Somebody writing at the Tina Brown Newsweek doesn’t care for those Occupy Wall Street protesters, not at all. He knows, from his professor job at Yale and writing books about how people should be religious, that there’s no evil group of rich kleptocrats running the economy and the government to their advantage. What a wacky idea: “Few of the world’s ills are caused by nasty cabals full of rich people. Conspiracies of the wealthy are fun to imagine—in my novels I invent them often ….” Oh, we get it now, dude is trying to sell his novels. Okay, fine, everybody is trying to sell something, right? We get this. But now to the guy’s real point:
The dumb protesters, by locating their successful and media-savvy protest camp at the global icon of the capitalist financial system and home of the nation’s iconic stock exchange and many of its biggest financial institutions — YOU KNOW, WALL STREET, “THE FINANCIAL CAPITAL OF THE WORLD” LIKE THEY SAY ON BLOOMBERG RADIO FIFTY TIMES A DAY — instead of at some other less well-known isolated addresses of other financial institutions in other parts of Manhattan, well that just proves the protesters didn’t “do their homework.”
So then the guy gives the addresses of five other financial institutions along with Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, we guess so rampaging gangs of 99-percenters and Ocupados can take the subway on “day trips” and then pour into the lobbies of these glass towers and use the restrooms for pooping and “sink baths” and generally just enjoy another part of town for a few hours/weeks. This is actually an awesome idea, so thanks to the Daily Newsbeast and revolutionary prankster “Stephen L. Carter” for spreading the word. (We’ve helpfully linked each address to the Google Map for that location, so you can just use this as an Autumn Guide To Wandering Around Manhattan Fucking Up Other Shit.)
Could they be upset with Credit Suisse? No, because Credit Suisse is at 11 Madison Avenue, north of 24th, and well north of Wall Street. Maybe JPMorgan Chase? Alas, that grandly named firm is at 270 Park Avenue, north of Grand Central Terminal and miles from the demonstration. Citigroup? Nope: it’s at 399 Park Avenue, even farther away from Wall Street than JPMorgan Chase. (And not, please note, in the hideous “sore thumb” building that mars the Manhattan skyline still.)
Ah, well. Perhaps the demonstrators are angry at Goldman Sachs—everybody’s favorite “Wall Street” villain—whose glittering fortress at 200 West Street is a brisk walk from the protest site, and unlikely to have been hampered in any way. Around the corner from Goldman is the world headquarters of Merrill Lynch—but Merrill, which came near collapse in 2008, is nowadays a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America, and its corporate masters are located in Charlotte, N.C.
Even the eponymous Wall Street Journal, that most reliable defender of free-market capitalism, is no longer located anywhere near the boulevard for which it is named. The Journal’s headquarters at 1211 Avenue of the Americas are far closer to Central Park.
You know what else is at 1211 Avenue of the Americas? Spread the word! [Daily Newsbeast via Wonkette operative "Saint Rond"]
PS — Isn’t Ocupados a great name for the protesters both in New York and nationwide? This is our Love Offering to #OccupyWallStreet tonight. (You can have “99-percenters,” too, but Ocupados might be sexier.)
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Goldman and all the rest can run, but they cannot hide.
Yes they can. In the Cayman Islands and Switzerland and…
"Conspiracies of the wealthy are fun to imagine—in my novels I invent them often ….”
A douche writes what?
There really are not any cabals,or conspiracies of rich folk. Country clubs, private islands, gated communities, with a lot of "networking", sure. But that other stuff is totally made up.
Yeah, in order for the shit to be a conspiracy, they'd have to actually try and hide the vulgar displays of influence over our political system.
Just as those poor Socialists do at their picnics at the Bohemian Grove.
Someone needs to tell Stephen L. Carter that short form satire isn't as easy as it looks and should be left to experts unless he wants the world to know that he is a buffoonish hack.
Really?…Don't ocupados have tentacles?
Ocho tentáculos
Curiously, back when all of Central America was owned and operated by the United Fruit Company, it's nickname was El Pulpo.
That sounds like fiction.
That's what the Europeans said when people first described the platypus. Which rhymes with octopus and thus is totally relevant. Right?
Only in manga.
You think there might be any Yale students at the occupation? You wonder if any of them per chance work as cooks or waiters at the Yale Faculty Club? You know, the folks who serve this guy's food?
Heh.
So… food… Fight Club style?
When a member of the Skull and Bones Society tells you that cabals don't exist, you better believe him.
Or else.
"But the money that once supported a less fraught lifestyle did not vanish into Wall Street, or the coffers of greedy corporations; it just vanished. The world is less wealthy than it was four years ago."
I hope that by the time I sober up tomorrow, someone will be able to explain this to me.
People are poorer today because magic, and nothing to do with terrible economic policies aimed to enable the to wealthy accumulate more wealth, pay no attention to the taxless record profits and executive bonuses, or the burgeoning political finance industry whereby the super-wealthy "make it rain" on fuckstick politicians in exchange for that sweet sweet quid pro quo in the form of massive deregulation and unraveling of worker protections, none of that stuff has anything to do with it.
It's simply because magic, or possibly because the poor are Morally Weak.
Incidentally, if you're wondering why places like Denmark were relatively unscathed by the recession, still have a healthy, fairly content middle class and also have a robust social safety net, if the world just misplaced all of the poors' money in its couch cushions, the answer to that question is, you're a communist, and why do you hate America.
Sometimes I just love you, and then there are the times that I'm in love with you.
Think of it like gambling. Wall Street puts together 'securities' (made of crap) and then pays a 'rating agency' to grade them AAA (turning crap into gold) then the Wall Street lays down massive 'bets' (derivatives squared) that these 'securities' will fail to perform (lose money=money disappears)
Wall Street gets fees and kick backs and wins a massive bet when money disappears in this fashion.
Oh, the money disappears, alright; it disappeared right into the pockets of the short-sellers; stolen from the "investor-bettors" who believed the broker's fraudulent assurances that the derivative "investments" were a "safe" way to obtain double-digit returns. You could say that this is the way the markets are designed to work, except for the pesky fact that the short-sellers also made the market in these worthless derivative securities. Doesn't it take all the thrills out of investing when a huge killing is guaranteed on every sham transaction you make with the rubes out there beyond Wall Street? I guess maybe not; there's always the multi-billion dollar annual income to provide entertainment value for these jokers.
Please don't forget that they only pay 15% tax rate on "carried interest" of what is on occasion income in the Billions.
My lifestyle's pretty fraught too. Hate it when that happens. How can I un-fring my lifestyle, oh wise Stephen Carter?
Does Tina Brown insist the word "lifestyle" appear at least once in each article? When you see "Lifestyle Editor" on the masthead of a publication, does it refer to the person whose job it is to see to this? What does such a job pay? On that kind of salary, what kind of lifestyle can such an editor afford?
So many questions, so few answers.
And why do the poors insist on living the kind of lifestyle they do?
Really…If they'd read Vanity Fair and Vogue more carefully, they'd be better equipped to optimize their lifestyles. Silly Poors.
'Cuz they don't got any money!
No excuse, these magazines are available on the internets, for free.
Having a society free of government interference means many more choices. Many, many more choices of lifestyles.
In a libertarian utopia, you get to choose which kind of box you'd like to live in!
The money didn't vanish. Kenny-Boy Lay took it with him to Paraguay.
Ken Lay is alive!
You see, the situation is this; Money, and every other means of exchange that the rich use to convince others that they are rich, is worthless except for the value they are able to convice you that it holds. So, if they tell you your money is worth nothing tomorrow, and their teabags are all that you can buy food and shelter with (provided everyone goes along with them…and they wiil becuse what the hell do they know?), you're fucked. Unless you have lots of teabags….then , you know, fuck everybody, because you're rich! Lesson over. You're welcome.
the Ground Zero Ocupados.
You know, if the Ocupados really want to get people worked up and paying attention, they should start building a mosque.
Or a Ground Zero Atheist Center.
On a related note, I hear that the new ad campaign for the Home Depot Lawn and Garden department will feature the slogan, "Are You Good Without Sod?"
If not, spread your genetically modified seed liberally.
Here's hoping a few of the Ocupados migrate north to New Haven and stage a Shit In at a novelist/professors office.
"Escape from New York" pic FTW.
I think if I went into a nasty cabal full of rich people, I'd want to wear a condom and shower afterwards. Ick.
Listen, sometimes antibiotics aren't as effective as they used to be. Be careful out there.
Ocupados is what they say in Spain (and maybe Italy) when they are in a bathroom pooping.
I'm not sure how well I'd do with an Italian crossword puzzle.
In Italy, they have a different word for crossword puzzle.
They call it "Our Government."
Free education, a single government pension system, socialized medicine…no wonder Gold Man Sacks had to take down Greece, Italy, etc. It was embarrassing!
En Español, "ocupados" would imply a plural subject, rather than a singular. So, it's really only appropriate if you're using the bathroom for sexytimes. Or possibly if you're occupying both bathrooms simultaneously, my Spanish is a bit rusty.
Yeah you can buy 'em at the crappy department stores everywhere in Spain. It seemed appropriate considering the amount of public restroom usage the Ocupados are requiring in Lower Manhattan.
And the two Starbucks within a block of the Ocupados don't have restrooms, since they sit less than 20 people. (Everytime I get my soy mocha fix there are at least three requests from Ocupados and tourists about the lack of bathrooms.)
This is like in grade school one of my friends used to try to impress everyone by saying something like "you just can't trust those Ruskies – I mean the horror that goes on at KGB's Secret Torture HQ – at 492 Lenin Boulevard right across the street from the Gorky's Department Store"
This guy is right. The Ocupados should branch out. Start fighting against other powerful institutions with deep pockets and unfettered access influential politicians. Institutions with former members in positions of power, throughout government and big business. Like Yale.
You know what else is at 1211 Avenue of the Americas?
You know, Ken, if I didn't know better…
Hitler?
All of them, Katie?
Bob Hauk: Straight just like I said.
Snake Plissken: I'll think about it.
Bob Hauk: No time. Give me an answer.
Snake Plissken: Get a new president!
Bob Hauk: We're still at war, Plissken. We need him alive.
Snake Plissken: I don't give a fuck about your war… or your president.
Bob Hauk: Is that your answer?
Snake Plissken: I'm thinking about it.
Bob Hauk: Think hard. told you I wasn't a fool, Plissken.
Snake Plissken: Call me Snake.
This country needs Snake Plissken now.
Unfortunately, I'm guessing Snake is thinking "Fuck it, they're beyond my help…"
Thumbs up (way up) for Escape from New York. Every line out of Kurt Russell's mouth in that movie could be a t-shirt.
Kurt Russell? I heard he was dead.
Nah, he just moved to Vancouver BC with his squeeze Goldie.
It is pretty amazing how he does that with virtually no depth perception
Who knew protesting needed a Zagats Guide.
Oh, so because a lot of financial companies are headquartered away from Wall Street, the protesters as somehow stupid for protesting on that symbolically important street instead of elsewhere? Damn what a pedantic dick; he's pedicktic.
Somebody should have told the Teabaggers this back when Glenn Beck was doing his thing; after all, the Lincoln Memorial is a purely symbolic location, and they were in entirely the wrong part of DC to express what we all understood were their true grievances.
Wow, Glenn had a symbolic rally of a few hundred people that lasted a couple of hours? Did any news organization carry this? I know that Fox might have, in a pinch, but surely other news networks couldn't find the time for a "rally" of unknown people with a disparate number of vague demands. Did anyone famous come to this undocumented rally? Doesn't sound like news to me.
It was a bit of an odd location, considering most of the baggers wan to upend all the advances made since Lincoln's presidency.
Not to mention the accomplishments that King worked so hard for, which is obviously what Beck was trying to style himself as mimicking.
My point was mainly that if the Becktards had 'done their homework', in the words of Stephen L Carter, they would clearly have held their protest in Anacostia or Columbia Heights or somewhere, given the thing that actually had them aggrieved, and angry for realz..
I'd have paid money to see that bastard bring his circus across the river to Anacostia…
Lincoln=1st black president, so it fit their grievances well.
No snark here – my kid told us tonight how stupid the protests were and that no one was covering them so they couldn't be very important. I attempted to explain that massive protests of the past started small, so don't assume this won't get bigger and that if the US were to suddenly say "well no more social security" or "retirement age is now 95" that 20 million people marching on Wall Street would be pretty likely – so the "powers that be" ought to be paying attention to this.
I also pointed out that trillions of dollars were "missing" from the 2009 debacle and that it went somewhere and that there are goons out there praying for another collapse so they can "short" stuff and collect trillions more. I suggested that these are the people who should be investigated and that until they are led away in cuffs there would be a sense of missing justice.
He is a smart kid, but gets much of his info from friends – and then compares to the left wing ideas of dad, which is fine – that's what I've always preached – develop your own BS meter. But the point is that the teens of today are so wrapped up in their video games and YouTubes and the Googles that I fear they are the willing automatons of the Kochs, Murdochs and their creepy friends….
Not a pleasant thought….
I dunno pops the teens I know have the best BS detectors in the business. The insane amount of media they're exposed to from an early age forces them to figure out how to spot worthless garbage on the internet in real time.
Wait…. is this comment a plant? It sounds too stereotypically old curmudgeon:
"The Googles"?? I shoulda known by the "No snark here-" intro.
Putting my old curmudgeon hat on tonight! I should have just said the "inter-tubes"….
But I stand by my skepticism about teen's BS detectors. Google, Wikipedia are great stuff and I couldn't live without them, but it takes a little more reading and listening to develop the perspective to use them……. At least that's what I grumpilly believe!
Ok you passed my BS detector. My apologies.
Maybe the BS detector problem isn't this generation, but the age. For a teenager, what's true is less important than what the people you consider cool say is true.
My theory is that rock n' roll and punk rock are lame now, so hopefully protesting is going to become what starting a shitty band was in the 90's – a way to express yourself, piss off the authority figures, do something a bit dangerous, and meet some members of the opposite sex.
Music isn't dangerous anymore – in the 90's rock and roll or punk rock could still scandalize grown ups, whereas today it does not drive the culture and only the most uptight puritan still gets worried about it.
You can't meet girls at home playing Call of Duty. As long as we can get some young ladies to be impressed when a kid gets pepper sprayed by the man…
In the 90s? Rock hasn't scandalized grown ups since the 60s; in the 90s it was rap that could scandalize them.
As hard as it may be to believe now, parents were actually still worried about shit like Marilyn Manson in the 90's. Remember that Columbine shit? Apparently, he caused that.
Maybe this wasn't the case in the lefty-liberal-commie-hippie enclave that you were no doubt ensconced in, but in the Bible-belty areas, yeah.
I remember this show! But then Michael J Fox turned out to be a decent guy after all, in real life, so there's hope for your kid! (If he gets a time machine car or something.)
Or he'll end up working on Wall Street!
Oops, make mistake, johnnyzhivago. I indoctrinated my kids (3 of them) from the very start with my librul philosophy so that they had no choice but to become patchouli-loving, shower-hating, hippie kids (although one of them turned out to be Mormon, also, too. A Mormon feminist I might add, too, also, too).
Wait, what exactly is a Mormon feminist? I didn't realize such a thing was possible.
This is like a Catholic who uses birth control.
Yeah, I know, it's weird, but basically she doesn't accept the prevailing Mormon idea that women are not fit for the "preisthood", or are second-class citizens in general. There are websites for feminist Mormon women that she has linked me to. And she would make a good preacher. I watched her give her first testimony before her congregation (at that time) upon joining the church, and while all the others gave a typically tearful story about how they came to the church, etc., etc., she stood up there and gave a calm, composed 20-minute sermon! Now if I could just figure out what it is she likes about Mormon theology.
Is that you, Bill Bennett? Maybe your kid should take Latin.
Spoken like a true old.
Hey you know what would make a good novel? Write about how extremely complicated financially engineered derivatives were fraudulently given AAA ratings, pushed onto unsuspecting pension plans for a massive profit, precipating a severe recession when the asset pyramid inevitably imploded. Then these banks abuse their power to get the government to give a massive bailout to the financial institutions that ended up on the wrong side of the deal in order to ensure the profits of those of the right side of the deal. Meanwhile, even else suffers as the real economy shrinks with all of our brightest minds and dwindling resources going into a financial services sector that adds leeches off everyone else.
Sorry, but that's just aburd – no one would believe it. Seriously if you can't trust Wall Street, the banks and the Government – who can you trust?
I've told friends for years that if I could ever get a hold of a time machine, I'd go back in time to the 90s, write a history of the Dubya administration, and make a fortune publishing it and selling the movie rights to it as a dark comedy. No one at the time would take it otherwise.
In the movie version, who's gonna play Paul Krugman?
Sean Penn?
Ed Asner?
Abe Vigoda?
George Clooney.
But of course!
Kurt Vonnegut is missed. His novel on this subject would have made us all laugh through our tears, as we ate stale hobo beans, looking up occassionally to see if the public restroom was clear yet.
warriors come out to play…
Yeah, well, this guy, Stephen Foster or whatever is a well-known African-American Ivy League professor, so his reactionary opinions are supposed to hypnotize us lefties because we would never disagree with a black fellow. Amirite?
Wait…the pizza guy or the Kenyan? When there's more that one fellow of color I get all confused. Oh, no, wait, that would be my mother.
"But the money that once supported a less fraught lifestyle did not vanish into Wall Street, or the coffers of greedy corporations; it just vanished."
What a fucking idiot.
Just vanished into secret bank accounts, maybe.
Pretty soon, these will be the only kind of bank accounts worth having.
It vanished, mysteriously, into the Bermuda Triangle!
LITERALLY VANISHED
Like dust in the wind
Like a sperm into the void of space
Like a motherfucking Jedi in the mist
Does this guy teach humanities or something? oh, wait, religion. That explains it.
No way, he'll play a befuddled Bernanke.
So tired of shit like this: "news accounts suggest that the precise agenda of the group known as Occupy Wall Street is a bit unclear"
*sob* "Why are they protesting? WHYYYYY??" *sniff*
Yeah, nobody has any idea why the American people might be pissed off at Wall Street and the financial sector. No idea. We need an explicit and detailed list of the reasons as to why, because I just can't think of a reason. Nope.
If you don't know why, Stephen L. Carter Douche Esq. III, you are part of the problem, so please go ahead and fuck right off.
well, yes but you have to admit: the baggers had such a lock on a jewel like message: clear, conside, focused. generations will be looking to baggers for political strategy.
If there's one thing you can say about the Tea Party it's that its demands have been clear from the start.
Fer instance, the "Lyin' African" poster. Political demands made concise. Obama w/ Hitler mustache, clear. "I want my country back" was a devastating point by point take down/manifesto.
Watermelons in front of the White House, also, too.
The baggers have no solid demands except "get the nigra out of the WHITE house!!!!!1!"
Obama takes a right-wing think-tank proposal for "reforming" health care (via Mitt Romney), and it becomes OBAMARCARE!!!!!. He endorses the Republicans plans, and they become SOSHULISM!!!! It's not what he does, it's who he is.
GIVE ME BACK MY COUNTRY!!!!
SHUT IT DOWN !!!!!
Isn't that the Clear Channel strategy? They bought up a bunch of motorcycle racing events that all made money and just shut them the fuck down, and presumably made a profit doing it, so I guess it could work with "their" country, too.
right on …keep playing that tune and it may move right up the charts!
CAN"T… GIVE…ENOUGH…THUMBS….
This has been my complaint. even the journalists who claim to get it don't, See This.
No doubt. Wall Street concocted tranched mortgaged derivatives with 1000 pages of documentation that a grand total of 8 people on the planet could actually comprehend, they crashed the economy with these things and now they whine that some free thinking hippy can't explain to them, in detail, what actually went wrong.
Yeah, those stupid fucking protesters, picking the one location in the city that is literally a two minute march away from Wall Street, City Hall, the WTC memorial, the Brooklyn Bridge, the State Supreme Court, One Police Plaza, and also several pretty great bars, in a highly visible locale that's heavily trafficked by tourists, shoppers, and suits, and with relatively easy transit access from nearly anywhere in the five boroughs or New Jersey.
Yeah, those fucking morons. They clearly have no idea how to hold a protest, and therefore they need to be taught what's what by someone who lives and works in Connecticut, but also has access to Google Maps, and visits once or twice a year, and therefore knows everything about New York.
Fucking protests, how do they work?
Hippies come in, cops knock them out. Never a miscommunication.
Hippies come in, cops knock them out. You can't explain it.
HOW DID THE COPS GET THERE? HUH? HUH?
I know when I want to know how to have a successful protest I look to Newsweek. Fucking Newsweek! They're still around? Like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog says "Yeah for me to poop on!"
Hey Steve? Pull my finger.
OK everyone please calm down, you're freaking me out.
What's the thing at the top of the 1211 6th Avenue????
http://images.wikia.com/custombionicle/images/3/3...
Nevermind that the wealthy don't even need to have a conspiracy at all in order to burn the nation to the ground for fun and profit. All they need to do is act in their own 'rational self interest' with no pesky 'government regulations' or 'ethics' to hold them back!
Is that you, Mrs. Greenspan?
Hey, now, she's a dispassionate news person who reports fairly and accurately on things poors need to know and believe.
Tragedy of the Commons, yeah. And today, we're all pretty damned common.
Self-righteous, truly elitist, passive-aggressive prig says what?
Yes, wealth is magic, indeed. How convenient.
How long did it take for us to realize what the Tea Party was protesting (a bunch of shit that didn't actually happen, such as the Obama tax hikes, or that had happened during the previous administration, such as massive increases in government spending and the bail-outs)? I'd say Occupy Wall Street is ahead of the curve.
Tea Party With Brains: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/occupy-wall-stre...
"But the money that once supported a less fraught lifestyle did not vanish into Wall Street, or the coffers of greedy corporations; it just vanished."
More people need to read their Buckminster Fuller (my own personal Ayn Rand) Wealth equals (something like this, I'm paraphrasing) Resources x Manpower and Energy x State of Technology.
As technology advances, the world gets richer and richer every day. We may be losing to these bastards politically but, if we can survive them, things will eventually get better.
Shit, thank goodness,my Dymaxion Lifestyle can't arrive any sooner than after a complete collapse of Western Civilization!
Yeah, go Bucky! "Those who make money with money deliberately keep it scarce. Money is not wealth."
gurukalehur, did you take some optimism pills today? Do you have any left?
Well, if he isn't just the anti-Malthus. I was mainly just familiar with the geodesic domes that became popular with hippies in the 70's, and with the awesome carbon compounds that share his name. The Wiki suggests the he was sort of a weirdo in a way that reminds me strongly of one of my friends in particular, also, but none of that really has much bearing on whether I actually think he's right here, necessarily.
The pessimistic Malthusian take, that technological change has, by and large, merely increased population without positively impacting quality of life, as we all rush headlong past the carrying capacity of the planet, certainly seems a bit more plausible.
As the literary critic (nee former) for Newsweek, I recall my take on Stephen L. Carter's genius in aligning words….."Carter's work is ten percent perspiration and 90% defecation."
!!! Well crafted.
WTF, they should just OccupyEverywhere. And if that does not work they should OccupySpace.
An Uncle Tom is always the first person I turn to when I want advice about where to hold my protest, occupation or lynching.
Uhm, Stephen, uhm, can I call you Steve? Next time you're researching ideas and background for a novel about an improbably nasty cabal full of rich people, you might look into the findings of the McCormack-Dickstein Committee in the House of Representatives during 1934 and 1935. Especially the testimony of major General Smedley Butler. Could be something there for you to use.
Nice call, Mini. Everybody should read "War is a Racket"; maybe wars wouldn't be sold so easily.
"But the money that once supported a less fraught lifestyle did not vanish into Wall Street, or the coffers of greedy corporations; it just vanished."
Actually, that money went to those bankers who ran off scot – free after the 2008 implosion, with their severances intact…
Idiot.
Some of the brightest people I have personally known went to Yale (true fact). But after the past 10, 12 years, I'm really beginning to wonder if it they've been lying to me all these years.
I'm perfectly happy with the possibility that people who go or went to Harvard'n'Yale'n'the like are smarter than I am. But wouldn't it be nice if they weren't so goddamn smug about it?
I've always heard that Yale is the kind of school where they pick people out they think will be successful in the future, then drag them kicking and screaming through 4 years of college to graduation.
And just like in the real world, after they drag your ass to graduation, you still gotta be white/connected to get a good job! So you see, for some of us, smugness is all I have left.
Yay for life lessons at fancy schools that were more valuable than reading Hobbes.
I knew Carter was the 5th TV on the Radio…or is he Kyp Malone, all shaved down:
what if all the fathers and the sons
went marching with their guns
drawn on washington.
that would seal the deal,
show if it was real,
this supposed freedom.
what if all the bleeding hearts
took it on themselves
to make a brand new start.
organs pumpin on their sleeves,
paint murals on the white house
feed the leaders L.S.D
grab your fife and drum,
grab your gold baton
and let's meet on the lawn,
shut down this hypocrisy.
Carter USM? The Unstoppable Shit Machine?
I mean, I really hope it happens. Lord knows I'm doing my part. But I still find it hard to believe that anything other widespread bloodshed will produce results.
"Merrill, which came near collapse in 2008, is nowadays a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America, and its corporate masters are located in Charlotte, N.C."
Excellent! 'Cause winter's coming, and a southern migration until spring might be just the thing an ongoing protest needs. Thanks for the great idea Professor Stephen L. Carter! (And I bet BoA thanks you too!)
I staged my protest by convincing my elderly mother to transfer her accounts from Bank of America to the local credit union. I don't think I would have been successful, but that fee on the ATM cards pushed her over the edge. Thanks, BoA!
(I didn't bother explaining that the fee didn't apply to her … and neither did the associate at the credit union. Ohhh, we're such subversives.)
Goodonya, J!
My experience with B of A is that even if that fee doesn't apply, they'll find another way to gouge you. I dumped them years ago for a credit union, and I couldn't be happier about it.
Lovely!
THIS is precisely the kind of direct action the fatcats fear the most. Put enough momentum behind it & they WILL feel pain – with no recourse to pepper-spray or billy-clubs or rubber bullets. One closed account sends a message better than a thousand angry letters.
Arianna Huffington had a "pull your accounts out of the major banks" campaign going right after the bailout. It didn't seem to catch fire, but I'm convinced she'd have more luck if she revived it now. For some reason it takes awhile to piss off most Americans.
So, in other words, marching on Washington, for example, is not a good idea because the seat of power is at 1211 Avenue of the Americas? He may have a point.
Under his Fedora, Paris.
I enjoyed the part of the novel where the poor financial firms had to lay off thousands of workers and not pay bonuses as a result of the magical disappearance of all the money due to complex and subtle thingys. Some of which, I believe, included multi-million dollar severance packages for the weasels who dreamed up the crazy-ass leveraged investment vehicles in the first place. Yeah, that part was really sad.
"Occupados"? I prefer: "True Americans".
Who cares what that asshat thinks. NY has not been this much fun since 1968.
I hope someone is making a list of all these lying douchebags and corporate whores spewing their brown-nosey collusion onto our internets, so the 99% can boycott their stupid books, classes, and publications forever.
I wish "The New York Experience" was still around. They could update it with footage of 9/11, Occupy Wall Street, and the demise of Western Civilization.
So, how much longer before the movement storms the NYSE and forms a sit-in on the trading floor? That's the eventual plan, right?
Maybe the best way the "Ocupados"** can thank him is by insuring those places are occupied too.
**I hope everyone is also thanking nonogenarian Resistance fighter Stephane Hessel and his 30-page "Indignez-Vous!" for this movement and for the name.
The scariest thing about the Wall Streeters comments on the protesters is how clear it makes it that they have no fucking clue how the system they work in actually works. It's stunning.
They know. They're just being dicks about it.
Their livelihoods depend on their "ignorance".
And ours! It's amazing how stupid everyone has to be for this rock to keep on turning.
That's a very convenient article! Now we know all know the addresses to send the anthrax and letter bombs to. Thanks, Steve!
"The money just vanished"
Seriously? You don't understand jack, do you dude? You have wealth circulating at high velocity in the service industry (90% of u.s. employment), increasing the number of employed and allowing families to actually have the time to raise their kids and see to their lives. You siphon this wealth off to Wall Street (which, without adding a single bit of value, went from 17% of GDP in 2000 to 40% of GDP by the crash in 2008) now the middle class no longer has any disposable income, but instead is saddled with debt from trying to stay afloat (debt conveniently issued by Wall Street through derivatives) and now employment shrinks because the service industry is shrinking and now the velocity of money slows as asset deflation sets in exacerbating the decline in access to credit, making the masses of households a poor credit risk, so credit is withdrawn, causing households to spend even less in the sectors that employ most of the middle class, therefore shrinking hours worked and income . . . (lather, rinse, repeat)
Seriously. That's what happened to the fucking money. And I'm not even in finance and I don't have a fucking column in a paper and I fucking know this.
╭∩╮（︶︿︶）╭∩╮ Obama and your voters
Sorry about this but there are a couple of points to make here:
1. Fuckstick should read "13 Bankers, The Wall Street Take Over and the Next Financial Meltdown," by Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, current MIT prof, if he wants to understand how the system works.
2. The OWS Park is not actually on Wall Street, it is on Broadway, the NYPD has occupied Wall Street for the duration. And you know what is also NOT on Wall Street? Yah that's right the New fucking York fucking Stock fucking Exchange! (It's on Broad Street around the corner.)
3. Other addresses to use: Standard and Poors: 55 Water, a few blocks away; 1 New York Plaza, where G&S bundled mortages were moved internationally (one block from S&P), and Chase International Transactions building, which just happens to be right between the two above. (There is a big park between S&P and Chase, and 1 NY Plaza has, surprise, a PLAZA out front!)
Who else is waiting for some Cairo shit to go down? I don't give a fuck anymore, even if it goes from Tahrir Square to Tianamen Square. Then the masses would at least see how much our country actually is like China and all the rest.
I suppose Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden are just architecture critics gone tragically homicidal.
Let's just hope Ocupados don't become Desaparecidos. Keep the Faith, compadres!
From the article: "Isn’t Ocupados a great name for the protesters…?"
Ken–
That should be ocupadores. "Ocupados" means they're occupied, which hasn't happened yet, because Mayor Bloomberg still hasn't gotten around to fucking them all.
I'm probably gonna lose some points for this, but I actually don't see a problem with the constructive complaint that the OWS protests lack a clear goal. The complaint is based on mixed signals from major media outlets' coverage of the protests. Each news outlet carries with it a different viewpoint, and Carter's, or the Daily Beast's in general, is no different. So for people who absorb more media and receive more mixed messages, the goal becomes more muddled in the views of each reporting outlet.
If the protest is supposed to be symbolic in nature, then the question is who is more important to appeal to? MORE of the 99%, until it eventually grows so big that everyone becomes part of the protest, or the 1%, until they eventually become scared and notice?
The word "Ocupados" brings to the mind of the average US citizen the Marxist/Communist revolutionary movements of Central and South America. This has negative conotations, to say the least. For the Wall Street protestors to accept this moniker would be as stupid a decision as when the anti-communist Russians took the name "menshevik", which means "minority".
The protestors should be focusing on the fact that most of what takes place on Wall Street, or at the lesser known addresses of huge financial institutions, isn't investment, or even speculation; it is legalized fraud.
I closed my accounts at Chase after the bailout. I really liked the people at my branch and when I closed the accounts I explained to the branch manager that I was sorry, but I felt compelled to do it as the only way I could meaningfully protest the industry's role in our financial crisis. He literally hung his head as I said to him, "Your bank is structured to service the rich and I am not one, so it's clear I don't belong here." He replied, "I hear you." I'm sure he did, but I don't think his bosses will miss me.
I was hoping the living target in that photo was Lloyd Blankfein, but I think it's Donald Pleasance. Pity.
This comment is well late, but the French newspapers are calling them indignés, kinda based on this.
I have a sneaking suspicion that a healthy dose of 'seed' is being spread liberally in Barryville.
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