Monday, October 17, 2011
What Occupy Wall Street is doing:They have no agenda - at least nothing directly targeting legislation pending or proposed. They have no leadership. They are not supporting or challenging particular politicians. That could change, of course. So what's Occupy Wall Street all about? What it, and the other occupy events throughout the country, is doing is filling in a gap. For the last two years the press has largely ignored both the un/underemployed and those with jobs but under siege (foreclosures, health care expenses, college tuition, loans, etc.) During past downturns, there would be a steady drumbeat of stories about those impacted. There was some of that in late 2008 and early 2009, but not much thereafter. Yet the economy hasn't done a whole lot of recovering, and so there are a lot of people feeling economic pain but feeling invisible. Occupy Wall Street is something that they hope will change that.
posted by Quiddity at 10/17/2011 08:06:00 AM
16 comments
I started with the opinion that this was a failed movement, but something useful has come out of it.
What's happened is that the whole 99%'er idea of people writing out their personal stories has revealed something that neither the Democrats or Republicans are terribly interested in talking about, because it doesn't really speak to their interests.
Foreclosures and medical bills are one thing. You can get out of those with bankruptcy and move on with your life.
It's the combination of graduating unemployed college students and their student loans. That's something I empathize with. I went to college in the late 1980s and graduated a state school with a four figure student loan debt, which I paid off $60.62 at a time. But that's how college was then. I empathize because I was lucky. I wasn't paying any attention at the time. I simply operated under the implicit assumption that when I graduated, and got a job, that I would be paying the loan. I didn't even know how much it was going to be until I got the first bill. I was just going to college, working hard, getting my degree, and doing what the world seemed to be expecting me to do, and I fully understand that today's students did the same thing, but things had changed, and the system was completely stacked against them without their really comprehending it.
I would have probably made the same mistake.
And to me, that's what these protests should be about. Put all the other issues aside, and there's a generation being created that can't get a job and can do nothing but watch helplessly while their 5 digit non-dischargable debt crawls towards six digits. They won't be buying houses, because they owe a mortgage worth of student loans. They are at their most important life crossroads, but they have nowhere to go because they can't get work. It's something that shouldn't be happening.
So I hope that at least they can get their message through.
However, they seem flanked, on one side by the class warriors who want to attack the rich, and on the other side by the idiots who are quite frankly turning people away from the protests. Trashing the protest grounds, acting like wannabee revolutionaries, and carrying around deliberately humorous and ironic signs that say things like, "I made a sign", that signal to the world that there is nothing to be taken seriously about the protests. (I blame Stephen Colbert and his wretched self-indulgent rally for that crap.)
There's a debate going on amongst the conservative sites on whether the protests are pure communist astroturf, immature tantrums or a genuine grass roots movement with something to say that should be taken seriously. If you want the latter, then the first two factions have to be squelched, but I see no signs of that happening.
I don't think that these protestors should even be on Wall Street. I think they should be protesting outside the White House, or a college administration buildings, or at least at the Department of Education. If they did that, the response by the powers that be wouldn't be nearly as friendly as it is now, but at least they would be getting in the face of the right people.
Right now the protestors are being taken for a ride. So long as the movement falsely self-identifies as "Occupy Wall Street", they will fail. That's the big lie. This wasn't caused by Wall Street, and the solution isn't on Wall Street at all. I think that a lot of people know that, but this is where the protests and media are, so this is where they are, and by going along with the false narrative, they are letting themselves be used. And if they keep doing that, their movement is going to go nowhere, or worse, devolve into violence, a worst-case scenario for a generation that is really too young for what they are facing.
You're right. Where the hell are your leaders?
jms fails to understand the symbolism of "Wall Street." His simple solution:
"Foreclosures and medical bills are one thing. You can get out of those with bankruptcy and move on with your life."
Is just a tad simplistic. They can't afford to join the protests as they strive to same their homes and families.
So as in the case of war, we have to rely upon our youth. The sad part of the protests is that they did not surface during the early years of Bush/Cheney that got America into this mess.
In time leaders may emerge. But the message may be loud and clear for 2012. Which GOP candidate will emerge from its current woodpile to address the issues being raised? Will that "successful" candidate take the money of the 1% and support their lifestyles, or will they support the 99%? We know the 1% has the money, but not the votes, unless money talks.
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HI,I know this is really boring and you are skipping to the next comment, but I just wanted to throw you a big thanks you cleared up some things for me!
"This wasn't caused by Wall Street"
You have just proven yourself either too stupid or too dishonest to be taken seriously here again. Not that I ever did to begin with, as you contribute nothing here besides cut-and-pasted right wing talking points approved by Rush Limbaugh.
This protest isn't about kids unable to repay their student loans. It's a protest against big banks making poor decisions that wrecked the economy. These peoples' lives have been torn apart by corporate behavior that borders on the criminal, and they're sick of seeing incompetent CEOs raking in obscene bonuses while ordinary people are losing their jobs and their homes.
Because of medical bills, I had to file for bankruptcy 15 years ago. I wasn't able to just "move on with my life." I couldn't secure credit for years. That's what happens when you can't pay your bills.
I'd call you a disingenuous fool, jms, but that's not true. You're simply a damned liar, and you know it.
Atax on all financial-market transactions is a specific demand. Anyoen want to give the movement a boost? Pass this video on to others (links to do so in the video info) Occupy Wall Street Declaration of Occupation @ #OWS General Assembly
The message seems to me to be clear and conclusive: 1% of the population control 40% of the wealth. That kind of income inequality allows the 1% to buy the government.
Repugs are happy to turn student loans over to for-profit companies that will charge usurious rates just as they have been happy to make it impossible for Medicare and Medicaid to do what the Veteran's Administration does, use bulk buying of prescription drugs to lower the prices for the patients. That is the very definition of anti-capitalistic.
I didn't offer a solution. If I had offered a solution, it would be to make student loan debt dischargeable in bankruptcy after a period of years, the way it used to be.
> Is just a tad simplistic. They can't afford to
> join the protests as they strive to same their
> homes and families. used to be.
Or, in other words, they are not out play-acting in the streets because they have better things to do, like working at their jobs and supporting their families, even when the government is run by socialists and the economy is in the toilet.
That's called being an adult.
They tell you a big lie in college -- that if you just go to your classes, get some sort of degree -- it doesn't matter what the degree is -- then you'll automatically get a cushy job. Every college degree gets you a great job, just like houses always go up in value, never down. Oops. It turns out to be otherwise.
> "big banks" ... "obscene bonuses" ... blah blah
That's what you wish it was about. No one cares about "obscene bonuses" and, my favorite one that you forgot to mention, corporate jets. Barack Obama can't deliver you a bonus, or a corporate jet, or even a job or health insurance. But he can certainly do what he was trained to do as a community organizer and manufacture resentment for something you not only will never have, but never even wanted in the first place? Do you want a corporate jet? Is your life incomplete because someone else has a corporate jet and you don't? Why would you give a damn if someone else has a corporate jet?
Why doesn't Obama point to something that you don't have, but could maybe have if conditions were a little better, and promise to try and make conditions good enough that you can have that. Like a better car, or lower fuel costs, or debt relief for individuals? No, instead Barack Obama points to something that virtually no one has -- like corporate jets, or "obscene bonuses", or being a millionaire or billionaire, and gets you to resent someone else having something you can't have. Then he makes his promise. You will never have that, but I can take that away from the people who do have it, so you can feel vicarious pleasure at my hurting them and taking away something from them that you will never have.
That's the politics of envy. It's destructive and corrosive, and it's All. Obama. Has. To. Offer.
Demon really takes the cake:
Because of medical bills, I had to file for bankruptcy 15 years ago. I wasn't able to just "move on with my life." I couldn't secure credit for years. That's what happens when you can't pay your bills.
Do you still owe those bills? Is your mailbox full of lawyer letters about those bills? Is your answering machine full every day from bill collectors about those medical bills? Are you wages being garnished to pay those bills? Have you been notified that your Social Security check may be garnished to pay those bills?
Or did those bills disappear when you went through bankruptcy, and did the bankruptcy itself disappear from your credit report after 10 years? They should have.
And even if you go through bankruptcy, you can still get a secured credit card and a debit card.
That is the difference between being able to move on with your life and not being able to move on with your life. Of course bankruptcy has after-effects, but they go away. If you fall hopelessly underwater on your student loan payments, they never go away, for the rest of your life. How can you seriously say that a credit inconvenience is comperable to lifetime debt slavery starting as a teenager?
For what it's worth, I haven't had a credit card in years, because of problems I had years ago. Life goes on. You just aren't able to spend money you don't have.
jms wrote, "No one cares about 'obscene bonuses' ..."
Of course we do.
(1) Those "obscene bonuses" come from the immense economic rents Wall St collects. Which is legalized theft from the rest of us.
(2) Those obscene bonuses create incentives to take risks that are backstopped by the taxpayer (heads they win, tails we lose).
But you're right that student debt being nondischargeable is ridiculous.
Anon,
(1) If the Federal Government is bestowing or enabling "immense economic rents" on Wall Street, and funding "obscene bonuses" on the taxpayer's dime, then shouldn't the protestors be protesting the government for writing the bailout laws that way and protesting Congress to change the laws that allow them to do that? Why are the protestors on Wall Street? The lawmakers aren't on Wall Street?
(2) If the laws are set up to create private profit / public risk moral hazard, then the problem is the laws. Once again, why are the protestors on Wall Street? The lawmakers aren't on Wall Street?
The answer is that the protests are on Wall Street precisely because Wall Street is far, far away from the source of the problem. The Tea Party is bad enough for the government. They have Conservatives taking to the streets to protest what the government is doing. if Liberals take to the streets to protest what the government is doing, then that means that everybody is taking to the streets to protest what the government is doing, and that would be bad for Barack Obama. So it is of critical importance that the liberal protestors be protesting something other than the government. Even though what they are protesting are really government policies. So inst4ad of protesting in the right place, they are 200 miles away looking befuddled, and asking, as Quiddity put it:
So what's Occupy Wall Street all about?
jms wrote, Why are the protestors on Wall Street? The lawmakers aren't on Wall Street?
Right. Wall St. has no corrupt influence on lawmakers; the only problem is the lawmakers themselves.
Really, jms, this degree of self-parody and evidence of lack of intelligence might not be unparalleled in the history of the web, but it's gotta rank pretty high.
Right. Wall St. has no corrupt influence on lawmakers; the only problem is the lawmakers themselves.
Of course not. I never said that. You miss the point. Wall Street doesn't make the rules. Granted, Wall Street does influence Congress, which does make the rules, but you know what, so can you. But you're not. You're being tricked into trying to influence people who don't make the rules, and who like the rules the way they are thank you very much.
Corporate officials are accountable to their shareholders, not to the general public. So long as they are following the letter of the law, as far as they're concerned the protestors can go screw themselves.
Lawmakers are accountable to the general public by way of elections. Wall Street influences the laws, but the politicians set the laws. There is nothing that can be accomplished between Wall Street corporations and crowds of people in the street. Nothing.
If you want to effect change, you have to go where the levers of legislative power are, and they are not on Wall Street. They are in Congress and the White House, which, by design, is far far away from the protestors.
Great work
Salon writer Alex Pareene has just taken up the cause.
jms with this:
"Corporate officials are accountable to their shareholders, not to the general public. So long as they are following the letter of the law, as far as they're concerned the protestors can go screw themselves."
neglects their responsibilities to the corporation's customers and their employees. For a corporation to survive, it must address constituencies beyond its shareholders.
Assuming, arguendo, that corporations are accountable to customers and employees in some way beyond honoring such things as warranties and employment contracts respectively, the protestors are not claiming to be customers or employees of the Wall Street firms they are protesting, so I don't see how that applies to this situation. The protestors are framing themselves as outsiders, not connected to the corporations, and the corporations are treating them as outsiders; which seems fair.
Actually, if the protestors were actually were customers, employees or even nominal shareholders of these corporations, and identified themselves as such by way of signs and interviews, I suspect that the Wall Street response would be somewhat different.
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