Occupy Wall Street

there are lots of words i can think of for eddie's particular mode of trolling--what its "good for" is keeping us updated on the latest manifestations of right panic, the new and improved attempts from the reality-optional set to discredit the occupation. now we've moved into classically stupid conservative territory with the attempt to paint the people doing the occupation as a version of that old right-wing favorite, the limosine liberal, yet another version of that main conservative fantasy character, the Persecuting Other. and that, as much as anything else, shows why there is right panic: a total lack of imagination, an inability to do anything but cycle through the same tedious, stupid memes, etc.

 

Ok. How?

Wait, OWS isn't about solutions, is it?

 

like i've been saying, the first hit taken outside of ows was taken by the right and it followed from the shift in terms of debate away from their fatuous language. the problem is that the internal language of the right is too rigid--seemingly---to allow for any real flexibility with that sort of drift. witness our pal eddie, who has nothing to say beyond repeating "i don't like them" over and over and over and over and over and over---the problem appears to be that the right has built itself into such a rigid discursive universe that any attempt to adapt to the effects ows is having would simply compound the problem and risk scattering the various factions of the ultra-right back under the political and intellectual rocks they've crawled out from under to join up with the republicans in their race to the extreme right. so they have little choice but to try to eddie the ows---say the same stupid shit over and over and over again, modulating it a little, doing it again, hoping something anything will work, walking away from previous disinformation etc.

 

I haven't done that. I've stated why I don't like the movement.

 

not really, eddie. you've been grasping at straws, gathering questionable information and misreading it and repeating yourself. maybe you could---o i dunno---step up your game and try not to be so tedious?

 

another distinctive feature of populist conservative discourse is the systematic conflation of the particular interests of populist conservatism with that of "americans" in general. that's also come undone. this is a another problem. in populist conservative discourse, liberty is synonym for conservative power, freedom a synonym for a situation dominated by conservative thinking, be it economic or social or political. we've seen this over and over and over again. now the conservative disinformation system is repeating the same moves with respect to ows. it doesn't matter what the adversary of the particular interests of conservatives are--they're all the same.

 

Initally, the characterization from our friends here on the right (and their taking heads across the net) was that it was a bunch of unemployed lazy bums with nothing to do between collecting their unemployment checks.

Then it was the corrupt unions trying to expand their power base.

Now its the bored and frivolous young and upscale elitists in NYC.

In fact, it is all of the above - the unemployed, blue collar union workers, young white collar professionals, members of the military, senior citizens -- people of all races, ages and economic backgrounds.

I did get a laugh out of Eddie's slanted article (originally from Tucker Carlson's The Daily Caller and reprinted by Yahoo) and the comparison of housing prices of those arrested in NYC, the most expensive city in the country, with median housing prices in the US....or the median monthly rent of $1,850. Hell, I thought that was cheap for NYC - my daughter in college in NYC (the uber liberal Eugene Lang College) pays more for a 4th floor walk up in Brooklyn; she also has two roommates.

Just more of the same from the right.

 

You really want to go there? You seriously want to discuss taxes and how taxing the rich sends jobs overseas? THAT IS the problem but you have it fucking bassackwards.

IF you want lower taxes you don't send jobs overseas, you CREATE jobs at home by building factories and employing workers here. By sending jobs overseas you are destroying the tax base. No manufacturing taxes, no payroll taxes..... may sound great to you because that means more fucking profit, BUT the fact is, without those taxes and a solid foundation and tax base, there's only ONE group that CAN pay taxes and they are doing it to themselves. Are you really that fucking stupid that you don't understand this? Eventually, you ship enough jobs overseas, you have no one here to buy anything at all. We are already close to that level.

So by all means, keep bitching about taxing the "rich" while they slit their own throats for profit. Hmmmm, if I ship jobs overseas and save 10million on taxes and 30 million on payroll and benefits I can pocket all that and go ahead tax me on the 40 million I just made in profit, I'm still paying LESS and making more... ha ha ha but here's the kicker, I'll get charismatic speakers who want gated community houses and G2 jets and a lifetime supply of oxys to convince the idiots out there that I pay too much in taxes.

Hey Zeus Fricking Crisps, are you TRULY that stupid? I don't want to believe you are, you at times make solid points but when you talk about taxing the rich you are just fucking blinded by hatred and BS to see you are being played.

 

This reminds me of how the whole civil rights movement was discredited by the fact that white people participated too. Wait. That's dumb.

 

A new poll reported by CNN is trending much like nearly every recent poll. As more Americans become more aware of OWS, support has risen as well.

Unlike the Tea Party, support of which continue to decline (or negative opinion continues to rise)

 

I would temper my pointing to polls for support. The more people hear of Molotov cocktails and chairs flying and get wind that closing ports will increase store prices thus helping the rich even more, those polls will shift very swiftly.

The OWS HAS to follow the laws. They HAVE to or their support will diminish because the right (and rightfully so) will show the hypocrisy. That will be the death nail to the OWS and they will have gained nothing and in fact will have lost more than they started with. The more I see and read about the occupy movements in SOME cities, the more I wonder if they even know what they are doing and the conspiracist in me has to ask, are they actually trying to sabotage the message by acting all stupid.

I cannot nor will EVER support people who put themselves above the law and or use violence to convey political/social or economic messages.

The OWS crowd did not have a bigger more loyal supporter than myself and now I'm scratching my head wondering if that support has been fool hardy as I watch people bitch that cities are following their laws and holding inspections and confiscating things that the protesters truly don't need to protest. It's becoming too far left and I don't think the moderates that YOU OWS people need to win the elections and truly change things, will support your cause/candidates, if you keep moving LEFT.

IF you want to change the way things are, you look to Ghandi, MLK Jr., Jesus Christ, and so on. You do not win over the people by becoming what your enemies say you are. There is no excuse for it. You want to point to how the TP is gaining negative appeal, so shall the OWS if reports of violence and shops having to close down and people losing jobs keeps coming out.

With violence you become no better than the very people you are fighting against. You in fact become worse than them, because they use you as a reason to NOT change and the people supportive of you don't want to be affiliated with violence and extremism.

 

so far ows has been assiduous about using non-violence. there's been a media context created that makes of that the theater of non-violence. they've been attacked repeatedly by police in various cities--when those attacks pass into the media streams, the police loose (witness the events in oakland over the past few days which saw the oakland police and mayor trying to throw each other under the bus over police violence). the non-violence is a fundamental aspect of the tahrir model that's been adapted. it's the basis for the moral force of the arguments.

btw: consider pulling your money out of b of a or citi or wells fargo or any other bigger bank before the 5th and putting it in a credit union or smaller bank in solidarity with the occupation movement.

 

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/americas/2011/11/2011113134748678286.html

al jazeera's coverage of the oakland general strike action. note how not like us corporate coverage it is.

 

Mother Jones has a map of OWS sites w/notations on arrests. Most involved non-violent passive resistance.

An example from Des Moines, IA (click on any blue dot)

About three dozen protesters who are part of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement were arrested for trespassing and taken to the Polk County Jail late Sunday after they refused to leave a park west of the Iowa Capitol when it closed at 11 p.m. Several people were dragged on the ground or carried away in handcuffs by state troopers, after they linked arms and huddled together in an effort to avoid arrest.​

Yes, one could say they were breaking the law, much like Ghandi, MLK Jr, etc.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-protest-map

 

Eddie says:

Second highest.

But they end up paying far less than the 35% thanks to tax breaks, subsidies, and loopholes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/economy/03rates.html

Unfair advantages are the problem. Enter OWS.

 

So how do we encourage or motivate these American corporations to move the millions of out-sourced jobs back to the U.S.? By making them pay more taxes? That's not exactly an incentive. Why would a company employ American workers that cost them 30-70% more than in India, China or the Philippines?

 

Rich white kids are at OWS for the party atmosphere? Next thing you're going to tell me is that some Dead Heads went to concerts just for the drugs!