dagblog - Comments for "The 99% preamble to a Declaration of Action"

My wife and I are also

Dan Kervick — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 14:30:39 +0000

In reply to Ya know what Dan . . . Where

My wife and I are also planning to move our money. Nevertheless, this idea of having everyone make the move on a single day seems aimed at creating panic and triggering another fiancial sector meltdown.

There is a bio of Brandeis

AmericanDreamer — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:04:48 +0000

In reply to Ya know what Dan . . . Where

There is a bio of Brandeis out for a year or two now, by historian Melvyn Urofsky, said to be very good. I'm looking forward to reading it. Issues he was immersed in have come full circle and are (have been for some time now, actually) highly relevant in our day, again. I read OPM a year or so ago--unlike the bio of him, it is short, a collection of essays he wrote for Harper's back then:. On Robert Reich's short list of about 7 or 8 books all progressives must read it is available in full for free online at: http://www.law.louisville.edu/library/collections/brandeis/node/191

One line of argument then was, very roughly: in response to the hyperconcentration and domination of corporate wealth, is the best way to deal with it to break up the trusts and make sure neither corporations nor the federal government are too big and powerful? Or, do huge corporations inevitably require a large and aggressive federal government to regulate them in the public interest?

Right on Dan . . . You get

oldenGoldenDecoy — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 06:38:12 +0000

In reply to That's as good an approach as

Right on Dan . . .

You get it...

"Think of OWS as just one important opening eruption in a chain reaction of seismic events."

My intial "eruption" and "seismic event" began in '66 . . . In Memphis, Tenneesee of all place while srving in the US Navy.

Here's a little diddy I penned back then from Silly as it Seems

It's been one long chain reaction ever since then...

~OGD~

Ya know what Dan . . . Where

oldenGoldenDecoy — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 06:27:35 +0000

In reply to Just a few random

Ya know what Dan . . .

Where you said: "For example, one idea that keeps getting bandied about is the call for a massive withdrawal of deposits from Bank of America on November 5th (Guy Fawkes Day)."

The wife and I did that with BofA 40 years ago... More power to the movement if it works, if only to the point of getting more publicity for the sun to shine on BofA to remedy the diseases they've let loose all these years.

Afterall it was written in OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY by Louis Brandeis in Harper's Weekly December 20, 1913:

"Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants..."

~OGD~

Were people misled by a

Elusive Trope — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 05:58:41 +0000

In reply to It's fair to punish winners

Were people misled by a sophisticated media campaign simply losers? Were the people behind that campaign really winners?

That depends on who one asks. Which is the whole point.

And do not forget it took

cmaukonen — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 03:31:23 +0000

In reply to The 99% preamble to a Declaration of Action

And do not forget it took araound 35 years between the time they decided that England sucks and should drop dead and having something to replae it with.

That's as good an approach as

Dan Kervick — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 00:07:37 +0000

In reply to This came to me this morning

That's as good an approach as any. Since the movemnt has no leaders, no one can sau who does or does not speak for OWS. At this point I think it would just be best to let a hunderd flowers bloom. Thrown the agendas, manifestos and proposals out there. Let it all rip. People should just start forming their own progressive action groups and mini-movements, instead of waiting for OWS to define an agenda. Think of OWS as just one important opening eruption in a chain reaction of seismic events.

... I'm not following OWS as

Dan Kervick — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 23:59:10 +0000

In reply to Oxy, I'm not following OWS as

... I'm not following OWS as well as I should, but have the leaders looked at some of the more simplified descriptions of what the founders were doing?

There are no leaders.

It's fair to punish winners

Donal — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:22:22 +0000

In reply to Coming to a decision about

It's fair to punish winners if they cheated or stole. Winners like to attribute success to hard work alone, and that is certainly a major factor. But some people work hard and some work the system. Many do both and claim a certain amount of graft is part of life.

I think losers should be responsible if they make poor decisions, as described in Working Poor, but some are simply being exploited by the winners. Some of those losers that bought too much house were misled by hard-working winners, some were greedy and some were both.

Those "flip this house" type shows made it seem so easy, almost a certainty, that anyone could buy, renovate and sell a property and make money. Were people misled by a sophisticated media campaign simply losers? Were the people behind that campaign really winners?

Coming to a decision about

Elusive Trope — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 20:10:31 +0000

In reply to Oxy, I'm not following OWS as

Coming to a decision about what is fair and not fair is part of the problem in the recent past. Is it fair that those who pay their mortgages on time have to subsidize those that bought houses on payment plans they couldn't afford in the long run? Is it fair to redistribute the wealth to those who are in the most need? Is it fair that government tells a company how much it should pay it workers in relation to its executives?

One way to look at the split between conservatives and liberals (to use that general binary) is a fundamental difference in how they define what is fair.

One way to look at it is that the conservatives will say that there are and always will be winners and losers, and it isn't fair to punish the winners in order to turn the losers into winners, whereas the liberals will say it is unfair that there winners and losers, and the winners need to make a sacrifice in order for everybody to be winners.