"Round and round in one barren path, a little money, a little food and sleep, some ancient fables, old age and death."

[source]

Richard Jefferies, from The Story of My Heart (1883):

From my home near London I made a pilgrimage almost daily to an aspen by a brook. It was a mile and a quarter along the road, far enough for me to walk off the concentration of mind necessary for work. The idea of the pilgrimage was to get away from the endless and nameless circumstances of everyday existence, which by degrees build a wall about the mind so that it travels in a constantly narrowing circle. This tether of the faculties tends to make them accept present knowledge, and present things, as all that can be attained to. This is all—there is nothing more—is the iterated preaching of house-life. Remain; be content; go round and round in one barren path, a little money, a little food and sleep, some ancient fables, old age and death. Of all the inventions of casuistry with which man for ages has in various ways manacled himself, and stayed his own advance, there is none equally potent with the supposition that nothing more is possible. Once well impress on the mind that it has already all, that advance is impossible because there is nothing further, and it is chained like a horse to an iron pin in the ground. It is the most deadly—the most fatal poison of the mind. No such casuistry has ever for a moment held me, but still, if permitted, the constant routine of house-life, the same work, the same thought in the work, the little circumstances regularly recurring, will dull the keenest edge of thought. By my daily pilgrimage, I escaped from it back to the sun.

"Once well impress on the mind that it has already all, that advance is impossible because there is nothing further, and it is chained like a horse to an iron pin in the ground. It is the most deadly—the most fatal poison of the mind."
- Richard Jefferies

"Our message is, 'Stop pretending. You know what to do. Start doing it.' Occupy Wall Street is about exposing the truth."

Charles Eisenstein:

Occupy Wall Street has been criticized for its lack of clear demands, but how do we issue demands, when what we really want is nothing less than the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible? No demand is big enough. We could make lists of demands for new public policies: tax the wealthy, raise the minimum wage, protect the environment, end the wars, regulate the banks. While we know these are positive steps, they aren't quite what motivated people to occupy Wall Street. What needs attention is something deeper: the power structures, ideologies, and institutions that prevented these steps from being taken years ago; indeed, that made these steps even necessary. Our leaders are beholden to impersonal forces, such as that of money, that compel them to do what no sane human being would choose. Disconnected from the actual effects of their policies, they live in a world of insincerity and pretense. It is time to bring a countervailing force to bear, and not just a force but a call. Our message is, "Stop pretending. You know what to do. Start doing it." Occupy Wall Street is about exposing the truth. We can trust its power. When a policeman pepper sprays helpless women, we don't beat him up and scare him into not doing it again; we show the world. Much worse than pepper spray is being perpetrated on our planet in service of money. Let us allow nothing happening on earth to be hidden.

[...]

To those holding the reins of power, let us say, We will be your witnesses and your truthtellers. We will not allow you to live in a bubble. We will not go away. We will show you who you are hurting and how. We will make it awkward to do business, until your conscience cannot stand it any longer. We know, in the beginning, many of you will try to escape us; perhaps you will leave Wall Street for suburban corporate offices on private land where there is no "street" for us to hit. You might also retreat further into your ideologies of globalism and growth that deny the obvious. But nothing will stop us, because our tactics will constantly shift. In one way or another, we will speak the truth and we will speak it loudly. Where speaking the truth becomes illegal, we will break the law. We will not wait to be invited. We will enter, in some way, every physical and ideological fortress.

"We will be your witnesses and your truthtellers. We will not allow you to live in a bubble. We will not go away. We will show you who you are hurting and how. We will make it awkward to do business, until your conscience cannot stand it any longer."
- Charles Eisenstein

A very enlightening C-Realm interview with Eisenstein (from August 2011) can be found here (part 1) and here (part 2).

"Scott Olsen's injury shows whose interests he served in Iraq."

Dennis Perrin:

Scott Olsen's injury shows whose interests he served in Iraq. I'm sure he once considered it a patriotic duty, a form of Homeland defense. His joining Iraq Veterans Against the War denotes a change in perspective. His joining the Occupy movement demonstrates engagement with genuine democratic forces.

Keith Shannon, a fellow Iraq vet, said, “Scott was marching with the 99% because he felt corporations and banks had too much control over our government, and that they weren’t being held accountable for their role in the economic downturn, which caused so many people to lose their jobs and their homes."

When you march with the 99%, you've tipped your hand. You are, as Chomsky once noted, the domestic enemy. Tear gas, rubber bullets, truncheons, and sonic cannons (field tested on Iraqis) are your citizen badges.

The One Percent are in it for the duration. Matching their tenacity without succumbing to their brutality remains an ongoing, vital test.

Lawn care trumps the right to peaceably assemble.

"It is everybody’s lawn, not just those with their tents right now."
- L.A. Councilman Bill Rosendahl

"This is only the beginning. We are all Scott Olsen."

"We will not be afraid, we will not be silenced, we will not stand quietly while police brutalize peaceful occupiers. We fight for true democracy, and we fight to end the tyranny of the 1%. This is only the beginning. We are all Scott Olsen."
- Occupy Wall Street

When sanitation trumps free speech and the right to peaceably assemble

ALM a N.Y. Times commenter:

Democracy isn't always clean and tidy. It's loud, messy, and yes, sometimes even unsanitary. But I much prefer the exercise of free speech that I have participated in on the streets to the free speech opportunities afforded corporate lobbyists, invited by politicians to "help" them write legislation. It's way past time for our voices to be heard. And if politicians are dismayed by the daily reminder that there are homeless people in our midst, then perhaps they should craft public policy that helps the homeless and the mentally ill instead of criminalizing them.

Andrea Dealmago:

Curfews, health ordinances applied selectively, ordinances against encamping and "loitering"; these are all elements of a system of population control incompatible with our claims of being "the land of the free" We are not so free after all and that realization sets in the moment that the establishment is challenged.

The thing that count here is their message. Is it real? Is it valid. I believe it is. When confronted with these situation I believe the government(s) must err on the side of freedom.

We are learning that the right to peaceably assembly can be abridged by your local sanitation ordinance. Tidiness trumps democracy. Democracy is conditional on cleanliness.

"If the Occupy movement had only one demand that would address all of those demands attributed to it, it should be to abolish monopoly capitalism."

Ron Jacobs:

Call it what you want — globalization, global capitalism or imperialism — the fact is that all of the ills highlighted by the Occupy movement are economic at their most fundamental. The only way to cure them is to end the economic system which by its very nature created those ills.

[...]

It is no longer possible to reform capitalism. Its current ruthlessness is unsurpassed in human history. The countless millions who toil at its mercy along with those that toil despite its existence can no longer be saved by liberal politicians or reformers. Nor can they be saved by green capitalists or those that operate on the Ben and Jerry’s model. While the efforts of these corporations are commendable in their own limited way, the very fact that they subscribe to the capitalist mode ensures their inability to solve the ills that economic system creates. While it is certainly true that some capitalists are crueler than others, the fact is that when times are tight and profits are squeezed, the very nature of capitalism forces any corporation desiring to survive to exact some kind of heartlessness if they wish to survive. This is why monopoly capitalism itself is the problem. If the Occupy movement had only one demand that would address all of those demands attributed to it, it should be to abolish monopoly capitalism.

John Bellamy Foster, Robert W. McChesney, and R. Jamil Jonna:

The domination in our time of global monopoly-finance capital means that every new crisis is a financial crisis, taking the form of a debt bubble that expands, only to burst in the end. Only those states large enough and strong enough to resist the full force of neoliberalism are able to prosper to some degree in these circumstances, though often the “prosperity” does not extend much beyond the plutocracies that rule them. Meanwhile, the so-called failed states that now dot the world are a manifestation of the crushing blows that international monopoly capital (backed up, when needed, by the military force of imperial nations) has inflicted on most of the world’s population.

"It is impossible to create a society that is both just and capitalist."

Michael Yates said that.

Let the vagueness and the vision blossom at the Occupy movements.

[source]

"Many a man has cherished for years as his hobby some vague shadow of an idea, too meaningless to be positively false; he has, nevertheless, passionately loved it, has made it his companion by day and by night, and has given to it his strength and his life, leaving all other occupations for its sake, and in short has lived with it and for it, until it has become, as it were, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone; and then he has waked up some bright morning to find it gone, clean vanished away like the beautiful Melusina of the fable, and the essence of his life gone with it."
- Charles Sanders Pierce, 1878

Yes, demands have been formulated. Demands have been rejected. What is the obsession with demands? Why do so many fault the Occupy Wall Street movement for a lack of demands or vague demands? Into what mold are the demand mavens trying to push the Occupiers? Why the fear that the movement will vaporize, "clean vanished away," if it doesn't get down to brass tacks?

If I had to choose between the politicized demands of the 99% Declaration and the "remarkably vague" and "rambling set of principles" (Doug Henwood) put forth in the Liberty Square Blueprint, I'd choose the vagueness of the Blueprint.

An mndaily.com editorial:

A bulleted list of policy proposals will not solve a crisis of principles.

Specific demands bring focus but demands ultimately are political. This movement transcends politics. It transcends the state. Ultimately, it's not about passing bills through Congress. It's about the kind of world we want to live in. It doesn't exist to reform the U.S. political process or to repeal bad laws. Hundreds of organizations already exist to do that kind of work. It exists to protest the dismal state of our democracy, to assert basic human rights, and to envision a new direction for society. It's about expressing who we are as a people, defining the kind of world in which we want to live, and bringing about a more just society.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors. [source]

This is revolution. We do not protest and ask for the big boys to take our suggestions or to listen to our demands. We push them out of our way because they are standing in the way of progress. [source]

There's an existential, DIY element to the protest that must be acknowledged and allowed to flourish. These are ways of being that are frowned upon in the tightly-controlled world of corporate America but they cannot be denied.

Is it the job of politicians (democratic, socialist, Marxist, or whatever) to act on the vision and craft or repeal the legislation that brings it to fruition.

Pity the politicians! And let the vagueness and the vision blossom at the Occupy movements.

"Every day our rights get taken away. ... W'ere turned into slaves in our own country. ... They just keep hammering us."

Don't miss this C-Realm podcast from Occupy Wall Street. The highlight is the union iron worker who is interviewed at the 15:20 minute mark.

"In the tug of war between Main Street and Wall Street, Obama has made his loyalties clear."

Commentary by Heather Gautney at the Washington Post:

Is democracy even possible in a context of extreme instability and social inequality, in which 1 percent of the population owns and polices the other 99 percent? And who, among our distinguished set of 2012 candidates, really wants to narrow this gap?

[…]

Then there’s Barack Obama. The guy we all wanted to love. With his usual charm, he empathized with the Occupy-ers, said not everyone in Corporate America was playing by the rules and, once again, took us on a stroll down Main Street. But in the tug of war between Main Street and Wall Street, Obama has made his loyalties clear. Just take a look at the long list of Wall Street contributors to his campaign. Unfortunately, Mr. President, you are the company you keep.

"This person will buckle on many, many things ... he is crisis averse to the point of being malleable by his worst enemies."

[source]

David Bromwich teaches English lit at Yale. He did a great job of explaining Obama's "pusillanimous" leadership on a recent Radio Open Source interview. Check it out. Earlier interviews are available here and here as well.

"He's a leader in a smaller scale way, not one who finds the magnetic force that unites people, but rather tries to make the sum come out right ... It's what most adequate leaders at uncritical times are able to do but so much more is called for in this time."
- David Bromwich

We are the 99%, ambivalent about the homeless

gnomedigest reporting on Occupy Raleigh:

Another ongoing development has to do with the homeless community. More are coming to our sidewalk occupation. At first it was just giving them food and water and then they would move on. This caused no problems and everyone was happy to help. Then we started having mild altercations with homeless who were drunk or mentally unstable. At one point a drunk homeless man named Larry kept disrupting a GA. It wasn’t that disruptive though and most seemed fine basically ignoring him. Eventually though one or two people had enough and called the attention of an officer nearby to deal with Larry. The fact that people got the police involved really bothered a couple of the other occupiers. Larry is one of the 99% and needs help. They just felt that we should be able to find a better way to resolve the situation than getting the police involved. I agree.

A couple separate times someone gave other homeless people a blanket to take with them. Later it was decided that we would be willing to let them use a blanket if they did not take it. But we have had at least a couple attempts, once successful and the 2nd stopped, of homeless people attempting to steal provisions. When I left tonight there were around 3 to 4 homeless people sleeping under blankets in lawn chairs.

They are part of the 99%, and a part that has been the most neglected and most hurt by an increasingly fascist system that is content as long as they are out of sight. There are shelters around and yet some chose to come be with us. We do not have fantastic food or anything and even under blankets they are choosing to sleep in chairs out in the cold instead of in a shelter. I am embarrassed to say that right now I am wishing I had just asked a couple of them why the chose to join us.

The poverty rate in North Carolina is 17.5%.

"This whole OWS movement is 'scary' for the elite because it does not adhere to institutionalized patterns. There seems to be no head to lop off."

[source]

Rand Clifford:

This whole OWS movement is “scary” for the elite because it does not adhere to institutionalized patterns. There seems to be no head to lop off. Plus, the movement does not fall into Corporatocracy’s standardized traps—but seems to dance around them, even taking bait without springing the traps. Established rules of engagement are being ignored.

[...]

Thousands of courageous people are showing us a way; if the rest of us help the dream survive, make it stronger, maybe there still is hope in America? This is not a fad, a passing fancy—we are watching humanity’s last chance for dignity, perhaps even survival.

Change we can believe in? It will only come from outside the system, outside the box. And the dream is alive. Corporatocracy does their worst to kill the dream; but again, how do you kill an idea?

Surely, they are working overtime on that problem.

The rest is up to us.

"NPR objects to my exercising my rights as an American citizen."

Lisa Simeone:

"I find it puzzling that NPR objects to my exercising my rights as an American citizen -- the right to free speech, the right to peaceable assembly -- on my own time in my own life. I'm not an NPR employee. I'm a freelancer. NPR doesn't pay me. I'm also not a news reporter. I don't cover politics. I've never brought a whiff of my political activities into the work I've done for NPR World of Opera. What is NPR afraid I'll do -- insert a seditious comment into a synopsis of Madame Butterfly?

Obama's greatest legacy will be the fact that he brought on a crisis of democracy by refusing to take the people's interests to heart.

In April 2009, I scribbled a few short lines that reflected a deep discomfort with the Obama administration:

The banks are getting whatever they want, no questions asked.

They will continue to get whatever they want, no questions asked.

All of the economic inequality that is destroying the fabric of this country will continue unchecked throughout the Obama administration.

The disparities between rich and poor will be exacerbated 4 and 8 years from now because Obama will have managed to make them worse, by catering to the banksters and Wall Street greed.

Today I look at Occupy Wall Street and one thing seems pretty clear: Obama's single greatest legacy will be the fact that he brought on a crisis of democracy by refusing to take the people's needs and interests to heart when he took office. Where would we be today if he had stood on our side?

We are witnessing, with Occupy Wall Street and its sister movements across the country, the result of the President's indifference to the American people, an indifference that became abundantly obvious when he appointed a bunch of Wall Street cronies to run the economy for him. Obama sent us a clear message in those early days: he's one of them.

By refusing to stand with ordinary Americans against corporate America, by filling important posts with people from Wall Street financial firms, he exacerbated the economic crisis, crippled trust in government, and perpetuated the eight years of the hell that were George W. Bush.

My disappointment with Obama and his brand of politics knows no bounds. I hope never to see another corporate democrat in the White House. I hope the Occupy movements cause a revolutionary rejection of a two-party system that has so utterly failed to protect ordinary Americans that thousands upon thousands find it is necessary to take to the streets to protect a democracy on life support.

The letters and gifts sent to Occupy Wall Street from around the country tell of a boundless hunger for a more just, democratic, and compassionate society. Read some of the letters at Occupy Wall Street Care Packages. They will make you realize, as they bring tears to your eyes, that democracy, though it has died in Washington, D.C., is alive and well in countless people's hearts. The beauty and strength of the Occupy movements are that, for every protester on the street, thousands stand quietly, firmly, and passionately in the background, supporting what is being done on their behalf.

This is what democracy looks like. It doesn't look like the platitudes that come out of Obama's mouth whenever he needs to drum up support for his re-election campaign. It doesn't even look like the parade of well-meaning celebrities who visit Wall Street and pull the spotlight away from the ordinary Americans who make up the movement. It doesn't look like the caricatures produced day after day by the corporate, mainstream media. It looks to be something the politicians and the media can't control or reduce to sound bites. It is deeply felt. It transcends greed and capitalism. It is messy, impatient, and beautiful. It sounds loud, tremendously vibrant, and chaotic. As it should!

May the Occupations flourish! We desperately need the life they are breathing into our moribund democracy.

"Capitalism is a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists."

From a beautiful speech by James Cannon in 1957:

Capitalism, under any kind of government—whether bourgeois democracy or fascism or a military police state—under any kind of government, capitalism is a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists; scarcely less so than the slaveowners of ancient times were the actual rulers and the real beneficiaries of the Athenian democracy.

To be sure, the workers in the United States have a right to vote periodically for one of two sets of candidates selected for them by the two capitalist parties. And if they can dodge the witch-hunters, they can exercise the right of free speech and free press. But this formal right of free speech and free press is outweighed rather heavily by the inconvenient circumstance that the small capitalist minority happens to enjoy a complete monopoly of ownership and control of all the big presses, and of television and radio, and of all other means of communication and information.

(h/t Rustbelt Radical)

"I'm a ft mom and nursing student w/ 3 pt jobs. My president calls that American. I call it slavery."

[source: Occupy Wall Street Care Packages]

Check out all the wonderful letters of support!

“Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.”

David Cay Johnston:

Aristotle taught, “Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.” That ancient insight may be unknown to many of the demonstrators, but the concept imbues Occupy Wall Street, which has the potential to change America from what Aristotle would describe as an oligarchy back into a representative democracy.

"Said Assembly shall convene on July 4, 2012 in the city of Philadelphia."

From the 99 Percent Declaration:

The People, consisting of all United States citizens who have reached the age of 18, regardless of party affiliation and voter registration status, shall elect Two Delegates, one male and one female, by direct vote, from each of the existing 435 Congressional Districts to represent the People at the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY in Philadelphia. Said Assembly shall convene on July 4, 2012 in the city of Philadelphia.

Politics as usual not working for you? Make your own politics. This is what democracy looks like.

"Patriotism is a lie."

John D. Rich, Jr.:

Patriotism is a lie, and its potential for evil is continually stoked by governments in order to justify a never-ending cycle of war. Until we reject the unspiritual notion that any country is better than any other, and until we inspire a generation of people who will refuse to murder under orders from violent institutions (e.g. the state and the church), we will continue to kill each other without recognizing that we are all murderers in the eyes of the Gods of every religion.

Let us lift off the yokes which bind us. There are no countries! No group of people is superior to any other. All governments are complicit in violence and the threat of violence in order to keep us from realizing how truly duped we are.

Hard work is not a guarantee of success. If it was, there would be a lot more rich people.

“If you’re not rich, don’t blame the rich -- get out there and work for it. You have to earn it.”
- Herman Cain to Occupy Wall Street Protesters

"It’s not a person’s fault because they succeeded. It is a person’s fault if they failed."
- Herman Cain

Not everyone wants to be a pizza mogul.

Not everyone wants a dog-eat-dog democracy.

Not everyone wants to devastate the planet by living a wealthy, over-consuming lifestyle.

Not everyone thinks money brings happiness.

Not everyone thinks money is the ultimate measure of success.

Woodstock CT Café writes:

If one chooses to become a teacher, a tradesman, a town Selectman, a college Professor, a farmer, an aspiring author or artist, and many other choices for a procession, you probably won’t get rich (there are always exceptions). Becoming rich should not be one’s preeminent goal in life. Becoming rich and becoming a success are not synonymous. If “rich” is synonymous with “success”, then we are teaching the wrong subjects in our schools.

Not everyone thinks the poor deserve their lot in life.

Hard work is not a guarantee of success. If it was, there would be a lot more rich people.

Robin M. writes:

There are currently about 15 million unemployed in the country. Surely all of them aren’t somehow flawed, they can’t all be to blame.

The occupiers are fighting for things that Herman Cain can't even comprehend. At bottom, they are saying that the virtues of compassion and cooperation, not cutthroat competition, will bring about a better society and a healthier planet.

As Henry Salt wrote in his Creed of Kinship, "The basis of any real morality must be the sense of Kinship betweeen all living beings."

May the Occupations flourish!

"Growing inequality is ... the consequence of uncontested employer power."

"There is no remorse."
- Richard Sennett

Michael D. Yates:

Marx argued that capitalist societies tended to exhibit poles of wealth and misery, with each pole tightly connected to the other. This prediction has been dismissed by mainstream thinkers, who argue that while there might have been some truth to it in capitalism’s early years, the advanced capitalist countries have shown that all boats tend to rise on the tide of the system’s incredible economic growth. However, if we look at the United States today, nearly 140 years after the onset of full-scale capitalism in the 1870s, we see that Marx’s prediction still has a lot of life in it.

Marx was speaking of relative misery, that is, how those at the bottom compared to those at the top. Workers create profit by their labor, and the capitalists take this profit because they own the workplaces. If the workers are not organized, employers will squeeze more and more profit from their labor, and the workers will become relatively worse off over time. Growing inequality is therefore the consequence of uncontested employer power. Other things being equal, there is no limit to rising inequality except the natural limits imposed by the inability of workers to minimally sustain themselves.

We have a winterization committee. ... And we are going to stay until we see real-life, systematic change in how America works."

"Tonight, in the glow of your faces, I see new life coming into this world out of the ashes of a system that has failed all of us."

Phil Anderson of Occupy Boston:

"We have a winterization committee. We have medical teams preparing anything needed for the winter. So we are going to be fully prepared to stick out the whole winter here. And we are going to stay until we see real-life, systematic change in how America works."

"Beware not only of the enemies, but also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process."

[part 2, part 3]

Slavoj Žižek at Occupy Wall Street:

Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember, carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after, when we will have to return to normal lives. Will there be any changes then? I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like “Oh. we were young and it was beautiful.” Remember that our basic message is “We are allowed to think about alternatives.” ... There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want?

Remember. The problem is not corruption or greed. The problem is the system. It forces you to be corrupt. Beware not only of the enemies, but also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process. In the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat, they will try to make this into a harmless, moral protest. A decaffienated process. But the reason we are here is that we have had enough of a world where, to recycle Coke cans, to give a couple of dollars for charity, or to buy a Starbucks cappuccino where 1% goes to third world starving children is enough to make us feel good. After outsourcing work and torture, after marriage agencies are now outsourcing our love life, we can see that for a long time, we allow our political engagement also to be outsourced. We want it back.

Occupied Nation!

[source: Occupy Everywhere]

View Occupy Everywhere in a larger map

"Let’s treat this beautiful movement as if it is most important thing in the world. Because it is. It really is."
- Naomi Klein

"We the 99%, are not the pawns of either wing of the two-party oligarchy."

David DeGraw:

We appreciate, respect and encourage endorsements from individuals and organizations. We invite them. However, just because an individual or organization endorses our movement, does not mean that they in any way have a leadership role in deciding the future direction of this movement. We will not be co-opted by hierarchical organizations. No matter how wonderful their cause may be.

There are many people, organizations and media outlets within both the Democratic and Republican parties who are trying to label us as the Democrat’s version of the Tea Party. In this working groups opinion, not only is this incorrect, but in labeling us this way, you are, whether you realize it or not, undermining the very essence of this movement with your obsolete divide and conquer groupthink propaganda. Just as the mainstream media and both political parties aided and abetted the co-option of the Tea Party by the Republican Party, there is an attempt being made to do the same to us within the Democratic Party.

We the People, We the 99%, are not the pawns of either wing of the two-party oligarchy.

We emphatically reject the attempted leadership of any political party, organization or individual. If there are elected officials or organizations who endorse our movement, we welcome them.

However, they must do so knowing this: Your voice will be just as loud as any other voice. We are led by no one. You cannot co-opt We The People.

Respect Us.

"There are many people ... who are trying to label us as the Democrat’s version of the Tea Party. In this working groups opinion, not only is this incorrect, but in labeling us this way, you are, whether you realize it or not, undermining the very essence of this movement with your obsolete divide and conquer groupthink propaganda."

"This country has suffered enough from the plutocrats."

Michael Tracey:

On Monday afternoon, an elderly man approached me on the corner of Broadway and Cedar St. to ask if I was covering the demonstration. He had a comment. "I'll be 89 this month," the man said. "I served in the United States Navy during World War II. I remember the Great Depression, when my parents had to go [on relief]. And I realized that this is a wonderful country, but there are too many greedy people who control it."

Walter, from Manhattan, asked not to have his last name printed. "I hope this continues," he said. "Not only here, but throughout the United States, and in larger groups. This country has suffered enough from the plutocrats."

"This movement is not about demanding reform from entities which have already proven themselves incapable of it. It's about true revolution."

Karen Garcia:

The question is not whether the Obama Administration will take the protests seriously. The question is whether the protesters will take the president seriously. How can they, given that he has stuffed his office with the very malefactors who caused the financial debacle in the first place?

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was one of the cheerleaders of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, allowing banks to become gambling casinos risking other people's money. He reportedly defied his own boss's orders to dismantle Citibank. He made no secret of disliking Elizabeth Warren and her consumer protection agency.

It was reported in this newspaper the other day that former mega-banker and new chief of staff William Daley keeps constantly tuned in to CNBC to see how the markets, and their confident feelings, are doing. He just isn't all that into the other 99% of us. Of course, as Gretchen Morgenson of The Times reported in her recent book, Daley was on the board of Fannie Mae as it looked the other way during the subprime mortgage mess, enabling the recklessness and saddling the taxpayers with the fallout.

Of course, that's not stopping the Democrats and their various progressive "veal pen" offshoot organizations from trying to co-opt the nascent movement, which really is more about the Bottom vs the Top, rather than left vs. right. This movement is not about demanding reform from entities which have already proven themselves incapable of it. It's about true revolution. The leaderless group has already penned a veritable Declaration of the Rights of Man with the approval of its General Assembly. Democracy!

It is an inspiring attempt by members of a Lost Generation to invent a future for themselves, and for the generations before and after them. I admire them, I commend them, and I wish them the strength to carry on and resist all attempts by the corrupt political system to co-opt them. The kids will be all right.

The Democrats only care about this movement because it serves as a counterweight to the Tea Party.

The day the movement takes Obama's side is the day the movement dies.

"They should put the movement first and not bow to any Democratic Party or liberal organization operatives who seek to channel the movement."

I don't feel you anymore
You darken my door
Whatever you're looking for
Hey, don't come around here no more

-Tom Petty

Kevin Gosztola:

What should the Occupy Wall Street organizers do? They should continue on the path they were on prior to all the labor and Democratic Party support. They should put the movement first and not bow to any Democratic Party or liberal organization operatives who seek to channel the movement into electoral politics or compel the movement to lower its sights. It should work to maintain a level of discipline and make sure it establishes what it is not. It should continue to aim for the impossible and remember that they have earned their power because they have occupied the park and stood their ground in the face of a media blackout, police brutality and contemptuous criticisms.

The occupiers did not come together to be the Tea Party of the left. They came together to take on corporate power and address problems that impact Americans who are conservative and liberal, left wing and right wing. And, to continue to grow as a movement that challenges the influence of corporations, special interests and the top 1% in government, they need to make clear this is not about building a better Democratic Party. This is about the war on poor, working class and middle class Americans, the constant attacks on unions and how Americans are begin to have influence over their government so the assaults on poor and working Americans come to an end.

Democrats like Biden and Obama would love to have the Occupy Wall Streeters on their side. They see the occupation as an answer to the Tea Party. A way to balance the scales.

But this isn't about scales balancing. It's about changing the system in fundamental ways, ways that Obama and Biden can't even comprehend.

"We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies."

"I can't wait to get the chance to bust your face in."

That was San Francisco Police Officer Pascua (#4014) to multiple participants in Occupy San Francisco last night.

"Most of the mainstream media seems to have missed ... the fact that the occupation itself is its own demand."

[Jeff Mangum at Occupy Wall St.! WooHoo!]

Penny Red:

So far, it's pick-your-own cause, with grievances ranging from bank bail-outs to animal testing, and yet what most of the mainstream media seems to have missed is the fact that the occupation itself is its own demand. It's a symbolic and practical reappropriation of space at the heart of the world's most financially powerful square mile, an alternative community opening up like a magic window on a fairer future.

Arun Gupta:

The reason this movement is a success is precisely because it did not come in with any demands, because it was shapeless. There are real limits to that, and they have to figure out how to get around that, but if they came in with demands it would have probably failed, because then the media would have attacked the demands as being either inadequate or too pie-in-the-sky, it would have limited the appeal of the protests because you would have had various tendencies that would have gotten attacked by other groups. So this shapelessness is what has really allowed it to grow and become this vessel for all this rage and outrage against the failed system.

Yet more liberal disapproval of Occupy Wall Street

Furry Girl:

If you want to overthrow something big - a government or capitalism or whatever - you're not going to do so as a scruffy "outsider" group of people sleeping on the street without a plan or tools for implementing change. Successful revolutionary movements provide people things that the state isn't, plain and simple. Revolution is about stepping up and showing the masses that you can do things better, not dropping out and sitting in a park, hoping that those beleaguered working class people you've read about in Adbusters will show up en masse and let you lead them to their salvation. One of the most revolutionary projects across the 60s and 70s protest movements in America were the breakfast programs set up by the Black Panthers. Lifting up your community with a long-term strategy like giving poor kids free food so they can pay attention in school might not be easy like holding a sign that says "smash capitalism," but it's stuff like that that really counts. Remember, you have to demonstrate that you know how do it better, and you have to offer people things the current regime does not. Occupy Wall Street uttery fails by that test. Sadly, even the stupid Tea Party does a better job at getting large numbers of working class people on their side.

Elizabeth Warren fails her first test.

[source]

Harvard Crimson:

The candidates were asked whether or not they would support Occupy Wall Street, a grassroots protest movement that has gathered momentum in the last week with demonstrations nationwide.

Warren stopped just short of endorsing the movement, emphasizing instead that Occupy Wall Street is a symptom of widespread frustration among Americans with the state of the economy and financial institutions.

On her way to becoming just another crap politician!

"It's about time that we started getting angry."

[source]

Meredith in Brooklyn. N.Y.:

It's about time that we started getting angry. The middle class is dying, there are more and more people slipping into poverty - and meanwhile, the rich continue to become ever richer. To me this is about income inequality. I think that capitalism can work but that it must be tempered. We still need competition and innovation. But if the most junior person in a company makes minimum wage ($7.25 or an annual salary of $15,080) perhaps the most senior executive's compensation should be capped at - oh, I don't know - 100 times that? $1,508,000 is not chump change. Wouldn't that be more than fair? And it would give incentives to the leadership to raise the bar at the low end to keep things balanced. It's just plain crazy that some people make more money than they could ever really use in a lifetime while others have no food to eat. Let's change things.

Diana in Brooklyn, N.Y.:

This is why the signs say "the other 99%" -- the majority feels this anger, and the majority will be heard over the elite minority. All we're asking is that what is OURS -- our tax dollars, our safety, our right to health and shelter and food -- be returned to us. Decency and goodness WILL finally prevail, if only due to the realization on the part of the 1% that the protests won't stop until sanity reawakens in our government and economy. They need us more than we need them. Sooner or later they'll have no choice but to figure that out.

"There’s a new lesson in right-wing doublethink for us all to learn."

Via O'Hollern at Donkey Mountain, Charles Koch (billionaire asshole and destroyer of democracy) writing to F.A. Hayek (beloved neoliberal free marketeer) in 1973:

“You may be interested in the information that we uncovered on the insurance and other benefits that would be available to you in this country. Since you have paid into the United States Social Security Program for a full forty quarters, you are entitled to Social Security payments while living anywhere in the Free World. Also, at any time you are in the United States, you are automatically entitled to hospital coverage.”

… “In order to be eligible for medical coverage you must apply during the registration period which is anytime from January 1 to March 31. For your further information, I am enclosing a pamphlet on Social Security.”

"They have their fangs deep into your necks. If you do not shake them off very, very soon they will kill you."

Chris Hedges:

The only word these corporations know is more. They are disemboweling every last social service program funded by the taxpayers, from education to Social Security, because they want that money themselves. Let the sick die. Let the poor go hungry. Let families be tossed in the street. Let the unemployed rot. Let children in the inner city or rural wastelands learn nothing and live in misery and fear. Let the students finish school with no jobs and no prospects of jobs. Let the prison system, the largest in the industrial world, expand to swallow up all potential dissenters. Let torture continue. Let teachers, police, firefighters, postal employees and social workers join the ranks of the unemployed. Let the roads, bridges, dams, levees, power grids, rail lines, subways, bus services, schools and libraries crumble or close. Let the rising temperatures of the planet, the freak weather patterns, the hurricanes, the droughts, the flooding, the tornadoes, the melting polar ice caps, the poisoned water systems, the polluted air increase until the species dies.

Who the hell cares? If the stocks of ExxonMobil or the coal industry or Goldman Sachs are high, life is good. Profit. Profit. Profit. That is what they chant behind those metal barricades. They have their fangs deep into your necks. If you do not shake them off very, very soon they will kill you. And they will kill the ecosystem, dooming your children and your children’s children. They are too stupid and too blind to see that they will perish with the rest of us. So either you rise up and supplant them, either you dismantle the corporate state, for a world of sanity, a world where we no longer kneel before the absurd idea that the demands of financial markets should govern human behavior, or we are frog-marched toward self-annihilation.

Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope.

"Either you rise up and supplant them, either you dismantle the corporate state, for a world of sanity, a world where we no longer kneel before the absurd idea that the demands of financial markets should govern human behavior, or we are frog-marched toward self-annihilation."
- Chris Hedges

"We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known."

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

Posted on September 30, 2011 by NYCGA

This document was accepted by the NYC General Assembly on september 29, 2011

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

Beautiful! A N.Y. Post reporter calls the Declaration "ominous."

More protest ridicule, courtesy of Nicholas Kristof

"But something is happening here
And you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?"
- Bob Dylan

This is getting ridiculous.

Nicholas Kristof:

Where the movement falters is in its demands: It doesn’t really have any. The participants pursue causes that are sometimes quixotic — like the protester who calls for removing Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill because of his brutality to American Indians. So let me try to help.

He goes on school the protesters in what they should protest about. How nice of you, Nicholas!

I DON'T THINK THEY WANT
OR NEED YOUR HELP!

Protest snobbery

Courtesy of Doug Henwood:

Occupiers: I love you, I’m glad you’re there, the people I talked to were inspiring—but you really have to move beyond this. Neoliberalism couldn’t ask for a less threatening kind of dissent.

He even critiques their chanting. I hope the protesters do something quick to win Doug's approval. Wouldn't want to upset another Ivy League liberal.

Glenn Greenwald:

Dismissing these incipient protests because they lack fully developed, sophisticated professionalization is akin to pronouncing a three-year-old child worthless because he can’t read Schopenhauer: those who are actually interested in helping it develop will work toward improving those deficiencies, not harp on them in order to belittle its worth.

The N.Y. Times is finally giving Occupy Wall Street some non-dismissive attention.