no third solution

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Tag Archives: occupy

The Tea Party Does Not Understand Inflation

November 5th, 2011

I saw this picture on Facebook today. It is a very simple explanation of a very complicated problem: how inflation robs all of us, predominately by destroying the purchasing power of accumulated savings and fueling an unsustainable debt-cycle.  The other side of this is Malinvestment, which when coupled with the effects of inflation, destroy an economy from the inside-out.

Unfortunately, the comments were full of fail: Once you buy in to the propaganda known as the American Dream, there is virtually no limit to the bullshit you’ll apologize for.  I hate to paint with a broad brush, but it seems like people apologize for capitalism because they’ve bought in to the propaganda and they honestly do believe that one day if they just work hard enough they will also succeed. And although some people do succeed, these are exceptions rather than the rule.

Oh, the lulz. Except they're serious.

John: Good for you. You took an opportunity that most people don’t have. Maybe you had a good idea that others didn’t think of. Maybe you had some capital saved up that many people don’t have. Maybe you just got lucky. Just because you were raised to believe something doesn’t make it true. Lots of people work their asses of and still struggle to make ends meet. A generation ago families could (and often did) live comfortably middle-class lifestyles on a single income whereas today it takes 2 parents working full time to scrape by. The most important part about a free market is the freedom. If you’re working 80 hours a week to get by, you’re not free, you’re indebted to an exploitative system.

You are working 80 hours a week non-stop just to “do alright”.  Is this the sort of world you want for future generations? Should it be this hard to put food on the table and a roof over your children’s heads?

Ruth: Try to read your words with someone else’s brain, preferably not John’s because you’re making the same mistakes. You believe that the 1% normally acquire their wealth through honest hard work, frugality and ingenuity, the fruits of which labor is passed from generation to generation. This ignores a great many people who succeed only insofar as they can exploit a system of privilege to their advantage. It is not a level playing field and success is not determined predominately by merit.

There are a million fucking reasons why we’re not free and we don’t have a free market, and each of these distortions has a ripple-effect of consequences that further distort the array of opportunities available, the choices we are presented. You’re forget that most of the people who play in to this game will never make it, most will fail somewhere along the way, thus the “1%”. Is this the sort of world that you want?

Bill: You’re making a common mistake. Maybe you believe that the bastardized “market” that we have is a near-enough approximation of what a really free market would look like just because we get the illusion of choice in some areas of our lives. The rich are rich because they work hard and the poor are poor because they’re dumb and lazy. Way to blame the victims. Do you really believe that Goldman Sachs isn’t rigging the game? Is this the sort of world that you want?

Donald: You are a beacon of light in an otherwise regrettable thread.

The rest of you, you need to pull your heads out of the fucking sand and understand the problems we face for what they are. People are protesting because they want to work and can’t find jobs. They’re protesting because at every level, their governments and elected “leaders” have let them down. They’re protesting because they’ve realized that the illusion of meritocracy is just an illusion, we don’t live in a free market or anything remotely resembling one, success is an exception rather than the rule, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to get by and to plan and save for the future.

These people aren’t lazy, they’re fucking fed up.

We Are the 99%

October 26th, 2011

My friend Dave (no, not “my friend” as in “me”) wrote this poem in response to/solidarity with the occupy movement, and asked what I thought? Well, I thought it was good enough to re-post. Enjoy & share!

A disconnect of intellect
Separates 1 sect
Of society that has yet to see,
The reality of tyranny
Terrorizing our liberty
Infiltrating our democracy
By misinforming you and I
With black, bold-face headline lies,
From white papers and men with ties
To planes falling from the sky!
Shrouding us in guided fear,
Blurring what was once clear,
Promising the end is near
Watching middle-class disappear,
While the CEO’s always rising stock
Can feed and house a Detroit block,
Decayed and ruined from financial shock,
Trapped by bars, key and lock.

United we stand behind soldiers who fall,
The willing few who risk it all
By volunteer or government’s call,
The Constitution would be appalled
That this poem need be written at all,
Or, that power is reserved for political pull
Extorting from the Middle East
Black blood’s perpetual profitable feast,
Making war the sustainable beast
Politicians’ worry about second to least
Trumped only by those on Wall Street
Who take pride that our ends won’t meet,
Enjoying poverty in their discrete
Malcontent for our absent greed,
Contempt for those we cannot feed,
While we fight for basic needs,
We’re told to pick-up from the straps
Where our boots and courage overlap
With souls worn thin from wealth’s gap,
Powerless to escape the unnecessary trap

Of political divisiveness
Increasing dismissiveness,
Making people grow leery of alternative theories
The main-stream floods, banks with no hole in its paddles
We’re boat without steam left sinking in battle
No savior near on white mare’s saddle
No magnanimous rider who’s not an insider
Will build a bridge, or damn the creek flowing wider
Forcing us to drown or swim across.
For when we sink it’s not their loss
Since the 1% fit in one yacht,

Whether or not

This is our country! For which you fought,
For the classroom in which you taught
The simple beauty of free thought,
The Achilles heel to being bought.
Though government paid persons bails,
No one human is too big to fail
Or small enough to escape the jail
Stifling justice’s disgraceful wail,
With death sentence or life in cell.
The highest price is paid in blood
By bomb, bullet and nature’s flood.
Not by those who wear white collars,
Who own the banks and political scholars,
Talking heads, confusing words for dollars,
Censoring choices for our selection,
Diluting truth and fair election –
An anonymous, executive, backdoor connection –
Buried beneath its strategic intention
Lay 99% seeking release from the tension,
Without a paycheck or a pension,
Or even an unemployment extension!
Denied by those with luxuries’ leisure,
Free from debt and property seizure,
From war abroad and at home,
To those who can’t secure a loan,
Leasing life, liberty never owned –
In exchange to be left alone.

99% of the blue collar power
Can rebuild towers in hours
If water is fed to withering flowers,
Its pollen and petals kept as ours,
With thorns, stigma, style, and stem,
Its pistil to protect us from men,
Soliciting our brethren,
Be a spring of sacrificial lambs,
Patriots! Die, but live and be damned.
A people misled to understand,
Year by year, wars with no end;
Fear by fear, our rights apprehend.
The use of liberties amongst civil men
Silenced as rogue, political dissent!
Drowned by noise of the absurd,
The banished black sheep of the herd.
Curiosity? Killed, by the cat
For questioning how it got fat,
Why our soldiers still lay flat
By will of the aristocrat,
Who celebrate corporate goals
And the sale of our souls –
Only at a convenient price –
Not the blood of men, but that of mice.

Now is the time to exchange the blood,
Build an Ark and reverse the flood
Of shameless corporate and political power
Suffocating blue into hopeless collar –
Second by second, hour by hour,
We, the People, grow into a beautiful flower.
Black, gay, woman or white,
History is the enemy we fight
Against indifference toward our rights,
Uniquely human versus corporate might.
They may preach peace from private steeples,
But cowards are cunning and often evil,
They lobby to make sure it’s legal,
The 99’s voice is no longer feeble

Because

P.

People

E.

Everywhere

A.

Are

C.

Created

E.

Equal.

What’s Next for #Occupy?

October 12th, 2011

Spanning nearly every ideological boundary, the “Occupy” movement includes social democrats, democratic socialists, Goldwater-conservatives, tea partiers, Libertarians with a capital “L”, libertarians with a lower-case “l”, peaceniks, veterans, conspiracy theorists, Marxists, punk rock vegans, hipsters, black-bloc anarchists, and everyone in between. And it’s popping up everywhere.

I desperately want to be optimistic. Like, “Fuck. Yes. This is a mass awakening. People are waking up from the ‘American Dream‘ (no, not the storybook version that you probably know word-for-word, but George Carlin’s version).”

But although I see fleeting signs of solidarity, there are some apparently unbridgeable chasms between the competing ideologies.

For example, among the asinine demands are:

  • Restricting “free” trade and imposition of restrictive tariffs in order to favor domestic production. It should be obvious that any measure designed explicitly to restrict or violate people’s ability to peaceably interact with one another is not in the interest of “the 99%”.
  • Raise the minimum wage to $20 per hour. This is as retarded as a football bat. Please, don’t make me explain it.
  • Complete socialization (single-payer) health care system, banning any private mechanisms to provide for same. Let’s just say I’m not a fan of further consolidating power over who lives and dies, and every state-socialized scheme ultimately results in slavery.

Some demands, I can get behind:

  • Abolish the Federal Reserve. Although I’m not sure if this is on the “official” list, the Fed is essentially pure evil, contrary to the interests of all but the power elite, protecting a credit monopoly and enabling seignorage by debasement of currency, etc.
  • Open borders. I’ve talked about this one at length(here, here, here and here). However, many people think this is just an illuminati/globalist plot to further depress wages, etc.

And some demands are kind of a mixed bag, like:

  • Debt forgiveness for everyone. OK. I mean, the entire system is pretty much a fraud and I’m inclined to sympathy with this movement, but you can’t deny that it is going to absolutely fuck a lot of very good people, there is no way to do this equitably.

There’s a lot of reactionary and poorly-thought-out goals in conflict with one another, and probably too few people really trying to strike the root. And not enough public support; a large part of the population is pretty much ignorant of the movement.

Union members and Occupy Wall Street protestors

These cops don't even realize they're on the wrong side of the fence... Photo credit Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

For that, you can thank the dismal education that most of the 99% have received through their state-funded schools.  And also, the mainstream media, who have done a pretty good job of just ignoring it and even though the movement shows no signs of giving up ground, it’s possible that the 1% can win an old-fashioned war of attrition through censorship by omission: If the news doesn’t report it, is it really happening?

The 1% are clearly experts in manipulating governments to their unique advantage (at our expense) as well as “instigat[ing] class warfare, pitting individual members of society against one another, communities against communities, interests against interests.” And up until now, they’ve been winning. Half the time, they don’t even need to fight the war because we’re so busy fighting amongst ourselves.

So what’s the next move?

Does “Occupy” reach critical mass and turn the tables? Or does the 1% (and the media they control) strike back?

 

no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics