From Anonymous to Scott Olsen:
11:43 AM: Some light reading...
11:52 AM: Fuck capitalists are slippery...
11:58 AM: Greedy fucks...
12:00 PM: Twitterverse isn't always great with timelines... I will say that if the former Oakland police chief is now unemployed, he should join us. According to Olbermann and twitter, Michael Moore is due in at 3:30. I know I'd be there.
12:17 PM: I think I already posted it, but it's important given the shrieks of "envy" and "jealously" coming from the sychophants of the mega rich. So, here it is again.
12:39 PM: I'm really excited to interview Alexa O'Brien tomorrow...
1:14 PM: Occupy Oakland on the Nov. 2nd General Strike.
1:20 PM: This is interesting...
1:28 PM: Michael Moore for my Mom...
1:31 PM: MSM is dead - long live the People's Media (he compares it to the advent of the Gutenberg press, which, if you know history, is heavy):
Whether this can or should be compared to something as monumentally significant as the Gutenberg press isn't clear, but I do think something significant has happened. This movement has not needed and honestly, doesn't care about the mainstream media.
3:01 PM: The art of comic resistance.
3:22 PM: I love Occupy the Boardroom.
3:43 PM: I didn't even make it all the way through this ridiculousness. The only benefit I can see to maintaining a monarchy is to have a wedding event involving someone who doesn't have a sex tape. But the UK is paying too big a bill for that. So, down with monarchy.
4:00 PM: Does anyone else think Matt Yglesias is sounding really establishment and out of touch? (I actually commented on this post because I forget I have a blog for doing such things).
First off, I think the comparison to 60s communes is really misplaced. Occupying public squares seems fundamentally different than 60s communes that were intentionally disengaged and physically removed from society.
Second, I don't think this was Yglesias's point, but I do reject the idea that feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless and providing free health care and education is Utopian. The idea of creating occupations that reflect the society we'd like to see is to show people that this isn't an impossible, Utopian dream. The assumptions that the rich can't be taxed, that we can't have health care, that we have to incur crippling debt for our education is a function of the hijacking of our political system (and the institutions that support that system) by the 1%. Calling for a government of, by and for the people, calling for basic decency isn't Utopian.
Yglesias's point, I believe, was directed at what I am calling the-park-is-the-goal faction - it is this faction that Yglesias sees as Utopian. In my opinion, this isn't a Utopian faction, but rather, is concerned with maintaining the integrity of horizontalism. The question - i think the central question - for the movement is whether a horizontal, leaderless movement can "scale" without violating the principles of horizontalism. Personally, I believe this is a challenge, but not an insurmountable challenge.
But, with respect to Ygelsias, the bottom line is that he comes off as an out-of-touch, establishment lackey. Which, I suppose, shouldn't be a surprise given that we are talking about a person who self identifies - self identifies! - as a neoliberal.
10:27 PM: The who shot Scott Olsen investigation.
Huffington Post yesterday had a post on how some conservative activist thought #OWS was protesting the wrong people; we should be protesting George Soros instead. I didn't read the article, but my reaction to the headline was that, if this guy wants to protest George Soros, nothing is stopping him. Go for it, bro. It's really very liberating when a movement gives everyone a voice, and we all aren't competing to get the corporate-controlled media to publish our side too. When right-wing trolls say something stupid, we can just laugh and go on with our business, unconcerned and unmolested.
ReplyDelete@Raenelle - That says a lot. Before, because the whole dialogue was insane, it made me crazy. Now, everything is so much better; so much healthier.
ReplyDeleteWow, re Vlad Teichberg's report on Olbermann. Live-streaming everywhere in the world! You know, the press wasn't even a very good information collector, where we had to listen to their incessant advertisements for establishment control in order to sort out the few nuggets of information. There really wasn't any information coming from them that you couldn't get with less crap melted into it elsewhere. They became simple bullhorns for elite control. Now it's easy and simple to just leave them in the dust. Some of the blogs still watch them and report on their idiocy, but increasingly that just feels like sentries in the rear covering our retreat.
ReplyDelete@Raenelle - they feel so ridiculously behind it's almost embarrassing - the ones doing a good job (Olbermann) are following twitter and livefeed - the outlets not doing that (many, many outlets) report things about a week later and it just sounds really strange.
ReplyDeleteRe Matt Yglesias. He DID support the Iraq war, so there were some hinky assumptions snaking around in his brain. But Josh Marshall and Al Franken also supported the war, so trusting George Bush over hippie protesters must have seemed plausible to some progressives at some point. Still, it's not like, say, Barbara O'Brien (Mahablog) who was solid until OWS and will ultimately, IMO, come around. Yglesias has tasted the kool-aid before.
ReplyDeleteBut, it really is amazing how people are sorting themselves out. An amazing thing to behold.