been right.
Chris
Thanks to VDE for both the Marxism-related answers, also too. Two posts full of things I either didn’t know or hadn’t thought about much.
Villago Delenda Est
@gmknobl:
Corporations don’t have to be this way, but in the United States, they are, by law, allowed only to think of profit. When Henry Ford (of all people) wanted to improve working conditions to boost productivity and to allow his employees the opportunity to buy his own products, he was taken to court by some of his investors (to include the Dodge brothers) for not focusing on profit above all other things.
Ford lost.
The Founding Fathers had a VERY skeptical view of the corporation, overall, due to their experiences with crown sanctioned monopolies like the “Honorable East India Company”.
The Boston Tea Party targeted a corporation, you know.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
You’re welcome.
One of the things you can do for pure malicious glee is find passages from The Wealth of Nations(when you read it, they will jump right at you off the page, they’re that good) and post them on some glibertarian website and watch the glibertarians howl about Marxist you are.
Then you reveal the source, and let the hilarity begin.
Linda Featheringill
@Nemesis: #106
This is especially true as more people catch on to what they are really saying.
jpe
That’s a terrible reading of the case, VDE, and of the law as it stands.
Cat
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
TPTB are always on the side of the 1% until the stability of society is threatened. Child labor laws, the right to unionized, or not having the fire escapes locked are all examples of causes everyone was against until everyone was for them.
Think of the 1% as simple actors, they will consume everything that they can lay their hands on without regard to consequences. The only way to lower their consumption is to make the risks far out weigh the rewards.
edit:
When I say “everyone” I mean “everyone in the 1% and TPTB”.
Linda Featheringill
@cleek:
one percent dot com
Uh . . . what is the “vaporizer” for? Converting something to mist I understand but converting what?
Villago Delenda Est
@jpe:
Ah, so please explain, effendi?
Are for profit corporations nothing but machines to make money, or not? Are there any other values allowed? The fact that Ford was looking beyond the current fiscal quarter as far as profit was concerned seemed to be slapped down, hard.
There was a time, in the not so distant past, where making a profit, at any price, in order to satisfy the wolves of Wall Street, was not the agenda of the American Corporation.
Now it’s keep your growth figures up no matter what the cost, as we learned in the entire mortgage mess. Even if that means you’re ultimately setting yourself up for MASSIVE fail.
JCT
I love this Cain quote from today:
The Republican “way” in a nutshell.
Naveen
The point isn’t whether or not they have a concrete platform right now. Neither did the Tea Party in the beginning. What matters is that they are a strong voice from the Left, and that they are organizing now all over the country. This (could) mean pressure for Democrats in primaries, and a much needed boost to Democrats come the general election.
Or they go third party and fuck everything up. We are talking about liberals here.
BBA
@Villago Delenda Est: Modern corporate law is, if anything, worse than Dodge v. Ford. Nowadays it’s extremely difficult for shareholders to challenge a corporate action as not being in the shareholders’ best interest. So, instead of screwing customers and employees to enrich shareholders, corporate executives can now screw customers, employees, AND shareholders to enrich themselves.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
I s’pose we owe Captain Jack Sparrow a debt of gratitude for showing our founding fathers the way, then.
Chris
@JCT:
Man, that’s rich coming from the people who blame the poor for the collapse of the economy and immigrants for the loss of jobs they don’t want to do anyway, who refuse to admit that the United States has EVER done anything wrong in its life and throw a tantrum when their president recognizes that it may have, and who scream BIG GOVERNMENT!!! every time they stub their big toe.
Fuck Hermain Cain and the whole lot of rats he rode in on.
redshirt
Also too: REM
polyorchnid octopunch
@Robert: I’m sorry, there was no way there wasn’t going to be any “they’re aimless” nonsense. It’s not like US news and media aren’t owned by the 1%ers.
polyorchnid octopunch
Well, when it comes to prescriptions to come out of the ows protests, I highly recommend getting Congress to bring back usury laws at the national level. I’d suggest capping interest at about 8% (fits in with Adam Smith’s recommendation for usury laws) and any outstanding debt currently charging more than that gets put back down to that level. Credit cards, third mortgages, the whole shebang… if it’s costing more than 8% it gets set at 8%, no exceptions.
I’d say that’s even more important than reinstating Glass-Steagall, though G-S is very nearly as important.
El Cid
@Chris:
I don’t know why this myth survives. It’s not like Wikipedia’s alien.
Republicans did not contribute more votes to the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
For all the segregationist Southern Democrats, there were a lot more non-Southern Democrats.
The bills passed with an overwhelming majority of Democrats. Republicans were crucial to that victory; they did not contribute more votes.
Steve
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Actually, NYC was pretty much a pro-slavery city back in the day, due to trade with the South. Probably more sympathetic to the Confederacy than any other Northern city.
Jebediah
@eemom:
Just read it. The bit at the end about the bankster asking if he should be worried warmed my heart. I hope he is sleeping really uneasily these days.
Jebediah
@Linda Featheringill:
Someone else has prolly already answered, but it vaporizes weed so that you can get the THC etc. without sucking in actual smoke. Easier on the throat and lungs. Not that I would know. But mine works OK.
Xenos
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Not really. Up until the attack on Fort Sumter, Wall Street was heavily invested in the Cotton and Slave Financing business. Indeed, there was a ‘Slave Bubble’, as the end of the slave trade resulted in very high prices in slaves, supported by a financial system that made a lot of money supporting and inflating that bubble. The south knew it would be financially ruined by the popping of that bubble, and were freaked out by it.
Where is a 19th Century Economic Historian when you need one?
gmknobl
@Villago Delenda Est:
You’re sounding more and more like an historian, which I am by education but not by job.
Yes, I am fully aware what the Boston Tea Party was about, which is why the “Tea Party” is so humorous and infuriating, the uneducated idiots, and what the Founding Fathers thought of corporations. But perception is one of the things that drives politics, not much else. Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain! And emotions are what drives choice in elections more often than not.
Anyway, just because long established tradition makes what corporations different here in the U.S. or anywhere doesn’t make it right nor immutable. Slavery was long established in tradition and law. So were many things. It just means it will be difficult to make changes. But that’s what is needed. Big change. We need to change the political dialog in this country, go back to some older way of doing things and change some new and some old established laws. We need to right old and new wrongs.
It’s time for a redressing. It’s time for change. Real change not just change in name only by Dinos or Rinos. Make the rich pay! Make big corporations pay! In more ways than monetary but legally pay for their wrongs.
Make the rich pay! Make big corporations pay!
gmknobl
@Xenos:
Sorry, my area of expertise as an undergraduate were Civil War and History of Technology but I didn’t cover an economic bubble. The closest we got to was to see that slavery was nonviable in the long run and was pretty much running its course by the Civil War, which was really what the war was about, despite claims elsewhere that it was about states rights, which were important but more of a side issue to distract people from the real issues at the heart of things. It all led back to slavery and its roots were very old by that time.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m reading it right now. About 1/5th way through. The book is not that hard a read. Certainly much easier to read & follow than ‘Origin of the Species’, for example.