… to restrict their activities?
David Cay Johnston doesn’t say that, but on reading his essay, I was thinking that. The corporations that occupy Congress won’t tell you anything you weren’t already thinking about how the government serves corporations, but it is a well framed and well written and reasonably detailed update that you should read. Continue reading If there were lobbyists in the 18th century, would there be a provision in the US Constitution …
Sometimes Time really annoys me with its person of the year. Sometimes it amuses me. This time, I think they did exactly the right thing. What do you think? Continue reading #Occupy Time Magazine: Person of the Year Announced
Gene Marks, you wrote an essay for Forbes that has gotten a lot of people rather upset. People are upset because you display insensitive unchecked privilege and, essentially, you blame an entire class of people as the victims of what is mostly not their fault but rather, your fault and the fault of the modal Forbes reader, as well as society more broadly, history, culture, economics, racism and all sort of other things that are largely beyond the control of the Poor Black Kids of the Inner City of whom you write.
I think you meant well, but you did not do well. There are many ways in which you display a marked lack of a clue about your topic. How so? Let’s start at the beginning of your essay: Continue reading Forbes’ Gene Marks Needs To Check His Priv
LA Occupy Protesters (and observers) will be forced to attend a political re-education program in which they will be forced to learn about their First Amendment rights. I am not making this up. Continue reading #Occupy Common Sense
Garfunkel and Oates with Weird Al Yankovic: Continue reading Save the Rich!
Fox News’ latest attempt at … ell, making us all throw up a little in our mouths, actually: Continue reading Librul Holywood Teams Up with Evile Muppets to Ruin Children!
The Republican Governor’s Association met in Florida this week and featured pollster Frank Luntz, who … told attendees that he’s “scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death.” The pollster warned that the movement is “having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”
Apparently, there are some interesting changes going on in the current culture of politics. According to Luntz, people still prefer “capitalism” to “socialism” (we all know the average American has no clue what either one is, so when we say “capitalism” and “socialism” we speak not of the systems but the words themselve… but I digress). But, he says, people know that capitalism is immoral. That’s an improvement! He suggests to his Republican mentees that they avoid the word “capitalism.”
Continue reading Top GOP Strategist: “Occupy Matters”
Based on Richard A. Epstein’s new Broadside, this video outlines the differences between the classical liberalism of the Tea Parties and the progressive agenda advanced by the OWS movement, and reveals that the painful performance of the American economy in the past decade is not a function of bad luck, but the product of flawed institutional design….
…These days, when I drive out Route 55, also known as the Olsen Highway, most of the buildings I see were built since I stayed in that run down little motel, which by the way was long ago torn down and replaced with new development. Nothing about that drive is familiar now, except for the Rainbow which had just been built when I stayed there, and an old beat up strip mall from the mid 20th century. There was once wilderness, a few farms, the usual lakes. Then, Boom! Building everywhere.
And the funny thing is that today, many of those buildings are for sale, vacant, for lease. There are even buildings built in the last ten years that are at risk of deterioration through misuse. And that isn’t a particularly depressed part of town.
It seems that civilization, and its economy, are like the proverbial river that you can’t step into twice: It is always there, but never is it the same. This has been true since the Industrial Revolution: Cheap hydroelectric power harnessed by modern turbines under emerging brick mills filled with rural transplants, mostly women and children, losing the occasions finger or hand to the machinery but driving a brave new economy with the production of cloth or flour. But the water allowed only a certain amount of growth, so it was supplemented with coal-powered steam engines running the mill’s machines. Then the coal became the main form of energy. Homes lit by burning tallow and whale oil became brighter with the introduction of gas lines and lamps, and the streets glowed at night in London and New York and Minneapolis, and eventually liquid petroleum found its use to drive more industrial engines, and eventually cars, and eventually furnaces in our homes, and eventually along side coal power stations that produced the electricity that made our homes even brighter….
That is part of an essay I wrote for Financial Engagement, a Public Thing. It is published (in print) as part of a newspaper project. There is a PDF version of the while shebang, which you can get to here.
Very interesting …
Why would you do this????
A judge handed Occupy Boston a major win today, granting a court order that forbids police to carry out a New York-style clearing of the Dewey Square encampment except in cases that pose a major threat to public safety.
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frances McIntyre issued a temporary restraining order this afternoon, saying Occupiers will allowed to stay camped peacefully opposite South Station until a court hearing for a preliminary injunction Dec. 1. Police are still allowed to clear the park if there is an “outbreak of violence” or a catastrophe such as a fire, she said.
A state “supreme” court (meaning a lower level state court) in New York State and a County level Court in Massachetts disagree on pretty much the same issue. I would think that the First and Second federal district courts would now be in the running to see this case to the next level, depending on if it is an appeal in Boston or NY.
As you know, Mayor Bloomberg, the Billionaire Mayor of New York City and Poster Boy for the 1%, had the police rather violently toss the Occupy Wall Street protesters out of the park they were occupying during the dark of night very early this morning. The idea, according to Bloomberg, who has never been that good at telling the truth but strangely not that good at telling lies either, was to clean up the park and let the protesters back in. But … Continue reading Judge Rules Against US Constitution, Sides With 1%
