Pretty lost and ranting, perhaps irrational... mostly emotional. Evidence of libertarianism present. Good dose of metaphor.
Apparently these are the flyers the ECB protester (said to be Josephine Witt) was throwing pic.twitter.com/C1wdJ27OlP
— Peter Spence (@Pete_Spence) April 15, 2015
Not analytical. No evidence of a quantitative or mathematical perspective at all. She's obviously very agitated and emotional. Revealing.
27 comments:
"We will take back the power over our own lives."
I like it. I hope it comes true.
Emotion is what gets people off the couch and out of clubs into the street.
Yearning for democracy.
Yeah that really helps Tom...
.. like Liz Warren getting all fired up advocating for a cap of prime plus 2% on student loans...
Bernie Sanders advocating for infrastructure upgrades we can "pay for" with higher regressive gas taxes..
The Laffer peoples supply side tax cuts that "lower the deficit"....
We have plenty of emotion to go around and not enough competence imo....
Tom, that "out in the streets" stuff does absolutely no good at all and is childish. ... immature. .. all it does is invite a beat down from the disgraced sadistic cohort among the police. .. big deal...
"[Draghi] never got a mandate, never got voted for or elected," she said.
.
"He imposes policies on these societies that are completely undemocratic," she added.
.
A friend of Ms Witt said she opposes what she describes as “European neo-liberalism."
Josephine Witt
You can follow her at @josephine_witt.
I like her.
When elections don't work because the process is rigged, revolt is the only recourse. At first protest is (relatively) peaceful. If nothing improves, then things turn ugly.
But there is more to it than that. Activist employ
street theater" to get media attention to embarrass the authorities into doing something. It was perfected in the US in the Sixties by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin as in the trial of the Chicago Seven. What that girl just did was street theater, and it was very effective.
Less well-known was Paul Krassner, but he was a genius. The him is worth a read. There were many, many others.
The Occupy Wall Street protest was catalyzed by Kalle Lasn, creator of Adbusters Magazine. It was originally conceived as street theater, and it was wildly successful internationally. Many think that Occupy faded away, but that is far from the truth. It changed the entire narrative, and the people involved are now battle-tested.
Sociologists even study the phenomenon. Über-sociologist Randall Collins wonders that the sociological reasons are that French protestors characteristically torch vehicles when they take to the street in protest and Americans don't. It's not because the American police are more repressive either. The French police can get violent, too.
http://rt.com/news/201591-france-police-protesters-clash/
Here's an interesting article on Occupy.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/97353/adbusters-kalle-lasn-occupy-wall-street
Matt maybe she is not equipped to write it because she is not fluent in English? Just a thought, don't disregard the woman because she can't express herself well in English...
And anyway, that letter has more sense in it than anything probably Draghi says in those useless speeches. Cannot blame her!
"I'm out of the police station! Whoop whoop!"
LOL! I love this chick
"master of the universe" ?
Sarcastic and at the same time gives reverence to the ECB -nauseating!
"I come to remind you that there is no god"
If no god then there is no basis for this or any protest against any authority. Without god all we are left with is survival of the fittest.
The Occupy movement represents too many interests and so lacks a defined focus necessary to foster growing support.
"master of the universe" ?
Sarcastic and at the same time gives reverence to the ECB -nauseating!
"I come to remind you that there is no god"
If no god then there is no basis for this or any protest against any authority. Without god all we are left with is survival of the fittest.
The Occupy movement represents too many interests and so lacks a defined focus necessary to foster growing support.
The Occupy movement represents too many interests and so lacks a defined focus necessary to foster growing support.
Did you read the links. That was not the purpose. The purpose of protest is destabilization of the status quo and ideally a change in narrative or at least to capture media focus.
As far as the actual purpose is concerned, mission accomplished. Now all the focus in on the "%1" and "inequality." The deficit hawks' balloon got popped.
That opened up space for related issue to get put on the table because media responds to what the public is interested in. That's where the ratings are and that's where the ad $ go.
Tom just because it doesn't go your way doesn't mean its "rigged"...
Jill I'm with you... no "god", then no true authority. ... this is just another skirmish in a long going civil war between factions of libertarians. .. its survival of the fittest libertarian. ...
Matt, we've posted links to scientific studies showing that the game is rigged and voting is pretty much a waste of time, as Russell Brand has said.
Even Citi admitted the US is a plutonomy.
Look at the up coming presidential. Where's the choice. I won't vote for HRC or any of the GOP candidates.
When I was young, I did take to the streets over Vietnam, and whether that had anything to do with it or not, Nixon and Agnew both met an ignominious end to their careers. At least there was a semblance of a choice between Nixon and McGovern, but we know how that turned out.
I was seriously thinking of bailing on the US at the time and would probably have done it if I didn't know so many good people in the streets then that I didn't want to abandon. So we toughed it out. The partying was great through, and we really through a a whale of party when he finally resigned in disgrace.
I haven't read the links. Certainly Occupy has succeeded in delivering a message to the masses. Now what? Without a highly coordinated effort it will remain an ideal.
"because media responds to what the public is interested in."
Whaaaat? That's how it's supposed to work. I remember when it at least seemed to be that way. The way I see it now is the media delivers content with the intent of invoking moods and/or attitudes.
Tom there is a huge diverse field on the GOP side Rand Paul, Jeb, Cruz, Walker, Christi, Fiorina, etc all representing diverse povs. ..
Agree not much choice on the Dem side with HRC annointed. ... rsp
At the time Nixon seemed like the Great Satan. Now Chomsky calls him "our last liberal president." It's a sad reflection on how far America has moved to the right.
@ MortgageAngel
Occupy created the space for others to step in. Thomas Picketty and Liz Warren are a lot more effective than Occupy ever could be. Before Occupy, the hot topic was deficit reduction, I.e., shrinking the welfare state by cutting social spending (but increasing military spending). After Occupy, the national conversation shifted to inequality. Now most of the narrative is favorable to progressives.
The opposition hasn't been able to get traction again on deficit reduction, so their focus has shifted to fear-mongering about national security and the need to beef up the military, of course, by cutting back social spending to make space for it.
The other thing that Occupy did was radicalize a lot of people, both those who participated and those who saw just how coordinated and militarized the response was. I think that has woken up many people to the neo-fascist threat that has developing, really since the war on drugs and amplified by the war on terror.
The left has no vision or coherent program to put forward as yet. So the only alternative is to destabilize the status quo to get people thinking about something else than Kim Kardashian's bootie.
This is just the start, and if Strauss & Howe are correct about "turnings" (spiritual awakenings), the US is entering the fourth turning. It accords with Ravi Batra's analysis based on his view of cycles of history based on rule shifting among different castes, warrior, intelligentsia, acquisitive and labor.
Occupy is just one strand in a web.
Did the anti-war movement unseat Nixon or even change US policy. Not by itself, and it was arguably peripheral. But it was an important historical factor indirectly. I see Occupy in that light.
And Occupy is far from over. It was just the baptism of fire of new generation of activists in the West. Moreover, it was explicitly connected to other protest movements globally. Those connections persist.
The next iteration of the left is being born from new circumstances, which aren't all that different from the old circumstances. This is a historical phenomenon that goes back centuries and has produced many revolutions, social, political and economic. It's evidence that modern history at any rate has a liberal bias.
Tom there is a huge diverse field on the GOP side Rand Paul, Jeb, Cruz, Walker, Christi, Fiorina, etc all representing diverse povs. ..
All of them except Rand Paul are war hawks, and Rand Paul doesn't have a consistent enough position to know what he actually stands for. Nor is he presidential calibre in my estimation.
The only on one of presidential calibre is HRC. HRC is very liberal (in the US sense) in contrast to the GOP field, which has to present as ultra-conservative to win the nomination.
So why would a progressive not vote for HRC? Like Poppy Bush, who was formerly the CIA chief, she is embedded in the deep state. HRC is a war hawk, and in my estimation she would manufacture a war if she were not presented with the necessary conditions to go to war legitimately.
US militarism has to end before it destroys the fabric of the nation and takes the world down. Unless Americans stand up, the whole country will have blood on its hands. Osama made that clear, for instance, in his indictment of US policy.
"Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind." (Hosea 8:7)
I don't think I can hold my nose and vote for any of the candidates on the list in good conscience.
At the time Nixon seemed like the Great Satan. Now Chomsky calls him "our last liberal president." It's a sad reflection on how far America has moved to the right.
"We are all Keynesians now." — Richard M. Nixon.
But Nixon was the great Satan in the sense that he was the epitome of the authoritarian personality. He was not alone. See John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience.
Nixon was probably a psychopath -- not unlike most politicians these days. He certainly abused his power, but what Nixon did was kid stuff compared to the current NSA spy program and Obama's kill list.
In another comment you referred to Hillary as a liberal but she is to the right of Nixon on just about ever issue that comes to mind.
Nixon didn't necessarily "believe in" the liberal programs that he supported, but he was a triangulator who would co-op opposition ideas because it was good politics.
HRC rated as the 11th most liberal senator.
I had to do some googling on DW-NOMINATE. It turns out that it does not actually rank "liberalism" or "conservatism," rather it ranks how often you vote with your own party. DW-NOMINATE scores don’t really tell you how conservative or liberal a member of Congress is.
In other words, Hillary ranks 11th at voting with her party. But her party is a NeoLib/NeoCon party so what does that make Hillary?
This chart of DW-NOMINATE presidential rankings gives a better feel for how the rankings work. It would have us believe that Carter was the most liberal president ever, when in fact Carter was our first Neoliberal president, to the right of Nixon on many issues.
It would have us believe that Bush II was the most conservative president ever, when in fact Obama has continued and expanded most of Bush's policies.
The litmus test I like to use to decide whether a particular policy position is "progressive" is asking "who does it empower (or disempower)?" If it empowers the "little people," then it is progressive. If it empowers the elites, then it is conservative (in the American sense of the word). It's a very simple test that cuts through the partisan BS.
Certainly the Clintons have spent their entire careers empowering the elites and disempowering the little people.
The US is ruled by an elite whose factions vie for political control. The liberals and conservatives have different sets of donors based on this although many large donors contribute to both parties to cover their bases. But in doing this they also usually favor one party of over the other.
As Liz Warren explains, this is not to buy votes directly, which would be illegal, but to gain access to the tables at which policy is formulated and decisions are made. This is not only legal but standard operating procedure ensuring that government policy is user-friendly to TPTB. To paraphrase first US Chief Justice John Jay, "Those who own the country should govern the country." That's what republics are all about. they are not designed democracies where government is "of the people, by the people and for the people." The result is that often "what is good for America" is not good for most Americans.
HRC is a 100% fraud. How any self respecting liberal could support her is beyond me. I'm with Camille Paglia regarding this wretched woman's lack of scruples. She's also not the beacon of intelligence her sycophants make her out to be. Good god she couldn't even pass the bar exam. Clinton's enabling of her sexually abusive husband (all for political points, I might add) makes her the worst kind of so called feminist trash. Elizabeth Warren isn't perfect but she's 100 times the woman Hillary will ever be. And if Fiorina somehow gets the nomination the Republicans will win in a Nixonesk landslide, and we can finally put HRC out to pasture for good..
Post a Comment