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Finally, It's a Purpose Both Sides Agree On
Saturday afternoon, right around the time "Occupy Wall Street" sprouted a seedling in the middle of downtown Portland, Pete "The Carpenter" Harring found himself drawn to the unfolding action in Monument Square.
"I was thinking there might be a little bit of common ground," recalled Harring, founder of the Maine Tea Party/Maine Refounders, in an interview Tuesday. "That's why I went down there -- to see if there was at least something we could agree on, even though our political views might be completely opposite of each other."
He had that last part right. Back home in Standish, Harring fired up his website (themaineteaparty.com) and pounded out this scathing review of the small-but-determined encampment now known as OccupyMaine:
"What I found was that most of them were anti-rich, anti-capitalism, spoiled liberal progressives who really have no idea what they are protesting. They are just useful idiots to further the socialism agenda."
To which Demi Colby, 23, a member of OccupyMaine's media team, replied in a separate interview Tuesday, "He should have stuck around. He really should have. Because he would have realized that his views are respected."
As any poll will tell you, the country's entire political spectrum is awash in anger and frustration these days. Less obvious is that many of those currents -- from the right, from the left and from everywhere in between -- lately appear to be flowing in the same direction.
Take, for example, Pete the Carpenter and Demi the Protester.
He's a guy who "pounds nails for a living" but finds himself struggling these days "to keep a roof over my head."
She's an unemployed former college student from Richmond whose car broke down last spring, which left her unable to get to her classes at Southern Maine Community College, which led to a pair of absence-induced F's, which led to an academic suspension, which means no more financial aid to wrap up her final semester.
He leans far to the right -- and he's proud of it.
She leans far to the left -- and she's proud of that, too.
But step away from the labels and something unexpected comes into focus: These two, and many like them, aren't quite the polar opposites you might expect.
To wit: They both think the federal government has been bought and paid for by corporate interests with pockets infinitely deeper than their own.
"I'm tired of calling (Maine's congressional delegation) . . . and having nothing change," said Colby. "They need to come meet with us. They work for us. They know that this is going on. They need to come to us."
Cue Harring: "I believe that a good many elected officials are highly influenced by the lobbyists for the big corporate giants out there. Basically, they own the government."
They both think that the Federal Reserve, far from providing a way out of the current economic doldrums, actually contributes to them.
Asked to list OccupyMaine's specific objectives, Colby began with "End the Federal Reserve."
Echoed Harring, "I personally don't believe the Federal Reserve is constitutional and I believe they're part of the problem by manipulating interest rates and printing money whenever they feel like it."
They both think the key to renewed prosperity resides not on Capitol Hill or in a Fortune 500 boardroom, but rather with those everyday Americans who are stuck aboard the slow-motion train wreck that is our economy.
"This has been a long time coming," said Colby. "A lot of older individuals have expressed to us that they've just been waiting for someone to finally do something. . . . I think people finally decided to say enough is enough."
Or as Harring put it, "If there were more and more people who actually took the time to find out what's going on and educate themselves on these matters, they'd realize we can ... definitely influence the way corporations and big business operate."
To be sure, these two social activists view the world through decidedly different filters.
Colby wants an end to the legal doctrine of "corporate personhood," whereby the U.S. Supreme Court ruled as recently as last year that corporations enjoy the same free-speech rights as living, breathing people.
Harring, on the other hand, thinks the answer to corporate excess isn't the long arm of government, but rather the simple law of supply and demand. A case in point: Bank of America's just-announced plan to start charging customers $5 monthly fees to use their debit cards.
"That kind of ticked me off," said Harring, who dropped his account with Bank of America years ago. Still, he added, "If the American people were to wake up and say 'no, period' to the corporations, then it's going to hurt their business and they're not going to do it."
Without a doubt, Pete the Carpenter was speaking to his tea party base when he lambasted OccupyMaine in his blog as a collection of "useful idiots." He still thinks they need to lose the "entitlement mindset" and stop beating up on capitalism.
But the more Harring talked about the protesters Tuesday, the more he found himself conceding that "we've got something here that's kinda, sorta in common."
Meaning he, just like Colby, felt tugged toward Monument Square on Saturday?
"Yes, I did," Harring replied. "Because our country as a whole is in a world of mess right now. And if we continue going down the road fighting each other over 'right' and 'left' and stuff like that, we're just going to get nowhere."
Any ideas?
Suggested Demi the Protester, "The whole point of this movement is to respect each other's political, social and religious views (and) to come together in solidarity for a common goal."
Suggested Pete the Carpenter, "We need to be able to look out there and reach out and say, 'OK, what do we have in common?' Let's focus on fixing what we can agree on and we can quibble about all the other crap later on."
Eureka.
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26 Comments so far
Show All"Socialist agenda" tells it all. For conservatives reality is a conspiracy against their ideals and so the realistic diagnosis of conservatism, as Wilhelm Reich realized, is paranoid schizophrenia. Partnering the Tea Party is clasping the snake that doesn't want to be tread on to our bosoms.
Americans need to make a list with two columns delineating what goods and services government is better at providing and what goods and services private enterprise is better at providing.
The forces of supply and demand have been so corrupted by corporate control of government, that to view them as anything more than a theory of what may have existed before any of us were born, is delusional.
The only way to make such a list would be through thermodynamic analysis, mapping the various sectors of the economy as they intersect from upstream to downstream. There is only one problem with such a chart: all the operations depicted upon it are theorized to violate the second law of thermodynamics. Profits do not inhere to transactions, they arise from the practice of victimization which is universal save where the law prohibits. For preliminary information see this at my home page:
http://home.roadrunner.com/~markwrede/NonFic/ThermoEcon.html
Irrelevant.
First you determine what are the basic needs of the country to be secure, healthy, and prosperous.
1) Good transportation routes
2) Sufficient enegy sources
3) An educated and healthy populace, capable of working and defending the country.
4) Basic industries for defense and daily operation
The things that support these needs are the commons, which the government must provide and control. Everything else can be privately run.
"Yes, I did," Harring replied. "Because our country as a whole is in a world of mess right now. And if we continue going down the road fighting each other over 'right' and 'left' and stuff like that, we're just going to get nowhere."
Any ideas?
Suggested Demi the Protester, "The whole point of this movement is to respect each other's political, social and religious views (and) to come together in solidarity for a common goal."
Suggested Pete the Carpenter, "We need to be able to look out there and reach out and say, 'OK, what do we have in common?' Let's focus on fixing what we can agree on and we can quibble about all the other crap later on."
Eureka."
It is a shame that this simple concept is so hard for most to grasp. But no worry, we can continue down the same predictable path, it's been SO successful.
In my experience of having lived outside the US from some 30 years (18 years in Japan), this "simple concept" is often trumped by personal "freedom" which quickly morphs into "my way or the highway." The same predictable path comes from this and HAS been SO successful for the 1% at the top and horrific for the 99% because most everybody believes in this kind of "freedom."
Good point. I refuse to even use the word "freedom" anymore. By "freedom", USAns really mean "power".
When people stop fighting against each other and turn their ire on 'the machine' I would not want to be a billionaire! AS long as ordinary working people are set at each other's throats the wealth will keep moving into the pockets of people who really don't need it and away from those who do. It is vital the rich fuel the 'class war' encouraging the working class to fight the middle thus deflecting attention away from themselves. Its a centuries old ploy and people fall for it every time.
The tea party people have some legitimate gripes I know a few. I agree with some of their agenda even, maybe 20%. But , on the whole we disagree on most things. I'd sum up the tea party this way. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. As allies though I'd be a bit more stand offish. These folks are mostly what they are on cultural positions not economic ones. They hate the left as they did back in the 20's. They're roots are in the Klan and the SA ours the IWW and the Freedom riders and never shall the twain meet.
I think you're disparaging the whole because of a few. You forget, there are more than a few racist liberals in this nation. And "klan"? My, we are bit behind the times aren't we? Still calling the south "Dixie"?
More division more won't git'er done.
The tea party people have some legitimate gripes I know a few. I agree with some of their agenda even, maybe 20%. But , on the whole we disagree on most things. I'd sum up the tea party this way. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. As allies though I'd be a bit more stand offish. These folks are mostly what they are on cultural positions not economic ones. They hate the left as they did back in the 20's. They're roots are in the Klan and the SA ours the IWW and the Freedom riders and never shall the twain meet.
People don't understand what's been happening. The 1% have been encouraging the rest of us to argue about abortion, immigration, etc. so we don't realize how badly we're being screwed by them. Hence, the Kochs running the tea party.
We have a lot more in common than not. Really.
My comments on Bill Nemitz' article:
Regarding his statements about " ... elected officials' [being] ... highly
influenced by lobbyists ... for big corporate giants ... [who] basically own
the government": We The People own the COUNTRY. In principle, as
expressed in our written constitution, we do have ultimate ownership; OUR
government merely grants substitutional "ownership" to individual holders
of property rights. Let US be as insistent as the corporations' lobbyists,
and we can take back the country.
Regarding Nemitz' proposal that there might be a revocation of the
"corporate personhood" legal doctrine [legal fiction, really]: I also say
We The People should give serious consideration to that idea. If anyone
researches the history of such "personhood", they will find that -- at the
founding of our nation, and for years after adoption of our constitution --
there were very few corporations; furthermore, many of those were
granated charters only for a limited term. In that context, I say ideally
TERMINATE the supposedly perpetual corporations. Is such a termin-
ation a practical option now? I reckon not. Otherwise, what would be
done with the assets of, e.g., Microsoft corporation? Neverless We
The People sure can remove benefits (in tax law and otherwise) that
we now give corporations. FOR EXAMPLE, we should not have
acquesced in what is (for practical purposes) Microsoft's monoply
in essential software for personal computers. The so-called "right
of free-speech" of corporations to make unlimited contributions to
political campaigns is repugnant constitutionally speaking. Not only
is the Supreme Court's decision wrong, but also it is stinking of
pre-judgment. A majority of members of the Court knew how they
were going to decide before they even heard the case. Indeed, they
changed the scope of the case [as it was considered in lower courts]
just so they could render the decision that they had PRE-JUDGED to
be the desirable decision. Now, just consider for a moment, who
appointed and confirmed those pre-judging members of the Court?
It matters! It matters! It matters! Who is in power in Washington DC
and the decisions they impose on us have power to change what we
are as citizens, and what we can do, for years after the imposers have
left positions of power.
Our society has encouraged the distractions of political parties and superficial issues, turning the public into something like sports fanatics rather than intelligent people considering the bigger picture. We need to move out of this mindset: check out www.theiamyouproject.com and read the free e-book, "Imagine: A Guide to Creating the New Earth." It lays out how we can re-think some of these fundamentals so that we can work together to create the government we want.
from the article:
~ Suggested Demi the Protester, "The whole point of this movement is to respect each other's political, social and religious views (and) to come together in solidarity for a common goal."
Suggested Pete the Carpenter, "We need to be able to look out there and reach out and say, 'OK, what do we have in common?' Let's focus on fixing what we can agree on and we can quibble about all the other crap later on."
Eureka. ~
what do we have in common?
a planet...
there is nothing else...
you'll see...
I am perplexed by this proposal to "end the federal reserve." What do they propose in place of the federal reserve? The Fed is just the US's central bank. Every sovereign country on earth with a currency has a central bank. Most of the Greeks in the streets the past day probably wish they had a central bank of their own instead of being a slave of the Euro Central Bank.
This "end the federal reserve" stuff belies the economic illiteracy that accompanies teh scinetific and mathematical illiteracy that dominate too many USAn's left and right. But I would hope that leftists would be a bit better informed becasue one needs to be at least a bit economically literate to understand Marx.
This article is wishy-washy crap.
The reporter seems to be confusing vague, and poorly-informed viewpoints of people talking past each other and meaning entirely different things with the same words with actual viewpoints and prescriptions promoted by these two diametrically opposed ideologies.
For example, if I stated that: "We need an economy where enterprises are owned and run by the people who work" (the stated objective of Socialism), the Tea Party idiot would likely wholeheartedly agree with this too. But would we really be agreeing on anything? The Tea Party person would be visualizing: "lazy welfare recipient", when he heard what I said, I would be thinking: "rich, capitalist, investor-class leech who never had to survive by selling his sweat", when I was saying it. We wouldn't actually be agreeing on a single thing, which would be apparent as soon as we elaborated the least bit on my statement!
Nemitz sez: "Harring ... thinks the answer to corporate excess isn't the long arm of government, but rather the simple law of supply and demand."
***
I believe this dovetails with your observation, pj ... our friend Mr. Harring does not seem to be aware that in his Libertarian utopia, congress is just another commodity up for sale in the 'market'.
No offense intended, but your reply seems to be an example of what I wrote - we just talked past each other.
But regardding your point, even IF we has a capitalist libertarian utopia of pure free markets (which entails a host of more complex interactions than simply supply, demand, elasticity, etc.) the result would just be an even faster concentration of wealth in very few hands, based on the simple principle that the rate of acquisition of wealth is a function of wealth - the same physics as runaway chemical or nuclear reaction.
And no, letting a big corporation fail instead of the govt. bailing them out is not a contradiction, or remedy, of this - if the govt. doesn't bail them out, their assets are simply bought up by even fewer persons or corporations of even greater power. There are numerous examples of this all around us.
The most powerful example of this principle is post-soviet Russia. When the Soviet Union was dissolved, shares of all the Russia-based state-owned enterprises were given equally to all Russians. Yet, within a few years, all that wealth became concentrated in the very few hands of the Moscow robber-barons, and the majority of Russians were plunged into such poverty that there was a historically unprecedented plummet in life expectancy and population collapse as Russiand died early or sold their own children to foreigners simply to survive.
Refreshing article. It illustrates how a country can have diverse points of view and thrive when the people are not being manipulated by a money-power clique.
Direct democracy
Nemitz has apparently been bought off by ... DAS KAPITAL!!! Why else would he want to depict Colby and Hanning as equals? I mean let's assume for a minute that Nemitz' intentions are good. That simply does not reverse the damage done. So how long are we supposed to accept the ongoing damage? When can we draw the line on the damage inflicted by the liberal mindset? Liberalism is designed to keep the people enslaved by denying approval for thoughtfulness. First slough off the indoctrination, then start thinking. You'll quickly conclude that Colby and Hanning are worlds apart. Even when Nemitz describes some resemblance between Hannings words and Colby's, words are just words. Missing from the article are the crucial facts that Colby understands the causes of our oppression, she connects the dots, while Hanning misunderstands, is obviously confused, everything is disconnected in his mind. Big difference there. Umm, hello? Can Nemitz please give credit where credit is due? Nope. Liberalism won't let him. Liberalism wants to put off the showdown. Liberalism wants to preserve the status quo. Liberalism has nothing to do with the left. Liberalism is extreme right, like conservatism. The extreme right is about the people's enslavement to the machine. The left is the truth, the right is the lie. Think of it that way, and you'll get clarity. Agreement is impossible. The showdown has to happen. Those on the right have to purge the lie and take a walk on the left side. Remember the left isn't about big government. Big government is over there on the extreme right along with big business. The left is about the people. What, did you think we were going to be homeless in the political spectrum? Think again.
Please, you use way too many slogans.
Having known Nimitz I sure he's been bought by no one. He is one of the few who have even attempted to identify some common dots between the nation's current extremes. We must do more thinking along his lines if we are to emerge from this hole.
What "extremes"???
I see an extreme right all around me, but where is the "extreme left". You mean, like the tiny number of ignored people who advocate for basic social benefits that people in every civilized country except the US have enjoyed for 50 years or more - and enjoy far better living standards becasue of it?
'He should have stuck around. He really should have. Because he would have realized that his views are respected'
'They are just useful idiots to further the socialism agenda'
Where is the 'both sides agree' above? You have a leftist being open and respectful, and a rightist pretending to do so, then retreating to his blog & calling names.
I've been hoping to find 'common ground' with the far right for many years. What I'm finding is that many of them will be polite & folksy to your face, and go home and berate you to their children, or to their friends online, or to their church, or on their media, thus hardening the divide for generations to come.
I'm beginning to believe that we actually don't have common interests. I'm beginning to believe that the 'culture war' might only be resolved through partition or civil war. I'm beginning to believe that labels 'left' and 'right' are only labels appropriated by those who believe in tolerance & compassion, or in violent Darwinism. Those are the key camps, and the attached 'issues' are only luggage. I'm hoping someone can prove me wrong on this. Til now, my overtures to the far right have been met only with cowardly pretense to my face, and deadly snickering behind my back.
==="I'm beginning to believe that labels 'left' and 'right' are only labels appropriated by those who believe in tolerance & compassion, or in violent Darwinism."===
True statement. But let's just hope that the violent cowboy-like social Darwinsts will change their minds. Please understand that callousness mostly exists becasue callousness is needed to keep the profit-making syatem running, and can only be maintained through the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars per year in the incredibly violence and thug-glamorizing US PR, entrtainment, and news media industry.
One fine piece.
This is getting interesting. Bothersome though is the entry of the Professional Left (e.g. MoveOn, Michael Moore) they'll do anything to dividing and to keep this wrenched, one-term man in the presidency.
I'm still skeptically optimistic. Hopefully they won't Piss-out the Flame before its a Fire.