A few weeks ago my buddy and I got bored after a Saturday morning breakfast. We had been reading an update story about our local Occupy Washington Square cabal (no, not the NYC Wash. Sq., but rather a mini one in the downtown of a dying upstate New York city on the Lake Ontario) and decided to go down there and pay them a visit for old time's sake. It was about 3:00PM and we got there just before the occupants were rallying for some kind of loosey-goosey media show where they were going to respond to the mayor's orders to leave their make-shift urban campground. Some pro-bono lawyer had got them to focus on whether it was their right to camp-out on this city park without a permit. I cringed while I heard him outline his course of action to the group which involved filing for a permit, getting denied by the city and then going to court to appeal the ruling. What this has to do with re-distributing wealth from the 1% downwards has me stumped. We mingled around with the slowly growing crowd and noticed immediately how "baby-faced" most of them were. One young lad wearing one of those spiked black leather jackets described himself to us as an "anarchist." He had a face like Damean of the Celtic Thunder. I believe I told him if it were'nt for those of us who believe in limited government, he'd have nothing to believe in." Here's what I learned that day: Our little occupiers don't know itshay from shinola about how to run a protest movement and are an insult to the '60's civil rights and Nam protest movements. Other than that, nothing serious. Now, getting your rich uncle to pull his CD's out of B. of A. - that takes work and guts cuz he might write you out of his will.
Il' agree that if Occupy has not done what it hoped,there will be lessons learned? the movement of 60's was effective 'cause it made plain the trouble society had made for itself. the youth this generation could not agree that War,corruption, and those who prospered from this mindset should continue in the shadow of goverment. today is not unlike yesterday(1960's) we are waking up to the failed promise of Democracy. goverment for the people,by the people, liberty ,justice for everyone. not only for the wealthy.
jpaycut: 76 and still going strong - Leonard Cohen - Democracy is Comin' to The USA - w/lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t2uemFNcwk
Cohen: First We take Manhattan (1988) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnCR8kSSmqw&feature=related First We Take Manhattan Leonard Cohen Lyrics 1) They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom For trying to change the system from within I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin 2) I'm guided by a signal in the heavens I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin 3) I'd really like to live beside you, baby I love your body and your spirit and your clothes But you see that line there moving through the station? I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those 4) Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin 5) I don't like your fashion business, mister And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin I don't like what happened to my sister First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin I'd really like to live beside you, baby ... 6) And I thank you for those items that you sent me The monkey and the plywood violin I practiced every night, now I'm ready First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin I am guided ... 7) Ah remember me, I used to live for music Remember me, I brought your groceries in Well it's Father's Day and everybody's wounded First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
FDaK2: I thought the campus-based Viet Nam Day Committees contributed the most when it came to unmasking the depravity of police actions trumped-up to be just wars. At NYU, their literature was the first to acquaint me the Nam connection with oil with its disclosure of the pending off-shore oil leases that were being surveyed by the Army Corps as well as the strategic location of Nam along the straits to the S. China Sea used in eastern-bound oil ship transport. They also pegged a lot of ill-fated military tactics and strategies that were being used by the "allies." On both these counts, later investigative reporting confirmed much of what the VNDC's were saying, it was an all around lose-lose situation. I cannot forgive JFK, LBJ or RMN for promulgating the guns and butter policy for so long. We've been suffering from this lunatic policy ever since. And, I don't respect McNamara's apology, either.
Unmasking it sure, but nothing to bring it to a close. Vietnam had gone on for 8 years, thats not a victory, thats the 1% getting their business wrapped up and heading home till the next military incursion. They RTB change names and places and faces but its the same damn game now it was back then, the only difference is we live in a more socially permissive culture and made incredible strides in human rights and civil liberties (All things which have a relatively negligable impact on the profit margins of the 1% compared to what they reap off War btw), which fucking rocks and be damn proud of that in itself but I strongly disagree with the notion that Hippies did little more than annoy the 1% a bit in terms of ending things in Vietnam. They were making money and that was all they cared about, and that was the bottom line of why we were there, banks smelled profit in the water and we pulled out when they felt they had earned enough to appease their greed till they flipped the switch on the war machine once more. The same madness you fought back then has been rolling along unhampered. Ooooh, they found out about shady deal A between Standard oil and the banks,,, so they just drop that ball and move onto shady deal B in El Salvador, then C in Africa, D in the Middle east, E,F,G probably coming from Russia again, or maybe China, It will never end, not while we allow it by using ineffective means to resist it at it's source. And Monsanto still around after Agent orange and Saccharine,,, :2thumbsup:
I was involved in a lot of things in the 60s and I dig what the Occupy people are doing and why they're doing it. My brief contacts with Occupy SF showed me a sincere, grassroots bunch of people with a variety of perspectives. There are some pretty beat people (beat in an old-timey hip sense) involved, some leftists, homeless, students, hippies, pretenders - just all kinds of people. Mostly nice people.
WE1: Here's my take on things like the 1% icon (I personally don't think the "we are the 99%", slogan is a good one in the marketing sense because it doesn't identify what you want to do as a group; and, I think it's around somewhere under 90%, anyways) is that we are now in America a full-fledged plutocracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy). Most developed societies are plutocracies. Some just are able to hide it more than others. I believe we've lost the ability to hide it anymore due to the inability of the mass media to censor total reference to the fact. In fact, I believe we've entered into a 2nd Republic, one in which a pluralistic oligarchy/plutocracy trades their positions in a politicall structured marketplace of select interests in an attempt to maximize wealth. We did not get to vote on this 2nd republic. It just kind of crept up on us after WWII and it accelerated in the '70's. It is only by coincidence that the outcomes of plutocratic negotiations coincide with the sacred "general good." And, when they do, it's usually because the benefits to the plutocracy outweigh the negatives to them coming from public benefit. I believe that's why we have welfare (keeps the peace), food stamps/lunch programs (supports agra business), subsidized housing (building trades and wired-in developers), college loans and grants (keeps the asses in the seats), medicare/medicaid/social security (keeps high maintenance spending flowing to the professions), farm subsidies (one powerful group), etc. Military spending under the guise of national security supposedly keeps the barbarians at the gate. Problem today is the barbarians have figured-out a way to fight us without actually bothering with the gates. Believe it or not, these conditions were recognized by the x-ers and others who were drawn to the Perot movement. The folks I met in it were alert to what we had evolved - a country that needed desperately to reduce labor costs to keep accumulating capital for the plutocracy and borrow money to make up for the demise of America's middle classes and the war machine (as a result of the above) The OWS movement is just the current subconscious recognition that it's game over for punching an automatic ticket to the American Dream. I can remember in the mid-60's coming back from job interviews and openly discussing them at the office in ear-shot of the boss.
America isn't the same place we grew up in, even Christmas has become less public and more private. Welcome to the forum smoothie.
