Several hundred humans have congregated in downtown Manhattan near Wall Street to protest the failed state of the United States’ beloved Corptocracy. In an effort to occupy Wall Street, these people are making audacious statements like:
We want freedom for all, without regards for identity, because we are all people, and because no other reason should be needed. However, this freedom has been largely taken from the people, and slowly made to trickle down, whenever we get angry.
Now, almost ironically, our President is championing a movement to increase taxes on some of the richest people ever to don pants while legally committed to lowering a deficit. Increase taxes? Lower the deficit? In an election year? Please join me in a rousing chant of “WTF?”.
Can anyone else feel the grip loosening at the top? Maybe a bit of unraveling by people with twitter accounts, calculators, and some unemployed time on their hands? Can anyone else feel the sound of the 24 hour news cycle morphing into an angry version of Charlie Brown’s teacher? Perhaps we’ve attained the spin speed where we’re all actually standing still.
Perhaps we have finally put down our last boilermaker. It’s 5 am. The sun is rising, and we can already feel the acid stomach of the week-long hangover that will threaten to kill us. We partied too hard and too long — we’re broke, and we know we did some bad shit. But we’ll have to wait for the film to get developed and our docket number to be called in court to truly understand how bad it is.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
It seems that there is a lot of activity going on because of the internet: people blogging and talking and arranging protests. Whoopee. The real work for change is going on in our gardens and pantries, because the only thing all of the internet and protest activity does is make people look (as opposed to 2003, when it just made them look away). Now that they don’t have jobs to go to and there is only inane shit on TV, they are tuning in to podcasts and youtube (and Marvel movies).
You might think this will help humanity save itself. Probably not. It’s just a different Spectacle to get their attention between commercials. You’ll understand how bad it is when you slog your hangover-induced lead feet down to the court address and it’s full of raccoons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63mxV3xJHI8
If 20 people in a suburb got together and arranged with their employers to telecommute 4 out of 5 days per week, and carpooled, they could eliminate 19 cars and 16 offices. If they shared housing, they could easily eliminate 10 houses or more and garden the rest of the space, growing enough food for all.
Most of the crap we do doesn’t need to be done, but we do it for the corporations (telling ourselves we need money) because it’s easier than doing it ourselves for ourselves. The size and budget of the government is directly related to the amount of stuff we demand from nonlocal sources (what we have stopped doing for ourselves).
Obama needs to reframe the discussion to taxing the money, not the people. The protesters need to stop spending money on crap they don’t need and they will make a much bigger impact. Money denies resources from the commons, bundles them up neatly, and sends them up in smoke. Protests against the rich and taxes on corporations assume that we need to HAVE the rich and the corporations in the first place (to pay taxes/’create’ wealth), and it is based on the belief that they will turn the smoke back into sausages just because we want them to. The corporations get to eat the sausages burned in their frying pan and we get the “essence” of the sausage, even though we believe we are getting the sausage because the media tells us it smells so good.
Aunti, you have to realize stages of development. I don’t think anybody in that park would fundamentally disagree but most of them probably didn’t even know there was a problem let alone a solution until recently.
The internet is merely a facilitator but it’s real. Because of the internet I know how to wire 220v receptacles and maximize my garden. The onus is on the user.
To borrow a phrase from a friend… I am stoicaly optimistic. Because of crisis people are learning to trust each other and do real work. Families are doubling up and jobs are being eliminated only discover nobody wanted it. There is a whole world “off balance sheet” that few people recognize or bother to measure. A discussion of raising taxes to fund the government we have demanded (useless crap and all), is a complete shift. To me its an official admissionl that we are fucked. beyond that it’s meaningless.o
Yeah. I shouldn’t have said “the only thing it does is make them look”. I should have said “the important thing it is doing is make them look instead of look away”. I really didn’t mean that whole thing to seem so negative, but I was in a hurry and didn’t realize how it came out.
As the financial meltdowns get more bizarre and disconnected from sensible reality, I think more people are taking the ‘doomers’ and radicals more seriously; looking and listening just enough to realize that telling them they are socialists and anarchists is actually starting to become a compliment.
I am stochastically optimistic, according to the available data (yes, I mean “randomly”;-), which I guess is better than not at all, eh Susan?
All HEARTS reJOYce!
Here here!! THERE IS HOPE!
Completely agree with this/=!!!
Such action it is necessary to conduct all over the world!!!
“families are doubling up”. btdt; some things are worse than death. (for how many of us?)
I’m going to start a band called “The Essence of the Sausage.” We will have one (and only one) hit: “Smells So Good.” Thanks, Auntie!
Credit goes to Terry Pratchett, “Going Postal”.
I also would like the shorter version “Sausage Essence”.
You could endorse perfume sales also…
Mmmmmmmmmm…baaaaconnnnn
I would like to play bass…. Or trout.
How many strings are on a trout? And how much would it cost to weld up a six foot iron sausage? Oh wait, this is Seattle. Better make that a six foot iron Tofurkey dog.
I love how this blog takes on a life of its own! Always interesting dialogue. Always makes me think. Thanks to all of you!
Spin speed = standing still = is the place to be!
Hey Tommy – yeah, I think you nailed it with:
“Can anyone else feel the grip loosening at the top? Maybe a bit of unraveling by people with twitter accounts, calculators, and some unemployed time on their hands? Can anyone else feel the sound of the 24 hour news cycle morphing into an angry version of Charlie Brown’s teacher? Perhaps we’ve attained the spin speed where we’re all actually standing still.”
The long overdue occupation of Wall Street is positive event that is attracting a “pre spin-speed” group of folks. It will lead to growth for the individuals involved. Once their bubble is forever popped, they can acheive spin speed – which enables them to move into a stochastically or holisitcally optimistic state BEyond the old paradigms.
They will plant gardens, buy locally, meet the neighbors, unplug from everything Corporate, rethink what mattere most, and so on.
There’s more to that Charlie Brown clip – like how into ourselves we can be without knowing it. Watching Linus going off into that “I’m special, she really likes me” head-trip was interesting. I wonder if that’s how a fantasy like American exceptionalism got started?
We surely live in interesting times.
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilisation
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I just started reading the book:http://www.dark-mountain.net/join-us/dark-mountain-issue-2/
You can get the gist of the project from the Manifesto on that site.
My friend James and I have been in a long discourse dismantling the logos (intention) and language. The Dark Mountain project is about the dismantling of civilization. The two are one and the same (as opposed to sensible awareness and hunter-gatherer/animal reality).
Auntie – THANKS for the link. The Manifesto is brilliant.
UNCIVILISATION – separating the real from the unreal, the truth from the untruth.
(Some might call it YOGA).
“The search for Reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings, for it destroys the world in which you live.”…”When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two.” ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
.
3~ Shanti
What we are seeing is a contrived “demonstration” as part of a massive conspiracy to crash our economy to allow the radical left to replace our beloved Republic with a communist style Socialist government. The unions and various socialist/communist groups are pushing this and the Democrats in congress are on board as well. We elected a Marxist/Socialist president who promised change and this is it. I would not be suprised to see this all go as well as the Russian revolution of 1917. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Great theory. The only problem I see with it is that the current situation started prior to this president. You may be right about the outcome, however. We can’t keep cutting back, reducing jobs, eliminating the middle class (and hence the tax revenues), at the same time putting more personal burden on those who can least handle it. We’re creating a homeless peasant class…and they start revolutions. I’m calling it “circling the drain economics.” Btw: I have to lay somebody off tomorrow.
That’s pretty funny. The Left is completely dead in the USA and yet right wingers keep bringing out its corpse and trying to scare the children. As someone who leans to the left, I can only wish that Obama was the socialist commie you guys say he is. It’s completely delusional to think that there is any Left left in this country. Please read some Chris Hedges to get a little perspective instead of watching Fox News or whatever fake news source you are getting your info from.
I’m actually on your side of Left, James. And virtually in total agreement with Chris Hedges. Bush made a horrible mistake when he declared “war” on terrorists. It recognized those assholes as legitimate so we could launch an American War. How many lives have we now given in comparison to those lost on 9-11? And who has benefitted? And now who suffers most?
There is still hope. I assembled my staff first thing this morning. Told them I must cut one full time position. Because it’s a union shop the cut goes by least senior first unless someone decides to retire or a couple decide to go part time. So I first asked for volunteers. The response from my guys: All of us will cut a few hours so all of us can have a job. These guys get it!
Rock on.
Those damn socialists
I just started reading “The Creature from Jekyll Island”. There is no Left or Right, as we are all become slaves to the system. Unless your a Fabian.
Interesting book. I recommend it. Puts the OWS in perspective, and sadly shows them to be misdirected.
Off topic:
Hey Tommy, what happened to that knife you were going to make and send? The deer is really getting stinky waiting for me to skin it. Maybe I can use it on the bear instead?
Best Wishes to All,
Jager06
Well, I made your knife twice and both times it ended up in a scrap pile. I have a hard time shipping imperfect. Since I changed shops, I’m still not 100% on equipment, but I’ll be there soon. I’m about 5 projects behind right now…. ugh. You’ll get it, but I wouldn’t wait any longer to skin that deer!