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America's New Radicals Attack a System That Ignores Them
"Enraged young people," The New York Times worries aloud, are kicking off the dust of phony democracy, in which "the job of a citizen was limited to occasional trips to the polling places to vote" while decision-making remains in the claws of a rarified elite of overpaid corporate executives and their corrupt pet politicians.
"From South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street," the paper continues, "these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over. They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box."
As Crane Brinton pointed out in his seminal book "The Anatomy of Revolution," an important predictor of revolution is downward mobility among strivers, young adults whose education and ambition would traditionally have led to a brighter future. (photo: watchingfrogsboil)
The rage of the young is real. It is justified. It is just beginning to play out.
The political class thinks it can ignore the people it purports to represent. They're right--but not forever. A reckoning is at hand. Forty years of elections without politics will cost them.
Americans' pent-up demand for a forum to express their disgust is so vast that they are embracing slapdash movements like Occupy Wall Street, which reverses the traditional tactic of organizing for a demonstration. People are protesting first, then organizing, then coming up with demands. They have no other choice. With no organized Left in the U.S., disaffected people are being forced to build resistance from the ground up.
Who can blame young adults for rejecting the system? The political issue people care most about--jobs and the economy--prompts no real action from the political elite. Even their lip service is half-assed. Liberals know "green jobs" can't replace 14 million lost jobs; conservatives aren't stupid enough to think tax cuts for the rich will help them pay this month's bills.
The politicians' only real action is counterproductive; austerity and bank bailouts that hurt the economy. Is the government evil or incompetent? Does it matter?
Here in the United States, no one should be surprised that young adults are among the nation's angriest and most alienated citizens. No other group has been as systematically ignored by the mainstream political class as the young. What's shocking is that it took so long for them to take to the streets.
Every other age groups get government benefits. The elderly get a prescription drug plan. Even Republicans who want to slash Medicaid and Medicare take pains to promise seniors that their benefits will be grandfathered in. Kids get taken care of too. They get free public education. ObamaCare's first step was to facilitate coverage for children under 18.
Young adults get debt.
The troubles of young adults get no play in Washington. Pundits don't bother to debate issues that concerns people in their 20s and 30s. Recent college graduates, staggering under soaring student loan debt, are getting crushed by 80 percent unemployment--and no one even pretends to care. Young Americans tell pollsters that their top concerns are divorce, which leaves kids impoverished, and global warming. Like jobs, these issues aren't on anyone's agenda.
This pot has been boiling for decades.
In 1996 I published "Revenge of the Latchkey Kids," a manifesto decrying the political system's neglect and exploitation of Generation X, my age cohort, which followed the Baby Boomers.
We were in our 20s and low 30s at the time.
Un- and underemployment, the insanity of a job market that requires kids to take out mortgage-sized loans to attend college just to be considered for a low-paid entry-level gig in a cube farm, the financial and emotional toll of disintegrating families, and our fear that the natural world was being destroyed left many of my peers feeling resentful and left out--like arriving at a party after the last beer was gone.
Today the oldest Gen Xers are turning 50. Life will always be harder for us than it was for the Boomers. If I had to write "Latchkey Kids" for today's recent college grads, it would be bleaker still. Today's kids--demographers call them Gen Y--have it significantly worse than we did.
Like us, today's young adults get no play from the politicians.
The debts of today's Gen Yers are bigger ($26,000 in average student loans, up from $10,000 in 1985). Their incomes are smaller. Their sense of betrayal, having gone all in for Obama, is deeper.
Young adults turned out big for Obama in 2008, but he didn't deliver for them. They noticed: The One's approval rating has plunged from 75 percent among voters ages 18-29 when he took office in January 2009 to 45 percent in September.
Politicians like Obama ignore young adults, especially those with college degrees, at their--and the system's--peril. Now, however, more is at stake than Obama and the Democrats' 2012 election prospects. The entire economic, social and political order faces collapse; young people may choose revolution rather than accept a life of poverty in a state dedicated only to feeding the bank accounts of the superrich.
As Crane Brinton pointed out in his seminal book "The Anatomy of Revolution," an important predictor of revolution is downward mobility among strivers, young adults whose education and ambition would traditionally have led to a brighter future.
In February Martin Wolf theorized in The Financial Timesthat the Arab Spring rebellions in Egypt and Tunisia owed their success to demographics; those countries have more young people than old ones. On the other hand "middle-aged and elderly rig political and economic life for their benefit in the U.K. [he could also have said the U.S.]: hence the way in which policies on housing or education finance are weighted against the young."
Right here and right now, though, the young and the old are on the same side. Though the young are getting screwed the hardest, almost everyone else is getting screwed too. And with 80 percent unemployment, the young have a lot of free time to rise up.
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Show AllNo, Ted they are not radicals, they are simply demonstrating honesty in a nation where most of the population is afflicted with denail syndrome and has ceded control to radical right wingers.
No, Ted, the system has not ignored them, they understand how the system has oppressed them and the rest of us. They recognize that the oppression gets worse with each passing day.
"No, Ted they are not radicals, they are simply demonstrating honesty"
In all fairness, that's pretty radical in the US of A. Otherwise I agree with your perspective, although I think that Rall's article is quite good.
Actually, "radical" is a fine word to describe the movement. That is how I proudly describe myself.
"Radical" has been oh-so convieniently mis-apporporated by those who control our discourse to mean "extremist". This is incorrect. Being of the same etymology as "radish", "radical" does not mean "extreme"; it means "one who seeks the roots of things" in the manner of Thoreau's "striking the root".
The proper word for the right wingers is not "radical" it is "reactionary".
In any rhetorical fight, we need to start taking ownership of words.
pjd412, thank you for the etymology of the word "radical." I imagine the word developed its negative connotation because those who seek out the root of problems can be thorns in the side of the ruling status quo, those who prefer to have us believe that the forever growing division between the have lots and have nots is simply a matter of character or life choices, not a nefariously designed system that unfairly privileges certain people over others. If Americans were to wake up and finally realize this, there would be mayhem. "What is happening to us is by design?!!"
another idea that is a perennial thorn in the side of the elites, marxism.
"What is happening to us is by design?!!"
- yes it's designed. capitalism by its nature is will unfold upon itself. this has been noted by marxists for over 100 years. americans have been taught that all marxist thinking is 'evil' and here in lies the radical nature of political critique. the truth must be hidden and vilified, even though it has been revealed to us by many sages in the past.
- - - - - - - - - -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
{Marx's theories about society, economics and politics, which are collectively known as Marxism, hold that all societies progress through the dialectic of class struggle. He was heavily critical of the current socio-economic form of society, capitalism, which he called the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", believing it to be run by the wealthy middle and upper classes purely for their own benefit, and predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, it would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism.[3]
Under socialism, he argued that society would be governed by the working class in what he called the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the "workers state" or "workers' democracy".[4][5] He believed that socialism would, in its turn, eventually be replaced by a stateless, classless society called pure communism. Along with believing in the inevitability of socialism and communism, Marx actively fought for the former's implementation, arguing that both social theorists and underprivileged people should carry out organized revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic change.[6][7]}
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...peace...
Important observations for sure, ray. If anything could be described as 'radical', it would be the behavior and attitudes of our leaders starting with Thatcher/Reagan. This is something that gets lost in the deformation of reality which could also be described as one of the most radical social transformations of our times.
Anyone who is in opposition to this state of affairs should be portrayed instead as a Pragmatist, promoting moderate and sensible objectives that do not tend toward becoming a wild-eyed vision... not very romantic, mind you, but refreshing in terms of context.
A large part of the people in the 99 percent do not realize yet that's where they are or at least won't consciously admit it to themselves (some police officers are among this group, some are sympathetic; the protesters are less likely to notice the sympathetic ones than the ones beating their brains in). Efforts to awaken the sleeping portion of the 99 have thusfar failed because it's less painful for them to believe that the "recovery" will, as they have been promised, return than it would be to look at how thing's really are.
Please read my earlier comment above. Thatcher/Reagan were reactionary, not radical.
Just as the protest grew with each disappearing deferment during the Vietnam era, so too will this grow as more and more people are directly affected by the present economic disaster, especially the young. So much is being said about the cost of higher education, as it should be, however, this movement should learn from the 60's and not leave behind the other young, the non college educated young. Remember, the 60's pitted the "young," that is, the more affluent and educated young, against the "hardhats," who ended up becoming Reagan Democrats. Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself.
It´s a hard rain thats gonna fall.
Ted is exactly right, my kids won´t have it nearly as easy as I did. Back in the sixties there was lots of jobs for young people; now times are tough, and there isn´t any light shining through the clouds.
The privatization of the US Fed has to end. Corporate media ownership disinforms in order to protect wealth. The present system of lobbying is anti-democratic. Unpopular and ineffective wars that only benefit the military industrialists and destroy and waste countless lives must be stopped. Purveyors of hatred must be held accountlable. Anybody remember Bill O´Reilly telling everybody to shut up and get behind the president? Wealth must be redistributed, and the best way to do it is through social programs designed to help the poor.
Well said.
This is an attempt to turn the anger against the people in power into a generational conflict.
The idea that Rall endorses
"middle-aged and elderly rig political and economic life for their benefit in the U.K. [he could also have said the U.S.]"
is ludicrous. The middle-aged and elderly don't have any more power in this rigged system than the young do. And using Bill O'Reilly presumingly as evidence of the power of the middle-aged (or elderly) when he should be used as a stooge of the elite is a blatant example of this false reasoning.
This is obvious, the people who control this government aren't just going after education and working-middle class jobs, they are going after pensions, social security and medicare.
Solidarity people.
I agree with your point about it becoming a generational conflict. Howver, as someone who has watched the collapse of a formerly effective peace/economic justice organizing center in my home town over generational conflicts, the facts are, such generational conflict - mainly over strategy and tactics, but also priorities, already exists. The older generation needs to be more open toward youthful tactics, and sometimes they simply need to get out of the way and follow, not lead. (disclosure - I am 55 yr. old).
Im 53 and I am totally open to the youthful tactics. My only question to them is, "What took you so long!". I was getting concerned that they were never going to take to the streets.
I happened to be listening to the Diane Rehm show today. It looks like the Republicans (along with some Dems I'm sure) plan on doing their best to make voting for college age kids more difficult by requiring them to either get photo ID's in the state they are going to college in or to require them to vote where their parents live. It appears that all they have for these kids is total contempt.
Being 53 Im sweating it out as far as Social Security and Medicare goes. I couldn't get a job from any of the mythical "job creators", so I had to take my pension WAY earlier than I had planned. My pension drops by quite a bit when I become eligible for SS. So what happens it the raise the age? Im in the same boat as far as health insurance goes.
And to Ted Rall, great article I really enjoyed it. You summed things up very well.
One comment on generational conflict. Many of the young unemployed, are being supported by the older generation, they are called parents.
Amen, glitch. In England, it looks to me like David Cameron is rigging the system against everyone except the rich. Students are being hit especially hard, subsidies for housing, for employment search help for youth, for the National Health Service (in danger of destruction), child care -- every piece of the social safety net is being severely cut. In America, the Right tries to convince current seniors that their Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid coverage is in no danger, thinking we are so selfish as not to care that these protections for the elderly, poor and/or disabled will - if the Right has its way - disappear for our children, grandchildren and young friends. Seniors, the young and their parents have everything in common and the same dangers to fear and to fight.
Not winning elections, is not being 'ignored'. It's just that your ideas are not as popular as you've convinced yourself they are or should be. Switching over to threats is not a good idea.
Ideas, and especially the popularity therof, are largely manufactured by corporations and wealthy individuals who's fortunes rely on one idea being popular and another idea being unpopular, or more often, not heard at all.
Neutrally-worded, scientifically sampled, opinion polls show that lots of things that the media pronounces unpopular - if they mention them at all, are actually popular. For example in multiple polls, majorities agree with a program of universal government-provided medical insurance for everyone funded by a new tax. In one famous poll the population sample was asked to pick the platform of the various 2004 presidential candidates they agreed with most - without naming the candidate or the party. The platform of Socialist Party, USA's David McReynolds got the greatest percentage of approvals.
I suggest you read up on Edward Bernay's ("Father of modern PR") theories. He coined the cynical phrase "manufacturing consent" (approvingly), which later became the title of the famous book by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, which I recommend that you read also.
If you were even casually familiar with the way electoral democracy works in onter countries (even our neighbor to the north - where even the Green and French-Separtist party leaders are allowed to participate in election debates, you would realize that US electoral politics is a complete sham. The election of the oligharchy-ass-kissing, human rights criminal Obama is the most spectacular example of this.
excellent references, one correction the phrase 'manufacturing consent' was coined by walter lippman, a media critic from the 1st half of the 20th century, not edward bernay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann
...peace...
Hello? Anybody remember now much hope people had for change when they elected Obummer? What they got was GWB2. Voting is a waste of time!! The system is broken!! It is a plutocracy!!
Memo to Democrats -->. Stay the Hell out of the Occupy Wall Street movemnt.
There's no better way to destroy this than to have the dems step and and co-opt it. Which they will try to do - guaranteed. Starting with Van Jones I predict.
The Bankers Are the Problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6jdkpQjueo&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Occupy Wall Street beginnings - http://daviddegraw.org/2011/09/the-richest-0-1-have-launched-a-war-on-us-its-time-to-fight-back-and-hold-these-400-billionaires-personally-responsible-for-our-economic-crisis/
Great essay by Rall-- well worth distributing to people with their heads still buried under the covers.
When you contemplate the staggering loads of debt that the non-wealthy have to take on in order to get an education these days, it's remarkable how passive the young have been, generally.
Every 15 minutes they raise the tuition.
It appears to be a race to see who can engineer the steepest cost increases each year -- the medical-insurance industry or the education factories.
In looking at what happened to political movements in the 1960s, it is interesting to see what worked and what failed. The 60s did manage to make a number of cultural & political changes including items such as sexual mores, Civil rights, and gender roles. (And 60s "decadence" and "extremism" remains a major bugaboo for reactionaries who undoubtedly fear a repeat.)
However, real changes in power and wealth were not only stymied, the business class launched a highly successful counter-revolution that consolidated wealth and power in an even more rapacious elite.
Trade unions and the labor movement, which should have been one of the strongest areas of economic democracy, were bought off, corrupted, and eventually off-shored.
Now the plutocrats--and their toadies such as Scott Walker -- are coming to shoot (figuratively, for the moment) the last holdouts of the union movement, which are the public sector unions of teachers and firefighters, etc.
One of Ronnie Raygun's greatest triumphs was annihilating the air traffic controller's union in 1981. (Margaret Thatcher was rendering the same service in the UK by attacking miner's unions, etc.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/29/margaret-thatcher-undermine-miners-union
There is still a fair amount of 'leftist' sentiment in the U.S.--despite absolutely steeping in decades of right-wing corporate and political propaganda-- but it has zero institutional power at this point. So even when a majority of the public support progressive taxation, or a single payer medical system, or a desire to end colonial wars abroad, there is absolutely no interest from the political class because their corporate owners are not interested in these things.
Public anger is channeled into obsessions such as tax breaks for billionaires, attacks on public workers -- who might still have a small pension & decent health care, Muslims producing terrorist babies, the Mexican 'illegals' hiding out down the block, etc.
SOMEBODY is destroying Amerika and it certainly cannot be the rich-- or their corporations and banks. (And it's no longer fashionable to blame the Jews.)
It is certainly heartening to see some people in Amerika taking a stand against the Wall Street kleptocracy-- and young adults probably have more to lose than anyone. Like their entire future.
This might sound a bit over the top, but the system is what required that education and made it that costly. Why, you might ask? Well, if it keeps you struggling to pay off the debt you aren't going to be very revolutionary are you? You will take your money and shut up about how wrong what you are doing is, you aren't going to quible about what they do to you or your health care or retirement so long as you "still have a job" you'll take it. You'll take it right up to the time they see you as too expensive, then ten or fifteen years away from retirement they cut you lose and take on the next kid, who has thousands of dollars worth of education and no way to pay for it comes along. I also might remind you that "change" is an ellusive thing, because we got rid of "slavery" did we get rid of "wage slavery"? I think not. Because we passed the Civil Rights Act, did we get rid of discrimination, completely? I think not. Most of this stuff was a band-aid over a gaping wound that is still losing this democracy its life's blood and killing off what passes as liberty for most of us.
>>This might sound a bit over the top, but the system is what required that education and made it that costly. Why, you might ask? Well, if it keeps you struggling to pay off the debt you aren't going to be very revolutionary are you
In fact this very meme was at the heart of the Strategy of various Administration in the USA to create the "Ownership society" and promote individual home ownership.
By ensuring the worker class had to work off a 20+ year Mortgage wherein the loss of a job or imprisonment might well see that home lost was to ensure that the worker remained compliant and did not rock the boat.
Excellent article. Tying it in with the Occupy Wall Street (and other cities) demonstrations, which is implied here, and then mentioning that dirty word - revolution - forces me to expand on that, at the risk of being put on some list by the FBI.
As much as I admire the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators - and the Troy Davis demonstrators, and the Pipeline demonstrators, and going back the demonstrators protesting the austerity measures in Wisconsin, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc...let's be blunt here. None of them accomplish a single thing. They get some newsplay, they expose a major issue for the duration of the demonstration, people get beat up by the police and arrested, and then eventually the demonstrations end, people go home, and media coverage returns to the daily dose of fluff for the masses. Most people then forget and move on.
Think I'm wrong? What happened in Wisconsin? After all those major protests and demonstrations....the austerity measures passed. It is law now. Oh well, they tried. What about Troy Davis? He's dead. Oh well, they tried. The pipeline protests? Same thing - the pipeline is going through. Occupy Wall Street? Nothing will change. When the demonstrations end - which they WILL eventually - business as usual in the Corporate Plutocracy.
My point is not to belittle the brave and passionate demonstrators - in fact, quite the opposite - but to point out that in a country and a system that is as broken and corrupt as Amereicha's, demonstrations and protests are simply never going to be enough. The word "revolution" was mentioned in this article, and well it should be, because that is the ONLY way the broken system will ever be defeated and any real change will occur. I know the demonstrators are really trying, but they just can't seem to acknowledge that they are still operating within the parameters of a broken system, even by peacefully protesting, and they just can't admit that what is really needed is taking it to the next level if they really want to change things.
People will say "But Demonstorm, think of the 30's and unions, and women's suffrage, and civil rights, etc." Times have changed. The system at least partially functioned back then. It is completely, 100% taken over by the Plutocracy now, and it is comparing apples to oranges to compare today with the fights of the past, where demonstrations and protesting could actually accomplish change. They can't anymore. I know it is horrible to even comtemplate, but I think most of us know, deep down, that only violent revolution will ever get this country back from the fascists now.
Just wait for the next big crash - that might just be the spark needed for true change.
One thing I do know - if we don't try nothing will change.
Violence is coming to this Revolution - but I'd bet it is the Police and government that start the violence - heck they already have by macing the protesters in NY.
I'm afraid your right. The killing of the guy the other day in YEMEN is a clear message to all of us. Resistance is futile! The BORG (AKA The Corporatist STATE) no longer takes prisoners from here on in the entire planet is a free fire zone and its the 1% doing the shooting. For the moment. WAR is coming a massive CIVIL Class war planet wide.
"... Mentioning that dirty word - revolution - forces me to expand on that, at the risk of being put on some list by the FBI."
Too late, Im sure everyone who posts here frequently is on an FBI "list". As far as I can see the FBI is one very paranoid entity when it comes to anything on the left side of the political spectrum.
I agree with mtdon, a BIG crash IS coming, and my guess is pretty soon. Our current ruling class is so stunning corrupt, greedy and reckless that it is inevitable.
How does that saying go? A society is only three meals away from anarchy. Apparently our business and political rulers have forgotten that, and the do it at their own peril.
NC-Tom,
{everyone who posts here frequently is on an FBI "list".}
i agree. oct 23rd is the 10 year anniversary of the introduction of the legislation known as 'the patriot act' . i can't think of a better way of celebrating this day then finding a handful of friends and going down to the post office to request our FOIA records from the FBI. fuck them, they can keep all the records they want - but we still have the right to request info from them. it's like the 1st amendment - use it or lose it. we all have the obligation to try and find out to what degree we have been monitored by the corporate state. if anything, during these extremely difficult economic times, we can demonstrate to the 'sleeping americans' how much tax revenue has been wasted monitoring conscientious americans exercising constitutionally protected speech.
...peace...
Revolution yes. But why "violent" revolution?
I recently read Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution. What amazed me, having grown up with all manner of propaganda associating communism with "violent revolution", was actually how LITTLE violence was associated with this revolution.
The crucial factor leading to the success of the October Revolution was the political organizing of the Russian working class that preceded it. When the time was ripe and the working class asserted itself, the rotten carcass of the old system mostly fell of its own weight--the military had by-and-large come over to side of the workers at this point.
The central task is to educate and persuade, not to threaten or incite violence. It is wise to consider calls for such violence as possibly coming from agent provocateurs.
Because - as I already stated in multiple examples - the non-violent type does not produce any results. The Corporate Plutocracy simply ignores them. Remember the Iraq War protests? over 10 MILLION protested it, but our government ignored them all and invaded the next week anyway. 10 MILLION. If those kinds of non-violent numbers don't convince you that non-violence is accomplishing nothing, then you are truly smoking the peace pipe of ignorance.
The Elite in this country do not listen to - nor care about - our voices, loud or soft, single or multiple. They know that we are simply shouting and marching and waving signs. Big deal. Of course, as soon as any violence does start by We the People, it will be put down swiftly and with deadly force, and the "terrorist traitors" demonized by the government 2 seconds later to discourage further unrest.
The toppling of the czar was far less bloody than it could have been, true, but that's largely due to a poor, deeply abused conscript army defecting en masse. What made the Bolshevik revolution so bloody is what often makes revolutions bloody: the civil war the proceeded the collapse, which is still part of a revolutionary moment.
You say this: "The central task is to educate and persuade, not to threaten or incite violence. It is wise to consider calls for such violence as possibly coming from agent provocateurs.
Firstly, the educational mission and an element of physical threat are not mutually exclusive. They can be done at the same time, and probably should be done. But I have a stronger problem with your second sentence, which is horribly misguided. It is *not* wisdom at all which guides anyone seeking to dismiss conversation by labelling people with whom they disagree with "agents". It's my least favorite trait in this "community", and one of the most reprehensible things someone can do to a complete stranger. It's cowardly, and most of the time, flat out wrong.
This is not to say that provocateurs don't exist and incite people. They do. Personally, I think this is stupid on their part, because even though they can get some easy action early on those dupes, acclimatizing people to physically resist domination can and will backfire on them. But the assumption is that if cops or other forces want a physical confrontation, then that confrontation must be a bad thing. That's not a smart generalization. For all you know, maybe they're more clever than you and are hoping that the opposite happens: that people pacify because they become afraid of baiting cops.
In the end, just follow your own path regardless of how your opponent feels about it,and don't dismiss important conversations that you should have because you are afraid that it may be a cop initiating them. Everyone shoudl be able to speak their minds.
Of course, that's exactly what an agent provocateurs would say if they were there to try to induce people to say things that could later be used in evidence against them. Not that I believe fork an instant that that's what's happening here. I have my doubts that being dubious a physical confrontation leading to a good outcome is a dumb generalization, but it may well happen, and nothing I or anyone else posts here will lure it back to cancel out a single line or wash away a word of it.
it seems there is no supposed organized left (this Occupy movement seems to be organ ized somewhat) because the philosopy on the left of center basically is cooperation while that on the right of center is basically cooption which needs to be and is well financed to succeed over cooperation.
WARNING: Don't put flowers in the rifle barrels of troops and think you are winning them over. It did not work in the 60's and it did not work in Egypt.
Where were you a few weeks ago Ted? Now that the movement is standing you must feign support as a paid apoligist for the Democratic Party (since their publisher friends support you). And we remember that you support their collusion in the cover-up of 9/11.
A few of the subtle seeds of discord in this article…
1.) “embracing slapdash movements like Occupy Wall Street” Slapdash? Everything under construction is a mess at first. Ever see the mud when you excavate for a new house, or the sawdust from framing the walls?
2.) “Is the government evil or incompetent? Does it matter?” Yes it matters! One is intentional (crime) while the other is accidental (mistake). You are not retarded (I’m guessing) and know the War on Islam and the War for Oil are intentional. And what of our crumbling civil rights?
3.) “conservatives aren't stupid enough to “think” tax cuts for the rich will help them pay this month's bills” O contraire, they “know” it will help them pay for this month’s bills… plus all the wine, woman and song they can handle.
4.) “approval rating has plunged from 75 percent… to 45 percent…” Sell it Ted, sell it! But here on Earth almost no one “approves” of the President’s job.
Maybe when your ready to stop suckling from the crotch of billionaires you can try this link to World Trade Center 7 information (until Big Brother breaks it.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZEvA8BCoBw
Kudos
Thanks. With the benefit of hindsight. I may have been too harsh with my evisceration, but I'm still pissed after his flagrant insults of “Truthers” in an earlier article. The evidence of conspiracy on 9/11 is utterly overwhelming. WTC-7 was obviously imploded. This is irrefutable. Then the Bush administration prevented any real 9/11 investigations (while suppressing and destroying evidence). And add to a hundred other unresolved questions and problems, Bush sat in that Kindergarten class (reading program media event) doing nothing after he was told of the second attack, then hung around afterwards and socialized a bit. Why?
In fact, why would a President even begin that media event after the first attack? Because he knew there was nothing for him to do.
The statue of the bull on Wall Street should be replaced by a gigantic rat--Ronnie the Rat, who began the destruction of the middle class and proscribed the ability of workers to ever rise to that economic level. That should be one of the goals of the courageous protestors, a sort of memento mori for suits on their way to the cubicles.
I'd rather go with Matt Taibbi's "Great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." myself...
Has anyone else noticed how all of a sudden the price of gas is going down? Any connection to OccupyWallstreet, as in an advanced form of crowd control/social engineering on the part of those who oppose these demonstrations?
Stock are down and when stocks are down, speculation-driven oil prices go down too. The suppliers and/or chain-retaliers tie their gasoline prices to the price of oil. No big conspiracy here - just part of the expected deflation that will drive us into the second, probably worse phase of the economic recession.
Note to kids: You're doing a great job in NYC. But, better step it up, you're on a collision course with your future. There's a lot of 'undoing' of crime and corruption that the "Greatest Generation" is responsible for.
there is a war coming...
not a war for soldiers, or mercenaries, or drones, although they will be there...
a war for you...
a war for me...
a war that will have 'protester' fighting against 'protester', rather than alongside...
the ultimate prize is not economical, nor educational...
it is ecological...
there is a war coming, and this planet must survive...
there is a war coming between those who would fight to save the planet, and those who would fight to continue to destroy it...
this is not a matter of class...
this is a matter of choice...
a war is coming...a war to choose whether life will continue here, or perish...
this is a matter of physical matter, and viability...
to not fight will not be a choice...the war will go everywhere...
there is a war coming...protest what you will, or no...
Great piece and so right on target!
Listen: "We Can't Make it Here Anymore" by James McMurtry
The perfect theme song for the #Occupy movement
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29282.htm
“They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.”
As well they should have little faith so long as corporations are allowed to continue to count the votes with their proprietary software. They will ALWAYS ensure that politicians sympathetic to their desire to make profit over all, will be “elected” to office.
Voting is a sham. We should ALL boycott the next election. You keep voting and expecting a different result – but you never get what (who) you really want. News divisions, owned by corporations, continue to tell us who is ahead in the polls, and even announce who the winners are. So long as you continue to vote you only enable and legitimize the outcome that is decided by corporate.
The system is broken BEYOND REPAIR.
Direct democracy
This all sounds much like what got the non Partisan League up and going, much to the chargrine of all the wealthy. Quite naturally they pulled out all the stops to put an end to socialism in America and did it as harshly and violently as they could. They did everything to discredit anyone who questioned the status quo, and because of their positions, it didn't matter if it was legal or not. Murdering people was not unheard of, and eventually they played the Red card which took us all the way through the McCarthy years. Now we have to find our socialist voice once again, amid the Obama regime, while he plays unconstitutional, executing America citizens without benefit of a trial and revoking most of our freedom on a case by case basis by using "National Security" as his protective blanket. I'm a boomer, but I am none to happy. I feel right at home with the protester X and Y folks.
The entire political class is unresponsive and paralyzed because it is thoroughly corrupt.
Time for regime change in the United States of America.