The "Occupation" Revolution...

How "soft" the regime change that is coming is going to be, I may perhaps be excused my doubts. Indeed, I suspect it is the "more advanced" capitalist countries, having completed the project of building technologically advanced economies, and sophisticated but fundamentally ruling class dominated, false democratic political institutions, that may indeed be in for the greatest change of all to date. Qualitatively speaking.

For starters, it is just becoming clear, I think, that we have populations with similarly "qualitatively higher" expectation levels, not only in standards of living, but also equality and what a real democracy should actually look and feel like. Say what you want, for example, about the working class of the advanced capitalist countries, all its strata, but we have by now long known that what passes for the "democratic party system" is fundamentally bullshit, and does not serve our material or socio-cultural interests. (Which I suggest is the real explanation for the abysmally low voter participation rates of the advanced capitalist countries: A simple waste of fucking time, energy and donation resources.)

So while I can see how a person from relatively higher "professional" placement in the working class, might see a more "soft" change movement in the present, others of us may be excused for seeing and desiring something a "little harder" :-) in the final outcome. For we, the advanced capitalist countries, are truly not Egypt or Libya. We have fundamentally different economies, institutions, degrees of religious control, technologies, and expectations of what can and should be.

In any case, we shall all see soon enough. :-) Meanwhile, the Occupy Vancouver and Occupy Victoria, even I hear Occupy Nelson movements, are struggling to establish themselves, and have even higher levels of participation in all their discussions, than are occurring even here on Tyee. Indeed, the energy levels being exhibited are quite startling. Y'all might want to check these groups out... and participate in their activities, online and in the coming street struggles.

All this could quite wind up going to a place none, or certainly few of us, may be inclined to expect.

What are you talking about Kreditanstalt

"Corporations don't imprison and murder people, criminalize private activity, start wars or seize property by force."

Of course they do?

Have you not read and understood ANY history?

lol at corps not killing people

http://killercoke.org/

Corporations are killing people all the time. Coke is just one company that is notorious for working with corrupt regimes and paramilitary groups to kill off union leaders, mining companies are even worse.

It is morphing into Occupy the Fed

A Tobin Tax is a lick of spit on a hemorrhage.

What needs to be done in the US is to reinstate the Glass-Steagle Act and then repeal the amendment which gave the Banksters the power to create money as debt....an amendment which may never even have been ratified by the required number of States.

Privately owned central banks are what got us into this mess and a little bitty tax on transactions just keeps the Bankster Scam going. So does "Tax the Rich" which actually slams the Middle Class.
An interesting read:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/moveon-org-hijacks-occupy-to-push-obama-tax-agenda.html

The Tobin Tax, really?

Is that the best they can come up with? Here is what their one demand should be, repeal the law that gives Corporations the same rights as citizens. That would be the start of a domino effect, attack the power right at it's source.

Made me laugh...

@G West & Moonbug, I checked out the site http://killercoke.org/ but I can't see the legions of armed COKE troops beating, arresting or torturing anyone...

All I could see were illegal labour disturbances, occupying and trespassing on private company property and governments allowing COKE to consume vast quantities of groundwater, etc.

And..."...pushing their addictive products...?"

The locals have a choice! You and I have a choice! COKE is not some kind of "human right"...this is laughable.

COKE has no jails, no military, no cops, no legal power. Even if the company is guilty of - something - NOTHING could be accomplished without the cooperation of governments, or of law-enforcing "paramilitary security forces", "armed militias" (what are they but governments?) or courts.

The day I see armed Starbuck's guards at the doors is the day I'll believe that this silly leftist love-in with government power is legit.

The real enemy of these naive protestors should be governments, which ALLOW corporations to commit any (supposed) atrocities. Murdering, arresting, taxing, property-seizing, wage-dictating, speech-limiting governments...

Call it 'The Rise of Realpolitik in America'

This is what real politics is about. People have spat out the pap served up by the Republican-Democratic hegemony and they are expressing their anger at corporate government.

That sounds like a bit of a catch-phrase, but it is the truth. The 2008 Wall Street bailout didn't work. The money was given to the banks. The government might have been better off just giving it the home-owners to pay off their mortgages, so they had some place to live.

It could have been a home-owners grant, whose one and only use would have been to pay of the mortgage on the first residence, and the hell with the second and third cottages and the boat.

It should come as no surprise that common working people are angry that the banker's first reaction was to pay themselves huge bonuses for not going broke, while the foreclosures continue.

In other countries, when real revolutions begin, it starts with protests, arrests and the occasional death. It don't think there will be an American Spring, but there will be blood.

Laugh if you will, but the Stanley Cup riots are linked to the occupation of Wall Street. Many of those drunken kids in the West End were unemployed with nothing to lose. There is your link.

So If I Have Lost My Job....

....or had to reduce my hours or my salary, or lost my social security or my healthcare, or my pension was in jeopardy, why should I care what happens to Greece, or the banks, or auto dealerships?

Can my government 'splain that to me?

Kreditanstalt

Technically, you are right - a corporation cannot actually kill or torture people.

But the same can be said of the President of the United States. He merely has others do it for him..........

Either way, people DO get killed or tortured through corporate malfeasance.

Fish-counter's "Realpolitik"

"This is what real politics is about. People have spat out the pap served up by the Republican-Democratic hegemony and they are expressing their anger at corporate government." Fish-counter

Actually, not half bad Fishcoubter.

Which demonstrates the point that the serious Right and serious Left "start out" fundamentally from a similar, more or less "correct" analysis. Only from that point on, the Right reacts to this correct observation by moving to help save the status quo class order and act on its ruling class behalf. The Left goes in the entire opposite class direction, and advances a solution in the best 99% working class interest, AGAINST the Right and the Corporations they fundamentally line up with.

Though you are absolutely correct, we are entering into another time of realpolitik. Which even the tepid, social democratic/liberal left, wanting to play the good cop above all else, and just have everybody love everybody and "get along" will miss, or simply refuse to see. :-) Which is why they are really, as it all becomes clear and exposedd, the most inadequate "tendency" to the times. (Though they still have some legs with which to run yet, and possibly, even replace Harper for a time.)

Sehr interessant, nicht wahr?

One of the sub-titles of the

One of the sub-titles of the paragraphs in this self-congratulatory article is titled": "On watching the occupation from afar".....which unwittingly pretty well nails this piece and its smug, safely removed, 'distant' tone.

Then there is this:....and where have we heard and experienced this before?:

"Let's face it, most of the people, probably 90 per cent of the people camping out on Wall Street are young people, and even though I'm not sleeping there I still feel it's we. It takes old people like me and theoreticians like Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, who are writing for our next issue, and people like David Graeber, the anarchist, and Saul Newman, the guy who recently wrote a book about anarchism. It takes all kinds of people to launch a revolution, but the cutting edge is young people who put their asses on the line."

You are giving old people a bad name. You were wrong in your assumptions that Obama would bring about change with his magic wand. You were wrong that the left is a bunch of loonies. You were wrong that left is not articulate.....and you are wrong that we are just a bunch of granola cookies. And you sound like every military strategist who stayed safely home and sent troops of young people out on the front line.

You simply have not been paying attention, not here, not to the situation in Egypt. Arab Spring is becoming a precarious Arab Fall with the military generals hanging on...and on....and on.

This is going to be long struggle and no spring walk in the park. Talk to some of the people living through this.

This is not romantic.

And it's not going to be a softball game here in the West as you assume. Bring your bat and ball and heavy padded clothing.....( oh yeah, I forgot.. you've decided to sit this one out and stay home and 'brainstorm'.) In any case our own firmly entrenched corporate generals just look more civilized....appearances are everything to them.... as is the art of deceit.... but they are the real tenacious barbarians.

So please, if you want to play in the big league, get out of your damn ad office, and put your own ass on the line.

Fishcounter:

"Laugh if you will, but the Stanley Cup riots are linked to the occupation of Wall Street. Many of those drunken kids in the West End were unemployed with nothing to lose. There is your link." ~ Fishcounter

Where is your factual substantiation of this assertion?

A lot of those rioters attended an expensive play-off game of hockey, wore expensive hockey jerseys, and had plenty of money to buy plenty of drinks downtown.

So where is your proof that it was "the unemployed" rioting?

Kreditanstalt...

Keep looking dude.
Start with William Randolph Hearst, the Hearst Newspapers and the Spanish American War and work your way forward….

Don't forget to stop at the United Fruit Company in Central America (Guatemala) and Aramco in Iran. And while you're at it, look at Chile and Anaconda Copper - and don't forget to investigate the role of ITT in that little dust up too.

When you're digging, spend a little time looking at Nazi death merchants like IBM and Krupp and IGFarben and don't neglect a little research into GM and GE and GE subsidiary Carboloy.

Check out Royal Dutch Shell and its role in Nigeria - including the civil war there and don't forget Canada's Talisman in the Sudan.

When you get through confirming that I do know what I'm talking about I can give you another list to help you continue your education because you, my friend, have a lot to learn about corporations..

lynn

Take heart! I heard there's a plan for an OccupyVancouver and OccupyVictoria in the works!

Sorry, Rick, but that's not

Sorry, Rick, but that's not the kind of "distance" I'm referring to:

It's evident here:

"Strategically it suddenly became possible to get a huge number of people who are angry about something, or who are deeply concerned about something, it's possible to get them out and to get them to strut their stuff. So that was the inspirational moment that we talked about a lot in our brainstorms here."

I don't know how to emphasize words with my computer but it's here and it's through out this whole piece:

"it's possible to get them out and to get them to strut their stuff."

"them" out?

get "them" to strut their stuff ?

Them? How about he gets out on the frontline himself.

And then he has the balls to say this:

"Here we are brainstorming, trying to come up with slogans, and all of a sudden they were spontaneously saying things in the street that inspired me. They said it better than what we could come up with in our brainstorming sessions! That told me that maybe the political left isn't as loony as I'd been thinking for the past 10 years. Maybe there is a spark of revolutionary fervor there after all."

Ha! And he's been writing slogans.

How precious.

Kreditanstalt - Welcome

You sound new here and I welcome your rationality. But, you are going to have to appreciate the mind set in this blog. The consensus here is that all corporations are inherently evil creatures with no reason to act in a legal manner and, for that matter, to even exist.
Corporations do not have individuals running them who would be held responsible if their company committed an illegal act as you can gather from reading Mr GWest's post above. And, corporations such as banks are not really owned by retired public servants and the like.

I agree a hundred percent with you that all evil, greater than a serial killer, has been perpetrated on humans by governments.

@ John Corman, the quality of writing

...on The Tyee is excellent, which is why I read it. Thanks for your kind words; it's good to hear a refreshing viewpoint.

I don't often agree with the hidebound statism, government-lobbying and NDP-next-to-God that fills many articles here. And for the life of me I can't see any significant difference at all between the "leftists" and the Liberals or Conservatives either...they all have their hands in the pockets of free, private individuals.

Stefan Molyneux has a better way with words than I do, and here he is explaining what the protestors on/near Wall Street SHOULD be aiming at:

http://youtu.be/NTx6t3FUSkM

Being held responsible

Maybe you need to do some more research too John Corman... corporations HAVE been held responsible for the things Kreditanstalt pretends they haven't done:
You might want to check some of the following cases...
Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co
Estate of Rodriquez v. Drummond Co
Aldana v. Del Monte
Beanal v. Freeport-McMoRan
Mujica v. Occidental Petroleum Corp

What you've written above here...the following:

...all evil, greater than a serial killer, has been perpetrated on humans by governments...

...is complete and utter bullshit.

follow the money

You want to know how we got to this state of affairs: massive transfer of public wealth into private hands and a hollowing out of the middle class? As always with things that seem to make no sense on the surface, follow the money. Who has benefited handsomely in all of this? Oh yeah, the hedge fund managers, the short sellers, the denizens of wall street. There's your driving force Behind this mess. Follow the money and you'll find the culprits.

the neocon-libertarian base of thinking

John Corman & Kreditanstalt, two peas in a pod. :)

Neither of you seem to emit much compassion for people on the whole, but I believe that is because that is the neo-conservative/libertarian way.

When I read Corman say to his new friend, "You sound new here and I welcome your rationality", I cannot help but wonder if they ever see the irrationality of their rational decisions?

It might be highly rational to use Taylorism and divide work into small, fractional parts any monkey can perform. But the irrationality of this act is that it destroys the people doing such jobs. It makes their life menial, it robs them of their minds and creativity, and generally gives them far less purpose in their lives, ultimately making them less productive as individuals.

So just how do you libertarians reconcile your 'kill government' or "business interests" mantras -- which works against individuals as I just brought to your attention, with your libertarian ideology that the individual right to freedom is paramount?

We have all been duped into thinking little pieces of paper are all that matter in life. None are afflicted with this delusion worse that the worshippers of 'business interests'.

And I do understand why they think 'government ruins everything'. But they never want to admit that it is this same conservative movement that has been the under-pinnings of the governmental operations.

It's the typical hypocrisy found in all the half-baked ideas of neo-conservative and libertarian thinking. Every man is a self-made man, or so their dream goes, and any- and everything one accomplishes is directly corresponding with one's own efforts.

(con't)

(from above)

But John Corman finally has it right when he says "the consensus here is that all corporations are inherently evil creatures with no reason to act in a legal manner and, for that matter, to even exist".

IF what you mean by 'inherent' is the 'lawful obligation' to behave that way, you are correct.

AND if what you mean by 'evil' is aligned with 'socio-pathological behaviour' you are correct.

AND if what you mean by 'legal' is the 'designed rules of men with vested interests being imposed on all society as everyone's interests', once again, correct.

AND, finally, if what you mean by 'exist' is to be both supernatural and natural at the same time, that is to be a 'fictional creation of mind' with the rights (but few of the obligations) of a 'living person', you are on a roll. I might say, kudos for the medieval mind on this late point, John Corman. Well done!

As for the recommendation to view a Stefan Molyneux*, a philosopher I am well aware of myself and agree with on many fronts, I must warn that he generally suffers from the same shortcomings in his economics as all libertarians do.

He envisions a world with no state, neglecting the natural reality that 'authority' is part of our human condition. Authority exists in our family structure and in Imperial government, and most everything in between.

We advance as people when authority is used wisely as it offers us a safe directive; and we begin to die when used unwisely as our humanity turns sour.

How authority is administered is what's important, not its genocide. I will offer this up again, a quote of Bertrand Russell:

Man is not a solitary animal, and so long as social life survives, self-realization cannot be the supreme principle of ethics

*I have NOT watched this specific clip so context might be off but it is the general anti-statism philosophy of his I address.

G West

Well. since union pension funds, mom and pop investors, government pension plans, etc. are the beneficial owners of these evil corporations, inclusive of annual dividends and bonds, I take it that, as a man of principle, you will refuse any and all future pension payments, CPP payments, etc. as a man of principle???!!!

In life, you can't both have your cake and it it!!! haha

Lynn: This isn't a law court and I am not on trial

It is called inductive reasoning. The Stanley Cup riots had a compelling precedent but the City, the police and the media thought we had evolved in the last 17 years. We haven't.

When otherwise rational people let rip causing millions of dollars in damage, you have to ask why. I don't believe it was entirely due to alcohol, and teams lose hockey games every day. There was a mood of civil disobedience in play and there still is. Just like the Wall Street occupiers, they are sick of eating the same old dogfood from the same old dogs.

The Vancouver crowd had a lot of excuses and they also knew that the Vancouver cops killed Robert Dzeikanski and a whole pile of other people besides. They also knew the cops had beaten the crap of out an East Indian newspaper delivery man for no other reason that they were drunk.

I suspect there is a lot anger against the cops in Vancouver and it will surface again soon. People have little respect for law and order. They have lost tgheir fear of a force that can only act when they outnumber the perps, and they are cowards at heart. Add access to alcohol and drugs and a whole mess of other people to hide behind and you have a riot.

If I am right we are, as Jerry Munro suggests, entering a new era of politics. You will find out soon enough. These events feed off each other, like the Arab Spring. I can't wait for the next one. Tick, tock.

Hey Kreditanstalt

We live in a corporatocracy i.e. corporations are the government. It is meaningless to try and parse out what one or the other is responsible for when they are one and the same.

This fact totally escapes the Tea Party types.

Just one point...

There's no reason groups of people shouldn't work together, in any business or other activity they wish. But the key is that such co-operation must be entirely voluntary. There should be no violence, no threats, no sanctions for not choosing to join in.

Molyneux makes a good point when he asks the religious right, the social justice left, conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, NDPers and all the others to PUT DOWN THE GUN, doesn't he?

If one is against violence, against the tyranny of the majority and against the use by the state of force, how can one be a neocon? Don't neocons worship the surveillance state, believe in "the terrorist threat", support the bandit Israeli state and want a strong military?

Doesn't sound like there's much freedom there. In fact, the Harperites and stateside Republicans have much more in common with their supposed ideological foes than they do with libertarians.

Great article by Richard Wolff

Richard D Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008.

"Capitalism is the problem – and the joblessness, homelessness, insecurity, and austerity it now imposes everywhere are the costs we bear."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/04/occupy-wall-street-new-york

Luke

Will you be refusing your government pensions on the grounds that they're anti-capitalist?

Positive

I'm really happy that more and more Americans are waking up to the two-party hoax and are also breaking from the intellectual enslavement caused by the left-right tribal mentality.
I have no hope for the shit-stem(thanks P Tosh) ever changing and working for the greater good, but it's so nice to see the good Americans awakening and taking action now and into the future

The Corporation for Political Neophytes

For the couple of naive types absolving corporations of their crimes and trying to shuffle it all on the hands of the state:

1. Corporations are the creation of the state.
2. They are privileged by the state in;
a. limited liability
b. corporation as fictitious individual
c. banking legislation
d. patents and intellectual property
e. eminent domain
3. They also receive massive subsidies such as, military expenditure, high way building, mega projects etc.
4. The military comes to their aid when they are threatened by land reform or nationalization as with the Guatemalan CIA coup of 1954, the CIA overthrow of the Chilean Govt in 1973, and countless other examples.

The corporation is essentially a form of right-wing collectivism or the state socialism of the rich.

G West

Sigh.... Alright I'll firstly love to take the bait. haha

In another thread, from a few days earlier, I stated:

BTW, I should have been clearer. These Ipsos numbers are for Metro Vancouver. Remember how positive, smilin', 'say somethin' in one part of Canada and somethin' else in another' Jack Layton ... fared against miserable and dour Iggy? Think Clark and Dix... even forget about Dix's past negative baggage for now.

Yup. Today Ipsos stated that the NDP leads the Libs by 7% in BC. Moreover, Metro Vancouver favours the NDP by 10%, while it approved Clark by 18% over Dix in last weeks poll. Major differential.

I've been followin' polling in BC since 1980 when MarkTrend and Gallup were the main players. Remember when Mustel showed the NDP leading by 12% in July, 2004 prior to the 2005 election? (2 elections ago?)

You have never understood opinion polls and you never will.

As Wayne Gretzky said: "Don't go where the puck is, go where the puck is goin'". ;)

You see where the puck is, but with my 30 years experience, I know where the puck is goin'. Reread the foregoing again. haha

In any event, back to the meat!

Corporations are evil, right?

Corporations deserve to be taxed more, right?

And you do realize that seniors, mostly dependent upon dividend income, pension income, CPP income, bond income, etc. will receive a reduced cash-flow as a result?

Again, as a man of principle, you will refuse any and all future income derived from a corporation, right? haha

Kreditanstalt, re: the Stefan Molyneux clip you offered

I've now watched the clip. It is much as I presumed and Molyneaux is simply 'way behind the pitch', in my understanding.

He is opposed to state (a legal fiction), so he thinks Occupy Wall Street should carefully aim at the state and not corporations (another legal fiction). His reasoning, in short, is the state has been committing atrocities for a long, long time and corporations are new creations; thus the problem rests in state.

But what are states? States were once the word of Pharaohs, then Kings, then Kings & Theologians; then elected persons and their administrators.

We have removed Pharaohs, greatly removed Kings, are still trying to wrestle off the theologians, but are now battling with the elected persons/administrators. For the elected persons/administrators operate the state. Are you still with me? I hope so. ;)

Now, are you familiar with the philosophical idea The Ship of Theseus? If not, it goes like this in a modern form:

Assume you a Corvette. Then as parts wear out, you replace them with new parts. In time every part of your original Corvette has been replaced. The question that arises is whether this is the same Corvette or not? The answer aside, you still call it your Corvette.

Now apply that thinking to our state. If you take all the important governing pieces of the state and replace them with like-minded people of a Marxist persuasion, do you not now have a Marxist state? And do we not still label it 'the state'?

Likewise, if you replace all these important governing pieces of state with neo-con 'We serve Business' believers, do you not now have a 'We Serve Business' state?

And what next? What happens when the important and influential parts of the 'We Serve Business' state and 'private business' become relatively interchangeable?

Eg. Christy Clark in government, then off to mainstream media shaping public thought, then back to government -- one ideology.

When the revolving door in political behaviour becomes the norm -- as it is now in America and advancing quickly here to Canada -- when corporate ideology becomes state ideology, when operating components become interchangeable, do they not become effectively one and the same??

See, it matters how and why people become part of the 'state', and what they believe. In our government now, the corporate influence prefers to direct the people in lock-step with its objectives into state. The state has never stood alone.

There have always been people behind state. One must look beyond blaming state and whitewashing corporations in the process, for they are both in the hands of the same elite people. Targeting state (a creation of mind), as Molyneux does, is a red herring. There are real people responsible. These are the rightful targets.

Fishcounter

"Many of those drunken kids in the West End were unemployed with nothing to lose. There is your link." ~ Fishcounter"

You based your argument on this, just as the police and media were quick to attribute the riots to anarchists.

Neither assertions are backed by any substantial evidence whatsoever.

In fact, the photographic evidence suggests otherwise.

But, hey, it was a good practice run for bringing back the good ol' lynch mob McCarthy Era days.....turning citizen against citizen.

Now apparently these hockey rioters are being painted as enemies of the state LOL....the new dissidents LOL - the premier wanting to film their trial and humiliate them before the public...wonder why she didn't cheerlead for the BC Rail trial to be filmed? Ha!

I'm sure she would cheer your suggestion that these rioters were the drunken unemployed and that they are "linked" to the occupation of Wall Street. It will make it all the easier to arrest anyone who misbehaves or attempts to occupy the sacred downtown core.

So the substantiated truth of things is important - because there are people out there ready to take advantage of misinformation (when they are not creating it themselves) in order to manipulate and control our freedom in their own self-interest.

RickW

....or had to reduce my hours or my salary, or lost my social security or my healthcare, or my pension was in jeopardy, why should I care what happens to Greece, or the banks, or auto dealerships?

You're not obligated one way or the other. What's your point?

G West

From Ipsos:

Makes sense. Dix is a negative, dour individual whom nobody, I mean nobody, that I know (whom are also essentially "a-political") "likes". Even worse "DIS-like" factor than Campbell.

The "like" factor in politics is everything. Again, think Jack Layton v. Iggy and the last federal election.

From that same group, I also do know that many "liked" Mike Farnworth. Like Mike Harcourt said, in reference to Dix = "You go left, you get left out". From a former BC NDP premier's own mouth.

Adbusters

In raising consciousness of the need to stand up to social injustice, Adbusters has a role to play in promoting the idea of direct action.

One would hope that its goals remain in the universe of the rational. Adbusters was once accused of inciting anti-Jewish sentiment. Taking that sort of approach I would not call rational.

Another Tyee Scoop

Kalle Lasn has been a tireless advocate of real citizenry. He understood years ago the corrosive effect of corporate rule. By launching Adbusters, he put his money where is mouth is. Something corporations NEVER do.

Lasn is also an inspired environmentalist:

"What we're trying to do is pioneer a new form of social activism using all the power of the mass media to sell ideas, rather than products. We're motivated by a kind of `greenthink' that comes from the environmental movement and isn't mired in the old ideology of the left and right. Instead, we take the environmental ethic into the mental ethic, trying to clean up the toxic areas of our minds. You can't recycle and be a good environmental citizen, then watch four hours of television and get consumption messages pumped at you."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adbusters

Of course, the MSM boycotts Lasn, just as they boycott anyone who critiques the abject failure of the corporate oligarchy.

The Tyee has yet another scoop by featuring Lasn, who should be rightfully proud of the OccupyWallStreet movement he helped to create.

Define MSM?

Define 'scoop'?

Anti-Wall Street protests take off thanks to a Canadian idea
ROD MICKLEBURGH
VANCOUVER— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Oct. 04, 2011

Anyway...

The way this reads it looks like another US corporate takeover. The legal fine print:

"About
OccupyWallSt.org is the unofficial de facto online resource for the ongoing protests happening on Wall Street. We are an affinity group committed to doing technical support work for resistance movements. We are not affiliated with Adbusters, anonymous or any other organization.

"July Press Release

On 13 Jul 2011, the group Adbusters released this call: Occupy Wall Street!

In Solidarity, and as a response to this call, a planning group was formed [occupywallst.org], and an info sharing site established. The participation of every person, and every organization, that has an interest in returning the US back into the hands of it's individual citizens is required.

Our nation, our species and our world are in crisis. The US has an important role to play in the solution, but we can no longer afford to let corporate greed and corrupt politics set the policies if our nation.

We, the people of the United States of America, considering the crisis at hand, now reassert our sovereign control of our land.

Solidarity Forever!"

Thank God for the Bank!

Well, at least there is one big corporate bank we like. It's our bank. This is a really honest nice bank. We promise. Send Money!

"DONATE
Donate Money to #occupywallstreet ...

You will taken to nicanet.org and asked to confirm. All donations through here are tax deductible.

Don’t be alarmed when you end up on nicanet.org this is the method that our sponsor Alliance for Global Justice provided to the NYCGA.
Mail your check or money order to the Alliance for Global Justice.
Please indicate “Occupy wall street” in the memo line.

Alliance for Global Justice
1247 “E” Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003"

"October 7th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Earlier today, we asked supporters to call E-Onlinedata to demand release of tens of thousands of dollars donated for Occupy Wall Street, a fiscal project of AfGJ.

Following extensive conversations with the company today, we are confident that the situation is on its way to a rapid resolution. Please stop making calls to E-Onlinedata and please forward this alert to any listserves to which you may have forwarded our original alert.

E-Onlinedata strongly assured us that there was no political motive in freezing our account and holding the funds. The company stated that, in fact, the fault lies with AfGJ for a number of reasons but particularly because donations for our Occupy Wall Street project reached a volume that was orders of magnitude greater than any activity on our account in previous years, exposing E-Onlinedata to a level of liability not covered in our merchant contract with them.

We believe that this is a reasonable explanation and we have no evidence that E-Onlinedata is anything other than a reputable company servicing merchants and the banking industry. While we are strongly critical of the policies and practices of the banking industry as a whole, E-Onlinedata does not deserve to be held responsible for the sins of the entire industry. We apologize to E-Onlinedata for any actions on our part that may have been construed as reflecting negatively on their company.

We thank our supporters for their quick response to our alert earlier today. Your actions helped bring this situation to a satisfactory conclusion. We urge you to continue to speak out in support of issues that are important to us all and the future of our country and our world.

In Solidarity,
Chuck Kaufman"

The First Corporate Sponsors!!!

"NYC General Assembly
The Official Website of the GA at #OccupyWallStreet.

Order Us Food

Order Panini Panini & Co 115 Broadway: Please try to focus on vegan and vegetarian options with some meat options.

Order Lemongrass Grill Lemongrass Grill: Please try to focus on vegan and vegetarian options with some meat options.

Order Tolache Tolache Taqueria: Please try to focus on vegan and vegetarian options with some meat options.

Liberatos pizza – order online – order the “Occu-pie”
Please order vegan or non-meat pizzas ..."

That was quick!
plus ça change...

What an interesting conversation

But I really don't hear any inspiring answers to the inspiring question posed by the ballerina poised above the bullshit in the poster.

I mean, everybody has their personal beliefs and bugbears, but, apart from ' We ought to abolish this, or we ought to overthrow that. nobody is really formulating an answer to that question.

I think it would be interesting to hear people's actual answer to that question. Anybody interested in trying to do that?

People will always be organizing themselves according to those beliefs, they just will, so capitalism or communism or anarchy or whatever are just labels for imponderables. Any or all could be co-opted by crooks. So here's my idea for my one demand.

Punish Corruption

What's yours?

Apparently not dumb enough

To stand for the red-neck mentality the NY daily news put outs. Its the Republicans who should be thankful If it wasn't for dummies most of this guys wouldn't have a job.

The State and Corporations I

Of course these right extremists want to direct the coming popular movement, and the Left, at strictly "the state". Anything to save capitalism from having to accept the blame for the ongoing collapse of its economic order. They are its apologists, and as fascism, the ultimate direction of their development line, they are its last desperate and militant line of defence. They are scrambling intellectually, hither and thither, out of their impending sense of doom.

The full reality is of course, as this period has demonstrated since the late S, that with the dismantling of the regulatory regimes of the old social democratic state of capitalism, the demarcation lines between the capitalist state and the big corporations have melded, until now they are virtually indistinguishable... with the assist of successive right wing, neocon governments such as the Liberals and Harper, and their neo-liberal economists from Friedman on down.

Which, by the by, is the generally accepted definition of fascism, as created by its founder, Benitio Mussolini and the Italian Fascists.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.

And fundamentally, we are already there, at this point in the development of modern corporate capitalism. Where the role of the State is the defence of the big corporations and co-operation with them. And if you have doubts about this, you have seriously not been paying attention to first, now the legal creation of corporations as legal entities, with the same rights as individual citizens, as persons, secondly to the dismantling of the regulatory regime of the postwar social democratic state, the granting of the right of banks to print money and the entire recent history of "public" funds controlled by the state being used to rescue the capitalist financial system, the auto industry etc from their own greed excesses and investment failures. All declared to be in the interest of the common good. Corporatism... the merger of the interests of the big corporations into the purpose and role of the capitalist state.

Even those "tea party type" right-wingers who would like to now retreat from this fascistic Corporate State, back to a "perceived" more ideal time of responsibility and accountability (yet rejecting the old social democratic state which achieved this, more or less, of course) are really only naive dreamers. For all they would achieve at best would be, were it even possible to really go back in time this way, would be to reset the historical clock, that would immediately thereafter begin the run-down again, back to where we are. (Given the greed and fear driven nature, and endless growth instincts built into even old capitalism. Indeed, capitalism without greed and fear driving it, is inconceivable.)

The State and Corporations II

from previous post...

Nope, the real dreamers here, are the likes of Luke, Fish-counter and other right wingers who, on the one hand defend capitalist corporations without understanding their vital life giving and by now inseparable linkage to the Corporate Capitalist State, and would at the same time go back to this perceived "truer" capitalism. That would of course break down just as it did historically, and return very quickly to here again anyway... where the working masses, including professionals, are more and more being forced AGAIN to organize revolution against it.

You guys really do need to get a better grasp on and sense of history, and unblinkered economic realities. Fascism/the Corporatist State is more and more back and looking to the same old "corporatist" solutions as the Nazis and the Italian fascists, because the system is again at a similar crises point of terminal development as it was during the last Great Depression it created, creating a rising revolutionary need against it.

Which rising revolutionary tide is now showing signs of inexorably coming in.

Bailey...

Yes, I like your "Punish Corruption". It works well. :-)

To market...to market......

You have to be very careful when you decide to use the same kinds of weapons and thought processes of those you are fighting against... that you do not become the very thing you fear.

The advertising world that sustains corporate culture sells 'the appearance' of the thing over 'the thing itself'.

It is why we are in so much trouble. We have imaginary money, imaginary wealth, imaginary value - image now trumps reality, and life itself.

More and more our education systems, health systems.....and most significantly our systems of governance are mere shells of themselves....inflated falsehoods for "appearance's sake".

Ghost towns of what was once real.

My deep concern with the tone of this article, the words of Kalle Lasn, himself, is that it reveals the same elitist, top-down, boss-worker, general-soldier attitude that permeates the class system of the corporate order we are fighting against.

It is the marketing of revolution.

The medium is the message, and enclose yourself within the medium and it will change the messenger.

These guys are now viewing themselves stories above street level, that is the irony.

This revolution includes us all - the sloganeers and the pundits don't get to stay home....they don't get to put young people's asses on the frontlines and pretend they are revolutionaries by merely inhaling and promoting the appearance of the thing, and smugly claiming "it's we".

To Baileys' suggestion I would add:

Disallow monopoly......of any kind.

Support Diversity.

It's Nature's great lesson.

Think of and demand more than 'one' thing.

The global monopolistic pure breed world cannot save itself from disease and collapse. - everything is just a replication of itself. The advertising world thrives on replication, it is how it helps to make corporations rich and attempts to make people the world over replications of each other, in thought and behavior.

In this kind of monopolistic inbred world there are fewer and fewer functioning escape exits. The only way out inevitably becomes a highly precarious collapse.

The messy mongrel does and will survive.... and evolve, because, and in spite of it's so-called imperfections.

My demand

More transparency and awareness of what governments are doing behind closed doors. Force people to vote and understand what the heck is going on before they do so(perhaps we'd have to completely eliminate reality TV and all the brain numbing BS people waste their time on?)

I tutor a 13 yr old and I asked him to read Orwell's 1984. He read the first couple chapters and said he didn't get it, but I told him to push on and if he still didn't get it the following week we'd talk about it. I arrived the following week and he had finshed the book... he started to smile and said "It was pretty good actually, deep right? I didn't understand all of it but I liked it." I was so proud of him!! Give young people the tools to be independent thinkers. There is 100 times more garbage out there nowadays for them to be side-tracked with than there was when I was a kid, and most of my generation are zombies.

Most of all- don't allow those around you to just:
Work
Consume
Be silent
Die
- my favourite protest sign from Wall Street

Jerry, don't you think

...something might have changed since ca. 1975? That we might have reached the limits of non-debt-incurring growth? That a dollar of GDP for every $7 of "stimulus" spending is a losing proposition?

I think we've reached a point in North America where affordable (to our customers) and financially sustainable productivity has stopped.

Too many government employees, of course. Of all kinds. But also too many real estate agents, bankers, retailers, brokers, dealers, service industry people, waiters, restaurateurs, marketers, consultants, salesmen. And not enough loggers, farmers, fishermen, miners, appliance repairmen, exporters, pipefitters, welders, knife sharpeners, tool-and-die makers, etc.

DEregulation is a problem?? In Canada??? I can't think of ANY kind of business I'd be able to put money into here with much chance of making any profit. Canada's cost structure is just NOT competitive.

Port Alberni here is the wave of the future. A huge low-paid service sector. Few real productive jobs. A massive and overpaid government sector and a large number of comparatively well-off retirees juxtaposed with loads and loads of young singles and young families living hand-to-mouth - IF they have work.

LOTS of stores for rent. But for what? City restrictions mean you can't live in back of your business. Zoning means you can only operate certain kinds of business even if you buy outright - or rent - the place. You WILL pay property taxes (rent!) even if you lose money. And you can't hire any help for under -what is it? - $8.00/hour? PLUS benefits, plus UIC contributions, plus medical, plus, plus...

Fortunately for future entrepreneurship and productivity, the social welfare state is dying. Shot itself in the foot. There are now too many dependents and nowhere near enough producers. Who in his right mind today would start a business or dare hire anyone?

Yet you seem to believe that "the dismantling of the regulatory regime of the postwar social democratic state" is the problem!

The future course of this kind of state is set in concrete and no amount of printing, spending, redistributing or regulation will bring back the 1970s or 1980s...

Ideology is irrelevant, Jerry. Other than continuing to strangle productivity and initiative slowly, the indistinguishable "left" and "right" have no answers.

Private enterprise is not

Private enterprise is not capitalism and vice versa.
\
I've been a lifelong private enterpriser and business owner, but would be offended if somebody would call me a capitalist, along with communists, the lowest forms of life.

The state capitalist communists collectivized economies with bayonets, their idiot twin monetary capitalists do it and steal with the perceived power of imaginary capital, "created" for the purpose, by some bank, from the air.

Both destroying millions of private businesses, and lives. Mexico the closest example, with the criminal NAFTA treaty forced on them, ruining and collectivizing their economy into foreign hands and drug lords.

People who play the stockmarkets, especially the jerks with their programmed computers, buying and selling stocks and lives within seconds, are not "investors" but gamblers and the profits they make are not "earnings".

I've worked in many offices and even in private homes in the ticker tape days, where the machine was clattering away, sometimes all night. Or the phone would ring, the owner would listen and then say:" Hmmmm....buy 200", or sell whatever.

Now with computers they can do it in seconds. Calling this investment is the usual fraud. This is a gambling casino and their profits are no more earnings than the winners of card games or the lottery.

Honest people earn their own living, gamblers destroy them.

Capitalists exist and work at the mental levels of cattle. You put them into a fresh meadow, with grass and alfalfa up to their bellies, in five minutes their heads will be under the barbed wire fence of the next meadow, trying to get something.

And if there's something standing anywhere, they'll tip it over and wreck it.

Ed Deak.

Kreditanstalt

Only a blind microcephalic could not see your failing ideology where 'business interests are paramount' for exactly what it is: Fascism.

The state message, the propaganda of conservatism you have consumed and now believe -- the breeding ground where half-baked thinking intentionally mutates our lexicon so a corporation is de facto a person, where the national interest is just the business interest, and where freedom can only be achieved when we have unfettered freedom for business -- here, where these muddied waters of your mind become your messiah, is your ideology.

Your ideology serves a purpose. You have to learn exactly what that purpose is and what it means, where it has come from, how it has has grown and where it is going. It's seriously disturbing to think how anyone can champion such an ideology if they understand it fully.

Ideology is everything. Start here and choose: people or business? Despite the rhetoric you hear and have been taught, they do not march in unison. How hard is it to understand business interests would be overwhelmingly elated if their workforce toiled for free?

I am not going to convince anyone of this truism and do not even try, I just point it out. We all have to have the courage to confront the genesis of this assault against our thinking for ourselves.

The answer you seek and cannot see is simple:

ALL PEOPLE MATTER

not just the self-described 'successful' ones who, equally self-described, 'earned' their 'just' rewards.

Good luck. We are all in this together :)

rioters and protests response to Fish counter

"Many of those drunken kids in the West End were unemployed with nothing to lose."

I just happened to be downtown that day, all day, from early morning and 2 hours before the riots occured.
THe vancouver police did their job, everything was well organized. But the pubs were at capacity before 12 noon and the liquor flowing. By the time the game started people were still lined up at the skytrain stations in surrey and new west and coming into the downtown core. None of those folks even listened to the game. Most of them were already toast.

I was trying to get out of the mayhem, as shit would surely happen, and it wasnt easy getting back to the burbs on the skytrain.

It was a perfect storm. Some malcontents must have had a 'screw you all' agenda, as they brought with them gasoline and gear. That should have been the highest concern to the police.

What they represent and why they did what they did, who knows. I doubt the instigaters of the riot came from Vancouver or eastside. Weve had problems with gay bashers, and looting before, during the fireworks display. Its usually yahoos from the fringe communities like white rock, surrey, even Chilliwack and the island.

Think what psychobabble you like, but booze and drugs were the cause of the riot. Disenfranchised people lashing out, no. If liquor sales had shut down that day, the riot never would have happened.

With any large group in the downtown area, Its going to happen again, its just the way Vancouver is designed or not.

Pensions funds and small investors

Mom and pop investors may own equities (stock), either directly, or through mutual funds, pension funds, etc., but they are disadvantaged compared to massively leveraged hedge funds, investment banks and high-speed traders.

Moreover, the bottom 80% of the population owns a mere 7% of financial assets; the top 1% owns 50%. So let's face it, retail investors have little or no say in corporate governance.

agendas

I would say that the agenda of the Tea Party neocons and their supporters is simple and succinct: The privatization of every and all government services save the military and perhaps a few other government institutions.

Ann Coulter might be correct in stating that those that are occupying Wall Street have no concise point, but in time they might develop one.

Reading reports from a variety of sources I find a common thread of anger against the "system" - the "system" being that the 1% control the economy and the remaining 99% are the peons that suffer when the "system" collapses.

Capitalism has always been a roller coaster ride: recession; growth; depression; bubble.
Perhaps the 99% are tired of waiting while the ones that control all the money, the 1%, sit on their money and wait for equipment, building and labour prices to fall low enough for a profitable investment.

I believe that capitalism is not sacrosanct. Other successful forms of doing business exist, such as the Mondragon Cooperative.

impudent lowlife

The concise point is moral outrage.

Any system built on

Any system built on "competitiveness" must burn out and collapse, because of the ever increasing energy demands to stay on top.

History's hundreds of lost and forgotten empires are the best examples.

Today, nobody even knows who the Huns were ? How about the Mongols? Where is their empire now, once covering half the known world ?

What did the ordinary Spaniards or Portuguese get out of the conquest of Central and South America, or the Romans from the wholesale importation of slaves to do the work "more efficiently" ?

The most efficient and effective systems are always built on cooperation, and local self sufficiency to the highest degree.

Which is also the basics and demand of democracy.

Ed Deak.

Some Responses to friends and critics...

"Only a blind microcephalic could not see your failing ideology where 'business interests are paramount' for exactly what it is: Fascism." igbymac

Which responds to our ideological Rightist friend, Kreditanstalt, makes the point, and I will attempt no better. It basically stands for myself as well. (I do think though, that many of our Rightist participants here simply do not realize the innate fascism of their ideological viewpoint and political positions. At least, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt... save perhaps Kreditanstalt.)

Also again, impudent lowlife. You make many good points, and know well enough where you are coming from and why. I always enjoy reading your stuff.

Re my friend Ed Deak, I disagree with him "some" re private enterprise.

First, I agree that small "private" business, with perhaps one or two employess does not pose immediate threat to the broader "social" interest, and in fact, in many cases, provides many benefits as laboratories of business concepts. Likewise, I see no need, other than regulating its size and the treatment/inc wages of its employees/ and their right to "participate" in the enterprise at some point, assuming growth. Certainly neither society or the economy would benefit from it being "outlawed", so to speak.

But this said, the reality is, that it is most typically from small scale private enterprise startups that new large scale enterprise and corporations ultimately grow (Microsoft, Apple). Hence this need to regulate it to some degree, and over time, as it grows and draws on public funds through tax breaks etc. etc., is subsidized by the low wages of its workers, and receives "public" assistance in all the forms that comes, the determining of a point at which it must be integrated into the larger "co-operative", democratic, worker and community participation economy of the future. (Which does not mean that "the founding private enterpriser" should not go appropriately/ fairly rewarded.)

There is no absolutely "ideal" economic model, including small "private enterprise", many of which trap especially the young and women in low paying dead end jobs. But my concern is merely that the "commanding heights" of the economy and the general tenor of economic activity in future society should be fundamentally co-operative and democratically owned, worked and managed... to include workers and the communities in which they function, and from whom they receive benefit.

Strictly my view.

Diversity

Lynne says:

"Disallow monopoly......of any kind.

Support Diversity.

It's Nature's great lesson.

Think of and demand more than 'one' thing."

Yet, our good friend Ed Deak says,
"Any system built on "competitiveness" must burn out and collapse, "

Fii wants, "Force people to vote and understand what the heck is going on before they do so(perhaps we'd have to completely eliminate reality TV and all the brain numbing BS ..."

Room there for clarification. Force people to understand what's going on. I believe the Chinese had a programme like that. Perhaps we should study it. As for a censor board for television; didn't we used to have one in Canada back in the 50s? Tough to see how we in Canada could outlaw US and other reality shows, even if it is a good idea. Does this mean strict control over foreign tv and internet signals Fii?

For What it's Worth?

Eric Hamilton-Smith, one of the organizers for Occupy Vancouver, said

theprovince.com/news/Frustration+demands+drive+leaderless+activists+planning+occupy+Vancouver/5524308/story.html#ixzz1aJgltGmj

“I’m frustrated with . . . having governments making policies that don’t represent me,” he said. “I can’t stand idly by while our financial [situation] and our society . . . is coming apart at the seams, and I think more and more people realize that and are hoping for more positive change and a better tomorrow.”

For years many of us have felt that the young have been overly materialistic and disengaged.

Time to dust off the Buffalo Springfield LP? Maybe the young will actually listen to the words.

OK r/m, show me one

OK r/m, show me one competition based system that doesn't burn out. How about tiddlewinks ?

When I buy tires for my truck, they last me for years, as they do for most people for their cars etc.

Professional competitors burn out at early ages. When I was captaining the Nissan Rally Team, we used to wear out at least one, sometimes two sets of tires per day and our cars were designed to last for a certain number of hours.

Diversity can very well exist in cooperative societies. I sure as hell wouldn't want furniture, clothing, vehicles, etc made by monopolies and oligopolies, like it used to be under the communists and we have it now with mega business control over our lives. Called "competitive free enterprise", forcing Chinese made junk on us and filling our garbage dumps.

The Kerr Road garbage dump in Vancouver went on for years and years, for a million people. Here and now, in our small community of perhaps 300, we have almost the same sized dump as we used to have at Kerr road 50 years ago.

Some progress.

Ed Deak.

Not So Funny Ironies

"And fundamentally, we are already there, at this point in the development of modern corporate capitalism. Where the role of the State is the defence of the big corporations and co-operation with them. And if you have doubts about this, you have seriously not been paying attention to first, now the legal creation of corporations as legal entities, with the same rights as individual citizens, as persons, secondly to the dismantling of the regulatory regime of the postwar social democratic state, the granting of the right of banks to print money and the entire recent history of "public" funds controlled by the state being used to rescue the capitalist financial system, the auto industry etc from their own greed excesses and investment failures. All declared to be in the interest of the common good." ~ Jerry Munro

In response to this excellent synopsis of "the state" of things - I was reading an article recently that made a highly ironic observation. It began by listing the abysmal economic growth of various countries ( and to be clear, I am not writing this in defence of growth - a complicated subject, I know )...anyway, if you are still following me ;-)....the UK posted 0.2 per cent growth, the US - 0.3 per cent, the euro-zone average a glum 0.2 per cent, Germany, 0.1 per cent and France 0 per cent.

But here's the funny irony - the "frisky" Belgian 0.7 per cent growth rate. What's so funny about that is that Belgium doesn't have a government because of a political stalemate in Brussels. It hasn't had one for 15 months so Belgium hasn't done any of the stuff other countries have done (paraphrasing)- "no cuts, no 'austerity' packages. So no mandate to slash and burn and consequently the Belgian public sector spending is puttering along as normal, thus the continuing growth of their economy. "

The ironical point being made here, (whatever you think the answer to the global crisis) is that currently in our failing system, it is quite apparent that from an economic point of view, "no government is better than any government - any existing government".

Which has a further irony in that the neo-cons who have always espoused a distaste for government but in the most hypocritical way - No one has used and manipulated governments better than them - using the structure of government to destroy governance - deeply infiltrating and co-opting government in their own greedy self-interest - producing the largest, most corrupt and controlling governments of all. Then by recklessly de-regulating everything that served to protect the public interest, they destroyed all safeguards and check points, and in the process destroyed economies round the world.....and possibly life on this this planet.

That is no exaggeration - we may never recover from this.

Let's hope karma is real.....oh, I can feel Jerry wincing at the mention of karma. :-)

1936 revisited

Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 on the eve of winning re-election with the largest mandate in a hundred years:

"Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred."

Lynn: Thanks for the debate. My link is superficial but valid

I don't care about blame. To me it is a phenomenon to be studied and evaluated. The Stanley Cup rioters deserve swift and appropriate punishment. The Wall Street occupiers deserve support if you swallow their story.

The occupiers are a flashback to the 1960's when students held sit-ins to occupy university and city adminstrative offices and the like. They just lumped themselves down and said, "We are here to stall your business until you start to listen".

Some of the sit-ins were highly political, especially the anti-Vietnam War ones, but some were collegial and almost friendly.

So which city office would YOU like to take over for a week? I live in Nanaimo. We could occupy the Conference Centre to highlight the otherwise uselessness of the building.

There is a Tim Hortons close by where we could load up on coffee and Maple-pecan Danish, then head for the meeting rooms with our sleeping bags and prayer mats.

Is it a date?

The State...

"The ironical point being made here, (whatever you think the answer to the global crisis) is that currently in our failing system, it is quite apparent that from an economic point of view, "no government is better than any government - any existing government". Lynn

Goddamn Lynn, excellent writing, repartee and analyses above here. Really hot karma, woman. :-) But especially your rejoinder, as the cherry on the cake, to Fishcounter was both funny and spot on.

The State, ruling class dominated government/State especially, is a problem. I agree with the Right on that... depending on which of their arguments and at what point in the discussion we are viewing their opinions, of course. (Because they really actually favour a "strong" Business State, and we all know it. With the highest ideal, when it's needed, the authoritarian fascist state.)

But now here, their solution again looks back, to an idealized capitalism, as Ed "sometimes" seems to do also. Whereas the real need, fundamentally manifest in the "non-authoritarian" Left, in my view, is to look forward for the solution to this State dilemma: democracy, democracy, and more democracy... in the economy especially, which will help deal with the State in any form. (All politics in the final analysis, bows down to the economy and who owns and controls the agenda there. Which is why it must be the working class, the broadest concept of, and their communities.)

Set upon that course, I buy into the Marxian notion, demonstrated by your Belgium story, that over time we are likely to discover that we can "wither the State away", as in starve it of power and importance in our daily lives... as we assume greater responsibility and power there. The bourgeois State as we know it since the English Cromwellian Revolution that began capitalism, is unique to capitalism... and will indeed "wither" away over the coming time.

My view. And I sincerely hope I am correct. AS I am fundamentally anti-State to the very core of my being. :-) From a "working class" NOT ruling class serving perspective. :-)

Back to the Subject Matter

The OccupyWallstreet crowd is to the looney left what the Tea Party crowd is to the looney right.

Don't believe me?

BC NDP leader Adrian Dix, while on the left-wing of the NDP, is an opportunist and WILL NOT GO NEAR the OccupyVancouver protest coming up next week.

Why??? The BC NDP vote would eventually collapse with him speaking to that looney left crowd and he will further become stigmatized or defined with that crowd.

Remember Operation Solicarity/Solidarity Coalition in 1983? 19% public support and the BC NDP were concurrently falling well behind the BC Socreds in public opinion.

Again, the political centre, where most people reside politically abhors a militant extra-parliamentary opposition.

Ergo, I would suggest that Tyee posters kindly provide strong persuasive support for Adrian Dix to be a speaker/leader of the OccupyVancouver movement. ;)

In fact, if some of the crowd of the OccupyVancouver go on a destructive rampage a la the Black Bloc, the public will quickly turn on them.

Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat same. :P

The Vancouver Riot

In my opinion, the riot was caused by "drunken kids with nothing to lose". We hear "rich" kids. But are they rich? Just because your parents have money doesn't mean you are rich. Our minimum wage is the lowest in Canada. We have parents running after the all mighty dollar that they are allowing their children's peers to raise their kids. We also have a generation of children who are very aware, where lying is common practice and you actually get in more trouble if you tell the truth. Why do you think the RCMP lied on the witness stand in the YVR fiasco? Do you not think this is standard practice? I weep for our children, who after getting a degree are flipping burgers and still living at home. The rich are getting richer and the poorer, poorer/ The middle class is just an illusion, most are up to their eyeballs in credit debt but still trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Benito Mussolini

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
My girlfriend today gave a great analogy of the situation Obama has found himself in: "If you and I were making a cake and we burnt it, well we would just scrap that cake and start over." How can Obama start over?

Cool Hand

Remember Operation Solicarity/Solidarity Coalition in 1983? ..Again, the political centre, where most people reside politically abhors a militant extra-parliamentary opposition.

This ain't 1983 ;)

In case your history needs a little refreshing, 1983 was very near the kick off point when this new wave of conservatism started. Since then we have seen Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Mulroney, Bush I, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, the Shrub, and now Obama and Stephen Harper. Holy Crap Man! that is one abhorrent list of free marketeers.

And do you not see where we are sitting, on the cusp of global economic collapse? In a world where privatization again proves (as it did in the 1920s) ruination is on its way, and the people will be left to suffer?

Geesus, are you incapable of thought? Can you not see the obvious correlation? And here the correlation needs to be answered because it is overwhelming.

Do you not see where this is going and why it is going there? Or are you just one of the paid groupies regurgitating the libertarian line?

As far as 'most people' are concerned, when given a real chance to make an informed choice, they have one position and only one position: government should work for the people.

Playing politics with polls, spin, propaganda, etc doesn't reveal a bloody thing about what 'most people' want. Go talk with them across through most every walk of life and the story is the same. Hence the current moral outrage. There's your poll.

I don't think you have a clue about what is happening, but in the off chance you do, then you are either an opportunist or a sociopath. There is no way in hades anyone can support this shit with their eyes wide open unless they are profiteers, looters, conmen, or thieves availing themselves to the oppresion of labour.

Take some baby steps toward thinking about these matters, perhaps start by trying to figure out what the 'labour market' means. Does it get more dehumanizing than that for a free-market buzz phrase?

Come now Jerry, when have I

Come now Jerry, when have I ever "idealized" capitalism, when I've been spending all my adult life to pull down both the idiot twins of communism and capitalism?

A society without government is a road system without rules, laws and cops to enforce them.

We have all kinds of laws on the books of every country against cartels etc., but governments are reluctant to enforce them, because it wouldn't be "competitive" and "business friendly". Which is about the biggest crime anybody can imagine in our sick society.

Ed Deak.

Jerry ;)

Your government-free world sounds interesting.

Just how do you think humanity will get around our innate need for authority,and what seems to be our strong desire for order?

I can quite easily envision a world with a much different governmental structure. One, classically, far more horizontal and participatory. I just can't take that next step to a world where there is nothing to lead the way.

Is leading not some form of government?

Lassn, Naomi Klein, Chomsky Inspire Us

It is interesting that many people are unable to see the inspiration and hope that a really good idea can bring. For so many people living in the west, life has become grim. And they, more than anyone, understand that the very thought of a better life is inspiring.

Social activists have always been present. Socrates, Jesus of Nazareth, Karl Marx, Mohandis Gandhi, Martin Luther King all share a common theme. They understood the deep injustices that were being inflicted upon their fellow citizens.

MarchOnWallStreet, like the Arab spring bubbling up throughout the Middle East, is rooted in the same cause. And the very thoughtful teachings of Kalle Lassn, Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, all inspire us for the same reasons.

When democratic institutions are functional and less corrupt, by definition the culture is not being dictated by a ruling elite. While progressive democracies still have elements of a class system, they are blunted by fairness and the common good.

That is not the case with the US and Canada in 2011. We are awash in greed and immense wealth in the hands of a tiny few. The result in predictable: massive inequality. Significant injustice. Experienced by more and more people. Leading to significant unrest.

All unsurprising and predictable. And wrong. So it must change. And it will, god willing.

Great coverage as usual.

igbymac

Ahhhhh... we fully agree on that matter!!

Perhaps... let me give you a historical refresher:

1. May, 1981 - BC economy peaked with unemployment at ~ 5%, real estate peaking, etc.

Funny thing though - it seemed that greed was the common denominator back then with house flippin' being the greatest past-time in BC back then. Nothing else happenin' even seemed to make economic sense.

2. Annual inflation was running in the double-digits back then (union COLA clauses were the norm) and the prime rate was approaching 20% and even surpassed same.

3. By October, 1981 the BC economy (and the North American economy) fell off a cliff.

4. BCTV Global News had daily reports of residential foreclosures with people losing their homes en masse (as they could not afford 20% mortgage renewals on top of losing their jobs).

5. The banks were also calling in their commercial loans/lines of credit to big players like Jack Poole's Daon Developments, Nu-West Developments (major residential builder at the time), Nelson Skalbania (who was highly leveraged), etc., etc.

6. The then deputy minister of BC's finance ministry (David Emerson - remember him?) informed the gov't of the impending collapse of guvmint revenue. Emerson earned the nickname "Dr. Doom" back then.

6. The forestry industry in BC collapsed and so did the mining industry by 1983.

7. The BC guvmint shut-down major capital projects like the Coquihalla Hwy, which had already commenced construction before then.

8. The BC guvmint also cut expenditures, on a major scale, within its annual budget causing more gloom.

9. BC unemployment levels surged toward the mid double digit level. Whoever remained employed also suffered reduced employment and reduced wages.

I can go on and on but you get the picture. BC was in the midst of a mini-depression the likes of which hadn't been experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930's.

Back then, nobody even knew what would happen in the future and it was complete MISERY.

Those same fundamentals don't exist here in BC today (and into the future) based upon existing economic fundamentals/developments.

After havin' to say all that... bring on the new proletarian revolution (aka today's version of the Solidarity Coalition. ;)

igbymac

Local democracy? Workplace democracy? Democratic collectives? Sounds like the GDR! haha

Utopia is a wonderful thang. Ain't it. :P

Back to the real world and the best social comparison that history has ever provided regarding same - West Germany v. East Germany!

The West Germans had one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Compare that to their East German bretheren.

1. Telephones - The GDR's tele communication system was essentially pre-WW2 and outdated. Had to wait for an eternity for a connection;

2. Vehicles - the West Germans had VW, Audi, Mercedes, Porsche to choose from and received delivery virtually immediately. GDR citizens had to wait almost 10 years for an ugly, 2-stroke belchin' Trabant;

3. Highways - The BDR had a world class Autobahn/Schnellstrasse infrastructure but the GDR relied upon it's unmaintained Pre-WW@ system;

4. BDR cities were entirely rebuilt but GDR cities still retained theirs WW2 scars and were not maintained;

5. BDR consumers had a vast selection of goods to choose from but GDR citizens had to extensively wait in line-ups for few and meagre goods; (Of course, government officials received priority in that regard and also had access to foreign goods)

6. GDR citizens had to always fear reprisals by the Stasi secret police (in fact, over 1/3 of GDR citizens had detailed Stasi files and many lives were destroyed as a result);

7. BDR citizens were allowed to travel freely (GDR citizens not - unless you believe it was all part of an anti-fascist program - haha)

8. GDR citizens were also victim of horrid environmental degradation.

Again I can go on and on. But why bother?

Me? I would have been a citizen of the BDR, while you sound like you would have been a delightful citizen of the GDR.

Too bad everything began to become unwound in the GDR by 1989 - Leipzig citizens began their Monday night marches (over 100,000 strong) chanting "Wir sind das Volk" (We are the people) until they eventually began chanting "Wir sind ein Volk" (We are one people in reference to their BDR bretheren).

IMHO, the BDR/GDR was the greatest simultaneous social experiment of the same Volk that mankind has ever witnessed in terms of governance and democracy.

BTW, it was very participatory in the old GDR - according to their figures - 99.7%. ;)

Kuhl Hound

historical Rfresher?

"8. The BC guvmint also cut expenditures, on a major scale, within its annual budget causing more gloom.

9. BC unemployment levels surged toward the mid double digit level. Whoever remained employed also suffered reduced employment and reduced wages.

This is no refresher, this is a post-mortem of the village idiot too stupid to know that sticking his finger into the electric socket again would shock him, so he tried once more.

The response you detail was exactly the wrong thing to do in a "mini-depression", though, to be fair, this one was largely caused by the feds in their monetary policy reaction to falling world demand for commodities in 1983.

As dozens of economists have pointed out since the 1940s, the thing to do as a government when you fear a depression is to spend money, and go into debt doing it if necessary. Then when normal conditions return, slow your spending and pay off your debt.

If it's as you say it was back then, the government of the day reacted exactly wrongly to the pending slowdown, and exacerbated its worst effects, causing the people of BC no end of penury and impoverishment. All that to supposedly "preserve" our ttriple-A credit rating, instead of using it. And what happened? It got reduced to Aaa anyway.

That government based its decisions on emotion, rather than facts, and hurt us all worse than the feds did. I'm not surprised you don't trust 'em. I wonder why I'm more willing to.

Oh, and why the qualifier "if"? Because I don't remember the Socreds shutting down construction of the Coq at all.

NDP at the protest

Oh don't worry - you'll see the NDP at the protest next week, along with me. It'll be the backbenchers riding the wave, not the stars. And Dix won't show - you're right about that, Kuhlie. He'll be showing leadership elsewhere, perhaps in front of Christy Clark's house while the backbenchers will be in the trenches witht he rest of us calling howe St. to account for their abysmla practices.

And it'll play very, very well to the press. This has to hurt ya, seeing the half-assed f-ass-cist coalition that the Fiberals have become, twisting and turning every which way but loose, trying to get everyone to close their eyes real, real hard, click their heels, and wish they were back in Kansas.

No, this winter won't be pretty. The chains and brass knuckles are starting to come out. If Ms. Christy shows up with a vase full of poesies again, she shouldn't be surprised to wind up with a face full of egg.

Fiat lux

Sometimes you come up with some of the most charming word-pictures.

That image of "capitalists" chewing their cud into the next field of alfalfa is one that will stay with me for a long time.

...next time I find myself being milked, that is....

Cool Hand avoids the issue

as all great libertarians do. They try to divorce themselves from the conservatism running the show in the first place.

Like I told Fish-counter, if you want to see how your conservatism plays out, the ideas you champion without ever thinking clearly through them, go to Iraq.

There, in Baghdad, you will find the bastion of neo-conservatism and its imposition of free market thinking from top to bottom. This IS your sad and dangerous utopia of thought.

The distress we say in the 1980s was only because the emerging neo-cons of the day could only impose a warmed-up version of the world you pursue.

East German totalitarianism?

Coolhand equates local and workplace democracy with East German totalitarianism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#Comparison_with_other_work_organizations

There are many examples of successful worker coops that bring democracy to the workplace. I see the growth of worker coops as one of the answers to the ills that grip our current corporate-capitalist system.

Let's hear the story of how

Let's hear the story of how Argentina was saved by worker coops when big business pulled out their imaginary capital, that used to licence destruction and enslavement.

How about Soros & Co pulling out their "hedge funds" from SE Asia, causing depression and a suicide epidemic? Aldo the mass farmer suicides in India, caused by "globalization", also known as the " Soviet type collectivization of the world's economy" with imaginary capital?

The beautiful relationship between the two criminal gangs, the communists and capitalists, in China, is the best example of what all this is about.

Ed Deak.

Ed Deak.

The future

Speculating about how this is all going to shake down is idle - nobody knows.

On the other hand, the simple fact that the 1% are starting to 'worry' about their criminal activities is a positive development.

Still, the one percent possess a lot of power. The question will now be whether they decide to surrender some of it and make things better for the 99% or if they will use that power to further exploit the majority.

We know they have the government and the courts in their back pocket; the media as their mouth piece and guns as their trump card.

They shoot protesters in many countries - don't be surprised if they do the same here.

Corporations or Government to blame?

Do we blame the corporations or the government? Is there a difference between the two? The line between government and corporation has become very fuzzy. The corporatists have occupied the government.

The corporations ARE the government.

In the U.S. Obama has appointed the CEO of General Electric to be his Jobs Csar even though the guy has laid off half his employees and outsourced their jobs to China. Obama has appointed Geithner, former president of the Federal Reserve (a private banking system) to Secretary of the Treasury, in charge of bank bailouts.

Health Canada decided it was ok to start adding an addictive substance (caffeine) to non-cola soft drinks, because of corporate pressure.

Christy Clark has Gwyn Morgan as her adviser, he's a director of Encana - a gas company in Alberta. I wonder if Christy will approve the Enbridge pipeline running from Alberta to Kitimat? What kind of advice will she get from her adviser?

If the pipeline is built, against the wishes of the people of BC, do we blame Christy Clark, Encana or Enbridge? Obviously all of them are to blame.

In a democracy with a free press, you can also blame the voters - but that's not what we have.

No Logo Revolution

From Kalle Lasn's bio:

"His 'realization' that he did not fit into modern life hit him in a supermarket parking lot. Frustrated that he had to insert a quarter into a cart to shop there, he jammed the coin in so that the machine became inoperable. This was the first (quite literal) "culture jam" -- defined as an act designed to subvert mainstream society."

To me, Adbusters has always been more about style over substance....and if this was Mr. Lasn's epiphany moment of subversion it speaks volumes.

Mr. Lasn needs to come down to earth and linger among us commoners for awhile - he would soon find out that you are not paying to use the cart to shop. You get your quarter back when you return the cart to a place where another person can use it....

It is one of the rare "recyclable" services of shopping.

If the quarter didn't go in the cart, too many people would leave the cart wherever they wanted. This way you have an incentive, small as it is, to return the cart for another person to use.

Not a bad idea when you 'think' about it.

This appears to be more about impatience than subversion....apparently anything can be made into mythology in the ad world....

It's amazing how advertising can give legs to the truly trivial.

Quote: "So we felt, to put it succinctly, that a Tahrir moment for America was in the cards, was definitely possible."

Oh... a "Tahrir moment" - so that's what the intention was?... A look-a-like moment?

Actually, that's pretty pathetic....and juvenile.

A "Mad Men" take on revolution....Season 6, Occupy Hollywood.

Ya think Egyptian protesters were going for a "Tiananmen Square" moment? Yeah, I want to be there when someone asks them that.... Somehow I think they had bigger concerns on their minds.

Despite the vain kerfuffle of hype to take the credit -

The substance is on the streets.

Where the real risk, the real human heart, and the genuine momentum forged from real pain moves now to change the world.

Slogans pale in comparison.

I hope this goes well, but I have a gut level feeling that this is being engineered somehow to take a different direction - that the shadow government is cheering this on in ways unseen.

I hope I am wrong.

Lynn

Don't know where you found that strange tale about Belgium doing quite nicely, even though they "have no government". A charming and romantic idea but not the situation.

BRUSSELS - Belgium has agreed to buy the local consumer-lending unit of Dexia, ending a 15-year cross-border experiment with France after the European debt crisis deepened.

The Belgian federal government will pay €4 billion (S$7 billion) for the division and guarantee 60 per cent of a so-called bad bank to be set up for Dexia's troubled assets, Finance Minister Didier Reynders said yesterday. "

Oct. 10, 2011

For your charming pleasure, realisticman

That "strange" tale, as you call it, was written by the noted British journalist and Oxford-educated author, John Lanchester, published on Sept.7, 2011 in "The London Review of Books" titled "The Non-Scenic Route to the Place We're Going Anyway: The Belgian Solution":

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n17/john-lanchester/the-non-scenic-route-to-the-place-were-going-anyway

Lanchester writes for The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Times, The New Yorker, .....contributing editor of The London Review of Books....well, you get the idea. In 2010 he wrote what was referred to as a rigorous, literate, and wickedly funny explanation of the 2007 - 2010 - ongoing financial crisis. It is called "IOU: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay"

(From your link of Oct. 10, 2011, it appears Belgium now has its government back again. Pity, isn't it? They were doing so well without it.)

realisticman

So what is your angle on all of this realisticman?

Do you think increasing corporatism will make the world a better place for all?

Do you think concentrating the wealth and thus control of the global decision-making is the type of freedom you desire?

Do you believe in your heart, not in your text-induced head, that one man's work warrants the riches of a 1000 lifetimes?

What is it going to take before you would concede that the masses of people are being gamed and taken advantage of by the power structure?

Just how bad do things have to get before you say, 'you know, this is a little ridiculous. This must stop'?

Bailey - I am interested...

Punish corruption might just do it for me too, though - if I have to come up with one thing. One thing we do know for sure is that the financial meltdown could not have happened without a lot of people turning a blind eye to questionable, unethical, and downright criminal behaviour. There is, of course, a vast array of evidence of that. The other point worth making in relation to that is that capitalism would be a lot more tolerable if existing laws would simply enforced.

From the Declaration of the occupation of NYC (endorsed by the general assembly of NYC):
"As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power."

I want democracy, democracy above all else. That means we must all be equal, as the Canadian Charter and the US Constitution assert - and that equality must be backed by the force of law.To get to a true democracy requires nothing less than a vast cultural shift, which is precisely what Kalle Lasn and many others are working towards. Without the memes, without the spread of the idea of what real democracy looks like, there is no hope of changing anything - not at the ballot box, and not in the corridors of Wall Street or Bay Street.

The most hopeful thing about this movement is it's lack of charismatic leaders and backroom politicers, although there will be no shortage of them showing up in days to come. No, it truly is a grass-roots movement that stumbles its way towards government by the people.No doubt they will fall - perhaps it might be helpful if some of us stood around to pick them up.

Babysitting Belgium while the government takes a holiday

Thanks for that G West.

More and more the criminality is being recognized and finally named....and yes, the 1% are getting quite nervous lately as you note above. A turning point that could go either way.

realisticman - Just finishing a sinful bowl of Cherry Garcia ice cream ;-)

A caretaker isn't an official government - unless you believe in allowing your babysitter to sign off on your mortgage.

Our babysitters 'strangely' enough were only entitled to make themselves comfortable and enjoy the milk and brownies. ;-)

lynn, I agree with your sentiment

...regarding adbusters and the second-rate thinking behind some of Lasn's motivational forces. And your words ring true with me when it comes to playing 'their game', capitalism mixed with the dangerous shaping of opinion in particular. It is a slippery slope but, fortunately (if one dare call it that!), meme works in both directions.

Its clear to sound thinking that liberalism applied to capitalism is a necessary counter-weight because conservatism applied to capitalism will invariably run amok otherwise. So how else can the message get to the masses more effectively than with a new meme stating we need some sort of brake on the recent corporatist adventure?

That said, the serious question remains: is this structural change, or simply a change in form for the capitalist model?

I don't believe the people in Canada or the USA have the gonads for change in structure. In our theatre the social-democrats are considered left. Few, I believe, think beyond this very centrist position when politically theorizing.

So I think it is safe to presume we are looking at capitalism remaining. From that position, we ARE playing their game. This is why we need to use any and all tactics short of violence to advance the movement. This is why the meme is important as one tool, despite its abhorrent effect of shutting down thought.

As you may know, I reside socio-politically somewhere significantly left of here, as I think you do, but to many I am on the verge of nutbardom if my reading on things is accurate. If not nutbardom, then certainly in a world outside the walls of the socially reinforced spectacle of reality.

So regardless of the reality many claim to have their finger (or their username) on, there is one other reality often overlooked. The reality that positive change is possible and, in times of social unrest, we should stake a claim that will be hard to unearth later.

Forget about ideologies and

Forget about ideologies and the nonsense of left and right wings.

They don't exist, because the ideological division is vertical, not horizontal, with the crazies on top on each side, divided by a thin line, like C and F on our thermometers.

As the example of China shows, they may swear at each other occasionally, to show their comnpetitiveness, then they go behind the scenes, kissing each other.

Ideologies are, or should be dead, as they are nothing more than pseudo religions that failed humanity time after time.

The only solution is switching to a physical laws based economics system, forgetting what we've been brainwashed with for centuries.

It can be done and I know quite a few scientists and professors who agree.

My 1991 Principle was all about this, copyrighted and well proven.

Ed Deak.

you should perhaps preface or define 'ideology', Fiat lux

Ideology in its purest sense need not entail the workings of political ideology.

A comprehensive vision (an individual's ideology) is not what political ideology is about, at least none that has ever shown up on my radar. :)

igbymac

Always enjoy reading your posts - profound and interesting.

In my view Adbusters is an intrusion, that has in fact interfered with the natural development of momentum - co-opting a natural process that should not have been toyed with. (Similar to the co-option of the environmental movement.)

Quote: "It had this magical revolutionary feel to it, which you couldn't have with the usual lefty poster which is nasty and visceral and in your face. The magic came from the fact this ballerina is so sublimely tender."

"There's some idea there, and the power of it comes from the fact that most of the time you'll never be able to answer what it is. It's just there. It's just a magic moment that you can feel in your gut that it's there, and you're willing to go there and sleep there and go through the hardship and fight for it. Once you start answering it too clearly then the magic is gone."

Peter Pan? Tinker Bell? Joan of Arc hearing voices from God? Magical Mystery Tour? Another variety of religious experience?

Whatever.

Light-years away from the people in Tahir Square who were very clear as to why they were there.... the kind of clarity that comes from an awareness of the price that may have to be paid.

Today a particularly tragic, violent day in Egypt.

A Tahir 'moment'? If only.

oh lynn, it's absolutely absurd

... that is, the reality you are pointing out.

It's opportunism, it's base, it's hyper-reality, it's delusion, it's the simulacra of crass commercialism and more. Plato warned us long ago.

But, and there seems to always be a 'but' in these stories, I think it may be necessary. For we are not lead by the best of people nor the best of ideas, just those most desirous of power who can only reach the top through militancy.

I enjoy the way H.L. Mencken addresses reality:

The first-rate woman is a realist. She sees clearly that, in a world dominated by second-rate men, the special capacities of the second-rate man are esteemed above all other capacities and given the highest rewards ...

And so the march goes on ... ;)

The world is dominated by

The world is dominated by second rate people, not only men, as we can see it in our age, because first rate people don't want anything to do with "domination" or "leadership".

I've spent a lot of time in the offices and homes of the high and mighty and very often found their ignorance, or even stupidity , very scary.

Even with professors, who may have known and had experience in narrow areas, but their overall knowledge, or rather intelligence levels, were very low and narrow.

As I wrote before, that's why I gave up a fortune by not painting their portraits, glorifying them.

What can anybody expect from captains of business who claim, on TV, that they read "only the Bible and financial records" ?

Ed Deak.

Ideologies and Notions of Left and Right....

"The world is dominated by second rate people, not only men, as we can see it in our age, because first rate people don't want anything to do with "domination" or "leadership"." Ed

An overall correct observation, in my view... though I have "some" doubts that "domination" and "leadership" (of a type) are NECESSARILY always the same thing. Still the central point you and Lynn make here, in my view, is entirely valid.

There are many aspects of your own personal "ideology" I am pleased to incorporate into my own. 8-D (I agree with igby on this idea of "ideology"... or integrated systems of ideas, of which there are many. The issue is, is one's "system of ideas" or ideology correct or not, to what degree, context and effect?

Left and Right are merely "reference points", a convenient way of "categorizing" which help us roughly breakdown and better understand ideological and political phenomena. Again, just my view. As for absolutes, explaining all things entirely accurately, probably the only absolute I know of is... there are none. :-)

A good day my friend, and you all.

Corporatism

Check out the people who run large corporations or governments (no, not the politicians but the senior professional civil 'servants'). You won't find any difference, these people went to the same schools, same universities, remembered what they were taught, passed their exams (well), and never contradicted anyone in authority. They were recruited to keep their organizations running (yes, Betsy, governments are also large corporations). These people are careerists who view the world through identical glasses - it's all about getting on by going along. If they have to do some nasty things (to others), well, they just shrug & claim that's how the world is.
The only answer is to make these type of people PERSONALLY responsible for their decisions, including in a court of law.

corporatists...

"You won't find any difference, these people went to the same schools, same universities, remembered what they were taught, passed their exams (well), and never contradicted anyone in authority."

Well, 'tis sometimes difficult to find real disagreement here in these Tyee threads. Seems like everybody is nodding their heads and congratulating each other on enlightened outlooks. Granted there is sometimes pissing on the minor differences of said enlightened outlooks. Culture jamming is required everywhere, I think, and maybe especially here.

Let the meaning come out of

Let the meaning come out of the honest movement and voice of the people.

Let it ripen in its own way.

I trust that more than any designer meme.

There is no 'they' and 'them'...."let them strut their stuff" ....we will stand by 'them'....on and on.....

The one thing we should get by now is that this is about "us" -

One boat. One life raft.

No privileged observation deck seats from which to extend the superior liberal so-called helping hand -

When the whole world is being fooled and undermined by intentional falsity - a vast system of lies where appearance trumps authenticity, how can more of the same ever be a saving grace?

Why now?

One thing I'd like to add is that the protests may be fueleed by the fact that with all the financial shenagians going on that brought down the world economy, no one went to prison.

Over time that realization means people start thinking that what happened wasn't criminal, it was simply the system behaving in a normal way.

Which of course hurts their trust in the system and means they start thinking of alternatives.

to igbymac about drugs and booze mutally exclusve

I admit nothing happens in a vacuum.

If liquor sales had been shut down that day or at least restricted. Regardless of folks motives or personal status, The ensuing drunken mayhem wouldn't have happened. Thats just common sense.

A friend of mine is going to the demonstration this weekend. I beleive this demonstration will be represented by all age groups and ideologies, I hope its a peaceful event, but I wonder what small gang of shit disturbers might hide in the masses.

A public space for ideas

"What the two of them have found for themselves, here amid the guitars and the drums, and the indistinguishable forms shifting in their sleeping bags against the advancing autumn chill, is a public space for ideas. If the primary criticism of the ongoing demonstrations is that they seem to lack, as a hundred media reports have put it, “a cohesive public message,” that is also one of their great strengths. This is a very loud and clear yawp against the irresponsible use of power by unaccountable institutions, including, increasingly, the government itself. The protests here are omni-directional. They appear inchoate because their target is so diffuse — an accelerating sense in the country that there is no pea under any of the shells, that the red Jack is not in the deck, that the wealth of the country is being swindled and gambled and frittered away by so many people in so many ways that to sharpen the focus on one of the long cons is to let a dozen others reach fruition. This is a protest about declining wages and corporate greed, about baroque financial schemes and the unfathomable fine print on the back of your credit-card statement, about a grand critique of mutated capitalism and outrage at the simple tragedy of foreclosure fraud. So, for today, Sal and Randy are sitting on the stone bench and talking about the life of a union electrician in New York City in 2011 and, in what they say, there is the shadow of all these other things, waiting for one slip, one accident, one missed paycheck. Except for the very few, economic survival in America is a fragile, perilous journey over an increasingly narrow road. That’s the cohesive public message here in the park, if you can see past all the dreadlocks and hear it over the drum circles, which most of the mainstream coverage of this event has been sadly unable to do." ~ Charlie Pierce

Nice one Lynn.

This is worth a slow read:

http://www.economist.com/node/21530093

and this

http://www.economist.com/node/21530104

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more"

Anyone remember that Peter Finch line from "Network?"

Isn't that what the Wall Street Protestors are saying?

Ha-ha!

"But what I really need to know though is this: can I expect a cheque from the CIA if I attend the OWS Vancouver protest?"

No, but you might get one from Ezra Levant or Stewart Braddick - it has all their hallmarks of immature right-wing-conservatism shit-distrurbing, and an equal amount of organizational delusion.

How will they know?

Is Adbusters going to be advertising the Vancouver vent, I mean event. (that was a real typo, honest). Does Adbusters bust their own ads too? Is the t-shirt concession already taken?

No need for the revelers to get stoned, they'll be totally out of it anyway. "What's it all about man?", "Whatever, man". Heavy.

r'man

""What's it all about man?", "Whatever, man". Heavy."

Sounds like the chatter at a Vancouver Board of Trade luncheon, eh?