This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
The Real Meaning of the 1-Year Anniversary of Occupy Wall Street
On this one-year anniversary of the start of the Occupy protests, let’s refresh our memories about what really happened.
Despite the divide-and-conquer tricks of both the mainstream Left and the mainstream Right, Occupy and the Tea Party were originally protesting the exact same thing: the malignant, symbiotic relationship between big government and big corporations. Conservative and liberal protesters both railed against the unchecked power of the Federal Reserve.
Indeed, if the partisan shenanigans on both sides hadn’t derailed the protests so quickly, Occupy and the Tea Party would have joined forces in a way which affected real change.
Highly-militarized, federally-coordinated police used such brutal violence to break up the Occupy protests (see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this) that the Egyptian military used the crack down on Occupy as justification for the murder of protesters in Tahir Square, Egypt.
(Despite media portrayals, the Occupy protesters were not violent.)
While psuedo-conservatives may laugh, true conservatives do not find this amusing. Remember that according to Department of Defense training manuals, protest is now considered “low-level terrorism”. And see this, this and this). And an Army colonel has written a paper advocating military methods for “crushing” a Tea Party insurgency.
Veterans get it. They know that protecting all political protesters – Occupy, Tea Party, etc. – is the core of American liberty. See this, this and this. Even active-duty police know it.
(While the slur of "dirty hippies, get a job" was applied to Occupy protesters, most of them actually had jobs, and many economists supported their demands. Again, people may agree or disagree about specific positions, but true conservatives defend everyone's right to speech and assembly.)
Speak with most Americans today and you will be amazed that they don’t realize (1) how much police violence was inflicted or (2) that the protesters – like the original Tea Party protesters – were standing up for the American people against the incest between big banks in New York and politicos in Washington.
The bottom line is that the powers-that-be used a combination of brutal violence and disinformation to take the wind out of the protests. Any protests – whether they be of a conservative bent like the Tea party, or a more liberal flavor like Occupy – are doomed to failure unless we can reach the people with the real facts.
- advertisements -
Sorry to burst your bubble, but even "made in America" is made over-seas. All of our supply lines of materials begin life in Asia.
"Assembled in America" perhaps. But without materials from Asia even that will be DOA.
Damn...
I forgot those trees I had thought I'd seen out there were just replica stuff made of cheap chinese cardboard...
an that leather....oops musta come offa boat from somewhere else...prolly just cardboard cows now too.
\man, yu give a new nuance to sad sack loser....
get a life? Why bother? Barry's got me covered!
Not at my company, and we the machinery and equipment to prove it! There are still a few of us left in America. The raw aluminum and steel might come from elsewhere. However, that represents around 2% of the value that goes into our product.
What I wish OWS and the Tea Party could unify on is to start and permeate the meme of "Voting for Dem or Rep is a Waste of a Vote!" There should be bumper stickers and signs and leaflets everywhere.
Don't waste your vote! Vote any party but the big two!
It just shows that a rudderless boat won't sink.
Despite the divide-and-conquer tricks of both the mainstream Left and the mainstream Right, Occupy and the Tea Party were originally protesting the exact same thing: the malignant, symbiotic relationship between big government and big corporations.
I think this is wishful thinking. If OWS was protesting the government (other than complaining that they haven't been managing outcomes quite to their liking) it wasn't obvious to me. There are many insidious ways that big corporations (and big organizations like SEIU) become the biggest benificiaries of big government but I didn't hear anyone in the OWS crowd articulating that or otherwise demonstrating that they had connected those dots.
The OWS movement was always about the reaction of the middle-class to the unbridled hubris of Goldman Sachs.
OWS seemed to scare the hell out of TPTB - look at the COORDINATED crack downs in multiple cities (oveseen by Homeland Security). This was after determined attempts to portray the movement as 'nuts' and marginalize it. OWS got the attention of far more than TPTB want to admit.
NY made it particularly nasty for OWS - even if the city will likely end up paying $$$ for the excesses of its police. Irony is that the blue shirts - regular cops - were none too happy about being used to quash this movement. They are all too aware of how screwed up things are. The behavior of the supervisory white shirts was notably brutal and over the top on many occasions.
The sad thing is that when NON-violent protests are quashed using violence, you may dissuade people from further protests BUT you force a smaller 'hard-core' group to further extremes - and eventually, violence. ANd with the growing ranks of long term unemployed, hungry and 'fed-up' (with many of those being veterans who fought what they consider to be pointless battles in TGWOT in Iraq and Afghanistan) you have growing numbers of those who - literally - have nothing left to lose. I find the growing numbers of 'Oath Keepers' and the meme of vets as terrorists pushed by Homeland Security to be teling indicators of the future tha many are expecting... a modern day 'Bonus Marchers' army?
Sadly, I don't see any of this ending well. It is all too clear to everyone that crimes were committed by the financial industry - NOBODY has been held accountable (short of a few sacrificial token insider trading and Ponzi schemers thta were hard to ignore). Read 'Predator Nation' or any of the bools writtenon this mess - Feds never even interviewed compliance officers in companies like Countrywide (when they wer SCREAMING about what their employers wer doing) How is it that even now NOBODY is in jail after MF Global STOLE $2 billion in customer funds - and one of the firms overseeing their bankruptcy (JP Morgan) was the direct beneficiery of what happened - and one of the last to get money out of MF Global before it imploded?
When people are far more likely to be arrested for protesting crimes (serious REAL crimes involving millions, billions) than those committing crimes - when the political system hasbeen corrupted so fundamentally that it protects and REWARDAS those crimes instead of even attempting to prosecute them, people eventually reach a breaking point. Arab Spring was NOT about 'freedom' - it was about being hungry and unemployed and the CORRUPTION of those in positions of power.
OWS is TPTB! Its purpose was to create a systemic relief valve and to show the people that they don't' have the power (sorry, Patti Smith). OWS was public/private sponsored "ye olde street faire," and when TPTB decided it was time for the plebs to go home, they went home. What did the plebs learn? YOU TELL ME.
The American democratic experiment has veered off the rails, and become a police state. This isn't even hyperbole, that's simply the lay of the land. That most Americans cannot see this is unsurprizing; if it's not on main stream media outlets, then it doesn't exist. And if it's not about consumerism then it's not going to last long on main stream media. The extent and penetration of media propaganda in American society is simply astounding.
The longer this state of things persists, the harder it will be to correct it. And the harder it becomes, the more likely it will become a bloody and self-destructive cataclysm. And the more likely a cataclysm the less anywone wants to trigger change. And so like liars we just get deeper into it, never facing the truth, which becomes more and more of a problem.
There are now multiple problems, seeming unrelated, vying for the opportunity to unwind the American dream (whatever that was.) We are not addressing any of them, even slightly. We are not even discussing them, as if instead all the scary things will evaporate or some saviour politician will emerge on the scene and with a loving hand and tender words guide us back to nirvana.
I laugh every time I think about it.
We will now be lead to slaughter, and no other place, for slaughter is the reward of cowardice.
Thanks for noting this anniversay George
Aw, it's a hippy reunion. OWS, proving once again that their pussy non-violent protest is useless.
at the beginning you could shout "end the fed" and everybody there knew what you were talking about. they shouted along with you. now if you go down there people look at you funny when you talk about the fed. what is there now isn't what was there in the beginning.
We are Wall Street. It's our job to make money. Whether it's a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn't matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn't hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone's 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I've never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.
Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joe's are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.
Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you're only going to hurt yourselves. What's going to happen when we can't find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We're going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We're used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don't take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don't demand a union. We don't retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we'll eat that.
For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We're going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I'll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.
So now that we're going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Main Street is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we're going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren't going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We're going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.
The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it's really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.
We aren't dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Main Street our food supply_will he? and will they?"
"And where are your clients' yachts?"
You are being outsourced hft computers. There is very little dumb money left in the market. Those aging baby boomer sheep are going to slaughter. Not to sheer.
"We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive."
You couldn't even change a light bulb.
Don't put too much salt on my fries, fool.
Are you an idiot? The market crapped out due to massive fraud. It was never worth the amount that it was valued at because it was a giant house of cards built by a bunch of maniacal, Gordon-Gekko-wanna-be sociopaths and narcissists. Wall street does have a purpose to provide capital for reinvestment into the economy and venture capital for businesses. However, it has become a giant casino, rife with fraud, where many bankers' pure objectives are to redistribute as much money to themselves as possible - laws, regulations and ethics be damned. I know plenty of ethical bankers. However, I have also encounted plenty of dirty, bad seeds throughout my career that belong in jail.
Don't understand satire?
Must be an American.
Wrong.
You do understand satire? Huh.
You were wrong on both accounts.
This is the only place you can come to not only get "mere facts" but the whole friginn' story. (Fukushima--here, EU--here, channel stuffing--here, shadow inventory--here, black box trading operations--here, Mayors getting arrested--here) which SHOULD make people wonder "what else is going on?" hard to believe the generation that told us "never trust anyone over the age of forty" has given us this! Clearly the American people didn't smoke enough pot. (and you better laugh at that cuz that's frigin' HILARIOUS.) Anywho while this will earn me multiple demerits on my way to ZH expulsion (as with everything else I've said--real or imagined) I actually don't have a problem with say Big Oil or Railroad Companies (public or private.) Nor with the bulk of the tech industry i might add. I think they stand so far REMOVED from this hapless attempt at 3rd World style crony capitalism in conjunction with a total undermining of the rule of law and "in your facie" corruption that these institutions are in fact horrified by the prospects of continued even pretense of a the total lack of accountability and want to know as we all have for years "who the hell is going to DO something about this?" simply put Ezra...you not only do not solve the problem of a crime wave in Chicago by firing public school teachers...in fact YOU MAKE IT WORSE. Of course admitting this Simple Justice would mean having to acknowledge an ulterior motive. Obviously there isn't one of those...
TPTB successfully undermined the original purpose of Occupy by organizing and sending in extremist groups like Code Pink to distract from the original message and turn off main stream Americans so that they would discount the movement. Unions, communists, and entitlement-slave-wanna-be groups and others moved the protests and message away from Wall Street and the FED. Any serious threat of the movement becoming meanstream has successfully neutered.
Yea but then you wind up casting occupys message as just about cleaning up wall street. Its not at all about wall street. You can ask your average self described occupier and get an answer which explains to you the reasons no body thinks occupy is focussed. The group attracts the poor and angry leftist agitators. Thryre not motivated ny the desire to end systemic corruption. The movement from its very beginning attracted this core demographic. It us not in any way conservative.
THAT my dear californiagirl, was a tactic mastered by Young Americans For Freedom...rather odd name for a group that went around disrupting any Democratic meeting they could find, distribute leaflets of outrageous lies, start unfounded rumors, and on and on. You think this is new? This was back in the 60's and 70's....... George McGovern can tell you how effective these 'conservatives' were at destroying him. I quit the group when I realized I was destroying freedom not helping it. Watergate "famous" names lectured on some pretty foul tactics and how to employ them, and the Tea Party and the Right wing groups are still practicing these techniques right now ( think of the 'town hall meetings). William Buckley, isn't dead, I see him everyday everywhere I look.
The 'right' has always been well organized. Everyone else is, well they are, well.....
unable to get laid, get even get a chance at these babes.
Ya, been there.
- Ned
I think both sides are well organized, mostly to the detriment of average Americans.
Disdain for the participants notwithstanding, is there really any question that it would have expanded much further without the police state bashing heads nationwide and arresting over 10,000 people . . . for exercising their constitutional rights?
Mainstream America would have stayed tuned in in a big way if the protests had continued.
You're right. There's no question. It was not expanding. Until you tell people what your goals are how do you expect to grow beyond your core group?
Bob, in case it is not clear, I do agree with you on both of your points. However, when the 6 o'clock news brings stories of maurauding Occupiers destroying property and looting, and interviews of small shop and restaurant owners talking about how their business has been financially decimated because their customers were afraid to venture downtown, then what kind of opinion do you expect the average TV viewer to hold? Adding extremist elements to such a protests also deters the less extreme from participating. The TEA party event I attended (about 2,000 attendees) had zero incidents (no one even blocked the street) and I met average Americans like an elementary school teacher, a doctor, several students, two nurses, a journalist for a major newspaper, a lawyer, various small business owners, and quite a few families were present. Most of were fully employed so it did not really get going until around 5pm and lasted a couple of hours before the crowd started diminishing again. It had the atmosphere of a 4th of July picnic. Of course, the press conveyed it as something else entirely - as if were all a bunch of neo Nazis.
Doing anything to buck the system in the US is extremist. Shit, not buying an iPad is extremist.
For Christ's sake, "freedom of speech" only exists in particular "zones" in 21st century America!
"Extremist elements" = anybody in the US not watching American Idol and updating their status on Facebook.
Well, then, I am an extremist! I don't own "i" anything.
Actually, I don't disdain the participants and am a strong believer in excercising my constitutional rights, particularly since I attended one of the original TEA party events in order to protest the FED and the taxpayer bailouts of criminal bankers that belonged in jail. I find the arrest, beating, and/or spraying of harmless protesters with tear gas appalling and unacceptable, regardless of whether or not I agree with their message. This is supposed to be America, not communist China.
If most Tea Party people similarly stood for the values they espouse, we'd all be in a much better position now, imo.
Thanks for the rush of hope there.
"..The use of disinformation and diversion to manipulate public opinion is a highly developed art. It is well understood not only by psychological operations experts in the national security establishment, but also by marketing and public relations wizards. With the engineering of public reaction to September 11, disinformation has been used with a sophistication and depth that is historically unprecedented. A key tool in this modern form of psychological warfare is the "meme" -- an idea that acts like an infectious agent to spread itself through a population. Through careful construction of memes, the perpetrators could depend on others to unwittingly promote their cover story and conceal the truth. Their disinformation strategy was twofold. First, they would sell the official story to the masses through the compliant mass media, relying on people's desire to believe the official story. Second, they would seed specious ideas in the community of "9/11 skeptics" in order to distract and discredit them." ...
.
http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/index.html
.
BBC now admits al qaeda never existed, Bin Laden had NO organization!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_658141&feature=iv&...
.
etc. etc...
Somebody just sent me this video about 911 I'd never seen before.
Dr. Judy Wood at New Horizons - Where Did The Towers Go
Slow motion video of falling debris that just turns to dust before it hits the ground.
Car engines melted together (and upside down) from heat but pieces of unburned paper everywhere?
Sorry for veering off-topic GW but this is really amazing.
Judy Woods is some sort of disinfo poison pill tar baby clown - or maybe she's just mental (I don't know). I recommend steering clear as you'll only embarrass yourself.
If there's any doubt, watch this video of PhD physicist Greg Jenkins (DC 9/11 Truth) interviewing Judy Woods:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-558096240694803017
Painful
I'm sorry I brought it up.
Just trying to save you some time.
don't be sorry, it is a worthwhile link and
experience to consider all possibilities.
that is the point. thinking outside the
proscription is the only thinking that will
lead to the light when you have been boxed
into false paradigms closing in.
The main post is not about 9/11, and - as such - your comment is, indeed off-topic.
But given my recent 9/11 posts, anyone who wants to know my REAL views on 9/11 should email me.
In the meantime, though, I will have to debunk what you're saying ...
The following video released in 2008 shows the spire collapse from a different angle. the video proves that the spires of the Twin Towers merely fell over:
http://www.veoh.com/veohplayer.swf?permalinkId=v16415132HnA38zEp&id=anonymous&player=videodetailsembedded&videoAutoPlay=0
(12 seconds into the video):
In addition, the main argument of folks pushing the theory that the Twin Towers were brought down with exotic weapons like mini-nukes or directed energy weapons is that conventional explosives (like thermite) could not have pulverized the concrete into dust as observed in videos of the event.
Are they right?
Well, compare this video of the collapse of the South Tower collapse:
With this video:
(Obviously, the second video shows the demolition wave going from right to left, instead of top to bottom. The second video is reminiscent of the destruction of the Twin Towers.)
See also these videos:
The above videos show conventional explosives (they are examples of a method called "cast blasting", which is very low-tech. Cast blasting just means that holes are pre-drilled and explosives placed in the holes).
Bottom line: mini-nukes or directed directed energy weapons aren't needed to explain the pulverization of concrete in the Twin Towers. Conventional explosives could have done easily crushed the concrete as observed, and conventional methods such as thermite ignition could have destroyed the core columns.
Again, this comment is NOT arguing for controlled demolition of the Twin Towers (although building 7 was probably demolished). It is simply pointing out the inaccuracy of the statement you link to.
You chiding someone for being off topic is a real example of pot calling kettle black.
You're the most off-topic contributor ZH has. In fact you're the ONLY off-topic contributor to my knowledge.
And who the hell are you to say what is and isn't fact re 9/11, you arrogant piece of shit.
We'll never know the facts re 9/11, the truth will never come out, and the govt will never admit any wrongdoing, just like they never admit any wrongdoing on ANY damn thing.
Justice will never be visited on this govt from within America. It will have to come from outside America, just like every other corrupt govt down thru history was taken down finally, so you're wasting your (worthless) time blogging about all the evils of this govt hoping to "wake up" the sheep.
It ain't gonna happen dumbass. Smart people have figured that out, and we put our attention on things we CAN do something about, like preparing for hyperinflation and all the societal turmoil that comes with it.
That's the theme of ZH. Stay educated on what this corrupt govt is doing financially so you can take evasive action financially, not rise up in some nonsensical "revolt" which ain't gonna happen.
Nice number 12! http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/twenty-five-rules-of-disinformati...
What part of "largest independent FINANCIAL website on the internet" do you not understand moron?
mr. washington,
are you sure the planes have not been photo
shopped out of the last 4 blast videos? you seem
to be working closely with mr. banzai7. hmmm?
Blindman ... looks like parody and the genius of Mr. Banzai ... but no, it's real ...
if what you say is true, reliable and
"real", where are the terrorists? hmmm.
where is the al qaeda connection to the
destructive power so graphically evidenced
in those blast videos? perhaps the planes
were just out of view of the camera lens,
how convenient. was mr. banzai7 involved
in the filming of these videos? my guess is
you probably do not even know for sure !
do you see how it works? i'll bet you do.
anyway, thanks to you for your work and efforts
of great import. i see it, the call was made
and someone had an answer.
peace
in the land of the sleight of hand, the blindman is king.