We don’t need OWS to remind us that our political system is broken or that Goldman Sachs runs both our government and our everyday lives. And we certainly don’t need OWS to suddenly become aware of the ever-growing income inequality in America. To any astute observer however, the writing was on the wall even in the sixties, which saw the inauguration of LBJ’s War on Poverty. In fact, some, to those who have always borne the greatest brunt, the African-Americans and other people of color, to women, it's been there all their lives.
Nor do we need OWS to bring our attention to rising tuition costs and mounting student debt, which are themselves only symptoms of the corporatism and push towards privatization which have come to pervade our institutions of higher learning, our churches, and our corridors of power. Again, the signs were all there since Reagan’s deregulation and the merger and acquisition era.
Lastly, we don’t need OWS to alert us to the fact that we’re a militaristic and rogue state insofar as our neighbors are concerned and a rapidly approaching police state with respect to our own citizens, whether by virtue of our ill-fated War on Drugs, which incarcerates a great many of our citizens for minor offenses, or the more recent War on Terror. Justitfied or not, the Patriot Act, nearly guaranteed to become a regular feature of the American life henceforth, is all the proof you’ll ever need. So yes, if that’s the size or the scope of OWS’s message, if that’s all it brings to the table, then no, thank you. We can do without!
Perhaps the most ominous telltale of OWS’s abject failure is its apparent inability to reach out beyond the immediate, expressed or unexpressed, concerns about the state of the nation; beyond concerns about rising tuition costs or Wall Street greed or what else have you. Except for the faithful few, the message has fallen on deaf ears thus far. Indeed, those who still consider themselves middle class are certainly out of the loop, as evidenced by record sales on Black Friday.
The movement has made virtually no impact on our black communities and our poor, the ever-growing segment of our society which deserves our utmost attention. It made no impact whatever on our right, the Tea Party types who are partially aligned with the OWS message, at least insofar as antistatism is concerned. It failed to convince anyone, to sway anyone. Indeed, even this little forum, populated as it may be by our resident politicos, no longer shows any active interest in OWS now the novelty has worn off; and the momentum has definitely shifted to rehashing the same old topics that lead nowhere. As to the remaining “one percent,” I don't give a damn!
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Anarcissie
Link
2 - Anarcissie
See also Packer's (author of previous) online convo and Ray's current publication derived from the Twitter address given.
Relevance? Polymorphous.
3 - roger nowosielski
Apologize for the silly error.
As I've been reminded by an expatriate, the occupation began on September 17, 2011, which would make it two months and two weeks ago.
4 - Christopher Rose
Thanks for the link in #1, Anarcissie, a compelling read.
I'll fix your timeline error, Roger.
5 - roger nowosielski
Thanks, Chris.
6 - roger nowosielski
Indeed, a great, heart-warming story, Anarcissie (including the questions and answers session), especially how OWS can be so many things to different people: the element of inclusion is an in-built mechanism as it were, part and parcel of the movement.
Understand, however, that I was but venting, giving expression to creeping fears and doubts.
Still think, however, a strong voice would go a long way to make progress and arrive at the critical mass.
7 - Dr Dreadful
I read or heard somebody say somewhere, and I can't remember where, that the Occupy movement's lack of a single message or concrete demands is actually one of its main strengths. If the Establishment doesn't know what to attack, it makes it difficult for them to "divide and conquer".
8 - roger nowosielski
Quite right. That is a source of strength.
I think, however, a case can be made for a valid distinction between putting forth specific demands, on the one hand, and a universal type of message with a broad populist appeal.
9 - GradyLeeHoward
Here is an interesting perception from a long poor underclass person (personal email sent to me):That's not the only dumbass move they've made. While they demand a $12/hr minimum wage, they conveniently neglected to demand that every destitute poor person with something to offer who needs a job be guaranteed the right to a job, OR an equivalent minimum income support if disabled, too old, not skilled/educated. And gee, what about the basic guarantee of equal human and civil rights for women?
Women make up 84% of those struggling below poverty because we're the ones with far less job opportunities than men, we're denied the right to have sex without legally imposed mandatory pregnancy and childbirth through all these "pro-life" laws that have taken away poor women's access to contraception and abortion in the event of contraceptive failure or rape. Pregnancy and childbirth is the Number One reason that women are plunged into utter destitution. Think about that.
Women are far more oppressed, exploited and poor regardless of educational level because of institutionalized misogyny and sexism. Women suffer viciously due to discrimination because every dollar we get deprived of an opportunity to earn is a dollar we don't have to afford things like food, health and dental care, utilities, an a decent home that isn't substandard. Yet, I see NOTHING from these self-proclaimed unifiers along those lines. All I see is a lot of middle class white male spoiled bratdom. These cocky young know-it-alls think anyone over 40 doesn't know anything while they know everything. If they were so damn smart, they'd put aside the Karl Marx for a minute and pick up the Ida B. Wells and the Mary Wollstonecraft.
:When the writer refers to "dumbass move" that's the recent Occupy emphasis on the problems of college students and student loan debtors. Before I reveal how I responded I'm curious as to what commentators here would tell her. She has a degree herself and a loan she cannot pay.
10 - roger nowosielski
Which is precisely while OWS has failed thus far to capture not only the middle America but our underclass, more importantly.
Why should our poor identify with the mounting student debt while they're struggling to meet the most basic needs?
11 - GradyLeeHoward
This from the New Yorker article (by Packer)
linked by Anarcissie:
There were dozens of “working groups,” and many of them held meetings a few blocks from the park, in the atrium of the Deutsche Bank Building, on Wall Street. But a few activists dominated these groups, in an insular conversation about “the process” that kept returning to ideas for restructuring into smaller groups in order to refine the process and make it “more inclusive.” A division was opening up between the activists in the atrium and the occupiers in the park. At one meeting of the Facilitation Working Group, a man asked Kachelâ€"an unfamiliar faceâ€"why he was there.
How would posters here deal with an intelligent "loser"? Most of us relish intellectual combat and are steeped in arguing theoretically for argument's sake.
Do we need softer people skills to advance this opportunity?
12 - roger nowosielski
Intellectual combat is of no account unless it is put in the service of promoting the basic human values.
13 - GradyLeeHoward
Can we say my poorer friend, George Packer or the rest of us are well-informed? It's so difficult and overwhelming to sort out reality among all the spins and opinions. Just yesterday Julian Assange observed that the Internet has become more of a "surveillance machine" than a forum. It sucks up personal information and keeps it secure until Oligarchs need it. Here's the same sort of microcosm as exhibited by the school system... that teachers can't solve maladies extant and perpetuated in the larger society. We must meet face face because all technology goes the way of TV, mainly because Oligarchs reserve it unto themselves as a profit-maker. In practice very little lies in the commons category. Even the human body and mind are routinely and casually commoditized.
14 - roger nowosielski
As I said, Grady, internet is no substitute for person-to-person contacts, but an illusion which perpetuates the notion of virtual reality as some kind of surrogate. And like any technology, it's going to be used and abused. The hero of George Packer's story found real connections on the Liberty Square, not on the net.
As to where the truth lies, I always think for myself, and I'm more than convinced that so do you.
15 - roger nowosielski
I must forewarn you, Grady, this is a fairly conservative, conventional-wisdom type of bulletin board. Except for some people, not to mention Anarcissie, of course, most people here don't want to discuss inconvenient truths. The two, usually pro-active commentators, Cindy and "toll," have been missing persons of late.
In fact, it was one of the subliminal purposes of this article "to smoke 'em out."
16 - roger nowosielski
A class at Columbia, an institution of higher learning.
What a joke.
17 - roger nowosielski
A primer on how to debunk OWS.
18 - GradyLeeHoward
16-No surprise here because David Dinkins is a former NYC mayor still living in the Cosby Age. Ray Kelly is one of the paramilitary police chiefs who periodically trade jobs after assaulting innocents.
John Timoney is another crypto-fascist cop providing curb service to billionaires. He is headed for Bahrain to help quell protests there. He'll fit right in with the raping and torturing and the big USA funding.
17_ Frank Luntz is a CIA marketing consultant to Republicans who calls himself a linguist. I've listened to former "company handler" Diane Rehm lick him up and down as if he were her kitten several broadcasts.The material roger linked seemed lame compared to the new fascist-speak which is favored by P-tardy Congresspersons and governors. "Who wants a career?", that's drivel!
19 - roger nowosielski
@18
But why would Columbia organize the seminar in the first place if robust question n answer session was out of the question?
Tells you about the climate in today's even most "liberal" institutions of higher learning.
20 - GradyLeeHoward
Here is what I sent my "poorer friend" after she complained of OWS sexism and classism:
Thanks for responding. I can actually hear the sound of your preaching voice when I read your emails because we've
talked on the phone. What you say about sexism is true. Most developed countries have had better equality laws than the USA for awhile.
Now everything is sliding backwards. Nothing sticks if the People are prohibited from attaining consciousness.
(Knowing the Why of human rights is not optional.)
The failures of Occupy are rooted in middle class myths of half-assed reform. They are so worried that their little possessions might be disturbed they sell the rest of us down the river. Theirs is a careful balancing act that has now toppled. Recapping, the four legs of their bridge table were:
1. Campaign finance reform- as opposed to egalitarian democracy without Oligarchs
2. Single payer Medicare type health services- as opposed to free socialized medicine
3. Affordable access to higher education- as opposed to universal free education
4. Withdrawal from some overseas occupations- as opposed to Peace and the end of Empire
And you might add (though "polite" bourgeoisie prefer to keep it hidden):
5. Reproductive choice for those with income- as opposed to sanctity of the human body, and privacy in sexual and reproductive activity
(Goes to show that most Progressives are at heart Class-Supremacists)
Looking at the four legs we see that the common flaw is the profit motive.
The fifth myth preserves slavery and speculation in human bodies as a commodity.
It says that reproduction is the affair of the owners (Lord Proprietors) just like industrial production, with female bodies being just another means
(That's where the product comes out of the machine.) they operate for fun and profit. (You can see why all capitalism is mafia gangsterism.)
Men are part of the repro-machine too, but are in fearful denial. (The purpose of child support laws is not to help children.)
You are on the right track when you assemble the half-truths of irate "conservatives" with those of the radical left.
(What people claim as Principles turns out to be voodoo and delusions.)
But a big chunk of consciousness and solidarity remain missing because the poor are muzzled.
(And you are correct that fascists find it more convenient to herd women into the "poor pen.")
(Notice how sterilization and castration wait in the wings? Nazis are fascinated by such powers, but energy is required.)
I feel anxious about it now. Maybe I was telling her what I thought she wanted to hear. She has said on the phone that she does appreciate that Occupy has "moved the goalposts."
21 - roger nowosielski
The following is the late's John Kenneth Galbraith's bird's eye view on inequality in the age of globalization, a perfect crime.
To cite from the conclusion:
"In the course of these events, progress toward tolerable levels of inequality and sustainable development virtually stopped. Neocolonial patterns of center periphery dependence, and of debt peonage, were reestablished, but with out the slightest assumption of responsibility by the rich countries for the fate of the poor.
"It has been, it would appear, a perfect crime. And while statistical forensics can play a small role in pointing this out, no mechanism to reverse the policy exists, still less any that might repair the damage. The developed countries have abandoned the pretense of attempting to foster development in the world at large, preferring to substitute the rhetoric of ungoverned markets for the hard work of stabilizing regulation. The prognosis is grim : a descent into apathy, despair, disease, ecological disaster, and wars of separatism and survival in many of the poorest parts of the world.
"Unless, of course, the wise spirits of Kuznets and Keynes can be summoned back to life, to deal more constructively with the appalling disorder of the past twenty years."
22 - GradyLeeHoward
Dinkins is a fuddy-duddy who grades on the suck-up curve. Grad students seeking an easy A massage his ankles like hungry cats. There is less intellectual freedom the farther you go in school. (specialization) Dinkins probably thinks Kelly is a celebrity (like Rudy Giuliani or Bernie Kerik?) and that it is a social coup getting him to talk to the class. Senile ass-lickers think like that. Anyway it was cool the outside activist set him up and that Democacy Now was there to capture it.
23 - roger nowosielski
@20
You could summarize your "four legs" by saying these suckers are still beholden to the American Dream. I was going to make it the centerpiece of my article, but rush it into publication.
Haven't they read Scott Fitzgerald, for chrissake, or Norman Mailer?
That's the major disconnect between OWS and the underclass. The latter, by having been dominated, no longer entertain such fine illusions. And what we call "crime" is truly a manifestation of having long lost the faith.
They're the outlaws in the true sense of the word, and they're fully justified in so acting.
24 - GradyLeeHoward
You're coloring outside the lines now, Roger.
Core and periphery, man, that's some stale cake. John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hitmanen " cuts to the chase, and is fresher. Even (Frazzie) RT News has reported there is now 700 trillion outstanding in derivatives while global gross production is less than 70 trillion.
If we had a tax on those transactions no one would ever go hungry.
25 - roger nowosielski
Are you referring to Galbraith's clip, perchance?
I know it's outdated. He hadn't the chance to experience the downright spiral. Good for him, since he can rest in relative peace.