It’s here, people. Obama’s plan is to marshal this “People’s uprising” into a political attack on the engine of capitalism, using the Wall Street he’s in bed with as an attack on the capitalist system, and the “bankers” and traders as the scapegoats.
The outlines of the plan have long been clear, but sadly, those who bothered to look and to express alarm early on were dismissed as fringe cranks and unhelpful “purists” whose outlandish Visigothery would drive away “moderates” and “independents” (who, incidentally, flocked to the GOP in the wake of the TEA Party movement, giving us a 2010 electoral landslide. But we’re to bracket that. Our betters know what’s best, regardless of how many times they prove themselves astoundingly out of touch with the mood of their own base). And now the next stage is beginning: an assault on the “fat cats” and the money men, launched from different angles, with the Occupy Wall Street crowds providing the civil unrest, the social tension, and the optics, making the more outlandish demands (and including the most repugnant fellow-travelers), while Obama serves as the voice of reason and moderation, fashioning his campaign around a populist soft-socialism in which the banks and bankers and money men are required to pay “their fair share” and the “wealth disparity” is addressed — even as the evil Republicans try to “protect the rich.”
Related: Long live spontaneity!
Look if you are going to protest “capitalism” at least know was capitalism and what it is not. The bailouts were not part of capitalism. And I think those organizing the protests know that.
I find the timing of these protests a little odd. Where were these protesters when the bailouts were happening? And why is it that the banks appear to be the only object of the protesters derision? If a bailout is to happen then there must be two parties involved – the one receiving the money and the one giving the money. And of the two who should we really be most angry at: those we elected to serve our interests and establish the ground rules that banks operate under or those receiving the money? I find it odd that these protesters have focused all of their attention and scorn on the latter.
All this says to me that there are three types of people at these protests:
1) Radical organizers whose are exploiting the situation in an attempt to tear down the establishment and install their latest ideas of a Utopian society;
2) Special interest organizers (i.e. unions, Democrats, environmentalists) who are using this occasion to use class warfare as a tactic to further their own interests;
3) The majority of attendees, are justifiably, very angry by what they see by both the political process and the social, economic and political outcomes. These people are, unfortunately, the pawns, the useful idiots of the other two groups. Their own ignorance of politics and of economics leaves them vulnerable to being exploited by radicals and political opportunists.
All the time idiots like Shawn Hannaty and other conservatives took time to ridicule the nuts in the OWS now the nuts are going to own the agenda. We all no there are plenty of nuts on the left so what is the big supprise?
The right should have thrown part of its weight behind this OWS instead of smirking like jackasses.
I support the right to gain from your labour, I don’t support facist capitalism and bailing out banks with peoples pentions that the corrupt governments in Europe are doing now.
In Canada, these rallies are totally pointless, they are NDP rallies and the election was last May. Surely to God the realists in the NDP must be looking at that as excess giftwrapped political opportunity. Unleashing a gang of street hooligans on the business districts of large Canadian cities will accomplish exactly nothing for the NDP, except to make them look too radical for prime time. Watch their poll results fade in sync with the protest movement.
Meanwhile, in the American context, the protests are nothing more than a speculative communist insurgency to see whether or not Obama can be propped up by lying signs and wonders. I think it is far too late for that now. He is done, and if these protests become violent or destructive, he may find himself being encircled by the forces of impeachment. As he should.
2500 occupiers in Trona (high estimate) how close to 99% is that? wow
the numbers should be down after that when they go back to work. no sorry take that back. no change
The numbers reveal the ridiculous farce that this all is, and is typical of leftwing ‘motherhood’ causes.
A media event.
Let’s face it, how many times do you see on the MSM, a story that goes much like this: “A demonstration was held today at the legislature protesting ——- by the ——– society against ——-.”
Camera pans to show 10 deadbeat activists with placards……
Let’s face it, hissyfit over, we don’t care.
As for the US, whatever, deadbeats want to hang out, sleep in tents in the rain, sure go ahead, wait until it snows.
All sizzle (and not much of that), but NO steak!
Peter, that’s exactly why I welcome these stunts by the NDP.
Shawn, what you describe has nothing to do with free enterprise and capitalism. It’s cronyism, a disease found in all economic systems, of which communism and fascism were the worst.
What you also seem to ignore is that these protests are about redistribution. In short, giving to some people what others have earned. This is communism. Why do you think anyone on the right would support this? Also, I might take you seriously when you learn how to spell ‘supprise’ (sic) and ‘pentions’ (sic). Tell me, are you typical of the literacy extant among the OWS so-called movement?
Shawn >
You sound/ read very young. Most hopefully you’ll mature out of your current views, if that is still possible in this self gratifying hip pop entitlement generation.
Sooner or later the real world catches up, you will either learn to adapt to its harsh realities, or find yourself much older, strung out, and still carrying misspelled idealistic signs in public, to which no one of value cares or changes anything for your personal benefit.
The 99% is really about 0.00001%.
Ya have to expect if they can’t do simple arithmetic they aren’t going to be successful in life.
And just look at them. Complaining that life isn’t fair and that someone should give them a lot of money so they can live a cool life.
Poor, deluded fools.
Well we know that most of them can t do even basic mathematics IE:their 99% claim,and its obvious that they can t spell.Actually they have every right to be pissed off,but at their lefty teachers who accepted fairly high salaries to educate them.This is where their anger and feeling of being ripped off should be directed.
Wow – the first linked essay sounds a lot like my recent rants here. Capitalism is blamed for the ills caused by “crony capitalism”. The choice is between freedom, and what he calls “liberal fascists”, or what I’ve been calling neo-fascists.
And I think his prediction of the tactics the neo-fascists will use is spot on. Blame the innocent, protect the guilty, take advantage of the illiteracy, innumeracy, and under-education of the general public to sell your propaganda, and enlist a credulous media to deliver it.
The Republicans are playing right into Obama’s hands by waffling over a bunch of uncharismatic, uninspiring Presidential choices, fighting amongst themselves instead of fighting the neo-fascists.
The battle lines are being drawn. Do we have a strategy to fight?
Shawn refelcts soemthing real. While I in no way support the confiscation that the left clearly wants to enagge in I also think it is a mistake to let those responsible get away with what they did.
Some of what happened I supported. GM did go bankrupt, all the government did was proide the financing, Debtor in Posseission, that normally exists but did not during the freeze up. My issue was it took them to long to let them go bankrupt.
As for Lehman, well lehman was allowed to fail and then that tide pull back revealed so many naked swimmers (AIG). That was a lesson in bad regulation and poor understanding by the regulators. Of course the cause of that ultimately was the cozy relationship of the banks and Fannie/Freddie and congress.
Ultimately what people do not understand, and me either, is how loans and debt can go so bad and yet the lenders and banks still make their bonuses. That is the crux of it all, and it speaks to a problem in corporate governance and potentially law.
After that, I have nothing in common wit OWS, either in analysis of the problem nor potential remedies.
Dont make the mistake of being on the side of those who get away with a crime and blackmail society into bailing them out because it would cause us to lose something. I am willing to pay a price to see it cleaned up, let things fail, let Greece fall back to thrid world status, let the french Banks sink under the weight of their bad decsions, and if there is a canadian bnak that is stupid enough to be caught in this then they deserve it as well.
The only true test of a metal is to put it through fire to get to its essence. At some point there are no more games to be played. Make the wrong choices and we will be in an even worse situation for longer because those of the left leverae the situation for their beenfit.
Very creepy times, I dont like the otherness of the the 1% versus the 99%, it isnt true but it speaks to a dngerous mindset.
Well, intellectually and from a perspective of fact,
OWS are ridiculous. And if they were isolated they would be ridiculous. With powerful
interests behind them they become dangerous.
Out of Chaos…Order. First you create the Chaos and then you impose order (crushing all who don’t support you in the process).
Watch out America, the Barbarians are at the gates.
Lenin’s cure will not fix the crony capitalism problem.
We have been collectively greasing this squeaky wheel for so long, pehaps it is time we just redesigned the machine to eliminate the wheel altogehter?
John Lewis and Patsplace nail it. That is exactly what is going on.
We have been collectively greasing this squeaky wheel for so long that perhaps we should consider a machine redesign to eliminate the wheel entirely.
So according to the graphic the occupiers would average approximately seven per city. This would be 99% of, oh let’s be generous, 8 people. In short, it’s the usual collection of incoherent malcontents protesting capitalism, poverty, global warming, fur, eating meat, Israel, the US, blah, blah, blah. Why not just join Cause of the Month Club and be done with it?
let me see now
could this be the Zero’s re-election strategy, with union (kommunist) backing???
Why GYM, what a clever idea!!! I wonder whether the Empty Suit has thought of it. I’ll send him off a note on this right away…with credit due, of course.
No doubt about it in my mind.
ROFL: 7 occupiers in Kingston. Queen’s U and they can’t muster up more than 7 idiots to their cause? Makes you weep.
They ‘win’ if they can goad the authorities into doing something that gives them more media attention.
Just ignore the protestors and winter will take care of it.
Great paragraph from the link:
What is important to remember is that, regardless of what the media presents to you, we [the non-OCW] are still, in fact, the majority in this country. We needn’t waste our time on counter protests; instead, we must redouble our efforts to make sure that we protect the system from voter fraud, and then resolve to win every local election outward by identifying and supporting the most conservative / classically liberal candidate we can find.
That these marching morons — the rallies should have been called Lunatics United — think they can replace the present electoral system by ignorant, incendiary, and sloppy slogans hoisted by smelly hippies camping out in public places, reveals just how far-gone and deluded these idiots are.
That they’re being taken seriously by the members of the legacy/consensus media is ironic beyond belief, given that the talking heads are some of the fattest cats around as employees of some of the biggest capitalist ventures going.
The ironies increase with most of the demonstrators using capitalist-inspired and marketed i-phones, i-pads, and i-pods to social network their next moves.
I’m confused.
I think I’ll go ask Alice; I think she’ll know.
“The ironies increase with most of the demonstrators using capitalist-inspired and marketed i-phones, i-pads, and i-pods to social network their next moves.”
Well no, see, that’s not ironic, because Steve Jobs smoked pot.
7 occupiers in Kingston. Queen’s U and they can’t muster up more than 7 idiots to their cause? Makes you weep.
Ah, but it is raining in Kingston. And cold in Toronto. Surely, coming winter the number of protesters will drop to 0.
Same thing happens in Caledonia. The mighty Mohawk Warrior Society doesn’t burn tires in the snow. Or the rain. Not much for the outdoors, really.
Nobody’s hungry yet or listenning to their children cry for food. Those days may be coming sooner than we think…then there will be serious demonstations. Left wing ,right wing won’t matter it’s gonna be ugly.
This is all the obummer has left is these loons. Gone are the greek columns and the big stadium shows and out come the zombies. Let’s see how that works out for him. So far judging by the polls it looks like it isn’t working so well. Let the freaks come out and shit on the sidewalk and all that. We’ll go to the ballot boxes.
The Demons, aka The Possessed.
>>> “*… the man who loses connection with his country loses his gods, that is, all his aims.”
“The lack of cohesion, as the group strives to be fixedly democratic, results in discussions that frequently lack concrete decisions, are tangential and meander between logistics, political rhetoric and procedural issues.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky foresaw the Demons* of socialism/communism.
“Dear Darya Pavlovna, …
Your brother told me that the man who loses connection with his country loses his gods, that is, all his aims.”
“Nikolay Stavrogin*.”
…-
“Occupy movement goes through growing pains in Toronto”
“As one annoyed participant said during one of the meetings: “I’m not even sure what we are discussing right now.”
Throughout the discussions, the group kept returning to the subject of ditching the people’s mic system – where the group repeats the speaker’s words – in favour of a megaphone. It also took the group nearly three hours of back-and-forth to agree to march to Yonge and Dundas Square, and back.
“This is really frustrating,” said participant Michael Goodbaum, 23. “I don’t even know why we are trying to reach consensus on the structure of the protest, when we should actually be out protesting. But I don’t really want to criticize the movement, because these are just growing pains.””
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/occupy-movement-goes-through-growing-pains/article2202921/
Interestingly enough – in the article one of the folks at the MLK memorial architecure team said that “in America we don’t work with stone that big – like the Chinese do”
Really? So what is Mount Rushmore made of – cheese? And what about the Crazy Horse Monument?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse_Memorial
I guess since these are both in Flyover country – away from DC, they don’t count.
More than 40,000 people turned out in downtown Toronto today..
oh, wait, that was runners and supporters for the Toronto marathon.
For the Occupy Trawna group? Less than 4,000, according to the highest estimate I heard.
22,000 runners showed the fortitude and preparation to attempt the 26 mile run, more than 5 times as many showed up for the incoherent and unfocused whine-fest. Frankly, I find that encouraging.
From a global perspective, everyone in N.America is the 1%.
North America’s “poor” face tough decisions every day: should we pay the cable bill or buy Lotto tickets?
“Look if you are going to protest “capitalism” at least know was capitalism and what it is not. The bailouts were not part of capitalism.”
True enough. A purely capitalist system would have let chaos ensue. It would have let the Globe descend into a depression, and then dealt with whatever happened afterwards. (Remember how the 30’s depression helped to spawn WWII? Probably not.)
The move to save corporate America certainly had whiffs of socialism, and would have worked great, IF capitalism didn’t kick in, and the bankers scrambled to turn the bailout to their own personal advantage, reaping huge profits and bonuses for themselves, while letting the Americans rot.
In Canada, these rallies are totally pointless, they are NDP rallies and the election was last May.
~Peter O’Donnell
Good point.
Say, did anyone notice how many people were at the Occupy Quebec City protest?
The mighty Mohawk Warrior Society doesn’t burn tires in the snow. Or the rain. Not much for the outdoors, really.
~The Phantom
Hey, they did occupy High Park in T.O. during the nicest part of the summer there for a while.
A purely capitalist system would have let chaos ensue. It would have let the Globe descend into a depression…
~John
Pffft!
A purely captialist system wouldn’t have allowed our nations to descend into this level of debt in the first place(socialist welfare system) let alone issue the sub-prime loans to people who were incapable of paying them back, which is what caused this recession.
Geeze Louise, it’s like history starts anew every dawn with these short term memory loss Leftists.
They bailed out the frikkin’ banks because that’s what the socialists promised they’d do if the deadbeats the banks were forced to issue loans to defaulted on the frikkin’ loans..
“A purely captialist system wouldn’t have allowed our nations to descend into this level of debt in the first place”…. Oz
Absolutely!
Something for nothing. The socialist meme.
Stephen @ 3:01 p.m.: “Ultimately what people do not understand, and me either, is how loans and debt can go so bad and yet the lenders and banks still make their bonuses. That is the crux of it all, and it speaks to a problem in corporate governance and potentially law.”
I wonder about that too. But I wonder if the problem isn’t perhaps an excess of regulation that enables the banks and other financial institutions to avoid the usual consequences of failure in the free market?
“Ultimately what people do not understand, and me either, is how loans and debt can go so bad and yet the lenders and banks still make their bonuses.
The loans went bad because the banks were forced by laws legislated, for pure political gain by socialist politicians, to issue sub-prime loans to people who the banks knew couldn’t pay the loans back.
The politicians knew those people couldn’t pay the loans back and still they undertook to underwrite those loans with taxes through Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac.(both entities which still exist and are still underwriting bad loans today)
The banks get bailed out because they were underwritten by Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and the bank executives get their bonuses because they did their jobs as they were told to do by government regulation and they achieved the performance targets, targets which were measured by the number of loans that were issued which earned them those bonuses.
The met their targets.
Defaults had nothing to do with them.
Everyone who worked for the banks who did their jobs as they were told to do got paid too.
Why shouldn’t they get paid for doing their jobs?
If blame needs to be leveled then level it at the politicians who failed at their jobs by forcing the banks to issue sub-prime loans in the first place.
Who the banks issue loans to and the criteria that the banks use to decide if a borrower should get a loan or not isn’t the business of politicians.
Why should loans have been politicized?
The shouldn’t have, simple as that.
maybe the protestors should see a few signs like this ?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-50RUwHGIKyQ/TpqI4IrcwmI/AAAAAAABLkw/O_BW73gcWRM/s1600/occupy%2BTHIS%2Bfool%2521.jpg
Oz @ 3:29, exactly and well said.
This my be somewhat simplistic – Why is it a felony to even attempt to bribe a cop or a judge but legal to bribe a politician with campaign contributions?
“But Glenn Beck Is The Crazy One”
Damn right!