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What Are Those OWS People So Angry About?
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Americans in particular have been inculcated for decades with the belief that even substantial outcome inequality is acceptable (even desirable) provided that it is the by-product of fairly applied rules. What makes this inequality so infuriating (aside from the human suffering it is generating) is precisely that it is illegitimate: it is caused and bolstered by decisively unfair application of laws and rules, by undemocratic control of the political process by the nation’s oligarchs, and by a full-scale shield of immunity that allows them — and only them — to engage in the most egregious corruption and even criminality without any consequence (other than a further entrenching of their prerogatives and ill-gotten gains).
Anyone who expressed difficulty seeing or understanding what motivates these protests revealed many things about themselves. None is flattering. . . .
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Show AllThe US government is paddling along just under the radar, avoiding blame for the most part when it is just as guilty as Wall Street for the bail-outs and inequities, the astronomical Wall Street profits, the loss of the American dream. It is true that most of us accept the wealth of others if honestly earned but feel rage when it is not, when fraudulent schemes are practiced secretly, and openly, too, robbing us of what we have earned. Most of us despise the thieves that steal from us, and for me, that includes the US government that encouraged the theft. I believe that's called abetting usury.
During the past 30 years we have not just witnessed a few folks getting ahead, we have witnessed systematic wealth transfer (orchestrated by corporations and the politicians they own) that is destined to end up with 1% of the population owning everything and 99% of us owning nothing.
Another good one from Glenn... "...Anyone who expressed difficulty seeing or understanding what motivates these protests revealed many things about themselves. None is flattering..." Gotta get that on a poster..........
The great thng about the potential revolution is the fact that We The People can Take all the cashola that was systemically stolen from us over the last 40 years in one fell swoop!
But seriously we currently have an economic system that has TRIPLED the income and wealth for the top .01% while the bottom 99% have seen stagnant or falling wages.
So we have a system that delivers ALL the GAINS from growth to one small segment of society - this is inherently a CORRUPT system - and it got that way by lobbying and the Capture of the governing system.
I propose that for the next 30 years ALL the gains from growth go to the bottom 99% -
Can one imagine the whining and crying the ultra-wealthy would engage in? It would reach to the heavens!
If you add in the fact that the top 1% pay a lower overall effective tax rate than the average working stiff and use more of the COMMONS it makes the ultra-wealthy a bunch of FREELOADERS.
"Can one imagine the whining and crying the ultra-wealthy would engage in? It would reach to the heavens!" Or to another place.
WE NEED----------------------
1. A real graduated income tax with the top rate what it was during the REAL Golden/Gilded Age during Kennedy. That would be 70% on all income above 1-2 million dollars.
2. Universal Health Care administered by the government. Single Payer is the common name of this.
3. CHEAP tuition to ALL universities and colleges funded either directly or through government guaranteed student loans. Let the government charge the private sector for research that produces profit making products such as drugs etc. Let profit making sports pay to subsidize cheap tuition for all students.
4. Enforce ant-trust law and impeach ANY executive that decides which laws he or she will enforce.
5. Index COLAs to the real rate of inflation.
6. Impeach Justice Thomas and Scalia immediately.
I say We The People demand a whole new lineup of SCOTUS judges. Throw them all out the door, and reconsider the whole presidential appointment process. I believe that were this a truly free country, we would force SCOTUS judges to face a democratic process of review and possible removal from the bench every 5 years or so. If We The People voice overwhelmingly disapproval of their interpretation of OUR laws, then we should be about to at least censure, or even depose them from their seats.
But absolutely, Thomas and Scalia must go, and so to Roberts and Alito if you ask me... they're almost just as bad, and obviously HATE any 'persons' who don't identify themselves with a corporate logo.
They're all miserable corporatists.
Not to mention that Elena Kagan came with so much pre-existing conflict of interest baggage as to render her appointment essentially moot. As "chess moves" go, this one could have been better played.
Glad you mentioned this. As soon as her appointment was secure, Kagan announced she would be recusing herself from something like 50% of upcoming cases, and it barely got any press at all! The nomination was a fraud, and it ain't going get any better if the Smiling Man is reelected.
Yet Supreme Court appointments are one of the primary scare tactics used by liberal propagandists like thom hartmann and the All-Crazy-Republicans-All-the-Time network, msnbc.
We'll know that we're making real progress against the oligarchs when actual constitutional scholars--intellectual ethicists like Glenn Greenwald--get press time equal to the gravity of the topic at hand.
Ditto. So many of Obama's appointments are abominable and even so-called progressive pundits say nothing.
At least Kagan is willing to recuse herself when she thinks there is, or could be the legitimate perception of, a conflict of interest.
If only we were so lucky with Clarence Thomas. That guy wouldn't recognize a conflict of interest if it pinned him to the floor and started stuffing 100-dollar bills down his throat by the handfull. His biggest conflict of interest is the woman he's married to. Amazing the guy wasn't impeached years ago.
It goes without saying that you're right about Thomas (I'd add Alito and Roberts to the mix), but that's a given. I was essentially talking about the fraud of the appointment. For it was surely known (indeed, it may have been an unspoken prerequesite) that Kagan would be recusing herself, leaving the court 'liberal free' on quite a number of cases.
It's a win/win for the oligarchs, as they continue their agenda unimpeded while their guy gets to look like a statesman for his appointment.
I see all these demands by individuals not so much as actual demands of OWS, as simply a necessary raising of awareness and an organic coalescence of ideas which may eventually gain enough momentum and support that they finally do become the pressure points concentrated on by OWS. When each person puts forward their demand, it's just one voice in a chorus. Where the most volume occurs is where the movement participants are in most agreement. All an intrinsic part of the dialectic process.
And once any one demand rises up above the rest, or when the volume is loud and sustained enough, the change you are skeptical about arising (with good reason) will arise. The means are another meta which need not be worried about or focused upon.
Just like we don't need specific ends, we also don't need or even shouldn't want specific means. The means are simply PRESSURE, PERSISTENCE and VOLUME.
There is only one force on Earth more powerful, and more dangerous to its enemies than empire. That's We The People. Once We arise, the opposition has already been defeated. This is the belief that keeps me alive and looking forward to living into the future.
Cheers i♥BB
Yes, the list of potential demands is indeed long but can be distilled to one word--JUSTICE.
Exactly!!
THE PEOPLE MUST TAKE A STAND
UNTIL JUSTICE RULES THE LAND!
“Injustice never rules forever”
—Seneca
WHAT ARE THOSE OWS PEOPLE SO ANGRY ABOUT? Glenn as usual, is right on target. When oligarchs like Herman KochCain says " blame yourself " if you cannot get the Koch Brothers to fund you and you are being screwed by Wall Street or " African Americans have been brainwashed " or his asinine 9-9-9 plan; fits the paradigm of what Mr. Greenwalds article is all about.
A succinct but powerful excerpt from the Salon article. Glenn Greenwald knows how to sum up a lot of the problem with very little prose.
Definitely one of the brighter luminaries of the movement!
My OWS demands of the day:
The banksters should just drop the debts of defaulting nations like Greece.. for the sake of people, stability and fairness all over the world. So,
Drop IMF/World Bank debt on poor nations. We're killing and starving the poorest, to feed the richest. Deepest injustice on Earth right now, imho.
Drop student debts accross the board in America. Fuck the bank loans. They just created the money out of accounting entries. They won't lose a cent if these poor jobless students and ex-students don't pay the banks back with years and years of labor, and years and years of accrued loan interest. The banks are literally ROBBING OUR FUTURE, by robbing our youth of their liberty.
Stop all pending foreclosures, and where there is no client malfeasance, re-finance all American housing loans as long-term, fixed low interest loans. Only frauds should get kicked out of their homes... and since so many of these cases involve fraud, or 'legal fraud' on the part of the banksters, the banksters have got to GET THE HELL OUT of these people's homes, and lives. Again, the loans are created by accounting entries. The banks don't really have ANY RIGHT in most cases to possess these assets for their own books and profit.
Privatization is THEFT!
Deregulation is CORRUPTION!
Corporate Personhood is a WEAPON AGAINST WE THE PEOPLE!
Lets have a referendum on this great idea
One of Joe Bageant's final columns was entitled "Understanding America's Class System (honk if you love caviar)". In it he nails the symbiotic relationship of the "Haves" (the wealthiest 1%) and their handmaidens, the "Wannabe Haves" (members of Congress). RIP, Joe.
It was Joe B who turned me on to a deep and compassionate thinker--Charles Eisenstein (who regularly posts on Reality Sandwich). If you have time to read a powerful book which is available for free (or for donation) online, read Ascent of Humanity. I place it on my special bookshelf reserved for the very best, along with Zinn's People's History of the US and Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine.
Thank you for that recommendation, Zephyrbag.
Well said Glenn. It couldn't have been stated more perfectly.
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" --Mario Savio, the steps of Sproul Plaza, UC Berkeley, December 2, 1964