#OccupyWallStreet: for People, #AnimalRights and the #Environment
Occupy Wall Street, which is described as a “leaderless resistance movement” that vows to “no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent” started on September 17, 2011 in New York City and has been rapidly spreading across the country.
The protesters were initially ignored by mainstream media, then criticized for lacking cohesion and are now beginning to garner more widespread attention, as they increase in number and strength.
On October 1, 2011, the group released their first ‘official’ statement, which expresses why people feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world. While the demands of the group are still being negotiated and developed, the official statement outlines the key problems that are being caused by corporate greed and leading to mass injustice in the United States and overseas.
High amongst the list of key facts they want to be widely known is the following statement directly addressing animal rights:
“They [corporations] have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.”
The scope of the focus on animal rights at the moment is unclear. Read More . . . at One Green Planet
Occupy Wall Street on Wikipedia
Read We Are The Media #OccupyWallStreet for news updated twice daily!
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anagirlempath
Holise E Cleveland III
Monika Turner
Thomas O'Brien
One of the most glaring problems with the supporters of Occupy Wall Street and its copycat successors is that they suffer from a woefully inadequate understanding of the capitalist social formation — its dynamics, its (spatial) globality, its (temporal) modernity. They equate anti-capitalism with simple anti-Americanism, and ignore the international basis of the capitalist world economy. To some extent, they have even reified its spatial metonym in the NYSE on Wall Street. Capitalism is an inherently global phenomenon; it does not admit of localization to any single nation, city, or financial district.
Moreover, many of the more moderate protestors hold on to the erroneous belief that capitalism can be “controlled” or “corrected” through Keynesian-administrative measures: steeper taxes on the rich, more bureaucratic regulation and oversight of business practices, broader government social programs (welfare, Social Security), and projects of rebuilding infrastructure to create jobs. Moderate “progressives” dream of a return to the Clinton boom years, or better yet, a Rooseveltian new “New Deal.” All this amounts to petty reformism, which only serves to perpetuate the global capitalist order rather than to overcome it. They fail to see the same thing that the libertarians in the Tea Party are blind to: laissez-faire economics is not essential to capitalism. State-interventionist capitalism is just as capitalist as free-market capitalism.
Nevertheless, though Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy [insert location here] in general still contains many problematic aspects, it nevertheless presents an opportunity for the Left to engage with some of the nascent anti-capitalist sentiment taking shape there. So far it has been successful in enlisting the support of a number of leftish celebrities, prominent unions, and young activists, and has received a lot of media coverage. Hopefully, the demonstrations will lead to a general radicalization of the participants’ politics, and a commitment to the longer-term project of social emancipation.
To this end, I have written up a rather pointed Marxist analysis of the OWS movement so far that you might find interesting:
“Reflections on Occupy Wall Street: What It Represents, Its Prospects, and Its Deficiencies”
THE LEFT IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE LEFT!
You are obviously intrigued by the movement. May I suggest that you spend the night with these people. I know that if I were there, I would love to have an individual of your caliber present for advise. While I may not agree with you 100%, I find your interest and intellect rather refreshing. I have never cared for politics, but that may be only because our system needs to reboot. I think it needs to be stripped bare and started anew. It should not be fashioned in any way that has failed before. It should not be labeled with a faction that has yet to prove itself. Nevertheless, your knowledge of history’s political blunders would make you a prime candidate for a member of an advisory board if one should be established.
With the impending revolution around the corner, you may want to get your foot in the door now. Spend at least 48 hours with them only listening, then find a few people there with whom you may engage in meaningful dialogue. Do so in a manner whereby you are sharing rather than criticizing, thus resulting in a more receptive response. Our blogs may be as bold as we wish because they are our blogs. I would never attempt to debate with you over politics; you are well versed in that arena. I can tell you, however, that I know a thing or two about interpersonal communication and would politely suggest that you present your views with a sense of altruism.
Thank you kindly for sharing your writings with me. Please let me know if you embark upon this mini-quest that I have presented to you.