Left vs Right Options

[communicat]

As regards: "... most Leftists are every bit as moronic as most Rightists. But I'll point you to an exception: a brilliant woman named Rosa Luxemburg": Yeah, and look what happened to her. The Left does not exactly have a tradition of killing off brilliant intellectuals (with the possible exception of Trotsky, and nobody really knows for sure who exactly was behind that ...).

I heard Stalin even sent flowers.

To misquote Rosa only slightly: Roe, you epitomise the evil of banality.

[Milton Roe]

As regards: "... most Leftists are every bit as moronic as most Rightists. But I'll point you to an exception: a brilliant woman named Rosa Luxemburg": Yeah, and look what happened to her. The Left does not exactly have a tradition of killing off brilliant intellectuals (with the possible exception of Trotsky, and nobody really knows for sure who exactly was behind that ...).

I heard Stalin even sent flowers.

To misquote Rosa only slightly: Roe, you epitomise the evil of banality.

Misquotes Rosa quite a lot. That is Arendt.

[EricBarbour]

Maybe I should post pornographic cartoons on this thread.
(Wikipedia looooves cartoons.)

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Sun 16th October 2011, 3:26am

[communicat]

As regards: "... most Leftists are every bit as moronic as most Rightists. But I'll point you to an exception: a brilliant woman named Rosa Luxemburg": Yeah, and look what happened to her. The Left does not exactly have a tradition of killing off brilliant intellectuals (with the possible exception of Trotsky, and nobody really knows for sure who exactly was behind that ...).

I heard Stalin even sent flowers.

To misquote Rosa only slightly: Roe, you epitomise the evil of banality.

Misquotes Rosa quite a lot. That is Arendt.

Whoops; sorry, my mistake. The misquoted "evil of banality" still holds true in respect of Roe/Jayjg (and I've definitely got his name right -- no room for confusion with any other brilliant intellectual there).

This post has been edited by communicat: Sun 16th October 2011, 12:42pm

[anthony]

This ignores the fact that OWS is about more than just the bailout. The Tea Party, which has always been an anti-tax movement, never would have many members who would support things like increased taxes on the rich, a maximum wage, an increased minimum wage, etc. And most would not support things like increased regulations, the return of Glass-Steagall, "too big to fail means too big to exist", etc.

That's a long list of policies which you are attributing to the OWS movement. The press coverage suggests that the OWS movement does not have a platform at all, that it is just raw protest at this point.

The OWS movement does not have a platform. I never suggested it did.

To suggest that it "is just raw protest", however, is quite laughable. There definitely are themes.

[anthony]

The conversations I've had online with actual OWS protestors supports the "no platform" position. Individual protestors have individual positions, but there is no coherency to it.

The fact that so many protesters support the "no platform" position (whereas the vast majority of the real 99% would laugh at such a concept) is itself a general coherency.

Not that such an "anti-platform platform" is likely to last very long. Bringing us full circle to the point which brought the first mention of Occupy Wall Street, anarchy is a rather oxymoronic idea.

This post has been edited by anthony: Sun 16th October 2011, 1:23pm

[Herschelkrustofsky]

That's a long list of policies which you are attributing to the OWS movement. The press coverage suggests that the OWS movement does not have a platform at all, that it is just raw protest at this point.

The conversations I've had online with actual OWS protestors supports the "no platform" position. Individual protestors have individual positions, but there is no coherency to it. There is probably majority support amongst protestors, or would be if you could effectively poll them, for "something is wrong with the financial system and the way it interlocks with the political system" but there is, as yet, no choate expression of that, nor any sort of proposal on how to fix it.

Occupy Chicago produced a 12-point manifesto at a recent General Assembly. I haven't looked to see what's in it. No Occupy Wall Street General Assembly has been able to agree on any platform points, as far as I know, although they have been able to agree mainly on housekeeping issues.

The Occupy Chicago manifesto is quite sensible. I'll reproduce it below. The LaRouche PAC has been active in all of these events, pushing the restoration of Glass-Steagall, which appears at the top of the Chicago list. It has also been a major topic of discussion in New York and Los Angeles. Unfortunately, there are competing, antagonistic agendas; some in NYC have promoted an environmentalist/animal rights agenda, which is probably the last thing that desperately poor Americans need just now.

Proposed demands from Chicago:

1.PASS HR 1489 REINSTATING GLASS-STEAGALL. – A depression era safeguard that separated the commercial lending and investment banking portions of banks. Its repeal in 1999 is considered the major cause of the global financial meltdown of 2008-2009.

2. REPEAL BUSH TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY

3. FULLY INVESTIGATE AND PROSECUTE THE WALL STREET CRIMINALS who clearly broke the law and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis.

4.OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED v. US. – A 2010 Supreme Court Decision which ruled that money is speech. Corporations, as legal persons, are now allowed to contribute unlimited amounts of money to campaigns in the exercise of free “speech.”

5. PASS THE BUFFET RULE ON FAIR TAXATION, CLOSE CORPORATE TAX LOOPHOLES, PROHIBIT HIDING FUNDS OFFSHORE.

6. GIVE THE SEC STRICTER REGULATORY POWER, STRENGTHEN THE CONSUMER PROTECTION BUREAU, AND PROVIDE ASSISTANCE FOR OWNERS OF FORECLOSED MORTGAGES WHO WERE VICTIMS OF PREDATORY LENDING.

7.TAKE STEPS TO LIMIT THE INFLUENCE OF LOBBYISTS AND ELIMINATE THE PRACTICE OF LOBBYISTS WRITING LEGISLATION.

8. ELIMINATE RIGHT OF FORMER GOVERNMENT REGULATORS TO WORK FOR CORPORATIONS OR INDUSTRIES THEY ONCE REGULATED.

9. ELIMINATE CORPORATE PERSONHOOD.

10. INSIST THE FEC STAND UP FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN REGULATING PRIVATE USE OF PUBLIC AIRWAVES to help ensure that political candidates ARE GIVEN EQUAL TIME for free at reasonable intervals during campaign season.

11. REFORM CAMPAIGN FINANCE WITH THE PASSAGE OF THE FAIR ELECTIONS NOW ACT (S.750, H.R. 1404).

12. FORGIVE STUDENT DEBT – The same institutions that gave almost $2T in bailouts and then extended $16T of loans at little to no interest for banks can surely afford to forgive the $946B of student debt currently held. Not only does this favor the 99% over the 1%, it has the practical effect of more citizens spending money on actual goods, not paying down interest.

http://occupychi.org/2011/10/07/our-propos...mands/#more-879

[communicat]

This ignores the fact that OWS is about more than just the bailout. The Tea Party, which has always been an anti-tax movement, never would have many members who would support things like increased taxes on the rich, a maximum wage, an increased minimum wage, etc. And most would not support things like increased regulations, the return of Glass-Steagall, "too big to fail means too big to exist", etc.

That's a long list of policies which you are attributing to the OWS movement. The press coverage suggests that the OWS movement does not have a platform at all, that it is just raw protest at this point.

The OWS movement does not have a platform. I never suggested it did.

To suggest that it "is just raw protest", however, is quite laughable. There definitely are themes.

I think you all might be missing a point at this point: the comparatively insular so-called "OWS movement" has evolved into an international movement of much larger proportions. Witness the parallel if not identical demonstrations of popular resistance yesterday in the financial districts of Rome, London and elsewhere. Seems to be a fair amount of international coherence in protestors' opposition to their respective governments bailing out of private financial institutions with the use/abuse of public money, inter alia, including so-called "austerity measures". That's the platform. (So big as to be invisible, apparently). Never mind all the academic-type theory about "oxymoronic anarchism" etc. Real life and academia rarely have much in common anyway.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

I think you all might be missing a point at this point: the comparatively insular so-called "OWS movement" has evolved into an international movement of much larger proportions.

I think you have inverted causality here. It has evolved from an international movement of much larger proportions. The financial system went bust in 2007; in 2008 the financial empire deployed the US and European governments to respond with bailouts and austerity, at which point there were angry responses from the populations all over the world. This included the "Tea Party" stuff in 2009, which was not originally a controlled phenomenon, as well as the Arab Spring and the Indignados in Europe. OWS is simply the latest development in this progression.

I should add that most of the ideologies attributed to the protesters are actually damage control, coming from the controlled news media. The typical prostester is enraged about things he understands poorly at best. He is labile and could go in virtually any direction.

[radek]

The Occupy Chicago manifesto is quite sensible. I'll reproduce it below. The LaRouche PAC has been active in all of these events, pushing the restoration of Glass-Steagall, which appears at the top of the Chicago list. It has also been a major topic of discussion in New York and Los Angeles. Unfortunately, there are competing, antagonistic agendas; some in NYC have promoted an environmentalist/animal rights agenda, which is probably the last thing that desperately poor Americans need just now.

The thing is, that the restoration of the provisions of G-S removed by Gramm-Leach- act, which would re-prohibit conflicts of interest between commercial and investment banking is quite sensible and to a large extent a mainstream opinion among most economists.

But here it is being "bundled" with a lot of "usual goofy stuff". It's a bit like saying, if I want to get wireless internet I have to buy some useless cable channels at really ridiculous prices. In a way it's almost a perfect way to ensure that the G-S act will NOT be reinstalled, as it associates it with a bunch of fringy, goofy propositions which have no chance of ever been put into place. Thanks folks.


Specifically

1. Makes sense.
2. Yeah essentially makes sense too, though there will be some macro short term consequences.
3. Goofy. Of course people who committed crimes should be prosecuted. But here this just appears to be a stand in for "average banker"
4. You can argue this one either way. The same law also affects unions etc. Characterizing this ruling as "Money is speech" is goofy. Also - how in the world are legislators and/or the president suppose to "overturn" a supreme court ruling? Separation of powers? Seriously, it's junk like this that makes these people seem so not-serious.
5. Some of it is a good idea, but with these kinds of things the devil's always in the details.
6. SEC should have more regulatory power. The consumer protection bureau - what does this have to do with anything? A bailout for people who took out huge debts in order to try and take advantage of the housing bubble and got burned is a bad idea. If anything it could create another housing bubble.
7. Sounds good on paper but there's no way you can do something like that in practice. Again, just shows out-of-touchness with reality.
8. Some sense in this though not sure how exactly this kind of prohibition would work and the "Law of Unintended Consequences" would most certainly apply.
9. Goofy.
10. Mostly irrelevant.
11. Maybe maybe not.
12. That'd be nice for me personally but I don't really see how it is related to the economy. It seems to be saying "you gave money to these people, gimme some too!". That's the wrong kind of thinking. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that.



This post has been edited by radek: Sun 16th October 2011, 2:40pm

[communicat]

I think you all might be missing a point at this point: the comparatively insular so-called "OWS movement" has evolved into an international movement of much larger proportions.

I think you have inverted causality here. It has evolved from an international movement of much larger proportions. The financial system went bust in 2007; in 2008 the financial empire deployed the US and European governments to respond with bailouts and austerity, at which point there were angry responses from the populations all over the world. This included the "Tea Party" stuff in 2009, which was not originally a controlled phenomenon, as well as the Arab Spring and the Indignados in Europe. OWS is simply the latest development in this progression.

I should add that most of the ideologies attributed to the protesters are actually damage control, coming from the controlled news media. The typical prostester is enraged about things he understands poorly at best. He is labile and could go in virtually any direction.

I get your drift, even if I don't necessarily agree with it. Yesterday's occupation of financial districts around the world is actually what you're referring to in another context as "the latest development in this progression". As for "typical prostester is enraged about things he understands poorly at best": you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know when you're being ripped off. As for platforms or the presence/absence thereof: who needs a platform when you've got a petrol bomb? (Just kidding, but cf., Rome yesterday).

[GlassBeadGame]

As regards: "... most Leftists are every bit as moronic as most Rightists. But I'll point you to an exception: a brilliant woman named Rosa Luxemburg": Yeah, and look what happened to her. The Left does not exactly have a tradition of killing off brilliant intellectuals (with the possible exception of Trotsky, and nobody really knows for sure who exactly was behind that ...).

I heard Stalin even sent flowers.

To misquote Rosa only slightly: Roe, you epitomise the evil of banality.

Misquotes Rosa quite a lot. That is Arendt.

Whoops; sorry, my mistake. The misquoted "evil of banality" still holds true in respect of Roe/Jayjg (and I've definitely got his name right -- no room for confusion with any other brilliant intellectual there).

No need to apologize to a Googlelectual. After all it is information he did not possess five minutes ago and won't know five minutes from now. If anything mis-quoting/attributing demonstrates a slightly more authentic relationship with the information.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

As for "typical prostester is enraged about things he understands poorly at best": you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know when you're being ripped off.

True -- but history teaches us that you do need to be the equivalent of a rocket scientist to know how to change the situation without making it worse. Compare the success of the American revolution with the miserable failure of the French one.

[communicat]

As for "typical prostester is enraged about things he understands poorly at best": you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know when you're being ripped off.

True -- but history teaches us that you do need to be the equivalent of a rocket scientist to know how to change the situation without making it worse. Compare the success of the American revolution with the miserable failure of the French one.

How to change the situation without making it worse? C'mon, the American economic situation couldn't possibly get worse. Far as the US Govt is concerned, not even a stimulus to the economy through increased military spending is probably going to work this time, though it has in the past. Still, come to think of it, why all this sudden flurry of current sabre-rattling at Iran? Never mind; just a thought.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

C'mon, the American economic situation couldn't possibly get worse.

Fasten your safety belt, it can get much worse.

[anthony]

Seems to be a fair amount of international coherence in protestors' opposition to their respective governments bailing out of private financial institutions with the use/abuse of public money, inter alia, including so-called "austerity measures". That's the platform.

I wish it were the platform (the whole platform, and nothing but the platform). But the truth is it's a very small part of Occupy Wall Street, and not even a very large part of the current Tea Party movement.

On top of that, I don't think you'll get much agreement between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street about what, if anything, the government should do instead.

[Zoloft]

C'mon, the American economic situation couldn't possibly get worse.

Fasten your safety belt, it can get much worse.

Indeed it can. If there is no progress on rebuilding the basic infrastructure of this country, correcting the lack of working capital in the hands of small to medium businesses, and removing the disastrous tax cuts in upper brackets (a massive theft from government resources), all it will take is a relatively small shove (drop in oil production, one more Euro crisis, another banking scandal, poor Xmas season) and the economy could start a slide from which it will not recover for a decade or two. Persistent unemployment in the 15 to 20 percent range and dropping or stagnant GDP until 2030 or longer is quite possible. You wouldn't recognize this country at the end of that period.

[The Joy]

Maybe I should post pornographic cartoons on this thread.
(Wikipedia looooves cartoons.)

Just link to Wikimedia Commons, Eric. That's all you need to do!

[communicat]

As for "typical prostester is enraged about things he understands poorly at best": you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know when you're being ripped off.

True -- but history teaches us that you do need to be the equivalent of a rocket scientist to know how to change the situation without making it worse. Compare the success of the American revolution with the miserable failure of the French one.

History also teaches us that there's no correlation whatsoever between the American and French revolutions; it's like comparing apples with pineapples.

Meanwhile, it's amusing to note the innuendo in this (completely off-topic) discourse about OWS that seems to imply the protestors are themselves to blame for the economic chaos because they don't have a "platform" or manifesto for economic recovery. It's like blaming the victims for their victimisation. The protest movement (which is now international and focused on all major financial districts, not only Wall St), is just that: a protest movement, not a reform movement. They're simply saying to all the official policy makers and government-sponsored think-tanks: "We've had enough of your bullshit. Come up with some meaningful reforms that do not further punish the victims."

[Herschelkrustofsky]

As for "typical prostester is enraged about things he understands poorly at best": you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know when you're being ripped off.

True -- but history teaches us that you do need to be the equivalent of a rocket scientist to know how to change the situation without making it worse. Compare the success of the American revolution with the miserable failure of the French one.

History also teaches us that there's no correlation whatsoever between the American and French revolutions; it's like comparing apples with pineapples.

Meanwhile, it's amusing to note the innuendo in this (completely off-topic) discourse about OWS that seems to imply the protestors are themselves to blame for the economic chaos because they don't have a "platform" or manifesto for economic recovery. It's like blaming the victims for their victimisation. The protest movement (which is now international and focused on all major financial districts, not only Wall St), is just that: a protest movement, not a reform movement. They're simply saying to all the official policy makers and government-sponsored think-tanks: "We've had enough of your bullshit. Come up with some meaningful reforms that do not further punish the victims."

Communicat, think before you post. There was a massive correlation between the American and French revolutions; the French revolution was directly inspired by the American. In its initial stage, an important role was played by friends of Benjamin Franklin, Jean-Sylvain Bailly and Gen. Marquis de Lafayette. However, the situation was skillfully manipulated by agents of the British (such as Jean-Paul Marat,) who feared that the establishment of an American-style republic in Europe might start a trend, and the revolution became a senseless bloodbath followed by the dictatorship of Napoleon.

No one is "blaming the victims," but one way to guarantee that the OWS movement is a massive failure is to expect "all the official policy makers and government-sponsored think-tanks" to "come up with some meaningful reforms that do not further punish the victims." Not going to happen. The protesters are going to have to learn something about history and economics themselves, so that they know what to demand. They are going to have to become a "reform movement," or they will simply become the pretext for martial law and a coup d'etat.