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Archive for the Occupy Movement Category

From “Occupy” to “Occupation”: Nine Years Later (September 14, 2020)

Posted in Book Reference, Civil War, Class, Collapse, Occupy Movement, Voting on September 14, 2020 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K “Occupy showed so much promise.”

J “That’s why they killed it.”

. . .

K “What was percolating may start boiling.”

J “What was festering may start exploding.”

. . .

K “Occupy challenged one to occupy his or her mind and community and now the Occupation/Siege calls for one to occupy the bowels of the beast.”

J “September 17 may become as big a holiday as July 14. Stay tuned, as they say.”

. . .

[See the commentary on the Occupation/Siege at Adbusters.]

[See the e-commentary at “Occupy America (October 10, 2011)”, “Occupy America: The “Bonus March/Chicago Police Riot/Kent State” Of 2011? (October 17, 2011)”, “An “Occupy Primer” (November 14, 2011) and “Civil War II. Coming To A Country Near You (November 26, 2018)”.]

Bumper sticker of the week:

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? … The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If … if … We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation … We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918 – 1956

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Covid-19 PanICdemic/Plague: Rioters / Protestors: Too Much Noise / Too Little Signal (June 8, 2020)

Posted in Covid / Coronavirus, Kleptocracy, Occupy Movement, Police on June 8, 2020 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K “I have said for weeks the most devastating rioting and looting has been taking place in the suites in New York and DC not in the streets of Denver and Detroit.”

J “I hear you. It will not stop. Last year as I recall around September 17, 2019, eight years to the day after the emergence of the Occupy Movement, the economy was heading into another major collapse. And once again, the Federal Reserve stepped in and gave away billions via its repo purchases. That was not enough. Covid was and is a godsend for the Kleptocrats because it graciously provided cover and allowed the Federal Reserve to step in and give away trillions. It just will not stop.”

. . .

J “Being cooped up has also led many folks to fly the coop. The legitimate and the undigested anger were unleashed, but the rage is unfocused. The protestors are protesting about something more and something even the reflective ones would admit is difficult to describe.”

K “I’m with you. So much is wrong, yet too much has been needlessly destroyed. So many of the hard-working business owners already confronted too many challenges and now likely will quit the market.”

. . .

K “So now the statues have been beheaded, drowned, defaced, dethroned, destroyed and demolished rather than being properly displayed. I still maintain that all the Confederate and genuinely offending statues should be removed from their public perch and carefully moved to museums and displayed with an explanatory historical text.”

J “The statues should have been removed by reasonable minded politicians long ago. The public has had it and did it for them. The public needs to do things for themselves.”

. . .

J “We need to rename a dozen military bases currently named for domestic terrorists. What heroes should we celebrate to replace Fort Benning and Fort Bragg?”

K “Fort E. Shinseki and Fort S. Butler, although Fort. S. Butler really should be a Marine base. Or the new name for the Pentagon.”

. . .

K “So much energy is being misdirected. The rage and the energy must be directed at the Kleptocrats not just the cops who are doing their bidding.”

J “The cops also must decide if they are with the power or with the people.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at “Charlottesville . . . Chancellorsville? (August 14, 2017)” “Rerouting History (February 15, 2016)”, “The Confederate Flag: What Does It Mean To You? (July 6, 2015)”, “Celebrate Virginia’s ‘Celebrate Slavery Month’ (April 12, 2010)”, “King Daze (January 20, 2014)”, “Dixie Visited (September 17, 2012)”, “Brown Is The New Black (February 18, 2008)” and “Columbus And The Redskins (October 14, 2013)”.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

No justice, no peace

Remove the statues; end the idolatry

Smedley Butler Pentagon

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“Peak Advertising” (November 3, 2014)

Posted in Consumerism, Economics, Elections, Facebook, Football, Google, Minimum Wage, Occupy Movement, Peak Advertising, Politics, Press/Media, Social Media, Sports, Television, Voting, Wages, Writing on November 3, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1 “‘Mt. / Everest / Sherpas / Prefer / Burma / Shave.’”

2 “Turns out that some of the first ‘six-word memoirs’ were crafted by English majors laboring for BBDO.”

. . .

1 “‘Peak Advertising’ occurs when all of a person’s senses are assaulted all of the time with non-stop commercial advertising.”

2 “That is the collective business plan of all the social media platforms. They are premised on their presumed ability to bombard the right demographic with saturation advertising all the time.”

1 “At some time, the marginal utility of each additional fusillade will not provide any return because the consumer has nothing to spend and no source of additional debt. What if they don’t have any more money?”

2 “They have huge advertising budgets.”

. . .

2 “Well, right, those people may be out of money.”

. . .

1 “If the television is viewed as a mirror rather than a monitor, what should one make of a string of ads for fortified barley soda interspersed with those huckstering elixirs for erectile dysfunction.”

2 “Potents for potency. The medium is also a microscope into the ‘Land of Skinny People’ where the people have BMIs below 22 and definitely do not reflect their viewers. They hawk products that make a person fat ninety percent of the time and concoctions that purport to make a person skinny ten percent of the time.”

1 “When others talk about ‘thinking inside the box’ are they referring to the big flashing box in the home and the little flashing box in hand?”

2 “A wide body watches a wide out on a wide screen doing battle for his team and town. The viewer should go out and do.”

. . .

1 “Seventy percent of the economy is attributed to consumer spending. The total amount and the percentage of consumer spending in the next few years will be revealing.”

2 “Hard to spend if you have no money and no one will provide any more credit.”

. . .

1 “One thought might be to have parents lease a newborn’s forehead to tattoo an advertisement. You can’t let an unbleached beachhead canvas go untrammeled.”

2 “Start young. The kid surely would develop an affinity for the product or service.”

. . .

1 “Anyone in a political battleground state has been subject to ceaseless fusillades of hate and fear from all quarters for months. In interviews, voters criticize the negative campaigning and yet in the voting booth vote in favor of those behind the vicious attacks. The candidates provide what the public really wants. Each political battle is part of the ceaseless war in American politics to own the government with its ability to plunder from the populace.”

2 “I vote to be a non-combatant.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Mt. / Everest / Sherpas / Prefer / Living / Wage

Occupy Namche Bazaar

Namaste

Peak Oil, Peak Water, Peak Land, Peak Advertising, Peak Peaks

“Don’t mind your make-up, you’d better make your mind up.” Frank Zappa

“If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.” Mark Twain

A ‘tax and spend’ Democrat versus a ‘no tax and spend’ Republican.

Vote

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Unionizing Athletes And Adjuncts (And Sherpas) (April 21, 2014)

Posted in Education, Occupy Movement, Pogo Plight, Schooling, Slavery, Sports, Unions, Wages, Work on April 21, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1 “They say you need three things to run a college: sex for the students, tenure for the faculty and football for the alumni.”

2 “That’s about it. The sex is self-executing. Tenure for the faculty is now tenuous with the adjuncts impressed to assume the laboring oar. That leaves the futball team – the sine qua non that justifies the existence of a college in America today.”

1 “The young gladiators are relieved of paying some of the lease payments for the classrooms they may not frequent and the coliseums they fill and toil in for the benefit of the ‘lums. Granting tenure might foster academic freedom and independence. Adjuncts can be underpaid and overworked along with the gladiators.”

2 “Today all the money is deployed for administrators who are bureaucrats with shiny pedigrees. Someone needs to develop a percentage formula to limit the amount spent on the administrators who exist to collect big pay checks and approve tuition increases.”

1 “Humans seek to enslave other humans. We need to resist our basic impulses. Unless the athletes organize and unless the adjuncts organize, they will be exploited. And the Sherpas too.”

. . .

1 “Kids who do not understand their own mortality do not understand that their student debt is immortal.”

2 “The solution is simple. After high school, youngsters are still engaged in the emancipation process from their parents or parent. A two-year break allows them to flirt with adulthood rather than go to college and extend their adolescence. A summer with the Civilian Conservation Corps, a stint in the military, a go at something out of their community or comfort zone provides critical perspective.”

1 “Even one year. The kids in college who took a year off before starting college were three years more mature than the others.”

. . .

2 “If fewer students attend college, the unused dorms can be used for housing of others in the community to allow students to interact with other members of the community and develop a sense of community.”

. . .

2 “We paid the lead Sherpa the equivalent of two year’s wages via a stack of Benjamins for our climbing fee. He paid his countrymen and women a few Rupees a day to do the work and carry the load.”

1 “Humans seek to enslave other humans.”

. . .

[See the “e-ssays” titled “Is College Worthless? (July 25, 2011)” and “Humanity’s Motto: To Enslave And To Colonize (January 27, 2014).”]

Bumper stickers of the week:

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

I have let my schooling interfere with my education.

Occupy Namche Bazaar

Earth Day

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September 15, 2008 – The Date That Should Live In Infamy (September 16, 2013)

Posted in Bailout/Bribe, Banks and Banking System, Economics, Federal Reserve, Kleptocracy, Occupy Movement on September 16, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

C “Five years ago in the morn, Senator McCain, the pundits and the powerful proclaimed that the fundamentals of the economy were sound.”

D “Didn’t seem that way to me then. Doesn’t seem that way to me now.”

C “Didn’t seem that way even to them in the afternoon. Those running the game realized that the hollow economy could not be propped up with lies and smoke and mirrors. September 15 is the date that should live in infamy.”

D “If market forces had been allowed to continue without the TARP and other interventions, the current generation would have endured its excesses rather than heaping them on the younger generations.”

. . .

C “And two years since the emergence of the Occupy movement. The folks shared a concern that something is wrong with the economic and political game even if they could not explain the problems or advance the solutions.”

. . .

D “No one has ever audited the Federal Reserve.”

C “Some companies claim to have paid back some of the government loans, but who really knows.”

D “No one has ever been prosecuted except a few unconnected fools and Madoff who made the mistake of purloining from the powerful.”

. . .

C “The Dow’s new highs are a sign of peril not of promise. As long as the Federal Reserve keeps fabricating phony funds, the Dow will keep providing phony figures.”

. . .

C “All the counterparty agreements are essentially insurance policies. An insurance company is required by law to provide adequate reserves to satisfy possible claims. Every concerned citizen should have reservations about an insurance scheme with no regulation or even reserves.”

D “Insurance companies have historically been regulated by states. The most likely state to regulate the financial industry – New York – has no incentive to regulate and every incentive to allow unregulated criminality. New York is profiting handsomely from the criminality,”

C “Laissez faire, they say. Those in power are too lazy to create a fair economic system.”

D “The same old same old.”

C “The same old same old.”

D “The same old same old is getting old.”

. . .

[See the “e-ssays” under the Category “TARP” at https://e-commentary.org/category/tarp/ and any of a few dozen “e-ssays” presented in the last nine years on the economy. See the “e-ssays” under the Category “Occupy Movement” at https://e-commentary.org/category/occupy-movement/.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

A system that cannot go on forever will not go on forever.

“Twenty-five years ago, I worked there during the summers for $7 an hour and now my son works there part-time for $7.75 an hour.”

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Brave 1984 Farm: The Best Of All Possible Worlds (March 19, 2012)

Posted in Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Consumerism, Facebook, Google, Internet, Military Commissions Act, Move To Amend, National Defense Authorization Act / FY 2012, Occupy Movement, Pogo Plight, Privacy, Society, Solstice, USA PATRIOT Act on March 19, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

C1 “All I really needed to know I learned in junior high school. Three junior high school standbys provide the road maps delineating our current collision course. Brave New World chronicles a craven world sated and sotted with diversions and divertissements.”

C2 “Some say the phrase ‘bread and circuses’ captures the contemporary zeitgeist. But bread will soon cost a lot more bread. And a day at the circus may cost a month’s wages at the job lost by the breadwinner last May.”

C1 “And 1984 is the ‘how to’ manual for the emerging police state in America. The USA PATRIOT ACT and the NDAA of 2012 provide the ‘legal’ cover.”

C2 “Some are concerned. For over a century, the thinking set has struggled with the emerging notion of privacy. An academic treatment in 1890, a judicial pronouncement in 1965 and a trenchant comment or two today raise real and troubling concerns. However, without a real debate, discussion, plebiscite or referendum, we surrendered our privacy a few years ago. It appears to be over.”

C1 “So now we good citizens can watch our favorite gladiators invade another town and vanquish fellow citizens on plasma tv while the government videos us on closed circuit video tv and Google and Facebook monitor us on our home monitors. We should heed the warning in Animal Farm and the advice in the Old Farmer’s Almanac and make the sojourn back to the farm and the garden.”

C2 “The Occupy Movement and Move To Amend are the Black Swan taking slow flight and moving us off the couch and into the streets. Six months ago, a few kids looked around and concluded that something is wrong and something must be done.”

. . .

[See the Fresh Air radio program on drones and the threats to privacy at http://www.npr.org/2012/03/12/148293470/drones-over-america-what-can-they-see]

[See the “e-ssay” titled “USA PATRIOT ACT (April 4, 2005)”]

Bumper stickers of the week:

T For Truth; J For Justice

Panem et Circenses

Il faut cultiver notre jardin. We must cultivate our garden. Candide, Voltaire

Do something different on the Equinox

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Move To Amend: Occupy The Courts (January 23, 2012)

Posted in Citizens United Decision, Courts, Move To Amend, Occupy Movement, Supreme Court, Vietnam on January 23, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

C1 “Friday was a formal ‘Conference Day’ for the Supremes. I doubt they conferred and expressed doubts about their decision.”

C2 “Citizens United is uniting citizens.”

C1 “These rallies unite the old Vietnam War protest crowd and the kids who recently were able to drink legally.”

C2 “The gathering of the gray hairs and the long hairs. I looked around and wondered what the kids of the Vietnam crowd were doing on an overcast day. And what the parents of the protesting kids were doing.”

C1 “Working, if they are lucky. To be have a job and get time off is a rarity today. You have to hand it to the Supreme Court Police who handled the situation judiciously.”

C2 “The right presence and not a riot presence. Wearing their blue uniforms and regular hats and not sporting the black Darth Vader riot gear, riot shields and riot clubs was a calming influence.”

C1 “Another day at the office. The ceremonial barrier ringing the stairs was well positioned to allow the public to assemble and the police to establish a reasonable buffer.”

C2 “That ‘three percent’ is always there and made up what . . . about three percent of the crowd? The dozen kids who trashed some of the barriers and advanced up the stairs did not advance the cause. I understand their outrage, yet replacing the broken barriers will require public resources that could be used to provide fencing around a playground.”

C1 “When the group knocked down the barrier and moved up the steps of the Court, the Supreme Court Police had to make a quick decision. Allowing the group to advance up three steps was about as much real estate as they could reasonably yield.”

C2 “The violence done inside the Court does not justify or excuse the destruction done outside. There is something about the right to peaceably assemble.”

C1 “No mace, no beatings, no arrests. Nice touch.”

C2 “However, there may come a time when it will be necessary for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country and to storm the ramparts.”

. . .

[See the “e-ssays” titled “Bill/Melinda and Warren, It Is Time To Get Into The Game (January 25, 2010)” and “Corporations United (Feb. 15, 2010).”]

[See “www.movetoamend.org.”]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Do courts exist for the benefit of judges and corporations or for the benefit of the people?

When money speaks, the Truth is silent.

The system is not broken. It is fixed.

Negroes are not citizens. Dred Scott (1857) (mooted by the 14^th Amendment); Corporations are persons. Citizens United (2010) (mooted by the 28^th Amendment?)

I won’t believe that a corporation is a person until Texas executes one.

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Boycott Big Banks – Vote Your Dollars (November 21, 2011)

Posted in Bailout/Bribe, Banks and Banking System, Boycott Series, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Credit Unions, Guns, Occupy Movement on November 21, 2011 by e-commentary.org

. . .

X “The money you withdraw from a Big Bank and deposit in a credit union does not matter to the Big Bank. The Big Banks get free money from the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has already given away more than 16 Trillion with no Congressional approval and no prospect of every receiving any of the money. However, when you withdraw your money from a Big Bank, you are surrendering your serfdom and asserting your freedom. The Big Bank can no longer fleece you. All the little fees are little fleas that pester and annoy and destroy you. The Big Banks are five and ten dollaring you to death.”

Y “When I moved my money to my local credit union, I was already in the lobby when I thought about applying for a car loan. They offered the best rate.”

X “Never borrow money from a Big Bank; only borrow money from a credit union or community bank. When too many Americans did not deserve credit, the Big Banks and their surrogates fooled them and forced credit on them. Now when a few deserving Americans desire and deserve credit, the Big Banks are unwilling to lend. A credit union is willing to loan.”

Y “The brochure says that I may even be able to apply for a home improvement loan.”

. . .

[See Senator Bernie Sanders at http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3]

[See the “e-ssay” titled “O’Bama Arming Industry (November 22, 2010).” The benchmark price of .22s in November is $21.99.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

The spray seen ’round the world – UC Davis, 11/18/11

The pen is not mightier than the sword, but the video camera may be as moving

A video is worth ten thousand words

Banks got bailed out; people got sold out

Boycott Big Banks; Support Credit Unions

Lend To Credit Unions; Borrow From Credit Unions

Vote Your Dollars

http://www.occupycafe.org/

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1332957.html

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An “Occupy Primer” (November 14, 2011)

Posted in Bailout/Bribe, Banks and Banking System, Economics, Kleptocracy, Law, Occupy Movement on November 14, 2011 by e-commentary.org

. . .

? “The Bonus Marchers sought what?”

! “Bonuses owed to them by the government.”

? “The civil rights advocates sought what?”

! “Civil rights.”

? “The women’s rights proponents sought what?”

! “Women’s rights.”

? “Those who sought to end the war in Vietnam sought what?”

! “To end the war in Vietnam.”

? “Those in the Occupy Movement seek what?”

! “Simple. They seek to end a game that is rigged at every step against everyone except a very small elite. They seek to change a political and financial and legal and schooling scheme that is corrupt and decadent from top to bottom and from right to left. They seek a build a future but suspect that there is not one. They seek to replace the current vacuous kleptocracy with a viable democracy. They seek to start a discussion and a dialogue among equals in an outdoor Academy to supplant the lies foisted on them from those in power. That type of stuff.”

?! “They want a fair chance. I get it.”

. . .

[See the “e-ssays” titled Occupy America (October 10, 2011) and Occupy America: The “Bonus March/Chicago Police Riot/Kent State” Of 2011? (October 17, 2011)]

[See the “e-ssay” titled America Recycles Day, November 15 (November 15, 2010) and celebrate “America Recycles Day” tomorrow by doing something.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

We are the 99.9%

Occupy Jenkins Hill; Occupy Capitol Hill

Occupy [our small burg]

(Neoclassical) Economics – “The Dismal Religion”

(Neoclassical) Economics – “The Delusional Religion”

I won’t believe that a corporation is a person until Texas executes one

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Fire Your Attorney General (November 7, 2011)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Courts, Crime/Punishment, Health Care, Housing, Kleptocracy, Law, O'Bama, Occupy Movement on November 7, 2011 by e-commentary.org

. . .

U “A state attorney general represents the people of the state in legal matters. The attorney general is your attorney representing you as a citizen. What are all these state attorneys general doing maintaining frivolous litigation against Romney – O’Bama Care? They are tying up the courts and wasting tax dollars.”

V “Their acts of commission are matched by their acts of omission. Too many attorneys general are ready to give immunity to banks for all their crimes and fraud rather than doing their job and taking the banksters to court. We need to fire the state attorney general before he can do more harm.”

U “In my state, do we need to fire her or will she do her duty?”

V “Do we need to fire the Attorney General?”

. . .

[See Gretchen Morgenson, “A Deal That Wouldn’t Sting,” The New York Times, October 29, 2011 at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/business/a-foreclosure-settlement-that-wouldnt-sting.html?]

[On Saturday, good citizens withdrew their funds from national banks and deposited them in credit unions and community banks as part of “National Bank Transfer Day.” See the “e-ssay” titled “Boycott Big Banks (February 1, 2010)” and the “e-ssay” titled “Carefully Courting “Romney – O’Bama Care” Through The Courts (August 15, 2011).”]

[Wall, Berlin – 8-13-1961 – 11-9-1989]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Boycott Big Banks

Divest nationally; invest locally

Fire your attorney general

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Archive for the Occupy Movement Category

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