Occupy Wall Street

So Redux, any updates?

I'm all for citizens assembling to protest government and the laws, but milling around with generalized grievances of "I'm in art school with a lot of debt" or "I'm studying a fun industry but I probably won't get paid" or "I've been in college for 10 years" isn't going to accomplish much.

I have a feeling that many of the protesters are upset with the broken social contract--i.e., work hard, study hard, grow up and get a job. That the youth unemployment rate is hovering around 17% speaks volumes to the failure in leadership of both the government and of businesses--especially when these businesses are externalizing their recklessness on the entire population. However, for the movement to create meaningful impact, they need to organize. Right now, the 'occupiers' are only an amalgamation of loosely held-together individuals, pissed off with their lives.

W/ respect to the public streets: Public thoroughfares are a traditionally areas where the First Amendment can operate unimpeded (i.e. on a sidewalk). However, demonstrations on public thoroughfares are limited by time-place-manner restrictions. Such restrictions have to be (1) content neutral (2) narrowly drawn to serve a compelling government interest and (3) leave open alternative channels of communication. Here, we see that NYC is using emergency vehicles and permitting traffic/economy to operate as their 'compelling interest.' It can come out either way, but civil disobedience has been a traditional way of getting the message across, and on balance, when you do a cost-benefit analysis (cost: low risk of death caused by emergency vehicles failing to move quickly enough, reduced economic efficiency and inconvenience caused by protester-caused congestion, vs. benefit: bringing much needed change to the unresponsive, insulated, and 'corrupt' federal government), the First Amendment should operate to protect such 'high value' speech.

But to get their point across. They really should become better organized.

/rant.

 

it's remarkable that a movement with a direct-democratic process at it's core, that performs what it is about, is still greeted as if it somehow lacks "clarity"...at this point, i've seen several statements from the nyc occupation and they amount to a sweeping critique of contemporary plutocratic american life, from it's fake politics to the nature of domination by a narrow social class which finds its expression (and ideological quintessence) on wall street---particularly given the (obvious) associations between wall street, deregulation of the financial industries and the disaster of 2008---but also the fatuous corporate infotainment system, the stupidity of the way university education operates (dont get me started....and there are many good people who teach. just turns out that about 70% or so of them--if memory serves---are adjuncts. adjuncts are cheap. tenure line faculty positions have dwindled precipitously. administration expands like a cancer. tuitions keep going up. where's the money going? administration. how much educational function does administration serve? ever take any classes with administration?), the problems the tuition system creates of massive debt (law school anyone? med school? master's degree programs? it's not just undergrads who are affected by it and it's wrong to simply assume that's the only social group who is out or who supports the occupation....people don't feel like they have a future under present conditions. and they don't. because of the ideological stupidity, narrow class interests and a wholesale failure of imagination conservative style.

i would prefer to see greater diversity of sites targeted for occupation. perhaps then the range of the critique that's being articulated would become more clear.

if you want a parallel for these conditions, think tahrir square.
if you want another one, think mai 68.

 

I don't think direct democracy has a lot of pitfalls. Take a look at California for example. Their proposal system allows the general public to propose a bill, obtain a certain amount of signatures, then put that proposal in to a general vote. The results of the general vote override even the legislature. And what did that produce? A bankrupt state from a vote that repealed all property taxes. And another vote which re-illegalized gay marriage. "Direct Democracy" smacks too much of mob rule which subjects minorities to the tyranny of the majority.

You also have critiques. Critiques are fine, but unless they're refined, they produce no solutions.

 

It's amazing how little everyone in the world knows about what actually caused California's problems. I've heard amazing theories shared with absolute certainty ranging from Hollywood trials to "leftism" to, yes, direct democracy. California is not in financial trouble because of direct democracy. There are myriad reasons that can correctly be named, but on that list is none of the usual fanfare. I'll be glad to expand on this elsewhere. Long story short: California taxes aren't as high as everyone thinks, California sends out billions of dollars a year to other states, it costs more to live here (which also means we were hit harder than anyone by the housing crisis), and because of our size it's harder to make significant budget changes in a short period of time when the economy shifts.

 

i love arguments that we should be less free get advanced. they make me laugh. people love what dominates them. it's perverse.

back in the day, every wildcat action---almost anywhere that i know of---adopted a direct-democratic form of self-organization. they operated outside the control of unions in union-dominated manufacturing sectors and positioned the unions as part of the normal operation of the capitalist status quo---because they were, contemporary american conservative stupidity notwithstanding. so they did to the union movement what the occupation is doing to the democrats. and for the same reasons.

why direct democracy? maybe because one of the motivations is that they don't feel---and are not---represented in a representative context. maybe because it's the self-evident way to turn the language of democracy against it's dominant interpretation. maybe it's because people know that top-down hierarchies with no power exercised or exercisable from the base are stupid because they're detached from the process of doing things, making things. maybe its because people would prefer to exercise power.

what is direct democracy? it's a social process centered on a collective process in which hierarchies are revocable, in which the general assembly has actual power. it requires that people be able to assemble. it requires dense information and protocols about argumentation that are generally agreed upon. it's about deliberation---collective deliberation. back in the day, that made direct democracy very local..but in the present information context---differently configured than the outmoded dominant american teevee moel (as top-down and authoritarian form of information transmission as there is, really)---that can be overcome.

representative democracy in the contemporary american mode presupposes people are stupid and treats them as if they are stupid. and you reap what you sow. but not everyone is ok with that, and it turns out that a whole lot of people are not ok with that. you're starting to see that. you're going to see more.

the strange thing about the entire history of wildcat strikes is that you never find this nonsense about mob rule. you find that from people who are afraid of losing power. you also find it when direct-democratic process is handed to people in truncated, ridiculous information contexts like that the united states has built for itself and with no change in the low quality of information are told---ok, you decide. if you actually look at how actual movements with direct-democratic self-organizations work, there's a considerable density of information and an actively engaged polity. there are general assemblies and sharing of information and debate. it isn't a bunch of people sitting in their livingrooms watching television. that's a one-off referendum in an american-style context with no process--so it isn't direct democracy. people in us refenda contexts perform the fact that their information environment is entirely disempowering.

but hey, why bother to think about what direct democracy actually is when you can just dismiss it, right? why bother? pre-packaged views are o so easy. and you hear them on teevee. any fox commentator will denounce democracy sooner or later. they hate it--but without ever coming anywhere near bringing up how the sort of idiot infotainment they procure contributes to disempowering people, and without ever bothering to wonder what a direct-democratic process could possibly be. if you actually bother to look at how the wall street occupation is working, you see something quite different.

the collective dimension and requirement for dense/accurate information makes this sort of movement revolutionary in a way, in that to institute it requires a complete overthrow of how contemporary capitalism is organized. i don't think that's what the occupation movement is about, really---they aren't that revolutionary. what they're after is a separation between the american system and the plutocracy that controls it. they're after a change in the american infotainment system. they're after fundamental change in how policy is oriented. they're after getting a sense of having a future in a sustainably organized socio-economic order. they're after an end to the ridiculous, narrow ideology that got us into this crisis and is paralyzed by it. they're after a different way of thinking. they're not about destroying the system--they're about re-orienting it in a basic way. and i can't see how anyone who looks around at where we are now wouldn't support that. because if things move in a straight line--if the same shit keeps happening in the way it has---the united states--and the entire capitalist order that is has presided over since world war 2---is heading for a very think wall at a very considerable speed. no-one sees an alternative within the existing arrangement because there's such deep cognitive paralysis that there isn't one. and it's not necessary. people are waking up. so be all "mob rule" if you want, but think for a minute about the farce that you're defending.

 

Okay. So what's the concrete solution? There's a " sweeping critique of contemporary plutocratic american life." Sure, if that's the way you interpret it. What would you do to rectify it?
--- merged: Oct 7, 2011 1:10 AM ---

So, are you sure there's a lot of information sharing going on? What would be your 21st century version? I'm not kidding when I'm talking about the tyranny of the majority. You would be remiss to dismiss it as some 'prepackaged notion.'
--- merged: Oct 7, 2011 1:11 AM ---
And it's funny how you always bring 'Fox news' in to it. Grudge much?

 

if i had all the answers, i'd be a pretend lenin. no-one has them. that's why process matters. i'm not interested in the make-believer omniscience of an academic critic either. i'm watching the process, participating as i can.

what seems concrete now could well be trivial in a few weeks.
its a process.

the fox people make me laugh. they're clowns.

 

Interestingly, I'm going as Pretend Lenin for Halloween.

 

Above the Law is generally pretty blase, but I agree with this paragraph.

http://abovethelaw.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-needs-to-occupy-a-library/

 

this "mob" idea is only compelling if you neither know nor care particularly what's actually going on in any of the 70-odd cities that have versions of the occupation underway. all it amounts to is a rhetorical defense of the paralyzed, ineffectual way of doing things, and sets up the further argument that interest group politics is the only way to enact meaningful change. which amounts to a defense of the status quo. so there's both a mischaracterization of the ows movement and what i expect is already becoming the standard democratic party style defense of their collective self-conception. plus the writer doesn't know the history of the french revolution. basic factual errors right out of the gate (the claim about robespierre is questionable at best--but there's obviously some private-language version of revolution that's being bandied about--and besides, if you're addressing an american readership, you can expect not to get called on it. history tends not to be a strong suit.)

 

Yesterday was a busy day for me, so what little I had the opportunity to see of the event in DC was, for the most part, uneventful, but I think served a useful purpose. The crowd was small (maybe 500), the signs were on issues across the board, but the primary message that was evoked was right on target.

The question remains whether these protests can continue to gain momentum outside of NYC. If so, there could be a movement that might play a role in the 2012 election.

The republican/conservative comments have been laughable.....the protesters are "Un-American" (Herman Cain) or "a mob" (Eric Cantor) to point out just a few....unlike the all-American Tea Party protests.

 

This is exactly what the protests should target:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/u...loan.html?pagewanted=all?src=tp&smid=fb-share

And now the company's bankrupt. And the Federal Government is LOWER in priority to private investors. They're basically recklessly playing with taxpayer money.

 

No one cares about Solyndra that doesn't watch Fox News. It was a good investment that happened not to end up going well. Most investments in green energy are wonderful and are not only providing important jobs, but are helping new and better energy technologies. $525 million is a drop in the bucket compared to bailouts, wars, and unnecessary tax breaks for people who don't need them.

 

I think that there are details of the Solyndra case which make it problematic. Seems some folks might have been a bit friendlier with each other than conflict of interest rules allow. I also think that the idea that Solyndra means we should stop investing in alternative energy R&D is dumb. Failure is part of R&D and R&D is expensive. That's why the federal government pays for a lot of it- the short-sighted nature of today's business climate doesn't necessarily allow for the type of time and money that proper R&D can sometimes require.

On a related note (not to Solyndra, but the topic at hand)
Here's an editorial from those rotten commies at Bloomberg.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...te-proposal-for-millionaires-surtax-view.html

Though I don't agree with the allusions to class warfare, I do like how they plainly point out that historically taxes hikes aren't correlated with job creation and that raising taxes on wealthy people wouldn't have any effect on the vast majority of small business owners.

 

first off, what possible relation is there between whatever the situation is with solyndra and the occupation movement? why is this even in this thread?

o wait--the right wants to collapse the occupation movement into the democrats from one direction, and a bunch of democrats want to do that same thing from another angle with a bunch of blahblahblah about what "serious" change is despite the fact that they haven't managed a whole lot of it.

you'd think that at some point the appeal of insulting the intelligence of people would wear a bit thin.