dagblog - Comments for "Lost in Liberty Square"

(in re to rootman's comment

AmericanDreamer — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 16:00:19 +0000

(in re to rootman's comment above asking my thoughts on iconic pitchforks--too skinny to read upthread)

Oh, I think their attention is rapidly, finally, being gotten. Just not at all sure scaring them with graphic images of violence is more helpful than not. Sometimes less is more and leaving an adversary's imagination to do its own work rather than offering explicit images they might be able to seize on to foster blowback can be more effective.

On iconic pitchforks...good question. A year or two ago when fellow daggers were using it there was not much in the way of observable signs of emerging mass activity going on. There was a desperate need for that to get started, somehow. For me the pitchfork is nowhere near as explicit and problematic in that respect as pikes. I don't recall having a particular problem with it a year or two ago when attention that desperately needed to be paid was not being paid. IIRC, I think my reactions to the pitchfork icons were mostly dependent on my reactions to what the individual using it was writing at dag.

The situation now is that attention, finally, is being paid. The questions now for me are less about how to get attention than about how might some useful and important changes that otherwise aren't going to happen be brought about in connection with the protest actions that have sprung up.

Dan, we have come out of

SleepinJeezus — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 10:30:15 +0000

In reply to I don't see any actual

Dan, we have come out of months upon months of the message from Washington being all about our nation's debt "crisis." We have a couple different commissions working on this "crisis" (including the Catfood Commission of Obama's creation, fer chrissakes!) and all the media is tuned in to see for what reason we are going to shut down the government this time. Are we going to cut Social Security to gain stability? Or shut 'er down? Medicare? Or shut it down? Certainly, tax increases are the new "third rail" in politics, right?

Look at this morning's NYT. Then tell me you can't make up your mind whether the Occupy Wall Street movement will accomplish anything. It has already greatly redefined the debate away from all the manufactured crises that the political "owners" would have us focus upon as a distraction. And these demonstrations have connected with the righteous anger virtually everyone feels toward those who created and then profited from the actual crisis that weighs so heavily upon the middle class and the growing numbers of poor in this country.

Solidarity. The movement grows. Occupy Wall Street.

I just came back from a

Rootman — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 02:53:40 +0000

In reply to Lost in Liberty Square

I just came back from a statewide Obama organizer event that was more chaotic than OWS sounds.

Good point about many not

AmericanDreamer — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 01:39:41 +0000

In reply to I'd like to add that the

Good point about many not knowing Lloyd Blankfein from Floyd Langbein. But I think having anyone's head image on a pike is problematic in a number of respects, and potentially very damaging to efforts to attract support for whatever goals they choose to adopt. Likewise with ambiguity over whether the group is committed to nonviolence or not, and, as Bruce and you pointed out, a failure to condemn any and all acts of bigotry and do the work internally to make that the actual practice of the group and not just its PR stance.

Your description of the

artappraiser — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 01:00:31 +0000

In reply to My latest Occupy Wall Street

Your description of the "apparatchik" and the General Assembly definitely shows the influence of the Vancouver group Adbusters which has claimed responsibility for the jumpstarting of the "Occupy Wall Street" idea. As the wikipedia entry suggests, their "culture jamming" is influenced by Situationism. Wikipedia also has a decent entry on Situationist International where there's plenty of like you describe, for one example:

...supported the May '68 revolts, and asked the workers to occupy the factories and to run them with direct democracy, through workers' councils composed by instantly revocable delegates.....

Ironically, Trope may be one of the Dagblog members best able to 'splain this all; these ideas are really at the roots of the tree of PoMo.

Meanwhile, I'd suggest that if you encounter such aggravation in the future, you might try a little agitation of your own by querying: "hey, are you one of those guys from Vancover?"

Here is a recent article

artappraiser — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 20:27:25 +0000

In reply to In the end, the investments

Here is a recent article summarizing some psychological research into what you are talking about:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/sunday-review/compassion-fatigue.html

Warning: it doesn't support your argument that well about "human nature." If you do read it, make sure to get through to page two, where there are the suggestions why "local" compassion as opposed to "global" compassion might be a smart hardwired choice.

I'll just say this must not all be new science, as advertising/marketing people must know about the same for quite some time, or we wouldn't see so many charities use the "sponsor this child" model. Likewise is how news stories are popularized, i.e., many people will get interested and follow a single kidnapping case if it is someone from their own country or culture, but don't have that much interest if it is a person from another country or culture, that the individual human interest stories that resonate worldwide are still quite rare despite the globalization of the media for several decades.

Wow, this is a great

Jeni Decker — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:34:00 +0000

In reply to Lost in Liberty Square

Wow, this is a great discussion.

Another Trope said: “One of the goals of the trip was to get their buy-in (no capitalist pun intended?) into working in our community to rally everyone around providing early childhood education opportunities”

I think this is great - and as the parent of two autistic kids who knows exactly how important early childhood education/intervention is, I appreciate those who work tirelessly in its regard. But we must also remember that all of the attention to providing “early childhood education” has to be followed through by ANOTHER activist/group, who is efforting to stabilize the ridiculous costs of higher education and make sure once that same group that benefited from early education, then doesn’t end up slamming up against a wall and being in debt for a few decades. Those kids you’re working on behalf of now, Another Trope, are the same kids who will benefit in the future by the continued activism in other areas.

So I think while one person might be focused on one area and its improvement, we need people in ALL areas, fighting the good fight - working on things they feel passionate about. We can’t expect to “reform” one area and ignore another. We all pick our thing to fight for so we cover all the bases. But it’s certainly not for anyone to say that their efforts will bear more fruit - or are more realistic - than someone else’s. (Not that I’m arguing that’s what your post intended, I’m just taking it a step further…)

I believe what Genghis said here is important to note:

“The Occupy Wall Street movement, in its current form, is an inchoate mass of people and opinions. It struggles to produce a cohesive and focused agenda because it has zealously rejected the need for a cohesive and focused organization.”

Donal: “People frustrated with the banksters could include all sorts of people that might not normally get along on other issues.”

Occupy Wall Street is a huge group of diverse people and political leanings ALL unhappy with something(s). What this tells me is that while everyone might not be unhappy with the same things, they’re all unhappy with the current state of the union and many of these “roads” all lead back to Wall Street - an area that was floundering before being bailed out by Americans, who are now floundering and wondering why they aren’t being bailed out through appropriate legislation.

Schools are losing teachers, bridges are falling down, unemployment is at a morbidly obscene rate, kids are now being forced to decide whether to bother with college if they will be in debt up to their ears for years to come, the wealthiest among us who have benefited from OUR COLLECTIVE American consumption (by the use of OUR roads that are now disintegrating, by OUR purchasing of their goods and services) aren’t paying their fair share of taxes - everyone is being affected in one way or another.

I have never understood why these same people don't understand that the further we sink from the middle class to collective poverty, the less we'll be able to stimulate the economy because we won't have anything to stimulate it with.

Then we watch the news and see horror stories about voter suppression leading up to the next election juxtaposed against some PT Barnum-like GOP debates and what’s happening is EVERYONE is getting freaked out. We don’t know what’s coming, but we can be sure it’s not good.

The “haves” continue to rape and pillage the country for their continued prosperity while the "have-nots" circle the train.

And then we have politicians who would rather remain stagnant and eschew any and all progress toward the collective good that might leave even a whiff success around the President prior to an election - even if that would mean success for the country. (God Forbid!) To some, an election must be won at all costs - and every American, Democrat and Republican is suffering because of it.

I won’t even get into the obscene amounts of money being raised for campaigns, which is basically a way for a select few rich people to get exactly what kind of results in any given area (legislation) that works best for them - and works against what works best for the American people.

I’m proud when I watch what’s happening down on Wall Street. It might not be as pulled-together as it could be, but what I see are people who want something done and at the very least, it shows people are paying attention ~ and that the next election is going to be very, very interesting.

Everyone holding a political position has been sufficiently put on notice. We’re watching and we’re listening, so you better be damn sure whatever it is you stand for has more substance than a talking point or sound byte because if we don’t like what you’re saying, you can expect us to take action at the ballot box.

To me, if OWS does nothing more than puts politicians on notice, that’s fine by me. But I tend to think there’s something powerful going on down there on Wall Street, and I look forward to finding out where it’s going.

I'd like to add that the

artappraiser — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:22:43 +0000

In reply to In the end, the investments

I'd like to add that the psychology/sociology suggested in that article could also be applied to the discussions here about the protest tactics. If someone with the relatively liberal opinions of DanK can look at the protests so far and get the uneasy feeling that "that's not me," then there's a problem.

Along those lines, I'm going to throw out an opine on the head on a pike thingie. Nobody outside of elite circles knows who Lloyd Blankfein is, much less what he looks like. Forget the problem of the pike, and whether it's wicked satire or toying with vigilantism and agitation to violence, first and foremost it's not a good a protest sign unless you're trying to limit your message to the Village Voice readership, the top tier blogosphere, and the few Wall streeters who recognize his face. Pick a recognizable face and then one can talk the other problem.

In the end, the investments

AmericanDreamer — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 17:53:17 +0000

In reply to I don't know what specific

In the end, the investments come not out of pity, nor even good business sense, but neighbors helping neighbors. Now that is a revolution I can get behind.

Depends on who you count as a "neighbor", but if we have to rely only on people who know one another to help one another out or make a better society including for those we personally do not know, we're not going to get terribly far. Because some communities are desperately money poor and money is one resource that matters in addressing many social problems.

Some might say that amounts to saying that we need a revolution in consciousness, but I would say its more an expansion and/or deepening of less narrow sympathies, imagination, and awareness that we see many examples of today. Humans are not only capable of caring about others they don't personally know, and acting on that concern, but actually already do so, in many ways. Sometimes its out of charity (not to be poo-poohed) but the difference between charity and enlightened self-interest isn't always a bright line to my way of thinking. I sometimes think a crude measure of humankind's betterment, if this is to happen, would be a gradual narrowing between what individuals think of as generosity or charity, on the one hand, versus what we might think of as enlightened self-interest, the latter being a more durable sentiment.

Everybody has some

Dan Kervick — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 17:15:46 +0000

In reply to It's an ugly and frightening

Everybody has some understanding of the difference between violent revolution and peaceful change, and the potential for large crowds to turn violent.