OWS: Whom Do You Like? – small dead animals

14 Replies to “OWS: Whom Do You Like?”

..or Conrad Black:
“The Wall Street protesters denounce government bail-outs, the political and economic short-shrifting of students and young workers, the high cost of post-secondary education, various forms of discrimination, U.S. foreign policy, union-busting, outsourcing, the oil industry, media misinformation and (more generally) capitalism and globalization. Of course, this is a pretty hackneyed scatter-gun indictment by people who haven’t really thought it through, but their anger and frustration are largely justified nonetheless…
As for the Wall Street protesters, their largely justified complaints can’t be addressed by the wild methods they suggest. (A proposed list of demands posted at OccupyWallSt.org includes “free college education,” “bring the fossil fuel economy to an end” and “Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all.”) The prestige of the U.S. financial leadership, the country’s political class and its economic academics and financial media have all collapsed at once and together, like a soufflé. Except for the military and the pure sciences, the country’s elites have been utterly discredited, and no one believes anything they say. Even if they wanted to, they could not impose on Americans the sort of radical anti-capitalist reforms the protestors urge.In these times, it is important to remember that capitalism is the best system because it is the only one that conforms to the almost universal desire for more, for gain.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/10/15/conrad-black-why-theyre-occupying-wall-street/#more-54053

Personally, I think the OWSers have a point in some areas. Corporate cronyism is a problem – Solyndra, AGW profiteers, bailouts; they and their parents have been conned by the higher education shysters; the US is financing too many wars; The Federal Reserve is a mess, etc.
I strongly disagree with the anti-capitalism, big government sentiment and there is definitely a stink of organized labor/socialist manipulations but there are anti-elitist and libertarian elements there as well. I am not convinced (yet) that the caricatures presented are all there is to this protest. It remains to be seem if anarchists will get the upper hand and turn a largely peaceful populist protest into a Vancouver/London style riot.

Trick question…both.

Bennett:
To your point, it’s good to see more commentators (Dana Perino on The Five, for one) using the term ‘corporate welfare’ in the US.
As I posted a couple of weeks ago, the party that takes ownership of the phrase and actually cuts off corporate welfare will be in power for a long time.

I prefer the term corporate welfare bums or corporate welfare leeches, syf. They types are not in any way free-market capitalists.
I think it would be better if conservatives spent more time explaining the benefits of capitalism and smaller government. Some Reason TV videos show Ron Paul type libertarians attempting to get their voices heard at OWS(and actually getting applause for some of their points). Maybe “the future belongs to those who show up” theory means libertarians will have a bigger influence on these young, university-deluded, pot-loving, libertine and utterly naive protesters. After all, libertarians are used to making alliances without needing 100% political and policy agreement.

OWS is not against corporate bailouts. They’re pissed because Wall Street and Corporate America got bailed out and there was no sugar for them.
You see the same behavior in six year olds when one gets ice cream and the other doesn’t.

Will and Brooks are both wrong. Its ASTROTURF.
OWS, otherwise known as America’s Retard Fall to Egypt’s Arab Spring (dwright coined that one I think), is a side-show put on by Obama 2012 campaign and George Soros. Its intended to be something shiny to distract the oh-so-willing-to-be-distracted MSM from The One’s on-going crash and burn in the polls and Europe’s slow motion train wreck.
Wag The Dog. Nothing more, nothing less.

OWS looks like it might be Waterloo for the clueless Napoleon in the White House, who, rather than controlling events, is more storm-tossed than anyone in Washington. Obama was supposed to be the one, but has turned out to be a zero; a cipher in way over his head. Lisa Fithian, who has described herself as a ” bringer of crisis “, and is a part of the radical network that put Barfy in as the Democrat nominee, is apparently one of the architects of OWS, and undoubtedly felt this would put a wind at Obama’s back. As more man in the street interviews have surfaced from OWS, though, it seems, for all the nuts attending, there are some being interviewed who have genuine stories of hardship that we’re not self-induced, and these may prove be the most devastating of all the blows suffered by Obama. Weren’t the young one of his most ardent cohorts of support? What has Obama done for these young people, who have nothing to show for their adulation 3 years ago, except despair?

I see the cookie thing has been messing up my “posted by” name. Argh.
Computer wags the phantom.

LC Bennett, well said and so is Conrad Black’s article.
KevinB had a comment a few threads back, on “Poster Boys” @ 5:33 that basically says the same thing.

Anyone who’s read classic Cold War spy thrillers knows the phrase “Follow the money”. Will and Brooks apparently don’t – no time for thrillers, I guess – so neither addresses the essential element required to clean up Washington: campaign finance reform.
On the whole, I preferred Brooks’ essay to Will’s, but they’ve both missed the major problem by a mile.