Occupy Wall Street

there are some other levels to the stagnant wage/disappearing decent jobs issue---like the basic transformation in the way capitalist manufacturing is organized that's become the tnc norm---you know, supply pool creation/management, the nuts and bolts of off-shoring, the transformations of the notion of international trade, the changes in steamship logistics as a result of the introduction and perfecting of containerization, etc etc etc....the new geography of capitalism (i was going to write capitalist exploitation---which would also be accurate) has profound implications for working people in the metropole, particularly in the united states, given that one of the central drivers behind it in manufacturing anyway was the attempt to get around the requirement of paying working people enough to live---and now, in this brave new world of total capitalism, profit is no longer bound by such trivial concerns as reproduction of the labor pool because supply chain systems let you continually move production around...so use up a labor pool and replace it when a slight technological improvement in a process enables a rent-a-factory to be set up in another location that has a different temporary labor pool that you can exploit the fuck out of but not look at it because you're only thinking about price and delivery times....and on a wider scale, people have been focused on stock markets and have forgotten that capital fluctuations are only indices of wider social well-being when there's a political system that constrains capital, that is a system that forces this relation because it's the only way to maintain social and political solidarity....one of the most lunatic actions of the right since the reagan period (this including, fundamentally, the clinton administration) has been the assumption of growth in the aggregate as a steady state so that the social consequences of "globalizing" capitalist exploitation (there it is again, my inner marxist saying hello) could be imagined as working themselves out. that people in the metropole--where we live---seem to be waking up to the reality that lay concealed beneath the fluctuations of transnational capital is a good and necessary thing.

 

It's difficult for me to find a solid spot of ground to stand on here. On one hand, I fully support the OWS movement but on the other, I can sympathize with the local community and the difficulties arising from the OWS presence.

In stepping away from it (easy to do as I'm not personally involved in either the protest or the community) I'm forced to look at the bigger picture. What is more important here, the prospect that this movement might just succeed in ousting a plutocracy (to the benefit of all) or the temporary disruption in the lives of individuals and shop owners in one community? I have to concede that it's the former, in my opinion. Of course, an argument could be made that this is no more than an attempt to have the means to justify the end.

 

sooner or later in most political questions, what it comes to is where you stand, really. i support the what ows is doing. i would prefer to see each occupation managing relations with their immediate neighbors. but it's not like there's the occupation on the one hand and the neighbors on the other, two undifferentiated blocs. first off, it's self-evident that what we're reading from cyn is a range of particular political viewpoints that has chosen for whatever reason to express what i take to be opposition to the occupation along the lines of local relations. i see an arrogant propertied group that sees no reason to do fuck all themselves to make anything work because they basically are either ambivalent about the occupation or oppose it. i see infotainment from the local press that does not identify the actors with reference to their broader political view of the occupation. i see this as of a piece with the sense you get of the bloomberg administration's position--they're boxed in at the level of symbolic politics--they are dispositionally opposed to the occupation because it threatens their shit, either directly or indirectly. so i see this as a political campaign originating with the mayor's office to cook up a pretext to eliminate the occupation while dodging the political damage that doing so would inflict without the creation of an illusion of consent on other grounds. i see it this way because we're a day or two before a national campaign to cripple some of the largest banks in the united states and on the day of a general strike in oakland. so at this point, we have a framing conflict, really. i think it's time for all these aggrieved people to identify themselves politically and spell out what they've done to accomodate the occupation. until that happens. this is bullshit---and classically disengenous bullshit of the classical type we've seen over and over when people begin to sense an actual threat. so it's an interesting moment. if i were in the park, i'd go on the offensive now, based on what you posted, cyn, and call out the people who are bitching and force them to start identifying with the idea of pinning this stuff back on bloomberg and making it impossible to act.

 

A very revealing article about who the protesters really are. Lots of good stats, including details from arrest reports.

http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-arrest-records-many-occupy-wall-street-protesters-045625415.html

From the article:
“Sleeping beside the hardcore activists are increasing numbers of wealthy students turning up to make the most of the party atmosphere, drugs and free food,” reporters Paul Bentley and Micela McLucas wrote in October. “While they dress down to blend in, the youngsters’ privileged backgrounds are revealed by glimpses of expensive gadgetry or the absent minded mention of their private schools during heated political debates.”

 

Rejecting Google but endorsing Yahoo again, are we?

 

Oh good Lord! Who is truly prejudiced enough to believe that children of privilege cannot have a social conscience? As if one needs to experience a dire situation first hand to understand it and decide to take action against it. Well, I suppose some do need to experience it first hand but I'm not naming names.

These reporters should be ashamed at themselves for making such assumptions about the reasons the more affluent protesters are there. How would they know their reasons? If actual interviews were done, I'm sure they would have been included in the article, even anonymously or through a third party. No, no, just throw it out there - no citation or verification required. Amazing what passes for reporters these days.

Most of the arrest were non-violent which tends to happen when law enforcement chomps at it's bit.

A veritable hotbed of violent militants.

I find it sad that Mr Bruner felt he needed to defend his organization about this.

I could spend way too much time pointing out the rest of the problems with this article. I'll just sum it up here - Irrelevant tosh which only reveals the fact that Yahoo wouldn't know legitimate news if it slammed into them.

 

nice to be kept apprised of the twists and turns taken by conservative disinformation, i suppose.

 

If you're referring to the link I posted, it was based on arrest reports. It's right there in black and white. And Yahoo is left leaning, not right.

 

My source was Yahoo.com. Where I found the article.

 

So do you dispute that arrest reports were used to gather information for the article?

 

You're right. That was a stupid question. A person isn't going to dispute cold, hard facts.

 

I see OWS as a big part of the problem, along with the corruption in our government. People scream for jobs and then they say tax the rich more. So the government taxes the rich more and the rich move the jobs overseas. So these idealistic protesters are really just shooting themselves in the foot but they don't realize it. Or maybe they do. The U.S. has the highest or second highest corporate tax rate in the world. Taxes are the problem, not the solution.