Response to the following news report concerning recent protests in New York:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sygV7dI0adk
Source: http://photos.nj.com/star-ledger/2011/10/the_occupy_wall_street_protest_32.html
I think you’re right about a paradigm shift. I’m reading a book called The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. It describes how small ideas become very popular ideas or trends. It seems that ‘Big Banks ruling our economy is unfair’ is a popular idea which is becoming more common. The Innovators are the people protesting in the streets of Manhattan. Soon, the Early Adopters will follow along. These Early Adopters are the big businesses that can’t afford to be risky like these small revolutionary groups called Occupy Manhattan. The big businesses will begin advertising and promoting the ‘idea’ causing it to go mainstream as Cool and Right. Then the Late Adopters will finally agree with this movement and because they’re cool friends are rallying and speaking out, they will go along for the ride. These banks have always been in control, but now the idea of it being unfair to the public majority is becoming popular. I think people are struggling to meet their basic needs and desires and are pointing fingers. It’s like Entitlement Mentality in Overdrive. They want welfare checks if they could. I bet most of them would simply sell out. They don’t want to change the world with their own ideas or save a child in poverty from hunger. They are self-serving at their core. If they really want to make changes in the banking system they need to go about it much more intelligently. Sit ins did do something for Blacks in the old South, but that’s not what gave them equal rights in America. Charismatic leaders with purpose led the oppressed through terrible sacrifice and injustice before enough Whites submitted to the grace of humanity. This video makes bad guys out of the New York Police for beating and arresting 700 people; it reflects the early stages of social change as in any equal rights movement. While I agree a paradigm shift is growing, there is a much bigger issue at hand. This Occupy Manhattan needs to essentially create their own business or bank in order to cause real change. Organize lawyers, politicians, sociologists, economists, bankers, business owners, workers, etc all working with one common goal: become independent of the Big Banks. The real issue is that we are all completely dependent on the monetary system which the Big Banks control. Can you imagine a baseball league making a ‘Fairness’ rule that everyone will score the same number of runs for every game? It’s not baseball anymore, its Socialism. The way to make it fair is to stop playing baseball. I suggest that Occupy Manhattan is bunch of spoiled brats crying for momma to feed them. Please use your minds and skills to get organized. America was founded with 177 intelligent men in a room sharing ideas for months. Revolution is an action plan, not a protest rally. I welcome your honest feedback.
On the local news this morning, I saw Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream fully support the Occupy Manhattan movement: an Early Adopter.
I would argue that set of points for a number of reasons. First, the Occupy movement is directly resulting in a set of major disparities in our culture and our social environment. The social stratigraphy has collapsed into two pieces stacked one on top of the other instead of a series of fluid layers where vertical mobility is available. The structure of our society, as it stands at present, is more like a concrete slab of oppression (the 1% and their gov. marionettes) held up off the muddy ground by the other group (the 99%) who are being squashed beneath its weight like grapes enroute to the wine cellars.
I don’t know what the answer is but the Occupy folks are members of every class and social stripe, you only see the hippies on TeeVee because they satisfy the stereotype that the media insists on maintaining. You have to look below the surface on this. Trust me, if you had been affected by the last ten years of social decline – quality of life, employment opportunity, education opportunity, access to resources – like money, you would likely be there in the streets too. It’s not that it’s just in NYC, it’s global, you just aren’t going to hear that from the corporate owned media because it shows that we NYC group is not an isolated group and that there is a global social upheaval taking place and everyone needs to take notice and decide that we need a new trajectory as a species or we will ultimately destroy the biosphere that makes it possible for our sorry species to survive at all… money or not.
Soon it will be food and water and shelter and not much else that will have ultimate value, then money will have been long forgotten… in a very short time as the populace discovers that it has no value if it cannot immediately be devoured, or provide protection from the elements, whatever those might be then.
It’s not a bunch of snotty, spoiled brats, it’s people like me and my neighbors and friends and college professors and others who are out there as “Occupiers”. We want our democracy back from the thieves who stole it from us and we’re making sure that not only does everyone know it, we are showing them that they are not alone and we are all here to make it happen. If it weren’t for an open democracy like ours, the rich would never have been able to become rich. They should pay the dues too.. Screw Milton Friedman and his dastardly litter of economic vermin and their quest for world domination by the few.