Klein writes: "If there is one thing I know, it is that the 1 percent loves a crisis. When people are panicked and desperate and no one seems to know what to do, that is the ideal time to push through their wish list of pro-corporate policies: privatizing education and social security, slashing public services, getting rid of the last constraints on corporate power. Amidst the economic crisis, this is happening the world over."
Naomi Klein in 2001. (photo: Leonardo Cendamo)
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But even Steve Jobs' Apple creations are not perfect, and I don't think the following quibble is trivial:
>> We have picked a fight with the most powerful economic and political forces on the planet. That’s frightening.
But they won't be led to confront the gods on Mount Olympus by their Judas goats and media shills. David Rockefeller, Pete Peterson, Warren Buffett, David Koch and Henry Kissinger might be held up from lunch at 21.
For both supporters and opponents of the Occupy Wall Street protests who seek more incisive background in understanding what has been really going on behind-the-scenes with the Wall Street corporate and financial elites, Google the three items below:
"In a Relationship, and It's Complicated," by Anthony Gregory
"Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy," by Murray N. Rothbard
“Marx’s Tea Party,” by Anthony Gregory
All three articles "name names," are forthright, direct, and pull no punches.
Don't get me wrong: I am delighted to see people who are "fed up" and not afraid to do something to express their thoughts. But is there a specific message here? Is there a purpose to the protests? Wall Street is not going to go away--though it sure would be nice if some of the people working there would.
I'm just barely old enough to remember the marches and protests of the 1960s, most of them demonstrations against the Vietnam war. These events had a clear motivation, a clear agenda, and the hallmark of any successful campaign, an "exit strategy" (when the war ended, the protests stopped). What are the demands of Occupy Wall Street, and how will any of us know if any have been met or even can be met?
Mind, if the Tea Party can turn out en masse out of a weird impulse to wear pseudo-Revolutionary War costumes and chant inane slogans, more power to anyone from the other side who wants to make their desires known. But just what are those desires? At the moment, I fear that "the movement" is in grave danger of becoming a sort of urban Burning Man, without music.
It would be very stupid and absurd to have the whole movement become famous for trashing the bathrooms that are, after all, only provided for the clients of the businesses. This kind of thoughtlessness can result in public rejection of the whole movement, and accusing the "public" of throwing the baby out with the bathwater will not regain the respect that the movement needs to become successful over the long term.
Pay attention to the simple basics, along with the long term ideas that Naomi expresses so well.
Please read Naomi Klein's full speech. She answers your concerns.
And drivergrl points out that people need jobs, education, and their homes back.
I may be old, but that only means I know more of what is right and wrong. Wall Street continues to rob, because the Attorney General will do nothing about it. It's called aiding and abedding when we do it.
And to DaveM - pay attention to what the people are saying. They are smarter than you may think. Ideas are developing, they don't come ready made with a demonstration.
One of the ideas I support strongly is that Wall Street is made to pay for its mistakes and to pay back what they stole. Money just doesn't disappear when it is stolen - the question is, where precisely has it gone?
Another idea I support is that banks are taken back, by law, to the days where they served people, not robbed them.
Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 5 of the US Constitution: "Congress shall have power to coin money and regulate the value thereof..." That's 'taking back' the banks. That puts the enormous power of money creation as close to the control of the people for which it should serve (as a medium of exchange) as lawfully possible today.
You are right--money lost does not just disappear... the thief now has the money, and the thief is the International Financier -- he who charges interest for the use of our own money.
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