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I go to Zuccotti Park
Sunday was beautiful in NYC. Indian summer. I went to the OWS protest. Some observations and some pictures.
Zuccotti park is where the action is contained. This is a miserable excuse for a park. It’s about the size of a football field. Not a blade of grass to be found. As you will see from the pics, this place is already jammed. The limited space may prove to be an issue for this demonstration. You can’t get more than a few thousand in this cramped area.
The park is sandwiched between Broadway and Church. It’s bounded by Liberty St (and some other street I forgot the name of). On one side is the Brown Brothers Harriman Building (talk about white spats).
On the other is the rapidly rising world trade building.
The cops have the place surrounded. But it was very clear that these policemen were not looking for trouble. Two blocks away, I found where the police had set up a command post. I suspect the guys with the helmets were resting over there.
Congressman Eric Cantor made a foolish remark over the weekend. He referred to the happenings in lower Manhattan as a “Mob Scene”. Cantor’s an ass. He has no clue what is going on. This was just a dumb sound bite. He will regret it.
There was no mob. There were no professional provocateurs. There was festive attitude. There was no anarchy.
The following pictures are the scenes that I saw. Look at the people in the background; you will not see anything threatening at all.
There was some attempt to bring order. A library, medical area, kitchen, a media center, legal aid and even a store for “essentials”:
Some people were painting signs:
Others were just painting people:
Wherever you looked there were signs. Just a few of the many:
There was one sign that caught my eye. I’m willing to bet it has also caught the eye of the FBI.
I left the area thinking that this very small group of people couldn’t possibly make much of a difference. It’s a rag tag demonstration. More a party than a serious effort to change the financial system. But as I walked north I thought of a different time in history. One that I participated in. To me, there was a very similar feeling in Zuccotti Park in 2011 to what existed in San Francisco in 1967.
The 1967 Summer of Love was a period where social/political changes began. The allure of sex, drugs, and rock and roll were very powerful magnets for this 17 year old.
I crossed the country and spent a few memorable months in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury District.
I slept in a crash pad. I went to the Fillmore West and watched Jim Morrison of the Doors sing “Light My Fire” till sun came up. And yes, there were drugs. And yes there was “Free Love” in the park. And yes, it was a hell of a party. And yes, there was not much relevance to the whole thing.
But three years later a million people marched on D.C. and it altered the outcome of a war. It also tore the country inside out. It would be a big mistake to dismiss what is going on in Zuccotti Park. Whatever is happening there, it's not going to go away. It’s going to get bigger.
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The problem with that is Obamacare (plus the NLRB helping unions take over business, but that is a rant for a different day), would KILL the business.
My employee health insurance has gone from less than $170 a month (including prescriptions) in 2008 to $575 this year.
Obamacare says I have to have insurance on ALL, including part time, employees. Either I cut my employees pay by $3 (or more) an hour, or I cut employees, hours too if need be.
We have allowed BOTH parties, plus private & public unions, to GUT the backbone of our economy and country.
With the way things stand now, a four day workweek wouldn't serve to create much of anything. Maybe more government.
More of the same, just bigger and better.
Good luck with that.
Tell the people who would have kept their jobs anyways that they would take a 20% pay cut to 'help' the unemployed.
They would know their fellow workers personally. I'd wager that you'd find many people who would give up a little of their compensated time to share the work load. These are people we are discussing -- not statistics. Your comment points up the mood of the gimme nation. It's not all like that -- people are not always so selfish and greedy as you have painted them. When governments mandate such a "sacrifice" I get suspicious.
I would. I have floated a proposal in my workplace to do just that. It is not a solid go, but folks are considering it. I don't want to see us lose staff and have more stress, also. It is actually a bit selfish if you come full circle with it. What kind of workplace do I want?
Some folk would settle for any kind, eh? There was just this business owner on CNBS talking about how he is competing with unemployment insurance. He needs something like 3,000 machinists but people would rather collect UE payments. I believe he may be about 10% correct. I wonder if it occurred to the interviewer to ask him if he has a good workplace, safe working environment, any bennies or perks of note. Those could contribute to why I might not want to work for the prick.
I refuse to work for anyone who doesn't fellate me on the hour. God bless America.
So "demands" had nothing to do with this free market decision.
Looks like these protests have really gotten everyone's attention (sarc). Europe will bail out any bank that needs bailing, the Euro-public did not react at all to the latest cost thrust upon them, banker bonuses are safe, endless printing of euro leads to a dollar collapse, and Wall Street rockets higher right out of the gate.
And somebody is paying for free pizza in Zucotti Park. A full belly is a happy belly. Bread and circuses. Toss in some cheesy folk music, and the "message" is complete.
All is well. All is as it was.
Clearly peaceful protests are not going to get the job done. Are we willing to pay the price that will have to be paid? I don't think we are. Put the "win" in the column of the status quo.
The 1967 Summer of Love was a period where social/political changes began. The allure of sex, drugs, and rock and roll were very powerful magnets for this 17 year old.<<<<<<<
why did this happen? there was a cause you know. and..........there were those who wanted this to happen. so.........let us look at the long term results of the " 60's " to the culture of white western european men and and to the culture of african american men....shall we.....
i am here to tell you, we have been getting screwed around a long time now and most of us (myself included , believe me) did not ever even know it was happening nor did we see it happening.
unless these people are very careful, their movement will be corrupted and lead by those who do not have the best interest of the american people at heart, just like the anti war movement of the 60's and free love and sex drugs and rock and roll and all of that bullshit.....it never fails.....freud was right about one thing , more or less. human beings can be animalistic , if they are introduced to certain stimuli , spiritual concepts notwithstanding.....
what will happen with this movement is this. it will go on and on, and nothing good will ever happen even though many , perhaps, well meaning people are there and wanting real change, no real change will ever happen. this is the most innocuous possible outcome to this event.
those people should be raising hell but they are not........hmmm
check out 911 truth they have been searching for this strange thing called "911 truth" for ten years now and still they argue over how it was done and not who did it.....they refuse to get down to the nitty gritty and start talking about who did it....so they search and search and argue and argue and this is the way it will always be.
watch this event unfold and see what happens. i think it already is being controlled and managed and the sheep walk around expecting someone to help them , but help never comes. as i have said before, the calvary only comes to your rescue in some movie....
Thanks Bruce. I really didn't expect this kind of objectiveness from you. Many differences between the 60's and today. I see a real movement in OWS. It also shows in the manners taken by the police to stop the demonstrations. They're not sitting around stroken each other like at Tea Parties. They're drooling to get in and bang some fabled hippie heads. This is just the start, the romantic age, of this revolt.
It only takes a seed. I read that is some really old book. lol
At the very least, people are waking up and they are re-learning history and how their governments actually work/operate, what the function of government is, how it was setup and its requirements, AND they are becoming less isolated.
Decades of propaganda must be unlearned.
Also, there are a lot of us really old people involved...as well as, professionals, for example: AAUP (http://legitgov.com/AAUP-Supports-Occupy-Wall-Street ), the kids are featured more often, and targeted, because they are more noticable. TPTB sell more newspapers, advertising and more; media loves to cover the pretty people, and they're an easier target to intimidate and degrade.
Occupy Wall Street is part of the GLOBAL REVOLUTION which is a turning point with great side effects, if nothing else.
How many copies of The Wealth of Nations did you find at the People's Library?
I am just guessing there weren't many Ayn Rand books to check out either.
I also guess that the medical center is most likely a MEDIA center the A being hidden by the picture of the missing person...
Thanks for the pictures Bruce.
There is "Zero" chance this will amount to anything. First off, OWS has positioned itself politically to influence the democratic party. It is far too left to influence independents or those on the right.
Secondly, Obama is positioned way to the left of where Lyndon was.
OWS is a tool of the Democratic party to deflect attention away from WH failures.
OWS will treat the WH with kid gloves. OWS is fast and furious duex.
What universe do you live in?
The OWS crowd hates the oilybomber -
And obummer is to the Right of reagan for christ sakes.......
http://www.infowars.com/occupy-forms-alliance-with-obama-lobby-group/
I wonder how many of these kids are existing for weeks off of mommy and daddy's Wall Street money? This looks like a scene outside the hippie coffee shop down the street from my house when some terrible coffee house band shows up. Probably the same percentage of pot and shrooms as well.
This is turning into a leftie commune, we don't need no corporations man, free love live off the land shitfest. The few people that get it are going to leave because they will start saying things like, sorry guys but I like living in a house.
Maybe if OWS throws all their iPods, computers, Chinese made clothing, and other made by Wall Street products in a giant fire they can stand for something. You're fighting against Wall Street and capitalism and yet have a table of big pharma tampons. Perhaps they should go try and cut the tails off a few police horses to make natural tampons
Just like the late 60s you would be hard pressed to find a lot of people at the protests that represent the greater American population. That is the problem. Like it or not the Tea Party rallies looked like the bulk of America. Besides I know the marching radicals of the 60s want to think they changed the world for the better but that is far from the truth.
The generation that didn't want to follow their parent's rules ended up not wanting to follow any rules. The drugged out free love hippies put on suits and created much of our current economic problems. Bernanke has much more in common with your 1969 Vietnam protestor than a WWII vet who started a small business to make a good life for himself.
In the end the OWS types are looking like an ignorant group of young kids who dont think they should have to work to make a living. They buy the marxist crap that everything should be provided for everyone and then the world will be a happy place.
Yea right..... The tea party rallies were populated with greyhairs yelling about 'keeping the gubmint off my medicar'
The OWS knows that crony capitalsim is the PROBLEM -
You all bitch about that day long here and now that people are actually getiing their asses off the couch you bitch and moan......
Shit dylan ratigan and joe stiglitz are down there giving speeches - a couple of dirty hippies? I think not.
Www.ampedstatus.com.
Go read something from the movement and not the MSM propaganda machine.
these people like most amerikans so far are well fed and fat......you are less motivated when you are not hungry.......
Oddly I agreed with you at first. I read their bogus demands and laughed.
Then i did a strange thing i started listening.
Then I saw many "working folk" interviewed. Teachers, nurses, average 99% that have jobs, but are sinking. Kids that actually followed all the rules. And ended up graduating university with $100k in debt.
This isn't about the majority of people wanting to avoid working for a living.
This is about a deep sense of unfairness that has its roots going back some 20 years. But really came to fruition after TARP.
TARP was deeply stupid not because it meant socializing risks and costs created by bankers. TARP was terrible public policy because it socialized risks and costs while demanding almost no sacrifice at all from the people most responsible for those risks. It was the unfairness. And the unfairness was not at all necessary to resolve the financial problem.Fairness should never be a policy afterthought. Widely adhered norms of fair play are among the most valuable public goods a society can hold. A large part of why the financial crisis has been so corrosive is that people understand that major financial institutions violated these norms and got away with it, which leaves all of us uncertain about what our own standards of behavior should be and what we can reasonably expect from others.
As more and more Americans see these demonstrations they will at start cheering and then start joining. Dismiss them at your own peril.
It sucks that those working folks don't feel they can make ends meet. But do they have any idea what they are protesting against-- or how they want to fix it?
Making "Wall Street" the bogeyman is ill-conceived. Wall Street is the symptom, not the problem. The problem is in DC.
What's worse is, the solution that many of these otherwise well-intentioned people seem to be advocating is MORE government control of the economy, not less.
It's not enough to know you have a problem. You have to correctly identify that problem, and correctly identify a solution. Otherwise, you become a "useful idiot" and a tool of larger, more sinister forces.
"Teachers, nurses, average 99% that have jobs, but are sinking. Kids that actually followed all the rules. And ended up graduating university with $100k in debt." Federal rules, federally subsidized loans, federally subsidized inflation & federal bankruptcy laws.
"socializing risks" - Federal reserve, treasury, congress.
"public policy" - Federal dictates.
"standards of behavior should be and what we can reasonably expect from others." - The federal government has attacked these norms for a century, today there is in actuality NO LIMITS on Federal rule.
And yet the State will save us all from the evil corporations if we just elect the right people?
FAIRNESS is a dirty word that is abused by people that want something for free.
A fair tax system to some means no tax for them because they earn less than x-dollars and more tax for those because they earn more than x-dollars. A tax based on income level NOT just income. A fair educational system to some, charges different rates for different ethnicities. An education based on race NOT a desire for education. Are they really fair?
Will someone explain how that is fair? It is NOT in any dictionary I can find but it is being repeated over and over to the point that it had begun to have a NEW meaning. The old unfair is now the new fair.
Terms like equitable, which used to be akin to fair, are now the new unfair.
When I see or hear the word fair, I know somebody is about to get screwed over.
You are perfectly describing "Newspeak"!
But banksters neeeeeeed their bonuses, no matter what happens. Just like students have to pay back those loans and connot default even if they can't get a job, riiiiight?
Excellent point Lizzy.
I'll join arms with my two favorite ladies on this one. "Peril" will be in the view of the imperiled.
Bad analogy. Bankers get their bonuses because of a thing called a contract. Just like Union workers get their retirement checks when they nearly bankrupt the automaker and the Government bankrolls their retirment fund..... a contract. (and a union vote come election time)
You mean the bankers that hold the ceo and chairman of board positions concurrently and pack the board with their crony's.
And we should honor a contract so blatently corrupt?
Ha.
Trust me when i say this. Except for the odd gurantee (lasts 2-3 years, for extreme talent), there are no contracted bonus levels for banker, traders or sales dopes.
In fact at a non public shop i worked at, when an ibanker with a gurantee sunk our year with an ill advised bot deal, his choice was no bonus for a year or he could walk. He choose the no bonus for a year.
Bankers get a base salary in a contract bonuses are almost always discreationary and performance based. But shhhh don't tell anyone.
Are you saying those banker contracts are written in such a way that the profitability and performance of the company in question is NOT taken into consideration? Why give bonuses if that is true? They are not bonuses nor any kind of incentive to perform at all if you just get them no matter how poorly the company performs. My tax dollars should not go to bonuses when the company in question is failing and taxpayer money is being used to "bail them out." It is obvious if you need a bail out, that your company ain't performing and someone should NOT get their bonus.
The bankers are directly responsible for the profitability of the company, They make the decisions regarding what to invest in. The union workers did not bankrupt the company, bad policy did, CEOs did, the workers did not make the bad decisions (you know unionization is forced down many of these people's throats, don't pay/join, don't work).
Peril? What are you advocating?
You say:
marching radicals of the 60s want to think they changed the world for the better but that is far from the truth.
I agree that there is a debate on whether things turned out better or not.
But you can't disagree that what happened 1967-71 did change things.
My point was that the OWS thinking will morph and grow. Zuccatti Park will empty out when it gets cold. But it will fill up again in the spring.
I'm not coming down on this one way or the other. Just reporting on what I saw.
Ending the draft has IMHO opened the door to decade long (endless) wars. Seems that the "volunteer" army staffed by the endless supply of unemployed young people, makes for little anti-war protesting. Ron Paul is right, the wars will end when the money runs out. Too bad, they couldn't end by young people unwilling to be dragged off to kill or be killed for "freedom".
BTW, here is a great new video supporting Ron Paul's stance on the endless wars, hope you take the time to watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKfuS6gfxPY&list=LLDqTwQ_Aj90G1wgtmXVbQxA...
I was in San Francisco during the "hippie" scene. I worked and lived there from 1968 - 1972. I watched the marches but never participated in any of them. From atop a high rise, I watched the police hit people over the head with their batons. Some were marching against the war and some were marching against "the establishment." Ten years later some of those hippies cleaned themselves up and joined the establishment. Communes popped up here and there but none of them were really sustainable. I see the same with the OWS crowd. They don't know why they are there, and seem somewhat fragmented. Wait uintil the cold sets in and they find themselves freezing their butts off and no one around to listen to them. In that one pic of "Obama Tear Down This Wall" is a joke. He gets a lot of his campaign financing from Wall Street. He helped bail out Wall Street - that chick needs to get educated.
I was in Merced, CA at the time. In the Air Force. I wished desperately that I could have been at the festivities.
"I watched the marches but never participated in any of them"
Perhaps, if you had, you might have a better understanding today. Just saying...
I have a very good understanding of what's going on today. Was in the Navy for 4 years - better than being drafted. I worked my way up the ladder and no need for me to protest about anything really. I'm as happy as a pig in $hit. The only thing I wish for is a new president.
I'm with Molaneaux, the State is the real enemy of these protesters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTx6t3FUSkM
I share the protesters anger, sense of outrage but note two things 1) they are in the wrong city, move on down to DC. Still can't find the gun in the room? 2) The answer to state created calamity by way of intervention/unintended consequences can never be additional state intervention.
Also Tarpley is right on, the thing reeks of Soros/SEIU. Until "evil corporations" is replaced with "criminal US Federal government" on placards, I'm not interested.
they are in the wrong city, move on down to DC.
Agree. The protestors either do not appreciate, or flat out ignore the irony that they are implying that government should step in and solve these problems, when the government (and it's cozy relationship with corporate America) is 95% of the problem.
Where is that "demand"? Hey, when they DON'T feel that working within the corrupt system is an option will be the time we'll need to worry about violence. The customary options like voting and such are the last bastion of the civil. Take that away and we'll see some anarchy. Not that I'm against it...
"Hey, when they DON'T feel that working within the corrupt system is an option will be the time we'll need to worry about violence"
Using the corrupt system is using institutionalized violence, the proverbial gun in the room.Civil disobedience, voting with ones feet/pocket book, withdrawing consent, all of these are non violent paths which are infinitely preferable to continuing the fiction of represenative democracy.
NYC is still the financial and cultural center center of the Western World. DC is a sideshow to entertain/distract the masses. The OWSers are in the right place at the right time. The other Occupies will follow them.
You like the protestors, are missing the gun in the room.
Create the largest, most powerful central state in the history of mankind and then be surprised when the most powerful elements of society fight over its control? The banks are rational actors using state sanctioned armed robbery as a profit center. Find the gun in the room and you can neuter the controllers.
When you advocate free and open markets, the paradigm shifts. No one player is in control. This type of decentralization of power is the heart of the Second American Revolution. The OWSers may not fully get that yet. They know they want change, but are struggling to figure out what exactly to change.
The politicians will change their colors to avoid responsibility/persecution. The Fed will be ended.
Decentralization is exactly what is needed. My fear is that with a populace whose reality has been so badly distorted for such a long time, that a creating a power vacuum at this moment in history will usher in a bloody era of extreme centralization, subjugation of the individual and murderous utopia, examples of which fill 20th century history books. To clarify what is needed at this moment in history IS decentralization however any real change in the abscence of an intellectual sea change about the role of the state will result in exactly the opposite.
Until the average amerikan idiot gives up the wet dream of voting himself the unprecedented power of the US Federal Empire, revolution is counter productive. Until the Federal beast fails spectacularly and unambiguously, dramatic social change will only provide it cover.
The controllers understand this and will scapegoat accordingly, hence my suspicion that Tarpley is right on.
The group in NYC may not be overly large, but they have spawned offshoots in all major cities. I went to ours in FL this weekend. I don't label myself, but I don't much care for socialists or communists. I had no reason to be turned off. Collectively, in Jax, the group wants separation of business and government. Goldman, Monsanto et al out of gov't agencies. Honestly, it reminded me of ZH. Don't read about an occupation, go to one, then decide.
This sounds like "Romancing the Stoned". Excepting some music, I seem to recall the 60's sucked more than it shined. Then again, I've heard it said if you can remember the 60's, you weren't there.
I see a lot of similarities to the Viet Nam protests. The main one that stands out are the right wing group who are sitting on the side lines denegrating the who thing and everyone involved because they/it has been branded a left wing cause. These whack jobs would rather see the country mired in corporate fascims than cooperate with the hated left. If they had their way we'd still be in Viet Nam. A sad bunch, really.
We still are in Vietnam. Not as a military force but an economic force. Vietnam is one of the best places to manufacture textiles outside China. They also make one hell of a baseball glove. One little side effect of the war.