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shadowkatFinished watching Hugh Laurie's New Orleans special on PBS, which was disappointing. He's a better piano player than singer, I think.
In other news, am rather amused by sudden postings on lj regarding Occupy Wall Street - I'm guessing they finally made the international news? Certainly took them long enough.
This has been going on for about three to four weeks now (or about a month - that's a long time to be camping out in a park, those mattresses are getting soggy.). The first two weeks? They had no clue what their message should be - everyone just camped out in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan with their lap-tops, iphones and ipads, and air mattresses, and painted on cardboard signs a variety of messages. Two weekends ago, long-time social activist Susan Sarandon visited them and said - "guys, this is great and all, but it would help everyone greatly if we knew what you were protesting. You need a specific goal or message. And clear demands." Very true. To aid them in this endeavor - TWU (Transit Workers Union) got involved and lended their support - so far that support amounts to telling the MTA that it shouldn't allow the police to use public buses and subways to transport protesters to and from prison - disrupting regular customers commutes . Not entirely sure if this helps or hurts the protesters. But the TWU isn't known for being either logical or organized either, even within the MTA. (The MTA has over 300 unions, the TWU is just the strongest and biggest - so they get all the attention.) The message did become a bit clearer after that happened - which was this weekend, when they decided to do an "unauthorized" protest march across the Brooklyn Bridge. See, here's the thing about NYC - you have to get permits to do protest marches on busy city streets and bridges...because otherwise you become a public safety hazard and prevent ambulances and emergency traffic from getting through and cause all sorts of chaos. But it does certainly get you a lot of attention. Hence the reason for doing it. The whole point is to get arrested!
And here's why:
Slutwalk - Protest Against Victim Blaming in Rape Cases took place in Union Square. They walked to the park and protested. No one got arrested.
Most likely because no one was disrupting traffic and being a safety hazard. It was also better organized and had a clear message - although they also didn't get on the National or International News. No one on Facebook or LJ is posting about them, did anyone even know about it? It got buried under the Occupy Wall Street Protest March.
Say what you will about that march on the Brooklyn Bridge on Sat - it certainly got International attention, up until Sat, no one seemed to know or care that much about it, except those of us in NYC who keep reading about it and seeing it on NY1 or the people who had to pass it on their way to work. Which I think was the whole point of that march - they had to do something major to get that type of attention. And it worked. Up until that point, the city was more or less tolerating them. (Outside of a few isolated incidents, such as the cop who pepper sprayed four-five twenty something women in the park and got death threats, as did his kids as a result of this action. I don't know why people feel the need to kill him or his kids. It was just pepper spray, painful yes, but people, seriously - it's not his kids fault. The hacker group "Anynomous" leaked the cops name and his kids names and whereabouts on the internet. ) The city still appears to be tolerating their presence in Zuccotti Park - how long that will last most likely has to do with weather and public safety issues.
On Sat - 700 arrested for disrupting one lane of traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. It should be noted they walked across the "traffic lanes or car/truck/bus lane" not the pedestrian overpass above, specifically designed for people to walk and bike across the Bridge. Because what would be the point in that? Also if they got a permit first - hard to do in any event - they wouldn't have gotten international attention - they would have been ignored like Slutwalk was. After all lots of people protest and lead protests in NYC.
Can't say I'm surprised by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Been waiting for it to happen for quite some time now. Took longer than I thought it would, to be honest. And the people protesting - are not the homeless or the working class/working poor. (How do I know this? Because they have iphones, ipads, lap-tops, and mattresses, also bunsen burners - which there is some controversy over, because hello, fire hazard. They allegedly got arrested the first weekend for putting up illegal tents in the park in order to protect the lap-tops.) They are the disenfranchized and dissatisfied middle and upper middle class. Just like the people in Egypt were the disenfranchized middle class. Mostly in their 20s and 30s. Unemployed. Up to their eyeballs in student debt from expensive schools. And wondering where are those entry-level or mid-level jobs? They can't get ahead.
They can't get a job. (And unlike when I was in this situation way back in the 1980s and first half of the 1990s - I wasn't in a major urban area and the vast majority of people weren't in it with me. And school was cheaper back then. I went to law school for about $3K a year, possibly less. Now? It's closer to 30K. My undergrad when I went? 15K, now? 52K. That's a big change. And there's higher unemployment and no one's salary has gone up, well except for the big guys on Wall Street and in the Entertainment Industry.)
If you look at history - all the major upheavals were due to a disenfranchized or dissatisfied middle class, often upper middle class. Marx had it all wrong - it wasn't the rise of the proletariat, it was the fury of the bourgeoisie who suddenly found themselves down in the dumps with the proletariat - homeless, unemployed, and no chance of a future - while the rich tyrants got to have luxury lifestyles. Historically? The Revolutionary War in the US was started by middle class landowners, the merchant class. The French Revolution? Middle class or merchant class who got pissed with the aristocrats. The Bolshevik Revolution? Middle Class. Nazi Germany? Middle Class. Arab Spring? Young Educated Middle Class.
NYC? We have a 150,000 homeless population. 9% unemployment rate. Rents are going up. The gap between the rich and poor is huge. The middle class is diminishing. We can't get ahead. And it's very clear in NYC that 20% of the population is sharing 85% of the Gross National Product. People are furious. And the easy scape-goat is the rich, Wall Street, the CEOs, the bankers...which from my perspective is far less scary response and far more reasonable one than some other possibilities.
Also in a way, the big corporations are to blame. Their continuous gobbling up of smaller companies, spreading out, and taking on more than they could chew. AIG, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wellpoint, EBSCO, etc...all are to blame. The mergers and acquisitions, the laizzez faire economic measures, the Capitalism gone insane...has resulted in unemployment, homelessness, and suffering. Inevitable. That's why regulations were put in place back in the 1930s to try and prevent another great depression. Striping those away over time...has lead us here. We only have ourselves to blame.
Do I think the Occupy Wall Street Movement will have an effect? Not sure. It feels like a counter-response to the whiny Baby Boomers Tea Party strategy, which annoyed me to no end. I have a lot more sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street Group - at least they are educated and not racist and targeting the correct culprits. Also, they have a reason to be furious, not so sure the Tea Party does.
Part of the problem is, and I've been seeing this coming for a while now: We have the Baby Boomer generation unable to retire in the style they envisioned due to the crash of the stock market and housing crisis (I'm working with most of these people and they are all annoyed that they can't retire like they planned), and we have the young generation, the grandkids or kids of the Baby Boomers - unemployed and furious. Something's got to give.
I see a class war on the horizon. Have for quite some time now. Just was sort of hoping it would wait until I left NYC (which with my luck will be the epi-center of it) or I died. Really don't want to be around for it.
[Dear Charitable organization...while I do support your cause (in this case Breast Cancer), the way to get me to contribute funds to it is not by bullying me over the phone with a guilt trip after I've politely requested that you take me off your list. It is none of your business what charities I choose to support or why. How would you feel if I called you and bullied you to send money to Alzthemiers or Food Bank?]
In other news, am rather amused by sudden postings on lj regarding Occupy Wall Street - I'm guessing they finally made the international news? Certainly took them long enough.
This has been going on for about three to four weeks now (or about a month - that's a long time to be camping out in a park, those mattresses are getting soggy.). The first two weeks? They had no clue what their message should be - everyone just camped out in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan with their lap-tops, iphones and ipads, and air mattresses, and painted on cardboard signs a variety of messages. Two weekends ago, long-time social activist Susan Sarandon visited them and said - "guys, this is great and all, but it would help everyone greatly if we knew what you were protesting. You need a specific goal or message. And clear demands." Very true. To aid them in this endeavor - TWU (Transit Workers Union) got involved and lended their support - so far that support amounts to telling the MTA that it shouldn't allow the police to use public buses and subways to transport protesters to and from prison - disrupting regular customers commutes . Not entirely sure if this helps or hurts the protesters. But the TWU isn't known for being either logical or organized either, even within the MTA. (The MTA has over 300 unions, the TWU is just the strongest and biggest - so they get all the attention.) The message did become a bit clearer after that happened - which was this weekend, when they decided to do an "unauthorized" protest march across the Brooklyn Bridge. See, here's the thing about NYC - you have to get permits to do protest marches on busy city streets and bridges...because otherwise you become a public safety hazard and prevent ambulances and emergency traffic from getting through and cause all sorts of chaos. But it does certainly get you a lot of attention. Hence the reason for doing it. The whole point is to get arrested!
And here's why:
Slutwalk - Protest Against Victim Blaming in Rape Cases took place in Union Square. They walked to the park and protested. No one got arrested.
Most likely because no one was disrupting traffic and being a safety hazard. It was also better organized and had a clear message - although they also didn't get on the National or International News. No one on Facebook or LJ is posting about them, did anyone even know about it? It got buried under the Occupy Wall Street Protest March.
Say what you will about that march on the Brooklyn Bridge on Sat - it certainly got International attention, up until Sat, no one seemed to know or care that much about it, except those of us in NYC who keep reading about it and seeing it on NY1 or the people who had to pass it on their way to work. Which I think was the whole point of that march - they had to do something major to get that type of attention. And it worked. Up until that point, the city was more or less tolerating them. (Outside of a few isolated incidents, such as the cop who pepper sprayed four-five twenty something women in the park and got death threats, as did his kids as a result of this action. I don't know why people feel the need to kill him or his kids. It was just pepper spray, painful yes, but people, seriously - it's not his kids fault. The hacker group "Anynomous" leaked the cops name and his kids names and whereabouts on the internet. ) The city still appears to be tolerating their presence in Zuccotti Park - how long that will last most likely has to do with weather and public safety issues.
On Sat - 700 arrested for disrupting one lane of traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. It should be noted they walked across the "traffic lanes or car/truck/bus lane" not the pedestrian overpass above, specifically designed for people to walk and bike across the Bridge. Because what would be the point in that? Also if they got a permit first - hard to do in any event - they wouldn't have gotten international attention - they would have been ignored like Slutwalk was. After all lots of people protest and lead protests in NYC.
Can't say I'm surprised by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Been waiting for it to happen for quite some time now. Took longer than I thought it would, to be honest. And the people protesting - are not the homeless or the working class/working poor. (How do I know this? Because they have iphones, ipads, lap-tops, and mattresses, also bunsen burners - which there is some controversy over, because hello, fire hazard. They allegedly got arrested the first weekend for putting up illegal tents in the park in order to protect the lap-tops.) They are the disenfranchized and dissatisfied middle and upper middle class. Just like the people in Egypt were the disenfranchized middle class. Mostly in their 20s and 30s. Unemployed. Up to their eyeballs in student debt from expensive schools. And wondering where are those entry-level or mid-level jobs? They can't get ahead.
They can't get a job. (And unlike when I was in this situation way back in the 1980s and first half of the 1990s - I wasn't in a major urban area and the vast majority of people weren't in it with me. And school was cheaper back then. I went to law school for about $3K a year, possibly less. Now? It's closer to 30K. My undergrad when I went? 15K, now? 52K. That's a big change. And there's higher unemployment and no one's salary has gone up, well except for the big guys on Wall Street and in the Entertainment Industry.)
If you look at history - all the major upheavals were due to a disenfranchized or dissatisfied middle class, often upper middle class. Marx had it all wrong - it wasn't the rise of the proletariat, it was the fury of the bourgeoisie who suddenly found themselves down in the dumps with the proletariat - homeless, unemployed, and no chance of a future - while the rich tyrants got to have luxury lifestyles. Historically? The Revolutionary War in the US was started by middle class landowners, the merchant class. The French Revolution? Middle class or merchant class who got pissed with the aristocrats. The Bolshevik Revolution? Middle Class. Nazi Germany? Middle Class. Arab Spring? Young Educated Middle Class.
NYC? We have a 150,000 homeless population. 9% unemployment rate. Rents are going up. The gap between the rich and poor is huge. The middle class is diminishing. We can't get ahead. And it's very clear in NYC that 20% of the population is sharing 85% of the Gross National Product. People are furious. And the easy scape-goat is the rich, Wall Street, the CEOs, the bankers...which from my perspective is far less scary response and far more reasonable one than some other possibilities.
Also in a way, the big corporations are to blame. Their continuous gobbling up of smaller companies, spreading out, and taking on more than they could chew. AIG, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wellpoint, EBSCO, etc...all are to blame. The mergers and acquisitions, the laizzez faire economic measures, the Capitalism gone insane...has resulted in unemployment, homelessness, and suffering. Inevitable. That's why regulations were put in place back in the 1930s to try and prevent another great depression. Striping those away over time...has lead us here. We only have ourselves to blame.
Do I think the Occupy Wall Street Movement will have an effect? Not sure. It feels like a counter-response to the whiny Baby Boomers Tea Party strategy, which annoyed me to no end. I have a lot more sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street Group - at least they are educated and not racist and targeting the correct culprits. Also, they have a reason to be furious, not so sure the Tea Party does.
Part of the problem is, and I've been seeing this coming for a while now: We have the Baby Boomer generation unable to retire in the style they envisioned due to the crash of the stock market and housing crisis (I'm working with most of these people and they are all annoyed that they can't retire like they planned), and we have the young generation, the grandkids or kids of the Baby Boomers - unemployed and furious. Something's got to give.
I see a class war on the horizon. Have for quite some time now. Just was sort of hoping it would wait until I left NYC (which with my luck will be the epi-center of it) or I died. Really don't want to be around for it.
[Dear Charitable organization...while I do support your cause (in this case Breast Cancer), the way to get me to contribute funds to it is not by bullying me over the phone with a guilt trip after I've politely requested that you take me off your list. It is none of your business what charities I choose to support or why. How would you feel if I called you and bullied you to send money to Alzthemiers or Food Bank?]
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 12:19 pm (UTC)Occupy Wall Street - at this point appears to be protesting for well the sake of protesting. But this weekend, at least, they finally stated that they wanted the rich to pay taxes, and more jobs. Which is progress. Now they just need to follow the Tea Party's example and come up with a political platform, candidates, and a way to change the system.
If they just camp out on Wall Street and various cities around the country? Nothing is going to happen.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 02:30 am (UTC)When I was in college a lot of people thought we were wasting out time protesting the war. It seemed very convenient that we would skip class in good weather to listen to bands and get stoned. Some of the more radical would close traffic on a major artery or would take over one of the University Administrative buildings (those things would bring arrests and more press attention).... But still none of us were sure it woule ever amount to anything.
But of course it DID have an effect (over time), you have to start somewhere, and obviously if you are unemployed then you may as well spend your time protesting for Union Rights in Madision, Wisc.... or protest for voting rights in those states that are trying to limit voting to those who have photo ID. I admire those who have taken it to Wall Street (who are the real culprits and deserve the blame).
It can't hurt. In my opinion.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 12:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 12:24 pm (UTC)It's all very well to protest, but those who change things usually create a clear platform of change, get a political candidate behind them,
and promote it. (See the dreaded Tea Party for an example.)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 04:28 pm (UTC)And it does appear to be getting more organized as it moves forward. They have managed to get some media attention - but is it the type of attention they want? In this day and age, media attention can go two ways.
They should be writing letters and/or emails to their congressmen and senators, state and federal level - tweeting them, flooding them with it. Signing petitions - which is what Sarandon suggested. And stating clearly what they want the government to do - ie. reinstate the millionaire's tax in NY, pass the Billionaire's tax in Congress (Obama already promised to sign it). Reinstate regulations that prevent an easy merger/acquisition and provide parachutes or bonuses to higher ups, while freezing the salaries of management and workers.
The problem right now is that their message and what they want isn't very clear. So they are pissed at the banks and government? Okay.
What do you want to do about it?
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 07:55 pm (UTC)To date, the monderate -extreme right-wing has been more vocal than the moderate to radical left wing. With the possible exception of the Grass Roots Movement to elect Obama which energized the moderate left. Unfortunately that group is a bit disillusioned with Obama at the moment.
Although, both have made themselves heard.
To date the right-wing has been more effective (possibly because it has better financial backing, *cough*RupertMurdoch*cough* and *cough*DonaldTrump*cough*). But...the Occupy Wall Street Movement does indicate a pendlum shift in the opposite direction - which is admittedly a bit of a relief.
How effective it will be in the long run? I guess depends on what they do with it. Expanding across the country is certainly one option. But I still think they need to get their political platform or list of demands together first - or all they will do is bewilder the very people that they want to convince - not the extreme right, but rather the moderate/center. It's the center or moderates who get things done and who you need to sway. That's the vast majority of the US population.
Right now...all I see is a lot of generalizing and name-calling, nothing substantial or beneficial. While some of that may well be justified...and I'm certainly not opposed, I think it's also detrimental to the cause as a whole. Not all corporations are bad after all.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 03:45 pm (UTC)and back in the day I attended an SDS (one of the most radical student groups) meeting and found them to be more disorganized, and generally lamer, than a committee to decorate the gym for a High School Dance. But the Peace movement kept on keeping on regardless.
The Wall Street protest is pretty spontaneous, and I think the disorganization is a sign of how organic it is..... Getting organized isn't a bad thing, but there is a lot of evidence that the Tea Party was organized by Fox Cable News and got financial support from the Republican Party (and has been mostly taken over by the Religious Right)... so their 'organization' was opportunism from corporations and an already established political party, pushing aside the real grass roots group and co-opting it.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 04:14 pm (UTC)True. It definitely helps if you can hire an event organizer or crisis manager that does it for a living. Obama did that in his campaign as well - with the grass roots movement. (I think the Republican Party was borrowing from Obama's play-book, although Obama did a better job.)
I've done a lot of this sort of thing off and on. In college - they had a spontaneous uprising against our school's investment in apartheid in South Africa. I remember standing up in a room filled with 500 people and stating that if they wanted to be taken seriously to stop camping out in the front lawn of the Administration Building playing guitare and singing folk songs, and to write letters to the alumni, the board, and sit in the President's Office while they did it. Flood them with letters - and state clearly in those letters their concerns and demands. Which they eventually chose to do - and about six months later, the school disinvested in South Africa.
I agree that this is mainly spontaneous...but I think it would be more productive if they flooded the media and congress both state and federal with letters demanding the millionaire's tax be reinstated, regulations be enforced on corporations, and mergers/acquistions be more regulated and disapproved.
All they are doing now is annoying people who happen to be working on or commuting to and from Wall Street - and those aren't the people responsible for the problem nor can they do anything about it. Just as all the students camping out in front of the admin building were not attracting the attention of the board who made the decision to invest in South Africa, they were annoying their fellow classmates.
So far they are doing the expected and being treated like idiots by the people who can change things, and applauded by well the choir (it's not you and me and my flist they have to convince after all). They need to do the unexpected to be taken seriously by the people who can change things.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-06 06:50 pm (UTC)REALLY?
Is that the best use for the money I sent? Because I don't want the letters or calls.... I would be happier if I could pretend that the money was actually helping in the cause for something other than just more fund raising.