OWS, Occupy Wall Street Live Blogging

Monday, October 3, 2011

350.org to Join Wednesday's #OccupyWallStreet March

Bill McKibben and 350.org join “Occupy Wall Street” on Wednesday October 5, 2011, 4:30 p.m. at City Hall.

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 3rd, 2011
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

It’s time for environmentalists to join the fight to restore America’s democracy from the stranglehold of big polluters and corporations. From Keystone XL lobbyists to Big Coal, corporations have polluted our atmosphere and our political process. Join us in fighting back.

This WEDNESDAY we will see the biggest “Occupy Wall Street” march yet, from City Hall to Wall Street starting at 4:30 p.m.

WHEN: Wednesday, October 5th, 4:30 PM
WHAT: 350.org will lead a contingent of climate activists in the march, and we want you there with us. LOOK FOR THE BIG BLUE 350 FLAG to join the climate contingent!
(or call Phil, 202 556 3350)
WHERE: City Hall, 250 Broadway, New York City, NY 10007 (Map)

———————————————

What is Occupy Wall Street?

For two weeks, protestors in Liberty Plaza have been calling for a better America—a government that listens to and takes care of its people, instead of being bought-out by and pandering to big corporations.

What does Occupy Wall Street have to do with climate activism?

From Bill McKibben: “For too long, Wall Street has been occupying the offices of our government, and the cloakrooms of our legislatures. They’ve been a constant presence, rewarded not with pepper spray in the face but with yet more loopholes and tax breaks and subsidies and contracts. You could even say Wall Street’s been occupying our atmosphere, since any attempt to do anything about climate change always run afoul of the biggest corporations on the planet. So it’s a damned good thing the tables have turned.”

Please bring signs that draw the connection between corporate greed, big polluters, clean energy, and action on climate change. Wall Street is occupying the halls of congress and the State Department so let’s get out there and occupy Wall Street, together.

See you,
Phil Aroneanu, and the whole 350.org team.

Democracy for New York Supports #OccupyWallStreet

Democracy for NYC Declares Support for Occupy Wall Street!
Written by Josh Silverstein
Monday, 03 October 2011

To the Courageous Occupiers of Wall Street,

Democracy for New York City commends and fully supports the actions of Occupy Wall Street. For far too long our corrupt financial sector has taken many efforts to weaken the middle class. Every one of us has been affected by these high crimes sanctioned by many in our government. Whether we are being drowned by debt, are unable to find decent-paying jobs or are without health care, the list of grievances are many.

The people of this city and across the nation have waited far too long for real systemic change from the political leadership from either side of the aisle. The thousands that have come out to protest thus far are a testament to that feeling and the fact that we are now in the third week of this movement. As an organization that prides itself in engaging in progressive politics, we declare our solidarity with those in Liberty Square and in many other Occupy Wall Street locations across the country.

We urge our members to join the protest whenever possible. We urge our members to give material assistance to those camped there. Go to www.occupywallst.org to see their current needs. We urge our members to contact their representatives so that they can truly see and hear the inequality in what is the richest nation in the world and that they must drastically change course or be thrown out in 2012 by the will of the people.

DFNYC condemns the excessive use of force and unnecessary mass arrests during these peaceful protests and demands that those who were responsible for these abuses of power be investigated and held accountable for their actions. We expect and demand that the NYC Police Department protect our rights to assembly and free speech.

In solidarity,

Democracy for New York City Officers and Board Members

On the People's Mic

Richard Kim of the Nation (Excerpted):

We Are All Human Microphones Now, 10/3/11

Anyone who’s been down to Occupy Wall Street and stayed for a General Assembly will instantly recognize the call and response that begins, and frequently interrupts, each meeting.

“Mic check?” someone implores.

“MIC CHECK!” the crowd shouts back, more or less in unison.

You see, New York City requires a permit for “amplified sound” in public, something that the pointedly unpermitted Occupy Wall Street lacks. This means that microphones and speakers are banned from Liberty Plaza, and the NYPD has also been interpreting the law to include battery-powered bullhorns. Violators can be sentenced for up to thirty days in prison....

Suffice to say, despite all the attention given to how Twitter, Facebook and livestream video have helped spread the word, the heart of the occupation is most definitely unplugged. But the protesters aren’t deterred one bit; they’ve adopted an ingeniously simple, people-powered method of sound amplification. After the mic check, the meeting proceeds:

with every few words / WITH EVERY FEW WORDS!

repeated and amplified out loud / REPEATED AND AMPLIFIED OUT LOUD!

by what has been dubbed / BY WHAT HAS BEEN DUBBED!

the human microphone / THE HUMAN MICROPHONE!!! (jazz hands here).

The overall effect can be hypnotic, comic or exhilarating—often all at once. As with every media technology, to some degree the medium is the message. It’s hard to be a downer over the human mic when your words are enthusiastically shouted back at you by hundreds of fellow occupiers, so speakers are usually pretty upbeat (or at least sound that way). Likewise, the human mic is not so good for getting across complex points about, say, how the Federal Reserve’s practice of quantitative easing is inadequate to address the current shortage of global aggregate demand (although Joe Stiglitz valiantly tried on Sunday), so speakers tend to express their ideas in straightforward narrative or moral language.

There’s something inherently pluralistic about the human mic too; it’s almost impossible to demagogue, to interrupt and shout someone down or to hijack the General Assembly for your own sectarian purposes. That’s clearly been a saving grace of this occupation, as the internecine fights over identity and ideology that usually characterize left formations haven’t corrosively bubbled over into blood feuds there—yet. The human mic is also, of course, an egalitarian instrument, and it exudes solidarity over ego. No doubt, a great frenzy erupts when left gods like Michael Moore or Cornel West descend to speak, but most people only hear their words through the human mic, in the horizontal acoustics of the crowd instead of the electrical intimacy of “amplified sound.” Celebrity, charisma, status, even public-speaking ability—they all just matter less over the human microphone.

But the greatest hidden virtue of the human mic has been the quality that almost every observer has reflexively lamented: it is slow. I mean incredibly, agonizingly, astonishingly slow; it can take over an hour for the General Assembly just to get through a nightly refresher course on group protocols before starting in on announcements, which precede debate about anything new, like whether or not the occupation should make a list of demands and if so, what those demands should be. Imagine collectively debating and writing the Port Huron Statement, by consensus, three to five words at a time.

But really, what is the goddamn rush? As my colleague Betsy Reed points out, it’s Occupy Wall Streets’ raw anger and simple resistance to being beat down (sentiments well suited for the human mic) that have captured the public’s imagination, not the elaborate policy proposals of other efforts. As days go by and as the press attention heats up, the occupiers will be under increasing pressure to speed things up: to issue a list of demands, appoint spokepeople, nominate leaders, enumerate an agenda. I’m not sure they should go there—they did manage, over two weeks, to arrive at a consensus for a first statement, which if you think about it is a mind-boggling achievement—but if they do, it will be at a plodding pace over the human mic. That’s a good thing; the longer Occupy Wall Street can be relatively indeterminate, the longer it has to capture the symbolic power of resistance itself.

The rest we can figure out; the protesters plan to be there through the winter, so we have plenty of time....

It is, of course, ironic that New York City’s attempt to crackdown on political protest by restricting “amplified sound” unwittingly ended up contributing to the structural strength of its rowdiest protest in decades. But like in Egypt or Argentina or Belarus or other places where the authorities sought to silence speech, the people found a way to be heard. So how about it, can I get a mic check for this one: The people have the power.

#OccupyWallStreet Campus Walkout - Wednesday Noon

Studentactivism.net reports:

Running around doing a million things today so only have time for a quick hit right now, but…

There’s been a call out for a while for a CUNY walkout in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and that call seems to be going national. Occupy Colleges has a Facebook page and a Twitter feed, and they’re banging the drum pretty hard.

Whitehouse Answers Question About #OccupyWallStreet

Kevin Gosztola reports:

The movement should be proud. Today, the White House was forced to respond to Occupy Wall Street’s presence. Greg Sargent has posted the question and answer:

QUESTION: Have the “Occupy Wall Street” protests reached a level of the President’s engaged awareness? Is he sympathizing with the protestors? Is he concerned about the protests at all?

CARNEY: I haven’t discussed it with him. I’m sure he’s aware of it because he follows the news. I would simply say that, to the extent that people are frustrated with the economic situation, we understand. And that’s why we’re so urgently trying to focus Congress’s attention on the need to take action on the economy and job creation.

And as regards Wall Street, I mean, one of the things that this President is very proud of is the consumer protections that were put into place through legislation that Republicans are now eager to try to dismantle. We think that’s a bad idea…Because these are common-sense consumer protections that would prevent the kind of abuse that credit card companies engaged in against credit card holders, that would protect against some of the actions that were taken that led to, or contributed to, the financial crisis that we saw in 2008. These were measures that the President felt were very important, and there’s a clear effort within the Congress to prevent the full implementation of legislation by holding up this nomination. We think that’s cynical and a bad idea.

Not surprisingly, Carney’s answer is a kind of answer you get from someone doing damage control. His celebration of so-called consumer protections passed that prevent credit card abuse isn’t going to cut it especially when the banks are now using debit card fees to gouge customers. Banks and corporations on Wall Street own the Obama Administration. They own Congress. That is why the Occupy Together movement is growing in America and the world.

But, congratulations Occupy Wall Street. You’re beginning to make power tremble. Power has to tremble for any meaningful change to happen.

#OccupyWallStreet Protester (and Kossack) Jesse LaGreca Destroys Fox News Reporter

As you'd guess, interview didn't make it on air.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Update: I've been informed by the New York Observer that the reporter who uploaded the video was Drew Grant. She worked super hard to get that information out there. So PLEASE make sure to link to her story: HERE

TWU Says City Retaliated for TWU's Support of #OccupyWallStreet

This is what union support can do for your movement (we love you TWU!). The Daily News reports (excerpted):

The Transport Workers Union will go to court Monday to try to stop the city from forcing bus drivers to transport Wall Street protesters arrested by the NYPD....

The union, whose leaders voted last week to support the protesters, said police brass commandeered three MTA buses to transport many of the 700 demonstrators arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday.

Union President John Samuelsen called ordering bus drivers to drive prisoners "a blatant act of political retaliation."

Police brass had no immediate comment on Samuelsen's comments Sunday night.

"TWU Local 100 supports the protesters on Wall Street and takes great offense that the mayor and NYPD have ordered operators to transport citizens who were exercising their constitutional right to protest - and shouldn't have been arrested in the first place," Samuelsen said Sunday night.

At least five empty buses were commandeered from terminal points on both sides of the bridge, Samuelsen said....

"Our mission is to provide transit service to the riding public, not transport people who were arrested," he said.

The mass roundup on the bridge did little to stifle the protesters: Hundreds went right back to the rally after getting sprung.

"Just because we're being arrested, we're not being silenced," said Robert Grodt, 24.

"You go to Italy, you eat gelato. You go to a protest, you expect to be arrested," said Daniel Levine, 22, a Baruch College journalism student.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said 700 people received summonses and eight were held - three for outstanding warrants and five for not providing ID.

He did not immediately comment on the TWU seeking an injunction.

The nebulous protest against corporate greed, income inequality and tax breaks for fat cats enters its third week with growing crowds, a higher media profile and a big union march set for Wednesday.

Cops and protesters argued over whether demonstrators Saturday defied orders to stay on the bridge's pedestrian walkway or were lured into a trap by cops who said they could use the roadway....

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

#OccupyWallStreet - Calling All Angels

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Disorganized Kids Number in Tens of Thousands Nationwide (#OccupyBoston, #OccupyWallStreet)

Disorganized kids now number in the tens of thousands (excerpted):

Protesters have descended on Boston’s Financial District, setting up a tent village and decrying what they see as the economic hardships of ordinary Americans - one of several such demonstrations erupting across the country....

The group, called Occupy Boston, is inspired by Occupy Wall Street, a demonstration entering its third week in Manhattan’s Financial District that led to the arrest of 700 people Saturday on charges of blocking the Brooklyn Bridge. The effort has spread to several communities nationwide, with tens of thousands of people participating.

In Boston, the protests on Friday swelled to about 1,000 in Dewey Square. Police arrested 24 people on trespassing charges when they refused to leave the Bank of America building nearby.

But the demonstration, largely fueled by social media, has generally been a peaceful attempt to call attention to what protesters call the “bottom 99 percent’’ of Americans, who are strapped by rising costs for education, housing, and health care.

“The common root that everybody here has is that they feel like something’s wrong with the system,’’ said Tim Hansen, 21, a student at the University of Massachusetts Lowell who is facing thousands of dollars in college loans. “They feel they’ve been disenfranchised.’’

The demonstrators are a loosely organized group drawn together by e-mails, phone calls, and a personal fear that the country is heading in the wrong direction. They do not yet have demands, but they are holding daily general meetings, often broadcast on the Internet, to air concerns and discuss possible solutions.

Michael Flowers, a 24-year-old makeup artist and a spokesman for the Boston group, said efforts aim to appeal to a wide array of people, including conservatives worried about inaction in Washington. He said a well-off benefactor donated tents. In less than two days, they raised $1,200, he said.

“Wall Street started a spark, and it ignited a unified feeling of alienation from what it means to be an American,’’ Flowers said.

The protesters said they have no plans to leave anytime soon - a message that was echoed by demonstrators in New York, who said they plan to stay as long as they can.

Yesterday, the Boston campsite had become a high-tech micro-village filled with mostly young people running a sophisticated operation on a sodden expanse of grass in the shadow of the Financial District’s gleaming skyscrapers.

Tents sought to provide some of the services they say many ordinary Americans are lacking - including medical care, food, and shelter. They fed homeless people and offered them a berth in the community tent. They had recycling, garbage collection, and group meditation.

One young woman offered to do people’s laundry. Signs read “human need, not corporate greed,’’ and “fight the rich, not their wars.’’ Some protesters stayed for a few hours; others have slept there since Friday through winds and rain....

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

#OccupyWallStreet - MoveOn.Org Plans March and Virtual March

Here is the message from MoveOn organizer Van Jones:

Dear friend,

Wall Street has long been the home of the biggest threat to American democracy. Now it has become home to what may be our best hope for rescuing it.

For everyone who loves this country, for everyone whose heart is breaking for the growing ranks of the poor, for everyone who is seething at the unopposed demolition of America's working and middle class: the time has come to get off the fence.

A new generation has gone to the scene of the crimes committed against our future. The time has come for all people of good will to give our full-throated backing to the young people of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

So this Wednesday, we're joining with MoveOn, and labor and community groups in New York for a massive march down to the Occupy Wall Street encampment. And for those who can't make it to New York, we're also holding a huge online "Virtual March on Wall Street" in solidarity with the brave protesters in New York.

Click here to sign up for Wednesday's Virtual March and we'll send all the details.

Occupations are springing up all over the country as well. You can see if there's one near you by clicking here:

http://www.occupytogether.org/

Our movement was born after Madison, Wisconsin, to stand up for middle and working class families. We've engaged 130,000 people to crowd-source our own jobs agenda—the Contract for the American Dream. In August, tens of thousands of us demonstrated for jobs in rallies across the nation. And this week in Washington, D.C., we host our first national gathering: the Take Back The American Dream conference.

The cccupation of Wall Street—and the occupations throughout the country—are expressions of the same spirit and dynamic. And these particular demonstrations, perhaps uniquely, contain the spark to grow into a movement that can be transformative. They are the first, small step in the creation of a movement that can restore American democracy, and renew the American Dream.

Now is our time to choose. Will we keep rewarding those whose financial manipulations have brought us to ruin? Or will we stand with those whose democratic innovations are breathing life into our finest ideals? Both groups are within blocks of each other in downtown Manhattan.

For the past 30 years, the country has stood behind the titans on Wall Street and their values. We listened when they said that their banks were too big too fail. Today, there is only one thing that's too big to fail: the dreams of this new generation, finding its voice in Liberty Park. All of America should now stand with them.

Thank you for being a part of, and believing in, this movement.

Should #OccupyWallStreet Have Concrete Demands?

No. Full Stop. And here's why (excerpted):

So I’ve been tweeting up a storm today on the question of whether #OccupyWallStreet needs to compile a formal list of demands. (Spoiler alert: Nope.)...

The Montgomery bus boycott started out demanding a line separating the whites in the front of the bus from the blacks in the rear, so that black patrons wouldn’t have to give up their seats when the white section filled up. (Rosa Parks was seated legally when she sat down.) Mario Savio made no demands at all in the most famous speech in the history of the American student movement. Malcolm X’s demands shifted weekly, sometimes hourly, and the suffragist and abolitionist movements both encompassed vast, unwieldy coalitions.

I should say, I guess, that I’m not anti-demands in principle. If you happen to be fighting a narrow, single-issue, clearly-defined campaign, then by all means articulate what you’re looking to get. But if you’re not — and Occupy Wall Street isn’t — then any demands you put forward will serve a tactical purpose, and the question of what to demand has to be preceded by a discussion of whether it serves your interests to make any demands at all....

What’s going to change the dynamic in Washington DC, if anything will, is the continued growth of this movement. If you want to see Occupy Wall Street lead to a transaction tax, you want the movement to grow. If you want it to compel the demise of the legal concept of corporate personhood, you want the movement to grow. If you want it to overthrow global capitalism, you want the movement to grow.

It won’t grow if it’s completely contentless, of course. But it’s not contentless now. The General Assembly passed a “declaration of occupation” a few nights ago, and there’s some real meat there. I said in a recent blogpost that it was my sense that pretty much everyone in Liberty Plaza thought “that something was seriously broken in the American economy, that something was seriously broken in American politics, and that an accelerating concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small minority was at the root of most of of that brokenness,” and none of the many people who’ve read or linked to that post have yet disagreed. If you think OWS has no message, you’re just not paying attention.

The OWS critique of our current national (and global) crisis will continue to unfold. Those discussions are ongoing, in a zillion venues. And I’m not convinced that this movement is any less coherent right now than the suffragists at the turn of the century or the lunch-counter sit-in crowd in the spring of 1960 or the London demonstrators over the last few months.

And at any rate the crucial task for Occupy Wall Street right now isn’t coherence, any more than it’s the articulation of specific demands. It’s resonance as an idea, as a movement.

You don’t win by making demands. You win by taking power or forcing power to bend. Either way your stated demands are peripheral to the outcome — what you demand has only the vaguest relationship to what you win.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Disorganized Kids Start Newspaper (#OccupyWallStreet)

But. of course, they're just a bunch of disorganized kids (excerpted):

Over the last two weeks, as people participating in a protest called Occupy Wall Street have called attention to what they say are inequities in the economic system, the ways in which news organizations have covered the protests have been a subject of hot debate.

Some protesters have wished aloud for reporting more in line with their own conception of themselves.

Now, they have their own newspaper. It debuted on Saturday with a print run of 50,000....

“This movement has sometimes been misrepresented,” said Arun Gupta, 46, one of the two primary organizers of the project. “This paper is for the general public to let them know what is going on here.”

The four-page broadsheet includes a story by Mr. Gupta headlined “The Revolution Begins at Home,” an essay by the former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges urging people to participate in the protests, and a “Declaration of the Occupation” approved at a meeting of protesters on Sept. 29.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

#OccupyWallStreet - The Two-Headed Monster

The confusion on the Left about the goals and methods of OWS seems endless. Even those of us who are sympathetic and would like to understand are quick to pigeonhole the movement into our narrow understanding of politics (and to point out that, by those standards, they're doing it all wrong). We on the Left are continually attempting to understand their movement in familiar terms and, when their actions and methods are not familiar, we're dismissive. The result is, we're really missing the point - they're telling us that we can live in a better world. (And I know there are numerous people who close down the moment they hear such lofty idealism, but if the OWS movement has been more effective than you initially thought they could be, perhaps your narrowness of vision is the problem).

A persistent complaint from the Left is that the protesters' methods are ineffective. However, this is clearly false: The OWS movement is spreading like wildfire and is garnering support from unions and community organizations at an impressive pace. All I can say to this complaint is: If only the Democratic Party were so "ineffective."

And I categorically reject the notion that the OWS movement was hopelessly ineffective, but now that unions have joined, maybe they will be. Be very clear: The OWS movement isn't effective because unions have joined; unions have joined because the OWS movement is effective. Bear in mind that before the unions supported the OWS movement, the OWS protesters showed up to support the postal workers union. Kevin Gosztola reported that when the OWS protesters arrived, a large cheer rang out. For me, the postal workers' cheering was heart warming, but also a little heartbreaking because it's a painful reminder of how little support our working class usually gets. Unions have been thrown under the bus for so long - how could they not support this movement? And they are. In droves.

Can anyone honestly argue, with a straight face, that "We Are the 99%" is an ineffective message? It's astonishing to hear such criticism from a group whose rallying cry is: "We're better than Republicans." At this point, Democratic politicians rub our noses in our lack of options and basically tell us we have no choice but to vote for them, no matter how thoroughly they sell us out and no matter how depraved and corrupt they become. The OWS movement is telling us and, more importantly, showing us that this is a lie.

As Occupy Wall Street protester J.A. Meyerson explains:

The occupation of Wall Street is a two-headed monster: One the one hand, it's a political statement and a protest; and, on the other hand, it's a community unto itself.

We, on the Left, focus on the political protest aspect of the movement (being sure to point out how these well-meaning, ragtag kids are doing it wrong). But when it comes to their creation of a "community unto itself," we're at a loss. And because we don't understand it, our reaction is either to ignore that part or to actively deride it (this is the silly, hippie nonsense). But the two-heaaded monster metaphor implies this aspect is a significant part of the movement. And it's important for several reasons: it builds camaraderie; it allows for extended occupation; and also, it shows us what is possible. Part of the idea of the "community unto itself" is to reflect the type of society they'd like to live in. And indeed, it seems that everyone who encounters the OWS movement is inspired:

I have spent the last two days at the Occupy Wall Street gathering. It was a beautiful display of peaceful action: so much kindness and gentleness in the camp, so much belief in our world and democracy.... It is a thing of beauty to see so many people in love with the ideal of democracy, so alive with its promise, so committed to its continuity in the face of crony capitalism and corporate rule. ~ Mark Ruffalo

The overwhelming tone was spirited, determined, and thoroughly inspiring. As I’ve said before, who knows where this is going, but right now it’s exciting.... [W]ith the original OWS encampment persisting, and cities across the country joining in, I thought of Wallace Stevens’ line about searching “a possible for its possibleness.” ~ Doug Henwood

I was personally moved by this statement, made at an early Occupy Boston meeting:

When I heard this, when I heard her say everyone was welcome and, very specifically, that the homeless were welcome, I realized something: In small, growing clusters throughout the country and, indeed, around the world, these words are no longer an embarrassing farce:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Right now - because of this ragtag group of kids - these words are not just a shameful reminder of our hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. The OWS movement is indeed a "community unto itself" that is showing us that it's possible to live up to our highest ideals. We are not fated to live in a cruel and ruthless society; decency and fairness are indeed possible:

The 99% of us have paid a dear price so that 1% could become the wealthiest people in the world.... We live with great injustices in the land of justice. We live with great lawlessness in the land of the law.

It's time to check ourselves, to see if we still have that small part that believes in the values that America promises. Do we still have a shred of our decency intact in the face of debasement? If you do, then now is the time to give that forgotten part a voice. That is what this movement is ultimately about: giving voice to decency and fairness.

Philosophers have long noted that some things - indeed the most important things - transcend language. They can be experienced, but never completely expressed. If you think the OWS movement is ineffective, if you feel they must have concrete demands, if you're dismissing them based on their attire, you're missing the point. I cannot claim a full understanding of the movement myself (I am too new to direct action), but what I do know is that the OWS movement is more than just a political protest. Accordingly, we must not only listen to what they're saying, but also pay close attention to the communities they're creating.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

#OccupyWallStreet - Mark Ruffalo: This Movement is About Giving Voice to Decency and Fairness

Mark Ruffalo recently spent some time with the OWS protests. (And I'll just take a second here to plug You Can Count on Me, one of my favorite films - Ruffalo, Laura Linney, Matthew Broderick.) Anyway, here's Ruffalo's piece from the UK Guardain (significant excerpted, so make sure to check out the original - it's well worth the read):

I have spent the last two days at the Occupy Wall Street gathering. It was a beautiful display of peaceful action: so much kindness and gentleness in the camp, so much belief in our world and democracy. And so many different kinds of people all looking for a chance at the dream that America had promised them.

When people critique this movement and say spurious things about the protesters' clothes or their jobs or the general way they look, they are showing how shallow we have become as a nation. . . .

It is a thing of beauty to see so many people in love with the ideal of democracy, so alive with its promise, so committed to its continuity in the face of crony capitalism and corporate rule. That should be celebrated. It should be respected and admired. . . .

* * *

It's time to check ourselves, to see if we still have that small part that believes in the values that America promises. Do we still have a shred of our decency intact in the face of debasement? If you do, then now is the time to give that forgotten part a voice. That is what this movement is ultimately about: giving voice to decency and fairness.

I invite anyone and all to participate in this people's movement to regain your dignity and what you have worked for in this capitalist society. Each of us is of great value to the whole. Do not forget your greatness. Even when the world around you is telling you you are nothing. You have a voice. You want a better life for your children and the people you love. You live in a democracy. You belong, and you deserve a world that is fair and equal. You have a right to take your place and be heard.

Show up at an Occupy Wall Street gathering in any major city in the US. Hit your social media outlets. Tweet it. Facebook it. Talk it up. It's easy to do nothing, but your heart breaks a little more every time you do.

Update: Economist Joseph Stiglitz just arrived at #OccupyWallStreet (10/2/11); also it appears there were almost 700 arrest on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Unions Supporting #Occupy Wall Street

This is intended to be a running list of unions and community and activist groups thus far pledging support of Occupy Wall Street. (Please add anything left out and I will continue to update):

UNIONS:

AFL-CIO (AFSCME)
United NY
Strong Economy for All Coalition
Working Families Party
TWU Local 100
SEIU 1199
CWA 1109
RWDSU
Communications Workers of America
CWA Local 1180
United Auto Workers
United Federation of Teachers
Professional Staff Congress - CUNY
National Nurses United
Writers Guild East
32BJ SEIU
United Steel Workers
Communication Workers of America 1109
Labors International Union of North America

COMMUNITY AND ACTIVIST GROUPS:

VOCAL-NY
Community Voices Heard
Alliance for Quality Education
New York Communities for Change
Coalition for the Homeless
Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project (NEDAP)
The Job Party
NYC Coalition for Educational Justice
The Mirabal Sisters Cultural and Community Center
The New Deal for New York Campaign
National People's Action
ALIGN
Human Services Council
Labor-Religion Coalition of New York State
Citizen Action of NY
MoveOn.org
Common Cause NY
New Bottom Line
350.org
Tenants & Neighbors
Democracy for NYC
Resource Generation
Tenants PAC
Teachers Unite
Working Families Party
Make the Road New York
United New York and Strong Economy for All
Democracy for New York City

Saturday, October 1, 2011

First Official Statement From #OccupyWallStreet

First Official Statement From #OccupyWallStreet

This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released in the upcoming days: 1) A declaration of demands. 2) Principles of Solidarity 3) Documentation on how to form your own Direct Democracy Occupation Group. This is a living document. you can receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing c2anycga@gmail.com.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

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 nonhuman 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 supposed to be 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 in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive 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.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

About 200 Expected for #OccupyBoston

Here's the UK Guardian article.

#OccupyWallStreet Message IS Crystal Clear!

Chomsky on #OccupyBoston and #OccupyWallStreet

Support for #OccupyWall Street From Tahrir Square

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Update: BBC Coverage

Update: Alternet Article.

Update: NY Times blog

Update: #OccupyChicago gets some well-deserved press - here, here and here.

Update: #OccupyDenver

The Left Drops the Ball

Since this whole #OccupyWallStreet movement started, the liberal blogosphere has weighed in in their usual fashion - which is to say they've taken a pro or con position and fought it out amongst themselves. PRO (here, here, here, here and here); CON (here, here, here, here here and here).

The position of those on the con side is generally that the movement lacks clearly-articulated demands. As many people have pointed out, what they're protesting seems fairly clear. Here is a statement from We Are the 99% (which, if you haven't seen it, do so immediately):

We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.

That seems pretty straight forward. But, I'm sure the con camp would say that the occupiers need clear-cut demands.

Gee, wouldn't it be great is if we had a bunch of progressives who were paid to think about such things full time? Maybe whole groups of people who wrote endlessly about politics, economics and how to make a more equal society? So yeah, you get my point - that would be the progressive blogosphere. (Many of whom have advanced degrees in economics and are employed full time at think tanks and/or universities).

Why isn't the Left jumping in an providing suggestions? Why isn't it reaching out to the protesters, offering to answer questions, to provide expertise? To my knowledge, only one blogger/think tanker did - Mike Konczal. (And bravo Mike Konczal!) Other than that, the entire progressive blogosphere - with a single voice - just gave their personal opinions (more than a little hippie punching, btw), as if they were commenting on a sporting event.

Really, the progressive blogosphere has an opportunity - a very rare opportunity - to actually be useful. Many bloggers/think tankers have really useful expertise and they know things about proposed Financial Transaction Taxes, various technical solutions for debt forgiveness, etc.

Because here's the thing: We're talking about a difficult fucking problem here. These corporations and the financial systems that support them are international. Our political system has been completely corrupted. Everyone knows the top 1% have all the money and all the power, but we don't know what to do:

We are . . . living through an epoch . . . in which there is no available mechanism to oust a political-economic elite whose interests have become incompatible with ours.

This is not some sudden development, much less a coup d’etat as is sometimes claimed. No, the accretion of power by the rentiers has been systematic, structural and the outcome of a decades-long process. It is deeply rooted in modern capitalist economies due to the transformation of corporations into tradable, recombinant portfolios of assets, increasing concentration of and returns to ownership, and the failure of regulation to keep pace with technology and transnational scale. . . .

The real problem is political, and it is profound. Unless we can unseat the class that sees the world only through its portfolios, they may well take us all the way down. Unfortunately, no one seems to have a clue how such a revolution can be engineered in a modern, complex, transnational economy.

And that's not a clueless kid writing, its an economist. Criticizing the Occupy Wall Street protesters for not immediately presenting a plan to solve these problems is absolutely ridiculous. In fact, it's hard not to see it as disingenuous given the palpable scorn that accompanies many of the dismissals.

These mostly young people took to the streets to say: Enough! I don't know how anyone could be expected to do any better. But I was really taken watching this video where the OWS protesters are interviewing Chris Hedges - they had so many questions for him. They were asking how to reach more people, how to be more effective, what they're goals should be. This is what progressives with expertise should be doing: Listening to their questions (they're producing considerable content online and their live streaming daily) and trying to provide answers. The Left should be debating about the pros and cons of possible concrete solutions that could be proposed.

The progressive intelligensia potentially has an important role to fill. Thus far, the Left has dropped the ball, but obviously it's not too late. It's pretty clear that these young people are just getting started.

Update: Casa Cogito takes up the challenge. Bravo Sean!

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

#OccupyWallStreet - Adbusters Update

Here's the latest from Adbusters, the magazine who initially called for the Occupy Wall Street protest. In addition to substantial and growing union support, there will be additional "boosts" to the movement" - the DC movement, scheduled for October 6th has been planning their occupation for months (I think a a turn out of thousands is likely).

Jammers, dreamers, rabble-rousers, revolutionaries,

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET is thundering across America, threatening to morph into a full fledged national movement. Channeling the nonviolence of the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and the bottom-up collective decision making of the Spanish acampadas, we vow to end the monied corruption of our democracy.

This Saturday #OCCUPYWALLSTREET enters its third week … be there at Noon and stay for the weekend … or be at one of the 50+ fledgling occupations now being organized across the land.

Our people's democracy movement is about to get three mighty boosts:

On October 6, a few thousand of us will swarm the capital and #OCCUPYDC. Find out the plan at october2011.org
On October 15th, the movement goes global … check it out at 15october.net
Then, on November 3 and 4, we have something special in mind for when the G20 leaders meet in France.

Time to live!

United Steelworkers Union Announces Support for #OccupyWallStreet

The Sacramento Bee reports:

Leo W. Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers (USW), North America's largest industrial union with 1.2 million active and retired members, today issued the following statement in support of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement:

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20080131/DC12982LOGO)

"The United Steelworkers (USW) union stands in solidarity with and strongly supports Occupy Wall Street. The brave men and women, many of them young people without jobs, who have been demonstrating around-the-clock for nearly two weeks in New York City are speaking out for the many in our world. We are fed up with the corporate greed, corruption and arrogance that have inflicted pain on far too many for far too long.

Our union has been standing up and fighting these captains of finance who promote Wall Street over Main Street. We know firsthand the devastation caused by a global economy where workers, their families, the environment and our futures are sacrificed so that a privileged few can make more money on everyone's labor but their own.

Wall Street and its counterparts on Bay Street (Toronto), The City (London) and across the world tanked our economy in 2008. They caused a crisis that we're still suffering from – record job losses, home foreclosures, cuts to schools, public services, police, fire and so much more. They've gambled with our pension funds and our futures for far too long.

They should have gone to jail. Instead, they got bailed out, while we got left out. And now they want us to go down the same path.

The Occupy Wall Street movement represents what most Americans believe: Enough is enough! It's time to hold those who caused our economic crisis accountable, to ensure they don't get away with it again, and to demand that everyone pay their fair share. It's time to stand and fight for the creation of real wealth by focusing on making real things and creating family- and community-supporting jobs.

The USW is proud to join with the brothers and sisters of the Occupy Wall Street movement as we continue this important fight for a more just economy and a brighter tomorrow."

. . . . For more info: www.usw.org.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Friday, September 30, 2011

#OccupyThePlanet

I just got a tweet saying that #OccupyWallStreet is changing its name to #OccupyThePlanet and, indeed, their little movement appears to have gone global. Here is a site, Occupy Together, that is keeping track of the various movements. I don't know how big each of these movements are, but David Graeber said he attended Occupy Austin's initial meeting and 500 people showed up (he was at the original Occupy Wall Street movement and there were only about 100 people). Also, Occupy Wall Street is predicting big numbers this weekend. Anyway, here's the list, which is growing every day:

MIDWEST

Occupy Chicago
Occupy Cincinnati
Occupy Cleveland
Occupy Columbus, OH
Occupy Evansville
Occupy Indiana
Occupy Indianapolis
Occupy Kansas City
Occupy Michigan
Occupy Minnesota
Occupy OKC
Occupy Omaha
Occupy OSU (Stillwater)
Occupy St. Louis
Occupy Tulsa
Occupy Wisconsin
Occupy Youngstown

NORTHEAST

Occupy Albany
Occupy Binghamton
Occupy Boston
Occupy D.C.
Occupy Hartford, CT
Occupy Maine
Occupy New Haven
Occupy New Jersey
Occupy Philadelphia
Occupy Pittsburgh
Occupy Providence, RI
Occupy Rochester
Occupy Vermont

SOUTHEAST

Occupy Arkansas
Occupy Asheville
Occupy Atlanta
Occupy Birmingham, AL
Occupy Charlotte
Occupy Chattanooga
Occupy Clarksville, TN
Occupy Columbia, SC
Occupy Columbus, GA
Occupy Daytona Beach
Occupy Durham
Occupy Florence, SC
Occupy Greensboro
Occupy Jacksonville, FL
Occupy Knoxville
Occupy Lexington, KY
Occupy Louisville
Occupy Memphis
Occupy Mississippi
Occupy Nashville
Occupy New Orleans
Occupy Orlando
Occupy Pensacola
Occupy Raleigh, NC
Occupy Richmond, VA
Occupy Sarasota
Occupy Tallahassee
Occupy Tampa
Occupy Winston Salem

SOUTHWEST

Occupy Albuquerque
Occupy Austin
Occupy Dallas
Occupy Houston
Occupy Phoenix
Occupy San Antonio
Occupy Santa Fe
Occupy Tucson

WEST

Occupy Boise
Occupy Colorado Springs
Occupy Denver
Occupy Eugene
Occupy Las Vegas
Occupy Los Angeles
Occupy Napa
Occupy Olympia
Occupy Portland
Occupy Riverside
Occupy Sacramento
Occupy Salt Lake City
Occupy San Diego
Occupy San Francisco
Occupy San Jose
Occupy Santa Cruz
Occupy Seattle
Occupy Spokane
Occupy Ventura

INTERNATIONAL

Occupy Adelaide
Occupy Brisbane
OCCUPY DEN HAAG (NL)
Occupy Finland
Occupy Frankfurt Germany
Occupy Hamburg Germany
Occupy Manchester | March on the Tory Party Conference
Occupy Melbourne Australia
Occupy Montreal
Occupy Perth
Occupy the London Stock Exchange
Occupy Toronto Market Exchange
Occupy Vancouver

Update: Occupy Lexington left a comment with this video, which I'm embedding:

See comment section for additional links.

Update 2: This really deserves its own post (and maybe I will do one later), but this is very touching and worth taking a look at.

#OccupyWallStreet - Interview With Chris Hedges

Thursday, September 29, 2011

#OccupyWallStreet - Big Damn Heroes

This was the first thing I remember hearing about Occupy Wall Street. It was posted by fellow Kossack AoT on Daily Kos on August 18, 2011. I don't know how anyone on the Left can be scornful of these young people - who are unquestionably brave and sincere (in my book, two of the most important virtues). So, here is what he wrote:

I gave notice today. I'm leaving to go to go to Wall Street. I'm going to stay there. This is an occupation not just a protest.

I'll be honest, I'm scared. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if this is going to be some short one off that gets shut down after a day. But what I do know is that I'm going and I'm staying.

I told my dad that I gave notice and he freaked out a bit. Not because of why I did it, but because I did it. In a lot of ways it really was a terribly bad decision, but as far as I'm concerned I didn't really have a choice. Something has to be done and this is the best thing I know to do.

I don't really have a lot that I can say right now, but I feel like there's a lot that needs to be said. I'm doing this for a lot of reasons, the most obvious is because there is clearly something wrong right now, and the traditional ways of dealing of it aren't working. Protests are ignored. Voting can work a little, but given the amount of money in politics it only has a limited effect. But occupation seems like it can work, or is at least worth a try.

I don't know what will come of all of this, but what I do know is that for the first time since Wall Street crashed the world economy and unleashed untold destruction and suffering, someone - at long last - is "stand[ing] outside of the right buildings and yell[ing]":

I'm not sure what the people now occupying Wall Street ultimately will accomplish, but . . . [t]here has to be something to be said for people who at least direct their anger at the people who deserve it. The president has not been interested in doing that . . . . The Democratic party doesn't seem overly concerned any more. Among the Republican presidential candidates, the issue is largely invisible . . . .

[Wall Street] is where the people who created the financial crisis work. That's the scene of the crime. . . . Thank Whoever that there's at least a few people who will stand outside of the right buildings and yell.

And that's exactly right. As Jayne Cobb said (quoting Sheperd Book): "If you can't do something smart, do something right." So, I don't know if their tactics are smart (although so far, I'm impressed), but I do think they're right. And that's a damn sight better than anyone else in this country has managed.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

The Best Among Us - #OccupyWallStreet

By Chris Hedges

There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.

To be declared innocent in a country where the rule of law means nothing, where we have undergone a corporate coup, where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger, where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state, where even habeas corpus no long exists, where you, as a citizen, are nothing more than a commodity to corporate systems of power, one to be used and discarded, is to be complicit in this radical evil. To stand on the sidelines and say “I am innocent” is to bear the mark of Cain; it is to do nothing to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed and the suffering, to save the planet. To be innocent in times like these is to be a criminal. Ask Tim DeChristopher.

Choose. But choose fast. The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets. They have their metal barricades set up on every single street leading into the New York financial district, where the mandarins in Brooks Brothers suits use your money, money they stole from you, to gamble and speculate and gorge themselves while one in four children outside those barricades depend on food stamps to eat. Speculation in the 17th century was a crime. Speculators were hanged. Today they run the state and the financial markets. They disseminate the lies that pollute our airwaves. They know, even better than you, how pervasive the corruption and theft have become, how gamed the system is against you, how corporations have cemented into place a thin oligarchic class and an obsequious cadre of politicians, judges and journalists who live in their little gated Versailles while 6 million Americans are thrown out of their homes, a number soon to rise to 10 million, where a million people a year go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills and 45,000 die from lack of proper care, where real joblessness is spiraling to over 20 percent, where the citizens, including students, spend lives toiling in debt peonage, working dead-end jobs, when they have jobs, a world devoid of hope, a world of masters and serfs.

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. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith. They sleep on concrete every night. Their clothes are soiled. They have eaten more bagels and peanut butter than they ever thought possible. They have tasted fear, been beaten, gone to jail, been blinded by pepper spray, cried, hugged each other, laughed, sung, talked too long in general assemblies, seen their chants drift upward to the office towers above them, wondered if it is worth it, if anyone cares, if they will win. But as long as they remain steadfast they point the way out of the corporate labyrinth. This is what it means to be alive. They are the best among us.

I have never posted anything in its entirety on my blog - it is a blogging custom that makes it more likely that a reader has to link to the original source and thus, the author gets the hit. I could not bring myself to cut even a single word. Please, please, please link to Chris Hedges original article here. In fact, if you could link there twice, I'd be obliged. Thank you and thank you Chris Hedges for such a beautiful column.

Reasons for Optimism re: #OccupyWallStreet

They're getting a few celebrities to turn out (Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Russell Simmons), but - much more importantly - Unions and other community groups are jumping on board at a pretty good clip:

The city's most experienced agitators—the labor and community groups that typically organize
local marches, rallies and sit-ins—have been largely missing from the Occupy Wall Street protest that is in its 13th day at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan.

But that's about to change.

A loose coalition of labor and community groups said Thursday that they would join the protest next week. They are organizing a solidarity march scheduled for Wednesday . . . .

Despite the common cause, the city's established left did not initially embrace the protest, which began Sept. 17 and has been made up mostly of young people angry about the widening income chasm in the country, the growing influence of money on politics and police brutality, among other issues.

But as the action nears the start of its third week, unions and community groups are eager to jump on board....

“It's become too big to ignore,” said one political consultant.

Some of the biggest players in organized labor are actively involved in planning for Wednesday's demonstration, either directly or through coalitions that they are a part of. The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are all expected to participate. The Working Families Party is helping to organize the protest and MoveOn.org is expected to mobilize its extensive online regional networks to drum up support for the effort.

Also, Matt Taibbi thinks it could be the start of something big (and I would classify him as pretty much completely jaded and not prone to optimism - so, when he's hopeful, it definitely perks my interest):

And let me just say once more, that I loved the posture Mike Konczal took. Most of the time there's a legitimate question of whether the progressive blogosphere is good for anything, but this is an opportunity, a very rare opportunity, for bloggers to actually be useful. Konczal jumped right in with constructive ideas and basically said: "Hey, I've been thinking about these issues for a long time. Here are some ideas for concrete demands." Bravo Mike Konczal. And for the blogosphere cynics on the Left (Mahablog, Yglesias), it's too soon to tell for sure, but I think you're on the wrong side of history.

Here's Michael Moore speaking to the crowd via the People's Mic (the police confiscated microphones, bull horns, etc. so, the Occupiers came up with this method, which they call the People's Mic):

Update: Here's Digby reporting something's happening here:

Evidently 500 of these guys showed up to protest on Wall Street today. They've been getting screwed on their pensions for years and these mergers are killing them.

This is the first sign of a real middle class revolt.

Update 2: Pepper-spray Bologna slideshow.

Update 3: Just going to gather some of the opinion pieces (with the intent to write about these later: con (here, here, here, here here and here); pro (here, here, here, here and here).

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Mike Konczal - Three Concrete Demands for #OccupyWallStreet

The big beef against the Wall Street protesters has been that they lack concrete demands. Here's Mike Konczal with his suggestions - I really have nothing to add (it's perfect). This is excerpted so, make sure to check out the original:

The demands of the several hundred protesters camped out on Wall Street have been criticized as ad hoc and poorly articulated. The protesters emphasize that their demands are "a process" intended to allow people to "talk to each other in various physical gatherings and virtual people's assemblies ... [and] zero in on what our one demand will be, a demand that awakens the imagination."

Since they're looking for suggestions, here are three policy changes that should be on their list of demands....

1. Cancel the debts. The crisis we face is fundamentally about a giant pool of bad mortgage debt. We need to work through these debts for recovery to really take off. The only question is who will absorb them—the creditors who made the loans or the people on the other side....

Anthropologist David Graeber cites historian Moses Finley, who identified “the perennial revolutionary programme of antiquity, cancel debts and redistribute the land.” This remains the case. The modern inventions for dealing with failed debts, bankruptcy and inflation, both have failed. The bankruptcy code has a flaw preventing mortgage workouts and inflation is so low that markets are worried that the level of debts could increase with time....

By making banks write down bad loans and work out failed mortgages we’ll have an system where the fraud that originated on Wall Street isn't borne entirely on the real economy.

2. Investigate Wall Street. In the buildup to the crisis, bad loans that could never be paid back were passed out to unsuspecting homeowners. These loans were then passed along a chain until they got to investors who thought the loans were made with the utmost diligence. When the entire house of cards collapsed, homeowners were left with bad loans, investors looked to cover their investments, and a mind-boggling 5 million people were foreclosed on. Loans were made so fast that proper records weren’t kept, which means it’s difficult to hold creditors and debtors accountable....

Several state attorneys general, including ones from New York and Nevada, have taken the lead in demanding an investigation, much to the chagrin of the Obama administration and financial elites. By supporting them, we’ll help build a country where there isn’t a two-tier system of justice.

3. Create a Financial Transaction Tax. It is hard to think of something with such a boring name as a particularly radical solution, but an FTT would be an important first step toward remaking our economy so it is not so dependent on the financial sector.

Thanks to a wave of deregulation laws in the late 1970s and early 1980s, finance has been one of the fastest-growing sectors over the past 30 years.... This way of viewing our economy is less about long-term value than short-term price manipulation, less about investing in communities and peoples than about gaming tax codes and regulation and less about markets as a means of expression and more about consolidated, cornered market power. A financial transaction tax would help fight back against this and begin to steer our economy toward more sustainable and workable ends.

There are endless problems that plague America, but if the battle is brought to Wall Street, the demands should address the financial sector directly....

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Look Back Before You Act

The Onion:

With the United States facing a daunting array of problems at home and abroad, leading historians courteously reminded the nation Thursday that when making tough choices, it never hurts to stop a moment, take a look at similar situations from the past, and then think about whether the decisions people made back then were good or bad.

According to the historians, by looking at things that have already happened, Americans can learn a lot about which actions made things better versus which actions made things worse, and can then plan their own actions accordingly.

"In the coming weeks and months, people will have to make some really important decisions about some really important issues," Columbia University historian Douglas R. Collins said during a press conference, speaking very slowly and clearly so the nation could follow his words. "And one thing we can do, before making a choice that has permanent consequences for our entire civilization, is check real quick first to see if human beings have ever done anything like it previously, and see if turned out to be a good idea or not...."

While the new strategy, known as "Look Back Before You Act," has raised concerns among people worried they will have to remember lots of events from long ago, the historians have assured Americans they won't be required to read all the way through thick books or memorize anything.

Instead, citizens have been told they can just find a large-print, illustrated timeline of historical events, place their finger on an important moment, and then look to the right of that point to see what happened afterward, paying especially close attention to whether things got worse or better.

"You know how the economy is not doing so well right now?" Professor Elizabeth Schuller of the University of North Carolina said. "Well, in the 1930s, financial markets—no, wait, I'm sorry. Here: A long, long time ago, way far in the past, certain things happened that were a lot like things now, and they made people hungry and sad."

"How do you feel when you're hungry? Doesn't feel good, does it?" Schuller added. "So, maybe we should avoid doing those things that caused people to feel that way, don't you think?..."

Paul Krugman:

Kevin O’Rourke follows up on some of what I’ve been writing, and argues that doing good macroeconomics depends crucially on knowing a fair bit about economic history. Indeed....

I’d also say that there’s history and then there’s history. Knowing the time-series properties of US quarterly data since 1947 isn’t what I mean. In macro, in particular, you need to know about drastic events. I don’t have it in front of me, but in his book on the German hyperinflation Frank Graham said roughly this: “Disorder is, for the social sciences, the sole substitute for the controlled experiments of the natural sciences.” That means knowing about prewar experience; it also means knowing about international experience — for there have been numerous crises even since World War II, just not in the United States.

Indeed, my sense is that international macroeconomists — people who followed the ERM crises of the early 1990s, the Latin American debt crisis, the Asian crisis of the late 90s, and so on — were caught much less flat-footed than economists who limited most of their interest to the United States. The now-infamous 2003 Lucas remark about how the problem of depression-prevention has been solved was not something you would have heard from an economist who had paid attention to Mexico, Indonesia, Argentina etc..

Unfortunately, many economists have not learned from the past. And that’s at least part of the reason we are apparently condemned to repeat it.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Bernanke Hearts Neoliberalism

Mike Konczal - who I think is as clear and as good as it gets on the economy - has recently argued that the Left should be pressuring the Fed to take whatever actions are necessary to produce inflation. For some reason - (probably because Krugman personally likes Bernanke) - I always thought Bernanke would be more aggressive if he could, but that he's dealing with political pressure - within the Fed, from the GOP and, of course, the mafioso-style threats from Rick Perry.

However, Ben Bernanke delivered a paper today in Cleveland, which gives some insight into what he might be willing to do with respect to the economy and into his thinking generally. And it's really not good. First of all, it looks like he's an inflationista (and that's really not good). Here's what Mark Thoma makes of his position on inflation:

So Bernanke sees low and stable inflation as one of the keys to long-run economic growth, it avoids “costly swings in economic activity,” and from the Fed’s actions recently it appears that the Fed is reluctant to risk an outbreak of inflation. I don’t think this should be a worry, the Fed could be more aggressive now to try to help the unemployed, i.e. let inflation rise above target, without risking its long-run commitment to price stability. But apparently the Fed does not trust itself to bring down the inflation rate in the long-run if it allows it to rise in the short-run. I guess I have more faith in Bernanke and others at the Fed than they have in themselves.

This means there's very little chance of the Fed doing anything really helpful - so, one of our three means of recovery is severely hampered (the other two being fiscal stimulus and debt restructuring).

And that's not all - in fact, here comes the terrifying part - the template for Bernanke's talk was on the Washington Consensus, and he pretty much embraces the project in its entirety:

Fostering Growth in Developing Economies: The Washington Consensus

* * *

A classic attempt to generalize about the policies that best promote economic growth and development, and a useful starting point for discussion, is the so-called Washington Consensus . . .

* * *

By comparing current views with those described by Williamson in 1990, and accepted by many, we may learn something about which ideas have held up and which have been modified or refuted by recent events. I will take in turn the three groups of policies that make up the Washington Consensus.

The first group of recommendations, as I noted, comprised policies aimed at increasing macroeconomic stability. In this case there is little controversy. Abundant evidence has linked fiscal discipline, low inflation, and a stable macroeconomic policy environment to stronger, longer-term growth in both emerging and advanced economies. In particular, many emerging market economies in the 1990s emulated the success of the advanced economies in the 1980s in controlling inflation. . . . Disciplined macroeconomic policies have also supported growth in emerging markets by fostering domestic savings, stimulating capital investment (including foreign direct investment), and reducing the risk of financial instability.

The second group of recommendations listed by Williamson emphasized the need for greater reliance on markets: the freeing up of the economy through privatization, deregulation, and liberalization. The basic idea here has held up pretty well . . . most observers today would agree that carefully managed liberalization--the substitution of markets for bureaucratic control of the economy--is necessary for sustained growth. . . .

The third part of the Washington Consensus focused on strengthening property rights and the rule of law--for example, through effective enforcement of contracts. The evidence suggests that these factors too can be important for development.

Amending the Washington Consensus

Overall, some key elements of the Washington Consensus appear well supported both by basic economic logic and by their successful application by a number of countries. However, the experience of the past two decades also suggests some lessons that augment or modify what we thought we knew about economic development in 1990. I will highlight three specific lessons.

First, the implementation of the Washington Consensus recommendations is important and not so straightforward in practice. In particular, as I alluded to earlier, the sequencing of reforms matters. . . .

Similarly, dismantling controls on the domestic financial industry has proven counterproductive . . . .

A second important lesson of the past two decades involves the pivotal role of technologyin economic development. . . .

A third important lesson that has come into sharper focus, and which was not fully appreciated by the Washington Consensus, involves the capacity to draw on economies of scale to accelerate the pace of technical progress and economic growth. . . .

So, there it is - full steam ahead with neoliberalism. Sure, there was a slight blip with "dismantling the controls on the domestic financial industry" (it crashed the fucking world economy). And we need to watch the sequencing - our bad Russia! - but other that: Success! Full success!

This is so out of touch with reality. These people should be saying: "What the hell happened? How did we get it so wrong?" It's really hard to imagine a profession failing more spectacularly. Compare, for example, Bernanke's ringing endorsement of Washington Consensus policies developed in the 1990s with Paul Krugman questioning whether the profession has learned anything at all since the 1970s:

I’ve never liked the notion of talking about economic “science” — it’s much too raw and imperfect a discipline to be paired casually with things like chemistry or biology . . . .

Still, when I was younger I firmly believed that economics was a field that progressed over time, that every generation knew more than the generation before.
The question now is whether that’s still true. In 1971 it was clear that economists knew a lot that they hadn’t known in 1931. Is that clear when we compare 2011 with 1971? I think you can actually make the case that in important ways the profession knew more in 1971 than it does now.

I’ve written a lot about the Dark Age of macroeconomics, of the way economists are recapitulating 80-year-old fallacies . . .

What I’d add to that is that at this point it seems to me that many economists aren’t even trying to get at the truth. When I look at a lot of what prominent economists have been writing in response to the ongoing economic crisis, I see no sign of intellectual discomfort, no sense that a disaster their models made no allowance for is troubling them; I see only blithe invention of stories to rationalize the disaster in a way that supports their side of the partisan divide. And no, it’s not symmetric: liberal economists by and large do seem to be genuinely wrestling with what has happened, but conservative economists don’t.

And all this makes me wonder what kind of an enterprise I’ve devoted my life to.

That's the proper attitude of someone who belongs to a profession that has just wrought untold pain and devastation and cannot - for the life of them - do anything to fix this disaster they've created. Instead, Bernanke has concluded that the Washington Consensus was mostly right (just need a tweak here and there) and he's committed to following the path of keeping inflation low - and he'll follow it over a cliff, if necessary.

It's really, really not good.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.