It's interesting that most of the complaints that "these people"
don't know what they protesting against and this is followed up
with "dirty hippy socialists".
I'm paraphasing for simplicity but the general stance is these people are "idiots".
Well, let me ask you guys this? Were you born able to read with a head full of wisdom and knowledge? OK, that's a bit of a cop out by using a rhetorical question. However, ask yourself when did you choose to take the other pill? and more importantly why? The answer is probably because you KNEW something was wrong. You couldn't quite put your finger on it. Nor could you articulate it to anyone. You probably searched around looking for answers and stumbled across some crazy bullshit sites looking for money to show you the "truth". Eventually through diligence and perseverance you stumbled across Turds, SGS, FOFOA or ZH and you read and started to understand. You started to understand that what you were always told is a lie. That is where "these people" are. They are you at the start of the learning curve. They are sick of menial shitty jobs on minimum wage or being unemployed or having no health insurance in a country that supposedly has the best health care in the world. They are sick of hearing about huge bonuses being paid out in bankrupt and bailed out companies. It doesn't make sense to them. They just know it's wrong. They cannot understand the logic of paying huge saleries and bonuses to corrupt failures in the name of "attracting the top talent".
There is us and there is the .01%. Sure we can break ourselves down into subsets by choice but is it really our choice to do that? We can identify ourselves as Libertarians, Punk Rockers or Dallas Cowboy fans because we are tribal in nature. It makes us feel better to be part of the group. What we really secretly desire in our little black hearts is to be part of the group that calls the shots. We want to be part of the .01%. It's not going to happen. You don't have the right friends and you won't find them on Facebook. You didn't go to the right prep school or the right Ivy League College and even if you did you didn't have enough money to join the Skull and Bones. So face reality; you and I and everyone you know are the great unwashed. These "ignorant, filthy socialists" have the balls to try but not the brains to effect change and they represent your tribe whether you want to admit it or not.
When the world looks at the Wall St. protests they are not saying "dirty hippies" they are saying "these stupid wankers, merde, dumkofs are finally waking up".
It doesn't matter if these guys are "hippies", "limousine liberals", "socialists" or whatever you want to call them. They are part of the 99.99 % in that they will never be Billionaires. They will never know what it is like to have an army of gofers, lobbyists, yes men. You will never be able to pick up the phone and rouse a bought and paid for Congress critter to pick up a Pizza for them on the way to passing or blocking some law for you. You will never have the privelege of running a company into the ground and jetting off with $200 Million in taxpayer money as a bonus with your spray on tan intact.
So maybe instead of heaping scorn on them: educate them. Because, like it or not, you will never be part of the .01% tribe pissing on these filthy hippies from the balconies.
15 comments:
Louis - none of us will ever be billionaires, but that's irrelevant: if you don't like what your Congressman is doing, vote him out - that's how it works. That's exactly why the House of Representatives is set up the way it is. That's WHY it's super localized.
I mean, come on - we have these "kids" out there, protesting "we don't even know what," typing on their Apple Macbooks, filming with their Sony high-def video cameras, while complaining about corporate power and globalization (see any irony yet?), as they receive pizza and Popeyes from local shops which was delivered via an automated system set up so that people could remotely purchase it online (with their evil Visa and Mastercard credit cards, processed by evil JPM and BAC and Citibank - getting the irony?), via technology probably provided by evil Google and evil Microsoft (surely you must see the irony by now!)...
but hey - hypocrites can afford to be choosy about the consistency of their arguments (I'm talking about THEM, here, not YOU, Louis, don't worry). Actually, I can't even really make that argument, because these people HAVE no argument, other than I WANT MORE THAN I HAVE.
KD, They want what's right. They simply don't know how to express that verbally. It's why people set fire to themselves. They reach a point of frustration words cannot express.
They are not protesting govt. (yet) so it's not a vote them out situation. Bankers are unelected men who don't need or care about our approval. If they feel public opinion moving against them they hire P.R., lobbyists, crooked politicians and the problem goes away.
Yeah, I would see the irony of using laptops and cameras etc but they are not protesting corporations. They are protesting Banks. I don't like what JPM, Goldman etc are doing and unfortunately I don't get to vote them out.
Banks didn't build the internet. They didn't create anything novel or innovative in recent memory (exotic derivatives are fairly recent but useless to the common man).
They are supposed to grease the wheels of commerce but they are also an impediment (they don't lend, front run orders, HFT etc) much like over reaching obstructive, govt. If they were gone tomorrow it would be a shock but we would muddle through and find alternatives.
Micro loans, maybe long shot Bitcoin type setups, Credit Unions etc. are going to be the future for the regular guy. There will be a world bank outside the control of the usual suspects. It's only a matter of time.
I voted with my feet yesterday by moving out of BOA and Merrill Lynch to a local bank and Fidelity yesterday after the $5 charge on debit cards. It wouldn't have affected me but it's my little protest. The only reason I hadn't moved it before was inertia. I use their bill pay system on auto pay. I have to move that as well and my local bank sucks at that. I will put up with it rather than offer any support to BOA. If a 100,000 other people do the same thing then BOA is toast.
I can also tell you with confidence Best Buy, Dell, even Apple, retail across the board is in trouble. $300 cash is the new magic number as far as what people will spend comfortably on unnecessary items. This time last year it was $500.
"They want what's right. They simply don't know how to express that verbally. It's why people set fire to themselves. They reach a point of frustration words cannot express. "
something about that comment seems very astute, Louis.
Thanks KD,
I was aiming at profound but fell short :)
Fine post, Louis. While I agree with KD's sentiments in general, as I regard resentfulness as perhaps the ugliest and most toxic of human traits, especially as expressed by morons, on the other hand, even the most primitive sense of justice demands that there be at least some correspondence between hierarchical status and human excellence, and barring that, at least some correspondence between hierarchical status and contribution to human welfare. The banking kleptocrats strike me as failing miserably on both counts, even as their wealth, power, and influence grows by the day. In short, I have no sympathy for them, however aggressive the mob becomes.
I realized that I erred in even commenting on this in the first place - it is patently absurd to discuss the merits of protesters who themselves don't even know what they are protesting.
Hardly a waste KD because the protestors will talk amongst themselves and they will form a collective opinion. There will be 10% of that crowd who will have very strong opinions and they will take over and bend the rest to their will and then a cohesive message will emerge.
If it resonates with people this movement will gather momentum. The Arab Spring is a perfect example of a single person saying; "enough". Although what he was protesting against was a seemingly small injustice to a small group of people it was enough to mobilize a nation and they changed his original intent of personal justice into a national cause. I am not saying it will happen here but it could as long as the movement isn't hijacked too early by the wrong people like Cornell West etc. Time will tell.
GM, If the tree of liberty was refreshed with a little banker blood I wouldn't shed a tear for them.
This is all just symptomatic of the underlying issue - demographics. I have a mega post that I haven't posted yet and I may never post it. I just haven't had much desire to post lately... That aside, everything EVERYTHING you're seeing stems from the great switchover we're experiencing from transitioning from the 'Baby Boomer's' to the 'Millenials'.
It's just simple math that the what the majority wants it gets. We're more of a direct democracy than we care to admit. The Baby Boomers have been THE single largest voting block for the past 40 years. I would argue that everything you see around you is the result of their actions - for good or for ill.
I hope that this power transition from the 'old' to the 'young' goes off peacefully, but they rarely do. The two groups are diametrically opposed to each other in some critical areas including, but not limited to race, religion, ideas of work, family, retirement, the environment, etc.
Have no doubts though, the power is transitioning and we'll be fully in the 'new world' between 2020-2030. Personally, I'm looking forward to it if I'm still around by then. Fourty years is plenty long for any one generation to essentially control the world. I'm a cynical optimist and I believe our future will see a return to true and real freedom, but perhaps not quite in the form and way that some envision. Further I believe in the future we're going to see new governments, new constitutions, a new rebirth if you will world wide with the realization that ultimately the laws we all abide by and the societies we create should be created, administered, and maintained by those who live during those times.
“I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.”
― Thomas Jefferson
Via email list from Martin Armstrong
Copyright Martin Armstrong All Rights Reserved October 1st, 2011
Occupy Wall Street
The movement known as Occupy Wall Street has been going on since September 17th, 2011. It is now showing to the world that the constitutional rights of the American people do not exist. There is no right to peaceful assembly and to see NYPD at its finest acting like communist thugs, is a sign of the times and what awaits us on the horizon. The Internet is the only real news any more for everything else is in some way tainted. The majority of the news broadcasts are skipping this story of covering it very, very little. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z8MJKsCypc&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL49D16CDD 9B70D7D3
It is a shame that Wall Street gets all the blame. It is not the stock brokers nor is it the “corporate greed” of every corporation lumped together that is to blame. The corruption that has turned the country inside-out is the Market Manipulators who for decades now have been trying to rig the game to make that Perfect Trade with no risk. To me, they are not even real men. They hide behind the mask of Wall Street when they are not part of the system at all. They are simply parasites who lack the intelligence to actually trade and stand upon their own research. Instead, they pay bribes to Russian officials to recall platinum for a pretend inventory so they can screw the auto producers. They are the Market Manipulators that move silver from New York to London to pretend there is a shortage. They are the Market Manipulators who bribe IMF officials to keep loans going to Russia so they can buy bonds at 30% interest rates. They are the Market Manipulators that constructed time bombs out of mortgages and ensured the rating agencies would bless them as AAA so they could sell them to everyone.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. This is NOT Wall Street! This is a dark back ally that feels safe because they control the press, the courts, the Justice Department, Congress, and local police. They line the pockets of politicians to run for office. They stack government with their own people in unelected jobs. In the end, it is not corporate greed, it is the greed of Market Manipulators that are simply a parasite that feed upon the system and anyone who dares to expose them, and they will attack with a vengeance using the police powers of government and label what they say as conspiracy theory to discredit their accusers. Yes America "Do not go gentle into that good night / Rage, rage against the dying of the light" of freedom and liberty as Dylan Thomas put so elegantly. But rage wisely. Do not be fooled and attack the decoy. If you want reform, know who your enemy truly is! It is not Wall Street. It is the parasites that feed on it.

Yukon,
Look forward to your demographic post when you get to it.
Louis - you might find this interesting:
http://www.businessinsider.com/occupy-wall-street-analyzing-their-list-of-demands-2011-10
Thanks KD.
I don't which is worse the author of the piece or the protestors. Both look like the work of pre pube school boys. I wonder did the back of the "manifesto" have scribbles of boobies and the author maybe added erect penises as his personal touch?
But it's better than nothing or the news vacuum on the subject.
I did stumble upon a Boston Herald article that has a similar slant. I scanned it quickly as it was more of the same. I didn't bother checking the the NY Times etc. as printed newspapers are past the point of return now IMO.
If you want to know about a cat stuck in a tree they are a great resource.
A pretty effective condemnation of the protests here
Yup that pretty much sums it up. But I still refuse to call them idiots or any other slur. They have their hearts in the right place just completely confused about what and how to achieve anything.
Kind of like the Greeks were promised great pensions etc and were looking forward to 20 plus years of kicking back. We were promised SS, picket fences, 2 cars, a smiling Wife and kids who won't steal Dads wallet. Well reality is starting to sink in as the Matrix is showing some bad code.
"Anonymous" has a manifesto out there and soon enough these protestors will start to see the bigger picture. Well I hope they do.
I should say that the "Anonymous" manifesto is pretty broad but it's pointed in the right direction.
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