The Occupy Wall Street protests
You may notice that I haven’t written a word so far about the Wall Street protests, although plenty of others have. That’s because I don’t think these demonstrations are going to end up being especially important in the larger political scheme of things. I don’t envision the protests growing a whole lot bigger, for example, although of course I could be wrong about this.
But for now the protests seem to exist mainly as a conduit for those on the left who dearly wish the glory days of the 60s would return, when demonstrations were large and actually seemed to influence public policy. It would give them something so many aging boomers now have: the chance to look back with the warm glow of nostalgia and pride in their declining years at their fiery and politically meaningful youth.
The main impulses driving the Occupy Wall Street protests seem to be a combination of leftist class politics, anger at diminishing opportunities for money spent (often in the form of student loans), and the desire to vent (as well as, in a few cases, financial rewards for joining up). But I think one significant thing about these protests is that they are the first ones I’m aware of in this country that channel a supposedly anti-establishment rebellion that is nevertheless basically in league with a current administration rather than against it.
Think about it; isn’t it usually the current government that’s being raged against? I haven’t done an exhaustive search, but it appears that there’s a paucity of anti-Obama signs and sentiments among those camping out in Zuccotti Park. That’s not to say that the protesters aren’t frustrated with Obama in many ways, but he is not their focus but their cheerleader, having long employed divisive rhetoric to stir up anger against those titans of finance who have now become the targets of the protesters’ rage.
And this despite the fact that Obama himself benefited greatly from Wall Street, from which he drew supporters, contributors, and advisers. At the same time, however, his rhetoric has excoriated them, a neat trick that perhaps only Obama would have the audacity to try to perform.
It’s not that Obama has created the rage against Wall Street through his rhetoric. But he has fed it and encouraged it and has supported it, as part of his effort to become the most intentionally divisive president in memory. Peter Wehner writes:
It was Obama, after all, who ”“ more than any political figure in our lifetime ”“ promised to heal the breach. That was at the very core of his message, and his appeal, during the last presidential election.
For example, in his announcement speech on February 10, 2007, it was Obama who complained, “We’re distracted from our real failures and told to blame the other party”¦” He would not sink to such depths, he promised us.
The Occupy Wall Street protesters have probably forgotten that message, if they ever listened to it (or believed it) in the first place, and so hypocrisy on that score is probably not one of the things that frustrates them about Obama. If anything, they probably think he hasn’t been divisive enough—or at least not clever enough about his divisiveness. Now it’s time to up the ante, and if Obama won’t do it, they’re going to have to do it themselves.
These demonstrators are just young, ill informed, misguided, pretty dumb, and WEIRD.
I think Cain is smart to go after ’em.
I have a friend who once asked me if I had joined the Tea Party with a look of arrogance on her face. (She’s an Upper West Side NYC liberal.) I can’t wait to ask her if she has joined the Occupy Wall Street movement. To me, there’s a delicious symmetry to those two questions.
I like the way you use this term “divisive” against Obama, since that was often the word of choice for Bush-haters. I don’t know about anyone else, but I *want* a divisive president. It’s a sign that people have principles and that we have a healthy democracy. Otherwise we’ll end up like Germany where everyone agrees about everything (at least among politicians). And when the Obama-lovers talk about people being “divisive” or about “bringing people together”, what they really mean is that everyone should agree with them.
1. But I think one significant thing about these protests is that they are the first ones I’m aware of in this country that channel a supposedly anti-establishment rebellion that is nevertheless basically in league with a current administration rather than against it.
Not only that, but they’re not singling out the Boomers who created the present mess.
From that perspective, the current bunch is superior to the 60s protestors. What a terrible terrible world you left us! Waaah! The Boomer protestors had the gall to say this to the Great Generation that had survived the Depression, fought WW2, and was confronting armed-to-the-teeth, expansive totalitarianism.
2. I didn’t expect that my grudging enlistment and less than enthusiastic service in the 60s would contribute to my long-term self-respect.
3. And this despite the fact that Obama himself benefited greatly from Wall Street, from which he drew supporters, contributors, and advisers.
All else being equal, a government with a progressive tax code will maximize its revenue when the national income is concentrated in the upper brackets. For some high earners, the benefits of crony capitalism will offset their nominally high taxes.
Just sayin’.
Anne: the reason I highlighted the word “intentionally” in front of the word “divisive” is that plenty of presidents are divisive; it just goes with taking strong positions. Bush was like that, and many other presidents also have been that way.
Obama’s divisiveness is very, very different. Yes, he has this sort of divisiveness, too (as in when he pushed health care reform through). But it is his intentionally divisive rhetoric that is so disturbing and so different. It’s the sort of thing that is more commonly the province of certain VPs (or VP candidates), such as Spiro Agnew.
I have compared Obama to Agnew previously, here.
I like Denninger’s response to the OWS crowd:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=195434
It seems to me that the protests are made up of several distinct groups:
1) Young white college students, currently in school or recently graduated, upset that they can’t find their high-paying dream jobs, who also have parents with enough money to fund their weeks-long camping trip.
2) Drug addicts and/or criminals looking for free food and cheap drugs.
3) Old hippies looking to relive their past.
4) Union goons sent to incite violence and hand out signs.
5) Paid astroturfed minorities, many of whom are homeless, funded by “progressive” foundations in order to create the impression that this isn’t a “whiter” movement than the Tea Party (which it is).
6) Anarchists and communists, with a few Islamic supremacists thrown in to boot (in Boston).
There is no clear message except that they want the money of the rich for nothing and to end capitalism or something.
And look at who supports them besides the Democratic Party (among many others):
Iran
Hugo Chavez
Louis Farrakhan
The Communist Party
Hollywood
All we need now is Kim Jong Il, OJ Simpson, and Casey Anthony to throw their support in behind them…
See this. It will make your skin crawl.http://youtu.be/3QZlp3eGMNI
Kids with no jobs but spending 12 hours a day on facebook and twitter. Check.
College kids not challenged by their classes. Check.
Riff raff. Check.
Unions. Check.
Feces and garbage. Check.
Illustrious progressives not on the lines. Check.
The pathology of the audacity of hope. Check.
Basically just a bunch of bored white kids whom the establishment now wishes to parasite off of since their main fare is overfished: check
Neo, I do agree with everything you’ve said. I’ve just been struck over the years at how liberals almost exclusively use the word “divisive” in a negative sense, because they don’t like people challenging their ideas. And when they talk about bringing people together, they actually mean that all the compromises should come from the conservative side.
I agree Obama is divisive because of his incivility. He is uncivil in a way that previous presidents haven’t been, in my opinion. When you’re the most powerful man in the world, you can afford to be, and should be, above those kinds of direct, personal attacks that Obama is so fond of. Wasn’t he the first candidate ever to call his opponent a “liar” during the election?
I appreciate John’s list of the ‘Occupiers.’ Let us not forget that when there is a gathering of all of these types there will always, always be anti-Semitic sentiment. There have been a number of videos – check YouTube showing Jewish people getting harassed and told to “go back to Israel.” There are also despicable people defecating on the flag, on police vehicles, as a form of “demonstration.” A bunch of losers.
It was only a matter of time, from CNN:
“…Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, music star Kanye West and the Rev. Al Sharpton were the latest to lend their celebrity to the Occupy Wall Street cause, mixing with the masses in New York on Monday, days ahead of a larger, promised protest targeting mammoth banks…”
But for now the protests seem to exist mainly as a conduit for those on the left who dearly wish the glory days of the 60s would return, when demonstrations were large and actually seemed to influence public policy.
It boggles my mind. It’s their policies we’re living with now going on 35+ years! They have no freaking right to protest.
I attended 2 of the Tea Parties in D.C. and it felt good to think ‘now it’s our turn.’ It’s time for another national Tea Party.
Of course it is not very credible that Obama created this situation, but could it have happened without him? Would the Arab “spring” have happened without Obama? There’s a huge green light shining from the White House which, as the highest authority in the land, signals to his troops “go for it.” Obama, using the White House, green-lighted the occupancy farce. As a gatekeeper preventing violence and unrest, as the executor of the laws of our country, he has not just failed, but purposefully thwarted that responsibility and duty. He is not and never was a President, but a community activist in chief.
It’s not even too far off to say he did create the situation with his health care bill, debt spending, fake stimulus, regulating and other policies which have driven so many into unemployment and fear.
Divisive? That is much too tame. One can sense that what really bugs Obama is what would bug a dictator, a Chavez or a Lenin or a Che Guevara: he doesn’t have complete control. He really, like Che, would have no problem at all of disposing of the troops.
To me, there’s a delicious symmetry to those two questions.
Except that the Tea Party comprises higher primates.
Most pagans you’ll ever see assembled outside of a renaissance fair.
Winter temperatures and rain will thin the herd.
” It was only a matter of time, from CNN: “…Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, music star Kanye West and the Rev. Al Sharpton were the latest to lend their celebrity to the Occupy Wall Street cause, mixing with the masses in New York on Monday, days ahead of a larger, promised protest targeting mammoth banks…” ”
Oh, right, Mr. Simmons + Mr. Kanye. The one thing that would make Mr. Simmons + Mr. Kanye break down + cry forever, is finding out from their IRS statements, that Mr. S + Mr. K accidentally made millions + millions of dollars.
BULL MANURE, you two stars! You like making lots of money, or the prospect of making lots of money, just like the [rest of us]!
This week, Rep. Nancy Pelosi said a statement like: she approves of the “wall street protestors”, since the protestors are voicing to the establishment, that the protestors want things/the economy to improve.
Dear Rep. Pelosi,
In the late 20th century to today, the Federal Government is part of the establishment.
You, Rep. Pelosi, ARE A PART OF the Federal Government.
Rep. Pelosi, you are a part of THE ESTABLISHMENT.
I wonder if you understand that.
P.S. or maybe you are doing a silly thing, like [strongly encouraging people] to dislike you and protest you.
I have watched the vids and read the stories. There is something else to this, beyond the wretched beasties crawling out from under their rocks. I dunno what it is, but there’s something else afoot.
In the meantime, I’m clinging to my guns and religion. And advise you to do the same.
Occam’s Beard said:
“To me, there’s a delicious symmetry to those two questions.
Except that the Tea Party comprises higher primates.”
That’s what makes it so delicious.
Michael Savage was calling this “Red October”, saying this was just the start…
As a TEA Party member, I’m all in favor of peaceful, legal protests. What irritates me about OWS is that they purposefully break the law. Anytime you interfere with another person’s rights to go about their business, you are breaking the law. When you become a public nuisance by deterring customers of nearby businesses, or are creating a sanitary/public health problem, you are breaking the law. When you do “civil disobedience ” to purposely get arrested, you are breaking the law and hurting the taxpayers who must pay for your arrests.
I believe they intend to escalate to anarchy and hope the bleeding heart MSM will side with them and take their case to the people as they did in the 60s.
If I was mayor Bloomberg, I would have given them a permit for a week – period. Anyone not leaving the premises after that would be met with canons – water canons. Wash them down the streets until they come to their senses. He was nuts not to put a time limit on this thing.
If I were Ralph Nader or some such socialist candidate, I would be jumping on this bandwagon. This organization is not something that is going to help the dems. The message – tear the system down – resonates with only about 20% of the population. IMO, that’s not going to get Obama re-elected.
Let’s hope Mother Nature convinces them to seek some warmth before Thanksgiving.
Don Carlos: “There is something else to this, beyond the wretched beasties crawling out from under their rocks. I dunno what it is, but there’s something else afoot.”
Check out this site for some background:
http://tinyurl.com/44pkrwl
Laura Ingraham said that some of them are being paid $350 – $650/week by a progressive organization. See this:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html
Yeah, there’s something afoot
I don’t understand why the laws aren’t being enforced. These people are clearly a public nuisance.
Bloomberg is hoping that the weather cooperates. The forecast is for 1.25 inches of rain on Wednesday followed by generally cooler temperatures. That will send many of the campers packing.
I think conservatives, while justified in doing so, should really not make fun of these people. They’re being mugged by reality right before our eyes. “What do you mean the world demands I know something? What do you mean debts are real and need to be repaid? What do you mean there’s an opportunity cost to college?” Etc. Their initial reaction is to try and change reality “Just tax the corporations, man, and give me mine!” But it will sink in eventually that that is a loser’s game. As Greece has so aptly demonstrated, there is such a limit to other people’s money.
They’re disenchanted, and can’t quite bring themselves to face their own political leaders. Not yet anway.
They are useful idiots in their innocents clubs all working against fascism, while creating communism…
Willi Mé¼nzenberg
Stephen Koch, in his book Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Mé¼nzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals, calls this “righteous politics.” Political issues are turned into a quasi-religion, which brooks no debate — witness the ‘no platform’ antics of left-wing students who can tolerate no outlook besides their own.
do note that this was also a product of its times… that today, it would make no sense for them to have anti-nazi stuff.. so the details change but the form is the same… as it works… and now its refined…
and what about the very wealthy and famous showing up and not being torn apart, but love bombed? like the rapper, or geraldo, and so on?
its the same groups, with the same associations, often its their children, and they are backed by the same interests… we could all have jumped to the conclusion of this book more than 10 years ago, if we were not being too optimistic.
Blind optimism could lead to making bad decisions: Study / tinyurl.com/3rnmv94
A new British study found that blind optimism is related to faulty functioning of the brain’s frontal lobe – and could, in part, be blamed for the financial crisis, unsafe sex and bad health habits.
If the real odds were more bleak, respondents who rated highest for optimism overall tended to show the least activity in the frontal lobe and revise their original estimates the least – if at all.
They were in denial, the study found, displaying a hard-wired bias for hope in the face of cautionary information.
take a look at the protesters… they have a table out… FREE BOOKS… what kind of books? well, books on che, black liberation, pathers, oppression dialectics, social justice, and so on…
just replace hitler with banks, wealthy, wall street, etc… the object of the hate is irrelevent as a subject, it is only necessary that they blindly hate and believe they are on a mission.. a mission that in truth is 180 degrees opposite…
Which is a calling card over and over and over. diversity leads to homogeneity, feminism ideology will lead to utopian things that will make the selfish and unpractical seem prescient, blacks will make whites their slaves, the poor will have all the money they want, etc… all presumptions that the gullible in each group get caught up in like nets with different sized and shaped holes. freedom is slavery… war is peace (war against drugs, poverty, oppression, etc)… the poor with 400 dollar blackberries, a car, two TVs, air conditioning, and spending money… are poor…
i am sorry that this past history is from the past exploits of the same systems… but thats all we have. to repackage it as an episode of firefly, or something else so its palatable, is again a social requirement given to us so that we cant associate things that dont match up perfectly… ie, the lack of match means we can throw it away and ignore all the stuff that does match… and so, delusionally optimistic…
what happened to such loyal people as they?
Mé¼nzenberg lived precariously in Paris until the Nazi invasion of June 1940. He then fled southward and his strangled corpse was found in a wood near Grenoble in October. Almost certainly he had been murdered by a Soviet agent.
Socialism has a way of throwing away the toilet paper after its been used…
Otto Katz survived until 1952. He was arrested by the regime, on whose behalf he had been a devoted and obedient servant, and hanged after reading a prepared ‘confession’ at the show trials in Prague of that year. Knowing well what was in store, he offered his ‘confession’ the moment he was arrested. This was insufficient, and he was tortured for months while his final service to Communism, the ‘confession’ as an instrument of disinformation, was worked up.
if the crowd succeeds… i can tell you what will happen
elections will be suspended.. the crowd will be fired upon, and dispersed. they will find out what real oppresion is as their phones and things dont work any more. they are rounded up, etc…
this is under the area of the reasoning as to after the revolution – preventing the counter revolution, which they now call blow back, etc.. ie. those who discover they are being used become zealots for the opposition.
the future state has no use for such people. their purpose having been served, they are too dangerous to keep around. look what they did to the last state they tore it up, and so on, and were completely unreasonable and such… which was fine then, but this will be now…
they will wonder why obama who winked to them and gave a nod, doesnt step out and stop it… if only stalin knew…
just read some history…
its repeating in a whole lot of detail…
at some point it was easier for the Germans to go forward than it was to push back… we are way past any form of push back, since he state would oppose such… from thomas sowels new article in that the justice department is doing race payback and so on…
We are in it, and most dont know it…
by the time the elections come up in 8-9 months…
what then? you think that this group of unemployed people and such is going to stop? the state, including bloomberg has said they can stay as long as they want…
funny how that is opposite their sentiments of the tea party.. but the tea party were not idiots coming together being told… and this is an army of idiots who will do whatever the organizers point them to do that sounds ok to them, or if others in their midst jump to act…
The crowd does not know what will happen the moment they ‘win’…
Why is it that the numbers of these protesters are seldom mentioned? My guess it is to prevent the public from realizing there is no story here. I get the impression that they number in the hundreds, certainly they are fewer than thousands. A protest against boiled turnips would draw more people. I suspect the main reason they are in the papers is that reporting from Wall Street is easier than reporting from Damascus, or Newark. Or maybe there are prizes for lazy journalism.
Far more interesting than the protesters is their Congressional supporters. How is it that a numerically insignificant number of marginal beings with no clear agenda other than to be seen gets the support of supposedly main stream politicians? If anyone had any suspicions about Pelosi’s mental mental condition this should allay them, the chick is your mind on drugs. I heard that Dear Leader also gave the alien beings a wink, with regard to that I can only say “may G-d smite thee 53%”.
Artfldgr:
Brilliant essay.
Ironically, the most well known center of black and interracial social life, the Five Points, was relatively quiet during the riots. Mobs neither attacked the brothels there nor killed black people within its borders. There were also instances of interracial cooperation.
does the movie Gangs of NY paint five points as a interracial slum, or a white Irish slum? does the story show them storming the homes of the wealthy (Which they did do), AND the attacks on blacks at the behest of the unions and democratic party?
or did they scrub it?
this wasnt the first… there was also a riot for race back in 1835… and one later..
AND just to prevent MORE Scrubbing..
the places they FIRST went to was the homes and such of wealthy radical republicans…
Crowds could be heard screaming: “There goes a $300 man!” or “Down with rich men!”
and
The mobs attacked and burned the clothing store Brooks Brothers, a purveyor of clothing for the rich. The crowds beat policemen and soldiers, who were viewed as agents of upper class and federal power. Upon hearing of the riots, Police Superintendent John A. Kennedy immediately headed toward the riots. After he was identified, a mob “beat him, dragged him through the streets by the head,” until he was unrecognizable.
In another incident, Colonel Henry O’Brien of the Eleventh New York Volunteers was beaten, stripped, tortured, and then shot in the head after he used a howitzer to clear Second Avenue (killing in the process a woman bystander and child). On the second day of riots, mobs headed toward Wall Street, yet were held back as Wall Street was the best-defended part of the city. However just in case, Custom House workers prepared bombs, employees of the Bank Note Company readied vats of sulfuric acid to pour on the rioters, and a warship lay anchored off of Wall Street ready to unleash its cannons if rioters attacked the city’s financial institutions. Meanwhile, throughout the riots, many Fifth Avenue estates were ransacked and burned.
At the same time rioters attacked up the social latter, they also attacked downward at African-Americans. Bands of Irish dock workers and other laborers began to chase African-Americans, chanting: “Kill all nig gers!” African-Americans were indiscriminately dragged off of the streets and beaten.
To prevent another such riot, city officials worked to satisfy the demands of the rioters and address some of their concerns. With the help of Tammany Hall, Democrats in the city government appropriated two million dollars to buy draft exemptions for poor New Yorkers who did not want to serve.
it was VERY much like today…
with less race tension from whites towars blacks.
thats reversed…
more in next post…
but basically they are trying to reproduce a variation of the five points riots of which there were several over 100 year period…
The march on the wealthy has happened before!!!
AND in ny..
ever wonder why so many of the homes they will walk past are built like they can withstand attacks and riots?
well, thats because they ARE built for that reason. take a look at Carnegie hall, Andrew Carnegie old place… no windows on the ground floor.
how about the mausoleum look to the Fricke Home?
they are trying to recreate something today… whether actual or in symbol, who knows…
The New York City Draft Riots of 1863
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/317749.html
well, the poor of five points and other parts decided that they didnt like that the wealthy could pay some poor person to take their place on the front line..
they got real angry at the wealthy and they marched from the places they are now camped at (or relatively near them), and marched up the island to the millionaires homes…
anyone other than me remember?
(this despite the movie gangs of ny covering the story to some degree?)
In the month preceding the July 1863 lottery, in a pattern similar to the 1834 anti-abolition riots, antiwar newspaper editors published inflammatory attacks on the draft law aimed at inciting the white working class.
same demographic…
same political party…
same progressives….
the story diverges here a bit… ie. they play up that these democratic white racists, as the same in the south murdering blacks in Landry parish and ouitchita, etc..
the truth is that they DID attack black shop keepers and such… on fifth avenue..
but they ALSO attacked the wealthy after first attacking military and government things along the way.
gangs of ny sanitized it in that they erased that it was the democrats, that it was half racist half anti wealthy, etc… the wealthy did not make the law, the democrats did…
or as neo points out, this divisiveness is different than other kinds… (quite right – as they started advertising the protest over a year ago. go ahead, look back, i said so a long time ago… it happened, but they were not dispersed… so now more are showing up.
your watching them orchestrate this for a purpose later and the staste is complicit in this by ignoring things so they can build up. same with the race beatings, in that the police and holder are not prosecuting… so over time, they are increasing. the crowd is being allowed to do things that normally they wouldnt, so they are increasing.
THEN when they do something, that will trigger it, as the crowd is now acclimated to doing what they want unopposed.
this is not what it seems to be if you pay close attention (and i would write a book, anyone know of publisher that is not on the left side? if they wont print honestly about hayes tilden, lattimore, and so on, why would the left want to publish what connections i make that they try to hide?)
this is not the first time that the democrats made an army of fools with policy, papers, and desire.
Call me paranoid, but I am afraid that I do believe that these mobs of “useful idiots” have indeed been mobilized–through several layers of “cutouts”–by “community organizer” Obama, and by Obama & Co., given a little union thug “stiffener,” and ginned up/paid for by George Soros bankrolled Far Left organizations–see Craig’s List ads by the “Working Families Party” seeking useful idiots to demo for several hundred dollars per week ( http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-more-lefts-familiar-flapdoodle) .
To quote Communist and former White House official Van Jones, ”bottom up, top down, inside out,” which I take to mean that the far Left’s agenda will be moved forward, or even possibly a try at actual Revolution will be fomented/attempted by coordinated actions from the “top down” i.e. the White House and Obama & Co.’s apparatchiks setting the key diversionary, pseudo-populist propaganda “lines” i.e. the “eeevil rich,” banks, and corporations are to blame for/created our current financial mess, “bottom up” which I take to mean ginned up “Astroturf” mobs–freed from things like actual work by the Obama economy, 17% real unemployment, and 99 weeks of unemployment benefits– mobs like the ones we are seeing protesting against these Obama defined “enemies of the people,” and “inside out,” from within the Administration affecting the greater society without.
In this scenario, of course, the Federal government (or their own long established local Democratic administrations) will put pressure on cities not to disperse these mobs, and the Obama administration will take no action itself to disperse such mobs until they have devolved into some serious violence and destruction, and then only as an excuse to clamp controls on the populace at large and perhaps–if they can get away with it–impose some form of martial law, gun confiscation–“temporary” and for our safety in this Emergency, to be sure, and perhaps–if the violence and chaos gets serious enough–an unfortunate and reluctant postponement of the 2012 elections–see North Carolina Democrat Governor Purdue’s suggestion of last week that we have just such a postponement.
Things like Senator Reid’s unilateral imposition of the “nuclear option” to shut down the Republican minority’s ability to force debate of certain issues in the Senate, and the increasing number of Democrats who are praising or jumping on the ”Occupy Wall Street” bandwagon, also contribute pieces to what is looking like and increasingly ominous pattern.
All this might have been seen as pure paranoia prior to Obama & Co.’s “occupation” of the White House, but so many things that were considered foolish to have even considered have now happened under Obama & Co., the country and the economy is so much less stable and prosperous than it was pre-Obama, and the country so much more deliberately divided thanks to the rhetoric of Obama, that such a scenario as I propose above is now, I suggest, much more “believable,” and is now, unfortunately, “within the realm of possibility.”
P.S.–On the issue of gun confiscation and just “how far” this administration is prepared to go, I offer the Obama & Co.’s unfolding, murderous “Operation Fast and Furious.”
Laura Ingraham said that some of them are being paid $350 — $650/week by a progressive organization.
This is why, of course, the Reds were howling about the Tea Party being astroturfed: because that’s exactly what a Red movement would have been, and they can’t conceive of a genuine grassroots movement.
Kudos to Artfldgr and Wolla Dalbo for especially insightful comments.
Call me paranoid, but I am afraid that I do believe that these mobs of “useful idiots” have indeed been mobilized–through several layers of “cutouts”—by “community organizer” Obama, and by Obama & Co., given a little union thug “stiffener,” and ginned up/paid for by George Soros bankrolled Far Left organizations.
I don’t call you paranoid; I call you realistic and perspicacious. There is no doubt in my mind that you’ve accurately summarized the genesis of this ill-begotten movement.
(Btw, Art, had you noticed that sanctimonious Northeastern liberals invariably cite lynching statistics beginning in 1870, conveniently carving out the 11 (IIRC) blacks lynched in NYC during the 1863 Draft Riots? Can’t have that bastion of liberal goodness at the top of the league tables now, can we?)
Notice how the MSM is jumping on the bandwagon. The protestors (maybe 500) were given at least 10 minutes of news last night on the Seattle Fox channel. The mayor of Seattle has jumped on the bandwagon, stating that their grievances are real and the system has to be changed. (Mike McGinn, a former anti-Vietnam protestor and activist, is the mayor.) This looks very much like the beginnings of the same MSM drumbeat that approved of and egged on the anti-Vietnam protestors. Much of our inability to make positive decisions about defending ourselves and the crazy ideas abouit “rights” to jobs, houses, education, and so on came from the anti-Vietnam protests. As Artfldfgr points out, this is nothing new and they’re on the march again.
I think the situation is very dangerous. People in bad economic times tend to look for someone to blame and/or someone to follow uncritically. Robert Scholl, mayor of Forchtenberg, Germany (1920-1930) and the father of anti-Nazi resistants Hans and Sophie Scholl, said:
“Once people lose their bare subsistence, once the future looks like nothing but a grey wall to them, they will listen all the more to promises without wondering who makes them.”
Many Americans today do see “a grey wall” in the future…they have mostly not lost “bare subsistence” as had the Germans of whom Mr Scholl spoke, but then expectations have been much higher here. And Obama has created a climate of blame-casting, demonization, and denunciation, in a way that will surely encourage not only “protests” but actual mob violence.
I think the situation is very dangerous. People in bad economic times tend to look for someone to blame and/or someone to follow uncritically.
Indeed. Many do not recall that the Germans looked to the National Socialists (and overlooked their unsavory aspects) as their salvation from the communist gangs that were rioting in an attempt to follow in Lenin’s footsteps. In fact, the original raison d’etre of the SA was to protect Nazi meetings from disruption by KPD thugs. Later, when the Nazis were stronger, the SA engaged in pitched street battles with the communists.
Poor Germans – they were screwed no matter who won.
Since, as Glenn Beck has done yeoman work in demonstrating, almost invariably when you look at this or that leftist organization and “follow the money,” the trail eventually leads back to George Soros, Soros and the kind of person he is, is very important here.
Soros, as you might know, is a Jew who was taken in, his Jewishness concealed, by a Christian family in Nazi Germany. His Christian “father” was a government official in the Nazi regime, whose job it was to go out, round up Jews, dispossess them, confiscate their possessions, and turn them over to the military sending them on their way to concentration camps and the gas chambers, and teenaged George Soros went along with his “father” and helped him do his work.
In a recent TV biography Soros (not his real name, by the way) was asked if he had any guilt or remorse for his actions against his fellow Jews, and Soros said that he had none at all.
Another video clip showed Soros saying that the United States was the major obstacle to the creating of the kind of world Soros thought we should have and, in another part of the biographical video on Soros, he related that he took great pride in the fact that he had used his wealth to set up “popular organizations” in several countries, fomented street protests, and was instrumental in overturning the existing governments in four different countries; all of which he thought was the greatest of fun.
I warn you – don’t look at drudge right now.
It says that Christie set to endorse Romney. 🙁
“…it appears that there’s a paucity of anti-Obama signs and sentiments among those camping out in Zuccotti Park.”
Half of them are unemployable.
The other half would take any job a greedy plundering corporation offered them.
All of them voted for Obama.
I started adding this, but had to stop. so if it falls off at the end… sorry… have no time… sigh
Experience has shown that the mass-armies of “democratic” states fight with greater zeal when they are animated by hatred and supported by a hate-crazed populace that fancies it is fighting a holy war. Lies have therefore become military equipment, a kind of mental logistics; but it is the essence of such propaganda that its spuriousness is known only to the persons who manufacture it. The model of such operations is the famous lie-factory managed by Lord Bryce during the First World War, in which a corps of expert technicians forged photographs, while expert liars, including Arnold Toynbee, concocted stories of “atrocities” to inspire the emotionally overwrought British with a fanatic’s hatred of the incredibly bestial Germans and with a noble Christian ardour to kill them. Revilo P. Oliver
in terms of this crowd, and electing obama, and such..
a good read on this and other stuff in history that are KNOWN to have been manufactured or opportunistic events used for some purpose
Jacques Ellul’s Les Propagandes (Paris, 1962)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul
His constant concern has been the emergence of a “technological tyranny” over humanity. As a philosopher and lay theologian, he further explored the religiosity of the technological society.
oh, you mean like the government knowing who is a radical in the park by the cell phones? and how they are allowed or pseudo allowed to ‘listen in’ on them? that the LONGER they wait to clear or do something, the more cockroaches come out to the middle of the kitchen floor…
if only i was a better writer, as one cant move from X to Y without grasping X… and there is huge amounts of history and works that most dont even know exist, and some of them have greatly affected their lives!!
Jacques was educated at the universities of Bordeaux and Paris. In World War II, he was a leader in the French resistance. For his efforts to save Jews he was awarded the title Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1981
but how many know he exists? or what he wrote? and so on? its more likely you have read the end of history (a term from communist reasoning that proclaims that when the world is all communist, history will end as communists construct history by manipulation… ie, history as a natural recortd of natural events ends, and from then on, history is what ever they want it to be which serves the need of the greater something)
Jacques Ellul had three primary sources of inspiration by the early 1930s who would influence his works henceforth: Karl Marx, Soren Kierkegaard, and Karl Barth.
What most dont get is that the people i am bringing up and quoting are very important as they are the key people who created the ideas or actions we work or believe or function under today…
and we have no other choice!!!
unless your wealthy or have other means, your subjected to the product of these ideas whether you like them or not… precisely because the ones that are dominant are about erasing the individual…
ergo why we cant explain to them…
they cant grasp it, and their high level of self esteem on false grounds will make them violent if you try to show they are not what they pose to be!!!
isnt it interesting how bella dodd and dewey and others created a educational system that dumbed them down AND gave them bad emotional qualities that would dovetail with what they intended to use them for?
ie… in the days of capitalism, the people and capitalists thought hte schools and such were to train people to work… “cradle to grave”…
but now, in the days of socialism, and state capitalism like china… what you have is the culmination of changint those schools in the early 1900s, and so making the people ready for their part.
ie… same purpose, different end…
he individual who burns with desire for action but does not know what to do is a common type in our society. He wants to act for the sake of justice, peace, progress, but does not know how. If propaganda can show him this ‘how’ then it has won the game; action will surely follow”
its SO frustrating… if i write too much, its deleted… people cant remember, etc… if you dont, they can just write off your comment..
meanwhile, their desire to equally put in ‘facts’ so they make em up… is so strong that facts rest equally with fantasy and few can tell which is which!
meanwhile… there are hundreds of people who for those who ARE Educated in this, are involved and been read…
imagine when you were young and the adults knew so much more than you… now that’s what you have with socialists leaders and you UNLESS you were a really geeky kid who read everything and remembered.
if not, then you just got woken up and have 50 years of education to catch up to, and ALL of it implying your not bright as you should know this.
is it any wonder that social engineering provided the psychological foundation for manipulating groups? whats different between joseph mengele, and a social psychiatrist making up pedagogy? and giving us the often false spravka on it?
In addition, people become “caught in a web of facts they have been given. They cannot even form a choice or a judgment in other areas or on other subjects. Thus the mechanisms of modern information induce a sort of hypnosis in the individual, who cannot get out of the field that has been laid out for him by the information”
any of this sound familiar?
isnt it sad that if i could have gotten off the innocents clubs when i first brought them up BEFORE obama, than today, how many key tracts and writings i could have referenced for you all…
but alas… all the stuff above prevents such!!!!
its not like its not known… its just not known among the VICTIMS… who have to admit they are victims before they can start stopping being victims. even being betrayed and having your life ruined is not enough for most.
“It is not true that he can choose freely with regard to what is presented to him as the truth. And because rational propaganda thus creates an irrational situation, it remains, above all, propaganda — that is, an inner control over the individual by a social force, which means that it deprives him of himself”
deprives him of the self…
he or she, is no longer a individual…
anyone saw the crowd blindly repeating things from someone on a microphone, to the inane point of repeating the instructions?
“All individual passion leads to the suppression of all critical judgment with regard to the object of that passion” Jules Monnerot
and here is a kicker!!!
(wait till i drum up some others most have no idea existed… )
In response to an invitation from Protestant associations, Ellul visited Germany two times (1934 and 1935). On the second visit he attended a Nazi meeting out of curiosity which influenced his later work on propaganda and its ability to unify a group.
and so, its why religion has to go…
interesting aside…
there are now no more christian churches in Afghanistan!!!!!!!!!! even the Taliban didn’t do that!
churches that hold their beliefs, lose tax status
churches that reform them, and hold the image of such but follow the state, retain their tax status.
at least now there is someone interesting and such to read. i now sit and await for that person to be commented on out of the blue by some writer…
oh… and no occam, i didnt notice until you said it that they also forgot to start the lynching stats before the dems killed so many!!!!!!!!!!!! nice catch…
though the same was and is done with hayes tilden…
Occupy L.A. Speaker: Violence will be Necessary to Achieve Our Goals
pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/10/11/occupy-l-a-speaker-violence-will-be-necessary-to-achieve-our-goals/
OWS: Woodstock for economic illiterates. (And Darth Soros stormtroopers.)
Why are the OWS movement clearly a bunch of lefitsts calling themselves the 99% (when clearly we Conservatives, libertarians and the rich are all against it). They want to build a “consensus” the time for debate is over (just like global warming). They dont want to be questioned, debated or challenged anyone who is not on board is simply “wrong”. Meaning the OWS supporters cant be reasoned with because they know whats best for us (the 99%) and are simply wrong and dont know whats best for us.
These little commie pow-wows they have chanting sessions, whatever they are told they repeat back (why what is the purpose behind this). Obviously they want to break down the individual turning them into a unquestioning collectivist (that think not a wit for there own well being). This has two important properties.
1) It allows command and control a-lot easier, there is only one point of access, you plant your man at the correct positon and you can command all the dummies.
2) A person that has been stripped of there individuality is more willing to follow radical instructions for the “cause”. They have already selected these people (only a certain type — the down and outs are going to join these protests anyway).
The protests are a bunch of useful idiots, the truly evil people are the communist operators. What are trying to do with these people and you can plug in any number of scenarios