The Occupy Movement

[Lucifer]

But certainly the proof part needs to be somewhere? You can't call it a proof if it's secret, plus facts uncovering flaws in the current system is not something anyone would want to keep a secret in the first place. Or hide behind a pay wall. It's the equivalent of the first shot of heroin you get for free, right?

He's obviously using the current system to his advantage, and whatever system he may have dreamed up, he wouldn't want to live in because then he couldn't run this con.

[Concord]

I just really don't like how the name of the moment is an imperative sentence. "Occupy Wall Street."

annoying, forcing thousands of journalists and people who think they're journalist but neither charge nor get paid to use a sentence as a proper noun.

It's like if USA stood for Unite, States of America!

It just just doesn't work.

they're right on besides that, I reckon.


edit: I guess this means that most of them aren't rich college kids. At least in the sense go to Stop and Shop and not Whole Foods.

[Phytotron]

edit: I guess this means that most of them aren't rich college kids. At least in the sense go to Stop and Shop and not Whole Foods.

Or Whole Paycheck, as some refer to it, which is really unfortunate. Whole foods (the type, not the company) should be strongly supported, but our food policy in this country is so screwy that the food that's the worst for you is the cheapest, while the best is the most expensive. (On top of that, you have companies like McDonald's that deliberately target poor neighborhoods.) That needs to be reversed. (It'll save in health care expense, too.) Broccoli shouldn't cost more than a Happy Meal.

'Course, our society also (chooses to) spend a much smaller percentage of our income (and prep time) on food than in the past. My wife and I have chosen to have a higher percentage and eat local/regional, seasonal, fresh (not including things like dried beans and grains, of course), predominantly whole food, where possible (e.g., ain't no local bananas). We're still frugal about it, though—for example, the farmer's market is usually a little cheaper than the grocery (and reduces your carbon footprint), and produce tends to last longer, too. We also grow some of our own food. For people who can't (or don't want to) do that, community gardens are popping up all over, and there are also produce buying clubs, which are great.

Meanwhile: Hunger in America: 2011 United States Hunger and Poverty Facts

[Lucifer]

Too many parenthesis, didn't read.

http://www.uhv.edu/ac/newsletters/writi ... .08.29.htm

[Phytotron]

Ergh, yeah, that is an excessive (and inordinate) use of parentheses there, isn't it. Chalk it up to (a rare instance of) neglecting to proofread my post (something I usually make a point of doing, even multiple times) because I was distracted (in the middle of simultaneously trying to do something else; I'm a poor multitasker), and also another example (like lists or strings of adjectives) of my crude (and forum-exclusive) attempts at brevity (just wanting to make a short comment as opposed to multiple paragraphs). Hmm, it may also be (according to my wife) a typographical reflection (albeit, a sloppy one) of the way I sometimes speak (casually and extemporaneously, of course), hopping around in conversation (i.e., digressions, tangents, sidebars, etc.). (So do I get credit from that certain segment of this forum who think my writing is overly formal?) It is what it is (::shrug::).

But, "tmp;dr?" Come on.

at least it
isnt
that clause... per... line...
type of
crap
_________________
hold the punctuation

[Lucifer]

I actually don't read if there's too many parentheses. Simple usability, heh. Too hard to follow the thread if I have to keep skipping the phrases or I get too distracted by the phrases.

I used to do that a lot, too. An English professor challenged me to write posts on these forums without using any parenthesis or parenthetical expressions, and when I met that challenge, I liked what I said a lot more.

It's worth a try. You're normally not that excessive with it, which is why I commented, of course.

[Concord]

if Whitman had his way, we would be called, Unite, States of America!

[Phytotron]

More on food: Post-9/11 security allowed costly pest invasion.

Louis CK on Consumers and Capitalism, saying the same things I've been saying forever, but maybe the carpet-bombing of F-bombs combined with the excessive and inexplicable lol's from the bonehead hosts will make it more understandable to certain folks. This pertains to the 'internet music' thread(s), too.


By the way, Lucifer, the parentheses aren't really an issue in any formal/serious writing I do. It's just this medium where I'm more conversational.

[Word]

here's a nice article by David Byrne

http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2011/12/1 ... -will.html

[Phytotron]

OK, but why did you post that here? It's not about OWS or its themes; he only references a small aspect of some OWS organizing to use as an example, for just a few short paragraphs.

[Word]

yes, I thought it's funny to compare it to ants

[Word]

I'm certainly not the first person who thinks of this, but many of the Occupy Movement's motives seem like an echo of Spengler and Adorno, to some extent:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Unterg ... bendlandes

Perhaps a rediscovery of their works would help greatly if there's an actual attempt but no real plan to change our systems fundamentally. But today perhaps it's better to not apply it for the West alone.

[þsy]

I can see the similarities, but there are loads of writings which could (and do) support this movement's ethos, I guess that comes with its broad and not-so-specific goals

I don't know what it's like in the US and the rest of Europe, but media coverage of the Occupy Movement has really died down here in the UK. What's it like elsewhere?

[Phytotron]

many of the Occupy Movement's motives seem like an echo of Spengler

Sigh, ugh, and an emphatic NO.

Seems to me your only contribution thus far has been to grasp at ways to ridicule and defame Occupy. That, and/or you simply don't get it. To compare the "motives" of Occupy to the writings of an archconservative? Get a clue. The only "echoes of Spengler" are from the rightists (and wackos like Alex Jones) attempting to infiltrate and co-opt Occupy for their own reactionary purposes, and they're being dealt with. Occupy is in the radical, progressive tradition of the Enlightenment, of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, the abolitionists, the American labor movement especially, women's suffragists, the Bonus Army and Hoovervilles even, the civil rights movement. Not of reactionaries.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

[Word]

...to some extent

Well, I'm not trying to defame Occupy.
I think the following bits do have similarities.
The difference between Occupy and this is that Occupy currently trusts in a peaceful change while Spengler predicts a violent overthrow.

Money, currently the dominant power of our age. Blood is commonly understood to mean race-feeling, and this is partially true but misleading. Spenglers idea of race has nothing to do with ethnic identity, indeed he was hostile to racists in that sense. The book talks about a population becoming a race when it's united in outlook, possibly diverse ethnic origins are not a concern. Crucially Spengler talks about the final struggle with money also being a battle between Capitalism and Socialism, but again Socialism in a special sense: "the will to call into life a mighty politico-economic order that transcends all class interests, a system of lofty thoughtfulness and duty sense" . He also writes " A power can be overthrown only by another power, not by a principle, and only one power that can confront money is left. Money is overthrown and abolished by blood. Life is alpha and omega ... It is the fact of facts .. Before the irresistible rhythm on the generation-sequence, everything built up by the waking –consciousness in its intellectual world vanishes at the last." Therefore if we wanted to replace Blood by a single word it would be more correct to use life-force rather than race-feeling.

The only difference to this, thanks to the internet, is that there are much more 'free' media today, although their authors don't need to be independent from all other factors.

Democracy and plutocracy are equivalent in Spengler's argument. The "tragic comedy of the world-improvers and freedom-teachers" is that they are simply assisting money to be more effective. The principles of equality, natural rights, universal suffrage, and freedom of the press are all disguises for class war (the bourgeois against the aristocracy). Freedom, to Spengler, is a negative concept, simply entailing the repudiation of any tradition. In reality, freedom of the press requires money, and entails ownership, thus serving money at the end. Suffrage involves electioneering, in which the donations rule the day. The ideologies espoused by candidates, whether Socialism or Liberalism, are set in motion by, and ultimately serve, only money. "Free" press does not spread free opinion—it generates opinion, Spengler maintains.

For the press to function, universal education is necessary. Along with schooling comes a demand for the shepherding of the masses, as an object of party politics. Those that originally believed education to be solely for the enlightenment of each individual prepared the way for the power of the press, and eventually for the rise of the Caesar. There is no longer a need for leaders to impose military service, because the press will stir the public into a frenzy, clamor for weapons, and force their leaders into a conflict.