Any time, Cory!
So how much can we realistically hope for from this?
For it to get as big as #OWS?
Because it’d seem that’s not enough; apparently business as usual subsumes all.
Maybe we should have a look at the matrix we’re stuck in, huh? Nothing much worthwhile gets done in it…
So you advocate… giving up?
Consider it done.
I don’t know anyone naive enough to think all we need to do is get angry at an unacceptable situation. The lack of a functional democracy certainly makes it harder to do something about this outrage. And yet there are things that can be done, and must be done. If they don’t occur, we’re going to be living under this for a very long time.
Getting mad isn’t the end of the conversation, it’s the beginning.
Where is the media? Where are the Woodwards and Bernstiens of today? Licking Obama’s boots instead of reporting.
… Sorry, imo OWS was not a good example of anything. A social movement is people coming together to affect change - that presupposes they agree at least to some tiny extent on what those things are, and how they might be changed.
OWS was a trainwreck of ideas, and mostly served to showcase a bunch of people who could get together long enough to say “wall street bad, rah rah rah,” but not come even close to a consensus on exactly what was wrong, let alone how to fix it. Add to that the occupy sites - I visited several, and it wasn’t a great experience. OWS did more harm to progressive change politics than it did good.
Sorry. Next time hopefully we can have some music you like or maybe people will dress more to your style or have just the right mix of whatever the fuck we need to dance just for you.
I can’t believe protest movements in the US get reviewed like cafe on yelp.
Rather … I can believe it.
What a waste of time, money and talent. The NSA hires the best and the brightest. They could do so much good. But, it is all being squandered in secrecy, lies, and broken promises.
Once the NSA might have advanced positive goals and interests, but now, they aren’t even protecting their own long term goals and interests. They are ticking off the people and nations they need to be effective. Starting with the US.
And they aren’t even offering TSA levels of security theater. All they offer is secrecy, lies and misdirection.
Remember, actual security is a meaningful assurance that YOUR goals are being accomplished. Can we see anything like this from the NSA?
- Their secrecy and lies prevent us from getting any meaningful assurance.
- Their goals are not our goals. The see the Law as an impediment, or a tool to use on others. Their actions reveal that they find no value in the Constitution.
So much waste. So many lost opportunities. So many squandered years.
It is not just our Country that is being betrayed. So many of our talented countrymen have been enslaved, co-opted, and silenced by this monster. How will be rescue them?
I’m reaching for a “Just the facts, ma’am” NSA joke
But, also, I thought the video was pretty effective. I don’t know if this sort of thing is enough to start any sort of major movement, but it’s definitely a good start.
I checked out OWS in Zuccotti Park several times, and agree with those who are saying it was a disaster. Which is not to say that there wasn’t anything good there - but all of the effective protesters (including musicians, and I don’t mean the drum circle) were on the outskirts and on the sidewalks. Of course, they would not have had the impact they did if there hadn’t been a tent city behind them.
The one instance I witnessed at OWS where it felt like a “real” protest - that is, something that feels like it’s having an effect over an audience and inspiring passions - was when Stills & Nash sang a couple songs.
That illustrated that what protest movements need are organization and charismatic, perhaps single-minded leaders, which OWS lacked entirely on both counts. A couple of old guys, without microphones, grabbed everyone’s attention and rallied everyone around a cause (which happened to be “teach your children well”, nothing too radical) in a way that no one else involved in OWS was able to.
So, I’m glad to see this video with so much celebrity support. Like it or not, it’s effective.
Perhaps anyone, at all, that was willing to show even a tiny bit of leadership.
I actually find it quite staggering that you can get that from this:
I’m talking about
here.[quote=“Thecorrectline, post:8, topic:12721”]
Sorry, imo OWS was not a good example of anything.
[/quote]
Sorry, IMO that’s blatantly wrong. Surely I don’t need to remind you that it was the most widespread and persistent protest movement in some decades, and seen by many at the time as the political awakening of the current generation?
My point is, despite that, it accomplished fuck-all besides marginally raising awareness of wealth disparity and systemic corruption. That was the best all those folks could manage. So I’m not real interested in taking to the streets with banners and bongos. Fuck that noise - we need to get clever, dammit.
Can we get our fucking shit together enough to sidestep all this bullshit within my lifetime, please?
I’m soo. fuucking. fed up with waiting.
I mean, look at these cunts. Can you stand to live another second under them?
No, I’m sorry. It goes beyond that. OWS used enough social capital, and produced such pronounced negative results that it set any possible populist based progressive movement back by a fucking decade or more. Did you get me? Your OWS shitstorm of nothing cost any possible movement towards what you claim to want 10+ years. Go ahead, get clever. See the two things that does for you - jack and shit. You need a movement, you need people with passion, you need change? Well congrats on flushing those down the OWS toilet. You can sidestep the OWS turd all you want, you’re still just circling the bowl.
Troll much? Pff, that’s what I’ve got for ya
“Just the fax, ma’am”
Eh, disenchanted, much. Worked at it, hoped for it, watched it actually become a flaming cluster fuck of failure type setback. Pff pretty much sums it up. OWS accomplished…? Right, it accomplished a huge setback.
You’ll take it as a personal favor if we share this video? Really? I kind of doubt I’ll be able to call in this favor in the future. For someone who holds other authors to high standards in their use of language, and is quick to excoriate others for their exaggerations and deceptions, it seems a bit weird to say things like this.
Not like the gen-Xers showed em how it was done, or anything… and you reckon what, they should’ve realised they fucked up somehow and done it better, or not at all?
But pshaw. I posit no amount of protesting in just the right way will get the job done these days.
The only way to get ahead I can see is to forget protest, and just start living how we want to live. A single person can escape the system in a small way, however temporarily, by just ignoring it, like I do with particularly egregious bullshit like being fined for riding my bike without a helmet… of course, that doesn’t seem like a very sustainable policy, but it’s kinda worked so far for the first 23 years of mandatory helmet legislation…
But anyway, I figure enough folks working together to ignore the bullshit can actually make it start to disappear: you can have a subset of folks specialising in deflecting the rat race, making life sweet and inviting inside the bubble that has no reason not to keep growing.
Instead of ranting at me for somehow representing all that was wrong with #OWS in your mind, how about getting with the program? @William_Holz is presenting a fucking red pill, dude.
I won’t get into the details of what I think has to happen for the situation to change, but I do unfortunately think it’s going to get a lot worse before it can get better.
