Occupy Wall Street, Part 4: More Articles, Some Video

Dylan Ratigan, "Constitutional Moments: The People's Voice," The Huffington Post, 14 October 2011.

Jeffrey Sachs, "Message to Wall Street," The Huffington Post, 17 October 2011.

Glen Greenwald, "What Are Those OWS People So Angry About?," Salon.com, 17 October 2011.
Greenwald is the author of the forthcoming book: With Liberty and Justice For Some.

Anne Applebaum, "Is the Occupy Movement Anti-Democratic?," Slate.com, 17 October 2011.
How can we explain the kind of thinking that's on display in this article? It is well know that devotion to ideology can make people say and do stupid things. But I think it's more than just ideology in this case: if the people were to regain control of their government (from the banks and other corporations that now control it) and began to investigate and prosecute economic crimes, the people's government might also have the power and fortitude to prosecute war crimes, and that is something the neo-conservatives and their puppets must fear. So I'd expect to hear more obfuscatory nonsense from the neocon sympathizers.
For more right-wing ideologists see Pajamas Media.

Carol Smith, "A Victory for #OccupyWallStreet in the Most Unlikely of Places?," naked capitalism, 18 October 2011.

Yves Smith, "Tom Ferguson: Congress is a 'Coin Operated Stalemate Machine'," naked capitalism, 18 October 2011.
One of the sources of the U.S.'s problem is a systemically corrupt political system. Exposing and understanding the mechanics of the corruption is very helpful. Thomas Ferguson shows how the corruption works in the U.S. Congress.

James Rickards, "Jim Rickards’ First Hand Account of Occupy Wall Street Protest: Shine a Light," King World News, 14 October 2011.
Rickards is the author of the forthcoming book: Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis.

David Graeber, "On Playing By The Rules – The Strange Success Of #OccupyWallStreet," naked capitalism, 19 October 2011.
Graeber is the author of the recently published book: Debt: The First 5,000 Years.

Russ, "Underlying Ideology of the 99," Volatility, 12 October 2011.

RiverDaughter, "OccupyWallStreet: We have been starving the wrong beast," The Confluence, 17 October 2011.

Bureau of Public Secrets, "The Awakening in America," Bureau of Public Secrets, 15 October 2011.

Chris Hedges, Interview at Times Square NYC, OccupyNYTV, 15 October 2011.
Also posted at MaxKeiser.com, 19 October 2011.
Hedges makes several notable comments in this brief interview, including: on the nature of social movements; on the failures of U.S. establishment leaders.
See also the OccupyNYTV channel at YouTube.
A talk by Chris Hedges last year: "Death of the Liberal Class", 17 October 2010.

Keith Boykin, "Everything the Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong," The Huffington Post, 19 October 2011.

Brandon Smith, "Sausage the Riot Dog Coming to America?," Zero Hedge, 10 October 2011.

Michael Nagler and Stephanie Van Hook, "Corporations are not people: We hold these truths to be self-evident...," Waging Nonviolence, 11 October 2011.

Phil Rockstroh, "Punching a Hole in Bubbles of Denial and Addiction: Late Capitalism and Its Discontents of the American Autumn," CommonDreams.org, 13 October 2011.
Unusually poetic and philosophical expression of the sensibility behind movements like Occupy Wall Street.

"American Autumn," Adbusters #98, Nov/Dec 2011.

Ron Boyer, "'American Autumn' Will Depend on People, Not Parties," Truthout, 26 September 2011.
An interview with Margaret Flowers of October2011.org.

Michel Chossudovsky, "Occupy Wall Street and 'The American Autumn': Is It a 'Colored Revolution'? Part I," Global Research, 13 October 2011.

Amy Goodman, "Former Financial Regulator William Black: Occupy Wall Street a Counter to White-Collar Fraud," Democracy Now!, 19 October 2011.

Andy Kroll, "How Occupy Wall Street Really Got Started," Mother Jones, 17 October 2011.

Charles Hugh Smith, "Semi-Random Notes on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement," Of Two Minds, 20 October 2011.


A Sampling of Right-Wingers:

Jonah Goldberg, "Sorting Out the ‘Extremists’: The difference between Wall Street protestors and the Tea Party," National Review Online, 07 October 2011.

Mark Steyn, "American Autumn: The zombie youth 'occupying' Wall Street are contemptuous of the world that sustains their comforts," National Review Online, 08 October 2011.

Mark Steyn, "Crisis of Decadence: A society can live on the accumulated capital of a glorious inheritance for only so long," National Review Online, 15 October 2011.

Victor Davis Hanson, "Railing Against Reality: What are the root causes of the multifaceted unrest in the Western world?," National Review Online, 20 October 2011.

My summary: There is a uniform unwillingness or inability among the right-wingers to recognize the variety of issues that mobilize Organize Wall Street but fall outside the right-wing cliches and themes they have used for decades to attack their political opponents. For example, corporate fraud, government corruption, and the active participation of the corrupt two-party political duopoly in enabling corporate fraud are absent from their analysis.

But I do commend Steyn for recognizing the serious problem of student debt. Why would a society impose a huge debt burden on people seeking higher education? Christopher Newfield has addressed some of this problem in Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class (2008; 2011).

Occupy Wall Street, Part 3: Recent Articles and Videos

(My previous posts on this topic are: Part 1; Part 2.)

General Sources:

http://occupywallst.org/.

Occupy Wall Street Media, Kickstarter.
Has links to The Occupied Wall Street Journal.

Wall Street protests, The Progressive.

Occupy Wall Street, The Guardian.

Occupy Wall Street, CommonDreams.org.

Occupy Wall Street, Al Jazeera English.


Articles & Videos:

Reggie Middleton, "Why Occupy Wall Street When You Can Control Wall Street?," BoomBustBlog, 12 October 2011.
Also posted at MaxKeiser.com.
This 24 minute video is both entertaining and contains informative economic statistics (I paused it several times to look at the charts, tables, etc.). In particular, US real estate prices are a long way from bottoming. And there's a great Malcolm X video included.
Also, I endorse Reggie's observation in the notes to the video on BoomBustBlog regarding the non-existence of a middle class. People whose main income source is Wages (see Line 7 of your IRS Form 1040) are working class, however high their wages. The middle class is better understood as the comfortable working class. Splitting the middle class from the working class is part of a divide-and-rule strategy; consider, for example, the anti-union sentiment among the middle class. I think it's necessary to discuss these economic class issues to help people recognize that they should identify with the 99% who have legitimate grievances against exploitative corporations and a corrupt government that serves those corporations instead of the people.
I am less optimistic about the idea of organizing large numbers of small depositors - "Depositor Activism" - to force banks to change their policies. The weakness is not just in the "herding cats" aspect of the idea. Given how the banks now control the corrupt U.S. government, I expect the organizers of such a campaign would face illegal and highly punitive actions by the government; they would be subjected to the kinds of arbitrary "asset forfeiture" confiscations now used in other areas. (You do know what the U.S. government does to people it unilaterally declares are "terrorists" or "unlawful enemy combatants," don't you?)

trashtelevision, "Occupy Wall Street Simplified," YouTube.
This does indeed vastly oversimplify the issues, by focusing only on the bailouts.

Steve Fraser, "Tomgram: Steve Fraser, The Street of Torments; The All-American Occupation: A Century of Our Streets Vs. Wall Street," TomDispatch, 13 October 2011.
Tom Engelhardt's introduction describes a demonstration by the Egyptian Association for Change, USA in support of Occupy Wall Street that took place in Washington Square Park during the weekend of 08-09 October.

John Feffer, "The Age of Activism," Foreign Policy in Focus, 15 March 2011.

John Feffer, "Wall Street (Unlike)," Foreign Policy in Focus, 11 October 2011.

Ariel Dorfman, "Tomgram: Ariel Dorfman, A Warning for Barack Obama; Salvador Allende Has Words for Barack Obama from the Other Side of Death," TomDispatch, 09 October 2011.
Tom Engelhardt's introduction describes a march out of Zuccotti Park with Occupy Wall Street on Wednesday, 05 October.

Ariel Dorfman, "Ariel Dorfman's Message to Youth Who Want Change," The Nation, 22 September 2011.

Paul Krugman, "Losing Their Immunity," The New York Times, 16 October 2011.

Nicholas D. Kristof, "America’s ‘Primal Scream’," The New York Times, 15 October 2011.

October 15th - Global Day Of Action, Occupy Wall Street.

Bernie Sanders, "Six Demands to Make of Wall Street," CommonDreams.org, 12 October 2011.

Peter Dreier, "Will Occupy Wall Street Be Co-opted?," The Huffington Post, 12 October 2011.

Barbara Ehrenreich, "The Guys in the 1% Brought This On," The Progressive, 12 October 2011.

David J. Lynch, "Growing Income Gap May Leave U.S. Vulnerable," Bloomberg.com, 13 October 2011.

Jeff Madrick, "A Zuccotti Park Education," NYRblog at The New York Review of Books, 11 October 2011.
You can watch Stiglitz's & Madrick's afternoon teach-in here.

Immanuel Wallerstein, "The Fantastic Success of Occupy Wall Street," Commentary No. 315, Fernand Braudel Center - SUNY Binghamton, 15 October 2011.

EuroCatalyst, "Kyle Bass @ AmeriCatalyst 2010 | 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind', 2010.
via: Tyler Durden, "Some Words of Advice from Kyle Bass," Zero Hedge, 16 October 2011.
The charts and interpretation by Kyle Bass explain why the Europeans have been acting so desperately to prevent a sovereign debt default by Greece and the other PIIGS. Zero Hedge also has many articles showing how interlinked the large international banks are in their holdings of various debt instruments. Hence the propping-up of Dexia recently. One big sovereign or bank default and Bass's domino default scenario starts to happen.

Juan Cole, "Mayor Bloomberg and Occupy Wall Street by the Numbers," Informed Comment, 15 October 2011.

Chris Hedges, "A Movement Too Big to Fail," TruthDig, 15 October 2011.

George Washington, "Is Anyone Dumb Enough to Believe that Obama Supports the 99%?," Washington's Blog, 17 October 2011.

Russ Certo, "'A Walk In The Park' - A High Level Banker's Take On #OccupyWallStreet... And Other Musings," Zero Hedge, 17 October 2011.
This is not a satire of banker cluelessness. It's the real thing!

"Map: See Major Events and Arrests From #OWS," Mother Jones, 04 October 2011.
Article also includes informative economic data.

Matt Taibbi, "My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters: Hit bankers where it hurts," Rolling Stone, 12 October 2011.

Eliot Spitzer, "Occupy Wall Street Has Already Won," Slate.com, 13 October 2011.

Alan Taylor, "Occupy Wall Street Spreads Beyond NYC," The Atlantic, 07 October 2011.
A nice collection of photographs.

Max Keiser rallies the troops in Greece – Syntagma, Athens 16/6/11, MaxKeiser.com, 15 October 2011.
The two videos here show Max Keiser was doing #OccupyWallStreet-type consciousness raising in June 2011 in Greece; he speaks to the Athens Lawyers Association and to a large outdoor crowd.
If you're interested in hearing more I recommend "[KR197] Keiser Report – Pirates & Protesters!," 15 October 2011.

Brian Rogers, "Guest Notes From The Sales Desk - A Few Thoughts On The Occupy Wall Street Movement," Zero Hedge, 14 October 2011.

Adrian Chen, Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD , gawker.com, 15 October 2011.
Adrian Chen, Right-Wing Rabble-Rouser Leaks Thousands of Occupy Wall Street Emails, gawker.com, 15 October 2011.
Another self-appointed agent provocateur and, like last week's, he's a right-wing exhibitionist.

My opinion: among many other reforms, the U.S. needs a new Pecora Commission. This was discussed on Bill Moyers Journal, 24 April 2009.
William K. Black is frequently suggested as the leader of a new Pecora Commission. He is ready and willing: "Enforce the Laws for the 99%", 17 October 2011.

Occupy Wall Street, Part 2: What & Why are they protesting? Some answers.

There is no excuse for any confusion about the concerns / demands / objectives of #OccupyWallStreet, as we have heard so frequently from the propagandists for the status quo. The issues are obvious to the 99%. Further, we recognize the mainstream media protestations that "they have no spokesman" and "they have no list of demands" as feeble excuses to avoid an open discussion of issues that would threaten an insecure and corrupt establishment, a status quo whose illegitimacy increases by avoiding and denying open discussions. Here are some explicit expressions of our concerns.

Alan Grayson explains it to the nihilistic right-winger P.J. O'Rourke:
"Alan Grayson on Occupy Wall Street," Real Time with Bill Maher, 07 October 2011.
Here's a longer excerpt from that episode showing the other panelists wallowing and festering in their snide faux ignorance: link.

Some articles by Digby and from her blog Hullabaloo:

• Heather Digby Parton, "The class warfare the rich don't understand," Al Jazeera English, 10 October 2011.
• Digby, "Dissonance among the peasants," Hullabaloo, 12 October 2011.
• David Atkins, "Poor widdle babies," Hullabaloo, 12 October 2011.

Some video reports:

• Hip-Hop Artist Immortal Technique: No More Free Passes for Our Government, Democracy Now!, 11 October 2011.
  This is only a small sampling of Democracy Now!'s excellent reporting on Occupy Wall Street.
• Andre Damon and C. W. Rogers, "Youth speak on the Democratic Party and socialism," World Socialist Web Site, 11 October 2011.
  Don't fear the S-word. Check out Roy Zimmerman's song "Socialist!"

A website for general education:
Connect the Dots: Civics & Policy Basics for the Busy Majority

The editors of Foreign Affairs get it:

• Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, "The Fight for 'Real Democracy' at the Heart of Occupy Wall Street: The Encampment in Lower Manhattan Speaks to a Failure of Representation," Foreign Affairs, 11 October 2011.
• Sidney Tarrow, "Why Occupy Wall Street is not the Tea Party of the Left," Foreign Affairs, 10 October 2011.
• George Packer, "The Broken Contract," Foreign Affairs, 11 October 2011.

Paul Krugman gets it:

• Paul Krugman, "Confronting the Malefactors," The New York Times, 06 October 2011.
• Paul Krugman, "Panic of the Plutocrats," The New York Times, 09 October 2011.

Henry Blodget at The Business Insider gets it; he explains things perhaps more simply, and with lots of charts:

• Henry Blodget, "CHARTS: Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About...," The Business Insider, 11 October 2011.
• Henry Blodget, "Finally, A Clear Explanation Of What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About," The Business Insider, 09 October 2011.
• Henry Blodget, "KRUGMAN: Hurray For The Wall Street Protests — Finally Americans Are Angry At The Right People," The Business Insider, 07 October 2011.
  But this article doesn't mention the massive frauds practiced by people in the mortgage industry, that was instigated and encouraged by the banks.

An unfortunate but necessary concern: that #OccupyWallStreet may be co-opted by the status quo:

• Glen Greenwald, "Can OWS be turned into a Democratic Party movement?," Salon.com, 11 October 2011.
• Rick Klein, "Democrats Seek to Own 'Occupy Wall Street' Movement," ABC News / Yahoo! News, 11 October 2011.
• Eric Lichtblau, "Democrats Try Wary Embrace of the Protests," The New York Times, 10 October 2011.
• Bill Van Auken, "Ex-SDS leader seeks to herd Wall Street protest behind Obama," World Socialist Web Site, 12 October 2011.

Steve Keen: Interview 08 Oct 2011 and Launch Video 09 Oct 2011

Interview
[KR194] Keiser Report: Price Propaganda, The Keiser Report, 08 October 2011.
The interview with Steve Keen begins at 13:04.

Launch Video
Debunking Economics II Launch Video, Steve Keen's Debtwatch, 09 October 2011.
This is a 45 minute talk by Steve Keen followed by a talk by Ann Pettifor.
The organizers of the talk apologize for the flickering screen and provide a link to Keen's slides. Here's a copy of that link for the slides.


Steve Keen's book is: Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor Dethroned?, Zed Books, 2011.

Book information: Publisher; Book website; Amazon.com.

Steve Keen's website: Steve Keen's Debtwatch.


A summary of Keen's argument: George Monbiot, It's in all our interests to understand how to stop another Great Depression, The Guardian, 10 October 2011.


Bonus link:
Sign Language, Occupy Wall Street, 09 October 2011.

Occupy Wall Street, Part 1: Alternative Media Reactions to an Episode of Corporate Propaganda

"Naomi Klein: Protesters Are Seeking Change in the Streets Because It Won’t Come From the Ballot Box," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.

Cenk Uygur, "CNN Anchor Mocks Occupy Wall Street - Cenk Responds," The Young Turks, 06 October 2011.


As this episode illustrates, I think one can only conclude that the corporate media intentionally seeks to mislead its viewers (although of course they would deny that). In seeking to understand why the U.S. population is so ignorant, not only about the world outside U.S. borders, but about their own country, one must identify the source, the instrument, of their ignorance. As in many other cases it's too easy, and wrong, to blame the victims for their ignorance. They are deliberately kept ignorant and there is a reason why that ignorance is sustained, encouraged, promoted.

You can learn some of the history of the great American ignorance machine by watching Adam Curtis's film The Century of the Self (BBC, 2002).

Meanwhile, I encourage you to switch to the alternative media. Some examples:

• Democracy Now! (Amy Goodman)
• The Young Turks (Cenk Uygur)
• GRITtv (Laura Flanders)

Links on #OccupyWallStreet and/or the Media:

• Occupy Wall Street.
• Occupy Together.
• Occupy Austin.
• We Are The 99 Percent at Tumblr.
• October 2011: Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed (this is the "Stop the Machine" group).
• freeman, "Occupy Wall Street’s Misconceptions According to Obama’s Job Czar," FireDogLake, 10 October 2011.
  I have always thought that Jeff Immelt was a very strange choice by Obama for a U.S. "Jobs Czar". And after viewing Leslie Stahl's puff-piece I still think that.
• Charlie Grapski, "Anatomy of a Deception: How a Conservative Magazine Attempted to Discredit the Occupy Movement," FireDogLake, 10 October 2011.
  Agents provocateur, whether employed by the government or otherwise, will attempt to disrupt and subvert every popular movement.
• "Stéphane Hessel on Occupy Wall Street: Find the Time for Outrage When Your Values Are Not Respected," Democracy Now!, 10 October 2011.
  Links for Hessel's book Time for Outrage / Indignez-vous!: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.
• Yves Smith, "On #OccupyWallStreet and the Power of Open Source and Consensual Processes," naked capitalism, 10 October 2011.
• "Today Liberty Plaza had a visit from Slavoj Zizek," OccupyWallSt, 09 October 2011.
  I think Slavoj Zizek is one of the more interesting thinkers of our time.
• Yves Smith, "#OccupyWallStreet Publishes First Issues of 'The Occupied Wall Street Journal'," naked capitalism, 09 October 2011.
  You can read or download copies from this article. Also, BreakingCopy website has copies and links for Issue 1 and Issue 2.
• MontanaMaven, "Is This the Start of the Century of 'We'?," Corrente, 08 October 2011.
• Brian Baresch, "Social Movements Expert on Occupy Austin," kut.org, 07 October 2011.
• Alan Maki, "An excellent interview with Michael Parenti about 'Occupy Wall Street'," FireDogLake, 06 October 2011.
  I had difficulty playing this audio until I pasted the second link (http://www.kdvs.org/m3u.php?show_date=2011-10-02&show_id=1838&kbps=192&show_name=New%20Day%20Jazz) into the Advanced Open File... menu of VLC. As usual, everyone has to figure things out for themselves. Note that the first hour of this audio file is music and poetry; the Parenti interview is in the second hour (of three) beginning at 1:04:20 and is about a half-hour long. I think of Michael Parenti as in the same league as Noam Chomsky, but he's a much better public speaker than Chomsky. Michael Parenti's website.
• ""We Are the 99%": Voices From the Occupy Wall Street March," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
• "Naomi Klein: Protesters Are Seeking Change in the Streets Because It Won’t Come From the Ballot Box," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
• "Naomi Klein: Keystone XL Oil Pipeline Controversy Shows How Wall Street Is Occupying U.S. Gov’t," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
  Second part of the interview in the preceding link.
• "Naomi Klein on Occupy Wall Street & Chile: Courage to Ask Questions We Don’t Have Answers For," Democracy Now!, 06 October 2011.
  Continuation of the interview after the above two links.
• John Schmitt, "Occupy Wall Street Gets What the 'Very Serious People' Have Missed for 30 Years," AlterNet, 06 October 2011.
• Naomi Klein, "Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now," The Nation, 06 October 2011.
  A version of this article appears in Issue 2 of The Occupied Wall Street Journal on page 1.
• "Frances Fox Piven at Occupy Wall Street: 'We Desperately Need a Popular Uprising in the US'," Democracy Now!, 04 October 2011.
  Insightful observations, and it's a pleasure to listen to someone who the right-wingers target for demonization.
• "Joseph Stiglitz rocks Zuccotti Park," Corrente, 04 October 2011.
  If you don't know who Joseph Stiglitz is -- he isn't just some grey-bearded old fart -- I recommend you check out his website, read his popular essays (popular meaning non-technical), and watch the trailer for Around the World with Joseph Stiglitz; his best know book may be Globalization and Its Discontents (2002). And Jeff Madrick is no slouch himself, either; his latest book is Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present (2011). Yet these are the kinds of people whom the U.S. mainstream media tell you are a bunch of hippies stinking up the place in NYC.
• Occupy Wall Street archive at Democracy Now!
• Nathan Schneider, "Occupy Wall Street: FAQ," The Nation, 29 September 2011.
  A version of this article appears in Issue 1 of The Occupied Wall Street Journal under the title "Occupation for Dummies" on page 4.
• Andrew Orlowski, "Adam Curtis: The TV elite has lost the plot," The Register, 20 November 2007.
• Andrew Orlowski, "Adam Curtis : an audio special," The Register, 23 November 2007.
  Adam Curtis "gets it" as expressed especially the first two audio clips here; and I suppose this is why I find his films & blog so watchable & re-watchable.
  btw, Curtis mentions Radio Popbitch as an alternative to Pandora. I like the sound of it!
• Andrew Orlowski, "Sudden outbreak of democracy baffles US pundits," The Register, 03 October 2008.
  Note: This article refers to when the US Congress rejected the first version of the TARP.

Bacevich, "Tailors to the Emperor"

Andrew Bacevich, "Tailors to the Emperor," New Left Review, Number 69, May/June 2011, pages 101-124.

There was a time when U.S. presidents would explicitly deny that the USA had any interest in offensive military action and that despite the USA's huge arsenal, it was for defensive purposes only. Then, somehow, that policy changed. And that policy was institutionalized with the September 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States, also know as the "Bush Doctrine," a policy of "pre-emptive war" and "preventive war." And now the Obama administration continues that policy with the self-annointed authority to kill anybody anywhere in the world. How did we get to this place in history? In "Tailors to the Emperor" Bacevich explains it as a product the Wohlstetter School of the neo-conservatives.

Some other, related items:

Andrew Bacevich, "An End to Empire: The Cold War and Long War are over—it’s time to return to reality," The American Conservative, 07 September 2011.

Jim Lobe, "How neo-cons influence the Pentagon ...," Asia Times Online, 08 August 2003.

Karen Kwiatkowski, "In Rumsfeld's Shop: A senior Air Force officer watches as the neocons consolidate their Pentagon coup," The American Conservative, 01 December 2003.

Karen Kwiatkowski, "Conscientious Objector: A senior Air Force officer watches civilians craft the war plan," The American Conservative, 15 December 2003.

Karen Kwiatkowski, "Open Door Policy: A strange thing happened on the way to the war," The American Conservative, 19 January 2004.

Karen Kwiatkowski, "The new Pentagon papers," Salon.com, 10 March 2004.

Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear, BBC, 2004.

Added after this post originally published:

"Saddam Shame" by Roy Zimmerman: