Occupy Wall Street - is it the canary in the coal mine?

sjw · October 12, 2011

Their primary target is the producers and freedom. If it isn't what they want they'll call it fascist or capitalist or exploitist. They are children looking for power and teats, demanding slavery and mother's milk. If they were really after Wall Street they'd be for Main Street. They ain't.
--Brant

As is so commonplace among Objectivists, you and Dennis ascribe a collectivist "they". Note Selene's original video, the guy was a Ron Paul supporter. He knows he's protesting corporatism and not business as such. There's a spectrum of activists here. Anyway, you and Dennis miss the primary thing of import here: there IS something to complain about, and Dennis in particular wants to pretend that there's not. At least Yaron recognized it at one level, though is afraid to go too deep with his identifications (he'd loose his paycheck).

Damn thick-headed Objecto-collectivsts.

Shayne

sjw · October 12, 2011

Case closed. No one can force you to see the obvious and it’s boring to waste time trying.

The obvious is that you're trying to fit all the protesters in tiny category in that tiny brain of yours.

I thought you had me on ignore? I liked that, that way I had no reason to deal with your nitwit replies.

Shayne

sjw · October 12, 2011

Presidential candidate Gary Johnson on the protests:

I think OWS is a well founded disgust with the inequities that really have a root in government. As far as the demands go I'm weary of one voice coming out of OWS. I think it has a basis in the inequity that this country treats all of us, and I think the root of it is the government.
My candidacy is all about equal treatment from government.

Shayne

Brant Gaede · October 12, 2011

Their primary target is the producers and freedom. If it isn't what they want they'll call it fascist or capitalist or exploitist. They are children looking for power and teats, demanding slavery and mother's milk. If they were really after Wall Street they'd be for Main Street. They ain't.
--Brant
As is so commonplace among Objectivists, you and Dennis ascribe a collectivist "they". Note Selene's original video, the guy was a Ron Paul supporter. He knows he's protesting corporatism and not business as such. There's a spectrum of activists here. Anyway, you and Dennis miss the primary thing of import here: there IS something to complain about, and Dennis in particular wants to pretend that there's not. At least Yaron recognized it at one level, though is afraid to go too deep with his identifications (he'd loose his paycheck).
Damn thick-headed Objecto-collectivsts.
Shayne

"They" gathered at the river, so at least to that extent they are a collective. Try looking at the leaders instead of the followers--instead of the useful idiots. Your thesis has some truth in that some innocent may have wandered into the crowd, but until I see someone protesting Wall Street because he thinks it has been hurting Main Street, a dubious proposition but worth examining for sure, none of them is going to get any traction with me.

Of course there is something to complain about, especially among the investment banks, especially what Goldman Saks et. al did. The place for that is Washington, too.

--Brant

sjw · October 12, 2011

Brant, what do you say about the fact that lobbyists have a huge sway over Washington, and that corporations fund the lobbyists?

Who's actually running the show if it's not the people with all the money? Looks like a vicious cycle to me, the problem's not all in government nor all in the corps, but the cycle has to be broken in once place or the other or both. Formally speaking, a corp in today's world is actually an arm of the government. That is literally the truth. So in that sense, to go after Wall Street IS to go after the government, at least that arm of the government.

Dennis of course will not understand the first thing about what I just said, but I think you do.

Shayne

Brant Gaede · October 12, 2011

Oh, I'm against all that--not necessarily that corps lobby but that they have too. Many want to anyway. It's either protect yourself from competition or screw the competition. Then there's the special favors in special flavors. Subsidies and tariffs.

I've been doing some reading and there's a do a way with the Fed element involved with these protests. Count me in.

--Brant

Brant Gaede · October 12, 2011

Your problem with Dennis, Shayne, is you keep defaulting to name calling and various ad hominems. It doesn't have to be Dennis. You keep spiking discussions that way. His "tiny brain" = your "tiny" intellectual world regarding ratiocinations. Going deeper, I suspect since you've come to the right conclusions you find serious disagreements from those you've exposed them too intolerable.

--Brant

sjw · October 12, 2011

The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from
[businessmen], ought always to be listened to with great precaution,
and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and
carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the
most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose
interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have
generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and
who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed
it.
–Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of
Nations, vol. 1, pt. xi, p.10 (at the conclusion of the chapter)(1776)

I recognize that many corporations are unwilling corporations. They do not want to be a branch of the government. Yet most are quite willing and happy with the situation overall. I think even Apple, as good as they are, is quite happy to block competitors using bogus patent suits. If they get smacked in the face with antitrust suits at some point, they will have earned it.

Shayne

anthony · October 12, 2011

Without viewing all the material, I think it is feasible that Dennis and Shayne are both right, just coming at it from different ends of the spectrum.

Only going by many frustrating debates I 've had with knee-jerk anti-capitalists, who take huge delight in any failure of what they want to perceive as capitalism - I think any such protest will contain a large element of these.

Moving across the scale, you will get those who feel uneasy about corporations receiving special treatment from g'ment, and their taxes being misspent. They may also sense that this is not the "American way", but lack the ideological foundation to identify this.

At the other end, there will no doubt be a minority 'laissez- faire' element who know what is wrong, and why.

Uneasy fellow-travelers.

Tony

Michael Stuart Kelly · October 12, 2011

I've been doing some reading and there's a do a way with the Fed element involved with these protests. Count me in.

Brant,

Keep reading. The people behind the protest most certainly want to do away with the Fed, Their wet dream is a fully government owned central bank--or better yet, one world currency with one central bank over all. With them in charge, of course.

Sometimes the person feeding you is just fattening you up for the slaughter. So maybe going on about how his food is is not such a good idea.

Michael

Brant Gaede · October 12, 2011

I've been doing some reading and there's a do a way with the Fed element involved with these protests. Count me in.
Brant,
Keep reading. The people behind the protest most certainly want to do away with the Fed, Their wet dream is a fully government owned central bank--or better yet, one world currency with one central bank over all. With them in charge, of course.
Sometimes the person feeding you is just fattening you up for the slaughter. So maybe going on about how his food is is not such a good idea.
Michael

What the "people" want to do with the Fed is quite problematical, Michael. I suspect they either don't care about the Fed or are too ignorant to think about it unless they hear some of their followers talking about it and then they might want to head the herd.

--Brant

Selene · October 12, 2011

As folks who accept that reality is objective and independent of our senses, we should continue to assert one simple argument to the "collective left" and that is the simple fact that human beings will occupy their centralized power structures.

That fact cannot be evaded or hidden.

Therefore, all centralized power will, by it's very nature, be subject, at one point or another to being occupied by an "evil" person, or group, who will use the centralized collective power to harm all of us below the apogee of the system.

This fact of the real world of human beings, and their structures of governance, is one of the best arguments for a decentralized, separation of powers structure which, as we mature as a race, could lead to a truly decentralized anarchic society where power has been decentralized to the individual.

The individual is the only entity that can possess rights and exercise them.

studiodekadent · October 12, 2011

the mind boggles at the self-imposed blindness of alleged Rand admirers to seeing something so brazenly obvious.

Dennis,

Just because someone comes along and states that there is some libertarian and libertarian-compatible sentiment amongst OWS does not mean it is reasonable to start calling their Randian cred into question (with terms like "alleged," for instance).

I don't think anyone doubts that OWS is principally leftist. What is being argued is that OWS have legitimate complaints against Corporatism, and that some people involved in OWS are either libertarians themselves, share substantial common ground with libertarians, or can be convinced of the libertarian case.

As is so commonplace among Objectivists, you and Dennis ascribe a collectivist "they". Note Selene's original video, the guy was a Ron Paul supporter. He knows he's protesting corporatism and not business as such. There's a spectrum of activists here. Anyway, you and Dennis miss the primary thing of import here: there IS something to complain about, and Dennis in particular wants to pretend that there's not. At least Yaron recognized it at one level, though is afraid to go too deep with his identifications (he'd loose his paycheck).
Damn thick-headed Objecto-collectivsts.

I almost never agree with Shayne, but he's correct here. Movements like OWS or the early days of the Tea Party (and even some Tea Party groups today) cannot be analyzed in a methodologically collectivist fashion.

I disagree on many issues with many in the Tea Party and many in OWS, but the core outrage behind both movements (at the level of the individual people that go into these movements, NOT the ideological higher-ups (who in both cases are basically major party stooges trying to create voting blocs)) is anti-corporatist. Many people in these movements can be reached and persuaded.

Patronizing dismissals and condemnations make this kind of outreach impossible.

I know this through experience. I've been in ideologically opposing environments, specifically University. I made my case politely and used the tactic of intellectual bridge-building; find common ground between my perspective and those of others. This proved to be very, very effective at convincing people, in whole or part, about the merits and honesty of my arguments.

Acting like a stereotypical Randroid (which, I must specify, is NOT the same thing as an Objectivist) would have the exact opposite effect. And it has. People that have dealt with stereotypical Randroids have indeed become far less sympathetic to Objectivism, on average.

I would also like to add something; go on the OWS forum (online, at occupywallst.org) and there is quite a bit of libertarian sentiment there.

Selene · October 12, 2011

I don't think anyone doubts that OWS is principally leftist. What is being argued is that OWS have legitimate complaints against Corporatism, and that some people involved in OWS are either libertarians themselves, share substantial common ground with libertarians, or can be convinced of the libertarian case.
I almost never agree with Shayne, but he's correct here. Movements like OWS or the early days of the Tea Party (and even some Tea Party groups today) cannot be analyzed in a methodologically collectivist fashion.
Many people in these movements can be reached and persuaded.
Patronizing dismissals and condemnations make this kind of outreach impossible.
I know this through experience. I've been in ideologically opposing environments, specifically University. I made my case politely and used the tactic of intellectual bridge-building; find common ground between my perspective and those of others. This proved to be very, very effective at convincing people, in whole or part, about the merits and honesty of my arguments.

Well put.

I have also taken the long view when working with "ideologically opposing environments" and it has been quite effective for the reasons you stated.

Sometimes it took ten (10) years for someone I targeted or the group to come around, but as reality proves you were correct in what you calmly argued, the effective conversion is long lasting.

Excellent points.

Adam

Michael Stuart Kelly · October 12, 2011

Here's how a big leftie--Bill Maher--sees the endorsement of Occupy Wall Street from libertarian types.

He claims that Tea Party People (and by extension libertarians) are so stupid they start by being correctly against something like bank abuses, but then can be herded to do anything you like.

I'll let each person decide if that observation has some merit.

He also thinks that throwing a brick through Rupert Murdoch's window would make Fox News a lot "softer" on their coverage of the OWS people.

He stated that getting rich is merely a fluke and has nothing to do with your efforts.

But the most telling thing of all is something I heard him say a few days ago, but is repeating here. I'm going to quote this one verbatim. He is talking about Herman Cain's comment to the OWS crowd that if they were not rich, to blame themselves.

... if everybody was rich who would do the things rich people hire people to do things for them? Who is going to be my foot man? Who is my toady, my liposuctionist? Rich people need poor people to work for them.

He said this even more clearly the first time I heard it, but I don't remember the exact words.

The idea is that, in the Maher human universe, there are only servants and masters. Only slaves and slave-owners, but in a more light version.

Guess which side Maher likes to be on? "Humbly" of course...

This guy doesn't have a clue about how to create wealth. He only knows how to take it from someone else in a zero-sum game. Thus there has to be a masters and slaves system to him.

I believe his world view is shared by the people pulling the strings in the OWS movement. It breaks my heart to see people from our subcommunity sitting beside people like that, being used by people like that, and thinking that they are working together on a restricted common goal.

Once these demonstrations turn really violent (which I predict they will), and people start clamoring to make it stop, guess who gets to step in and save the day? Obama, of course. He can mobilize the military. But first this has to go totally off the rails and heat up to an unbearable level for normal people.

And there is this. When the crunch comes, guess who will be the very first people to be crushed? The violent ones? Nah. It will be the intellectuals who do not sing the party line. It always happens that way. This is history 101 of left-wing organized revolutions.

(Hey! whaddya think will happen to libertarians who happen to be hanging around them then?)

These people are not like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln who tell the enemy to go home and be well after the fight is over. They kill and imprison and torture those who stood up to them and who intend to stand up to them in the new order.

Michael

sjw · October 12, 2011

I made my case politely and used the tactic of intellectual bridge-building; find common ground between my perspective and those of others.

Mormons take that approach too. It works!

Shayne

-Anyone will believe anything, so long as you're nice enough to them when you say it.

Selene · October 13, 2011

The wonderfully incompetent progressive Nanny Bloomberg is about to play into the hands of the Occupods of Zuccotti Park, see:

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/culture/2011/10/3722467/bloomberg-tells-occupy-wall-street-protesters-clear-zuccotti-park-fr

This, of course, is precisely what ACORN and the Working Families Party has been preparing for. So the ever impotent Nanny Bloomberg, having given the Occupods permission to stay indefinitely just this week, is now illustrating his impotency with his demand that the private property be cleared, not because it is immoral and illegal, but because the park has to be cleaned.

Well, if the Occupod's leadership plays this smart, they could have their mini-Reichstag for the whole world to see tomorrow night.

Adam

watching my beautiful city being humiliated at the hand of Nanny Bloomberg

merjet · October 13, 2011

So the ever impotent Nanny Bloomberg, having given the Occupods permission to stay indefinitely just this week, is now illustrating his impotency with his demand that the private property be cleared, not because it is immoral and illegal, but because the park has to be cleaned.

Do you believe the occupants would move if the only reason Bloomberg gave was that they were on private property and the owners wanted them off?

Michael Stuart Kelly · October 13, 2011

Adam,

Bloomberg seems to play according to Obama's playbook: say one thing in public and do another at the last minute.

Just as soon as he said the protestors could stay in the park indefinitely, I wondered how long it would be before a disoccupation order came down.

Every time I see a politician announce one thing these days, I am almost certain the same politician is brewing the opposite in the back rooms.

They've always done that up to a point, but now it is happening so often, it is predictable. This reminds me of what I lived through in Brazil. It got to the point where the majority of people consistently acted on political announcements by preparing themselves for the opposite. And it almost always was a good choice to do that.

btw - Want to take bets on Obama starting a war with Iran? I mean the real deal. Ya' think being in the middle of a flat-out major war would give him a chance at winning reelection? Or maybe even be a good pretext to impose martial law?

Sorry... my paranoia is flaring up today...

Michael

Selene · October 14, 2011

Merlin:

Of course not. They are on their agenda and it does not matter what action the "system" takes. Violent confrontation is the preferred end game.

My points were Nanny Bloomberg's assertion that :

1) cleaning the park was the reason to remove the Occupados, temporarily*; and

2) the occupants had any right to be in the park after hours at any point in time.

*there is nothing more permanent than a temporary government solution.

Michael:

Agreed as to the impotent and incompetent Nanny Bloomberg. Lo and behold, he reversed his reversal of his original reversal of his unsustainable position this morning and claimed that the owners changed their minds as to cleaning the park!

Unsurprisingly, having demonstrated his impotence, they Occupados marched downtown to Wall Street and created their violent event anyway.

This "occupation" is costing the NY City taxpayers $200,000 + per week in police overtime alone. Allegedly, according to Peter Vallone, Jr., City Councilman out of Astoria, having assumed his father seat on the council, [i knew his father very well-he was a decent old line politician - honest, which meant if he gave his word, he would keep it].

As to your "paranoid" feelings about O'biwan getting us into war with Iran in order to declare a national emergency, impose martial law and basically de facto impose his unconstitutional will on America, ...I see that as the fulfillment of his transformational plan for America.

I would think that you are spot on in your suspicions.

Adam

Selene · October 14, 2011

This is a stunning video of Jamarhl Crawford, the head of the New Black Panther Party in Boston:

http://youtu.be/2CGCSRQoxHo

http://youtu.be/xa3P8lYSQVIshort continuation of the first clip.

Listen carefully to his phrasings to this predominantly white, affluent, and illegal assemblage, [that illegal occupation began on Tuesday of this week], in the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway [don't you love the naming syndrome on the left].

This is the sequential "linkaging" that the Alinsky template seeks to achieve.

Selene · October 14, 2011

Michael Stuart Kelly · October 14, 2011

Donny Deutsch claims we need a Kent State moment for the OWS thing to really take off.

Sure, just shoot a few of the protesters and get lots of video for the media.

Kerriiiiiiiiiiiiist!!!

I used to watch Deutsch doing business stuff.

Well, that has ended.

I've lost all respect for that dude.

Michael

Selene · October 14, 2011

Michael:

I just saw that on Drudge. This is what these people are about. They need some blood and guts on the pavement to coalesce their putsch.

Adam

looks like Pat Buchanan's new book may be quite predictive, sad to say

Occupy Wall Street - is it the canary in the coal mine?

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