#OccupyWallStreet: Searching for Hope in America

[cal04]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/163462/occupywallstreet-searching-hope-america

Adbusters, the nonprofit, anti-consumerist organization, made the first call for an occupation of Wall Street back in July when they posted an article on their website titled “#OCCUPYWALLSTREET.” The rallying cry proposed a massive occupation of Wall Street—some 20,000 individuals—a “fusion of Tahrir with the acampadas of Spain.” The group declared: “It’s time for democracy not corporatocracy.”

(snip)
Spurring a Tahrir or Spanish revolution was an incredibly lofty goal, and all told, about a thousand protesters made it down to Wall Street. It seems some element—some unseen ingredient—is missing from America’s climate to spur the great cultural revolution seen in the Arab world. Of course, everyone has a different diagnosis for why the anti-establishment mass protests haven’t hit America’s shores yet.

(snip)
“My home has been seized, I’m unemployed, there’s no job prospects on the horizon. I have two children and I don’t see a future for them. This is the only way I see to effect change,” he says. “This isn’t a progressive issue. This is an American issue. We’re here to take our country back from the corporations,” adding he fears for the future of the United States where corporations can now spend unlimited, anonymous dollars to elect the candidates of their choices.

(snip)
Of course, it’s become a cliché to pine for an American Tahrir. Nowhere is it written that a revolution must follow a specific formula in order to be effective. Perhaps America’s revolution won’t happen with a bang as it did in the case of the Arab Spring. It might have already arrived in the form of a gradual drip that began in Wisconsin, and then Ohio, and will arrive tomorrow as a flood in forty-eight other states.

Note: This is an early filing on the protest. The “general assembly” is still happening and the “occupation” part of the protest won’t begin until later this evening.

[ellenfl]

1. anti-consumerist? so they approve of wall street? eom

[tama]

3. Being smart?

Or genuinely perplexed? Or both?

Anti-consumerisT may be misleading, anti-consumerisM would be more correct. Consumerism and capitalism are linked, in the way that capitalistic growth needs consumerism - consuming more and mor just for the sake of consuming so that the "demand"-side would "create" more "supply" and thus more progit for capitalists. Debt driven consumerism doubles the capitalistic profits, interests from both consumer debts and supply side investments - until the house of cards collapses.

Consumerism has nothing to do with satisfying basic needs, consumerism is a collective mental disorder caused by corporate media mass hypnosis.

[ellenfl]

5. no, actually i was being dumb. didn't understand the terminology.

thanks for the clarification. you're right that 'anti-consumerism' would have been clearer.

ellen fl

[annm4peace]

2. great article and some great links about protesting and

the right to protest, especially how we can take over the sidewalks and our right to do so.

We aren't going to take back our country with voting and blogging. WE have to be in the street shutting down the system.

It is the only way they will listen. WE have the power, we just have to use it. WE can donate to groups who are taking action, WE can email our news stations and demand they cover the protests as much as they cover it.

[tcaudilllg]

4. They still look like smiling nice guys...

Invoke Blade Runner... dystopia.

Also the guy in the ninja suit looks like he's just cosplaying. This is NOT a revolution... this is a bunch of coddled kids playing with fire because it seems like a thrill. Did you think to ask your father to march with you? The local union? You have not labored under pain of death like happened in Arabia... the situation is not the same. The suits will be respectful to you... they are the people you went to high school with. If you want to be really brave, throw an egg at one of their limousines. Only the ones with limos are worth your time, anyway.