I hope a part of #OWS succeeds, like I want Santa to come

I admit, some days I don't like the way the world works. I had a decent childhood but faced some very serious matters that I still deal with, sometimes to distraction, today. I wish I could change that. But I can't. I can live above it, beyond it, outside of it, but I cannot change what happened. And sometimes, that pounds on me, as it does many. All I can change, really, is myself and my perspective on things, and try to have some influence on others.

I am a wanton rebel, in part. I managed to avoid jail as a youth, and that was, trust me, quite notable during several chapters of my youth. Not proud of it. I do get a devilish grin thinking about some of those misspent hours, now and then. But I wouldn't form my life around those things.

There is a part of me that is pulling for the #OWS people. No, not to bring down capitalism or remain in smelly park camp sites for years, and such pathetic madness: The message hidden in the Marxist, road-blocking, smelly park benches, long-term campout, public bowel movement, stupidity of it.

In a less abrasive way -- one that doesn't include RIOTS in Rome and snotty American pukes blocking people's way to work in NYC -- I hope some element of the Occupy Wall Street movement WORKS -- that it gets something across to the idiots these people helped put in charge in the U.S. (Obama! Pelosi! Frank! Jackson, Jr!).

But, that's the problem with "the Left" -- or what I call Modern American Liberals/Left (MAL, if you wish -- "MALcontents" if you're silly about it), isn't it? The way the least practical of them think and how they promote their message, it's downright incomprehensible. And, inexplicably, the least intellectually vibrant seem to get to the front of the camp. (I mean Pelosi?! How can anyone pay attention to her comments for any length of time and not think she's a drip?!)

Much of what I've seen of the Occupy [City Name Here] movement is, for me, kinda like watching a bad movie shot in (for example) Russian: I see what's going on, and while I cannot understand a word, it looks about as vacant as my Russian vocabulary. I would still root for the protagonist if I have to sit through it. Or, I'd feign illness and go somewhere else.

These same people who are in the #OWS crowds NO DOUBT make fun of the Tea Party movement, yet don't they see just how close their complaints are, but for one major thing: who they blame? There are of course other things that separate these groups, like the Tea Party encourages people to read the Constitution while the Socialist Party of the USA is passing things out at #OWS events. But the big difference is who they blame for the current economic troubles. 

They both blame powerful groups. The government is mostly to blame on the Tea Party side, and Wall Street is obviously to blame on the other side.

One group -- the Tea Party -- was brewing in 2008-09 and moved to work within the system, and those in the establishment trying to wrangle cats (such as Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Patriots). (Disclosure: I identify with the Tea Party's simple, ACTUAL agenda -- as opposed to the creepy, crude, shallow claims the left project onto them.)

The other -- the "Occupy" movement -- seems to think they have it ALL FIGURED OUT, and they can change the ENTIRE system by having droning conversations in parks, and visiting billionaires' neighborhoods. Oh, and holding riots in Europe. Most events, from New Zealand to Britain, were peaceful, happily. (But still lack a point that is actionable in a global economy and digital world, where credit, contacts and education are, reasonably enough, important.) 

I find it frustrating, then, that the groups are both angry about state and business collusion that worsened the economic collapse, allowed big business bailouts and provided everyday people foreclosure-fest 2008 (and 2009, and...). They are both angry about those things! That's common ground! 

The Tea Party was called terrorists, radicals, and the like -- and utterly mocked as "astroturf" by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and called "tea baggers" by so many people it's not possible to list them. This, despite the fact they worked to be very orderly, they were respectful of areas they were gathering in, were calm and collected (unless they were actually attacked, physically, as they were several times, by "union thugs" and politicians' staffers), and left places as clean as they entered them. Well, by comparison to the OWS activists, that IS RADICAL!

Then there's the OWS activists. They aren't so much dangerous because they are capable of violence to try to make their scrambled point, as in Rome on Oct. 15, but because they assume so many things. It is as if their imaginations are fully in chanrge of their perceptions of reality.

They have behaved, quite literally, as the brainwashed members of a cult -- a long video from the Occupy Atlanta kick-off on October 8th showed that weirdness (watch from 1:27 on till you get too bored to keep it up). Business and life have use for imagination, but it's work to turn that into something functional. Just ask an engineer who's worked on a car design, or an aircraft. Ideas are easy.

The OWS activists are fighting a form of fascism, but sadly, I believe it is a "fascism" from inside, that they are listening to and accepting things that are crushing their spirits and leaving ruin in their own misused minds. They seem think they can imagine or talk inconsistencies in the economic system to death, or fight the system with park meetings and shouting at bank buildings. How's that like the Tea Party? It isn't. I wish it were.

If the clutter that thrived in D.C. and New York City, and the droning of Atlanta, the riots of Rome, all subside, something meaningful may come of #OWS. I mean REALLY meaningful. Not geeks getting lucky with some hot hippie babes or making new Facebook friends, but something that is, in the cheesy words of the guy these folks seem to have voted for, Obama: they will provide a "teachable moment." That "moment" isn't gonna happen for the world at large from the back seat of a police cruiser, though.

So, wake up, children, and realize that common sense was way ahead of you on the anti-consumerism thing. The best way to reject "consumerism" is to choose to not buy stuff. You can do that at home, or even out with friends, believe it or not. No need to sleep in clumps in a park, toss garbage all over the place, repeat EVERYTHING other people say (how can this even be done by otherwise happy humans?!), call cops names, or take a dump in public. 

If you're anti-capitalist, though, such as Adbusters truly appears to be, then you're going to be hating it in life. If America were purely capitalist, it would be a wasteland. It isn't. But it drives the economic thinking, for the most part.

I imagine -- but only IMAGINE -- elements of OWS and Tea Party movements getting together. I cannot even imagine it, though, till the bratty, spoiled, acting-out crazies leave the OWS as it was shown in NYC, Boston, Atlanta and probably other locations. There are kooks who also identify with the Tea Party, sure, but they are not the majority. I've seen no proof of it. In the OWS examples I cited, however, there are examples of uber-creepiness. 

There's kids who are sure that Santa's coming this Christmas. Not in spirit, but there are kids who believe Santa Claus is really going to arrive with presents. Who am I to tell those kids otherwise? I wouldn't do that to kids. The belief in Santa is awesome -- even if I don't have it, I wouldn't want others to lose it.

I hope Santa comes, kids. I truly do! 

However, it's time for the "kids" of OWS to grow up. Some may be well into their 60s in years, but there's some part of their brain that's stuck in the most drug-addled, unthinking commune of the 1960s. Somebody's going to have to spell it out for them: what they think is possible is just not realistic. Utopia is not a place. It's an idea. No matter how muddied up you make that hope in your head that it's possible, it isn't. And it certainly isn't going to start from an enforced, communal, socialist economic oneness across the planet. Have you read Orwell, Huxley? Seen the movie "1984"? How about "Brazil"? Alright, you've seen the Apple ad from 1984, right? (I guess it means different things to different people, huh?)

As for getting rid of the crony capitalism, ending big-business bailouts, and creating good jobs, there we have lots of agreement. Can't we work from there? The Tea Party terrorist radicals agree with you there! Just stop calling them "tea baggers", for everyone's sake!

 

- jR

 (Clarification: being stuck in that commune is not good.)

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Adbusters: socialism's apparent instigator of #OWS U.S. arrests, European riots

I wrote the other day that Reuters found that Adbusters, a Canadian anti-capitalist organization with ties to George Soros, had inspired and encouraged the public displays of whining that began as Occupy Wall Street on this little blog.

Kudos to Reuters for looking into the source of the Occupy movement. I think this smelly, drug-addled, street-blocking, business-hating madness is going to get more people hurt across the world and the greedy, power-hungry billionaire out there are going to be watching it from well-secured mansions.

Yet, there is no big story concerned that this little group of Marxists in Canada are allegedly behind this, their Western fashion of the so-called Arab Spring (which is not all it's springed up to be). 

Why isn't the MSM, or even Fox News and the blogosphere shouting about them? (I wonder what Alex Jones -- "Mr. Conspiracy Theories" -- thinks?)

What is Adbusters? Well, they're easy to find. They have a very active and savvy Web site which includes plenty of #OWS activity and partner sites: http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns

Apparently, all of the work on their site was created with free software, developed by people who will only barter, on servers purchased with bartered deals. Oh, but let's be realistic: in order to bring down a system that's spoiled so many, including your ignorant job-having friends, you must cut corners somewhere. Money must be used until Utopia can be achieved!

Funny, but since I am not a DRONE that follows these Marxist socialist fascist dreamers, I already have been doing something for YEARS that they turned into a, uhh, movement or something: Buy Nothing Day. When is it? It's Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. In the U.S. - oh, excuse me, in "North America". 

Have a look at what kind of activism that is inspiring, apparently, to the economically stupid and those incapable of individual thought or responsibilityhttp://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd

I'd think Adbusters were hilarious if it weren't for the inspired students and -- most hilarious -- full-grown adults who are doing exactly what they suggest. Have you seen the videos of these Occupy events? Nutters!

Adbusters say they are anti-consumerist. Well, so what? On many days, so am I!

The difference between anyone like me -- who isn't a fan of a wildly consumer-driven society lacking in strong, grounding traditions and activities -- and these people, is these people don't grasp the subtely of "go" and "floor it". I don't include in my economic philosophy ideas such as purchasing things is bad. (Is it just how I think, or not?

This anti-consumerism opens the door WIDE OPEN to numbskulls robbing stuff because they don't believe in consumerism. Purchasing things like an idiot is bad, not existing in an economic model where goods and services are traded for money (or bartering, etc.). 

I am one who VALUES being an INDIVIDUAL, with all my shortcomings, even. Purchasing regrets I have. I am not, however, interested in relating to blowhard socialists -- that's what these creeps are -- telling me to demonize the consumerism that wreaks havoc on the lives of the complacent poor (most of all, the poor, because if you don't got it, you shouldn't spend it on CRAP). Their other argument, of course, is that the consumerist system exclusively vaunts the greedy to positions of wealth and power. I guess I have to point out that this is a misinformed view, since just as no ethnicity or city or country is all bad, neither is any income class. I know jerks in all classes of income. I probably even dislike wealthy jerks more, but what's that? That's not a reason to prompt a riot!

They can't just be all Dave Ramsey about their spending. They cannot simply avoid the trap of mindless consumerism by listening to grandmotherly advice (as Ramsey offers -- ask him), they have to claim the problem as their own, call it a terrible threat, go to great lengths to attend time-wasting, drone-leading-drone sit-ins and face arrest, and even riots (in Rome, so far), then proclaim: We have saved the world from themselves! Again!!

I have a request: you Adbusters-following, #OWS joining, park-sleeping, public-pooping, finger flickering, repeating-after-me-ing sheep (YouTube video from Occupy Atlanta) open your minds for REAL. First, listen to Dave Ramsey -- or any money-matters personalities out there -- and see where that takes you. It'll not draw you into the street, that's for sure, except to go find a job or two and bust a hump to make something of yourself.

Because I got news for you: capitalism works a lot better than socialism. If the U.S.A. went socialist, what would all those socialist countries that depend on us DO?!  

 

- J Ruse

aka @AirFarceOne

 

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Obama may not be connected to #OccupyWallStreet, but it is to him

Tonight (October 14, 2011), on the "O'Reilly Factor," host Bill O'Reilly said that there is no connection of Obama to the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Well, that's not exactly right. 

O'Reilly, Fox News' top-rated, conservative-leaning host and commentator, responded to a viewer's message which seemed to suggest that Obama had a hand in starting the OWS protests. O'Reilly said (paraphrasing) he has not seen anything to connect Obama to the protests. If there were something to connect the president to OWS, the host added, that would be an incredible story. 

O'Reilly is correct on both counts: there is no evidence showing Obama is involved with the protests, and if there were, it would make for a stunning story. But there's more to look at. 

Other than some complimentary references such as those Obama has already made to the protesters, there may never be a connection from Obama to the cult-like, repetitious, finger-swirling OWS crowds. The Fox News host -- and many others, too -- are missing a connection because they are looking for the links from the wrong side. 

While a direct connection from Obama to Occupy Wall Street (Et Al) is not evident, overtures are there. The connection is not from the White House to the activists, though. It is from the opposite direction, from activists to the ideas that swirl around at the bottom of the dirty sink filled with Obama's useful-idiot-pandering, Marxism-ridden, class warfare toned rhetoric. 

The message O'Reilly was reacting to was likely inspired by, in part, claims from those opposed to Obama and/or the protesters, that the "Occupy" protesters are involved, knowingly or not, in a diversion by the Left to take attention off of the economic failures of the Obama Administration and similar-thinking leaders. The person who wrote the Factor just went a little too far, and O'Reilly was not going to parse it, but answered the message directly. 

The park-squatting protesters who, at times, evoke blatantly anti-capitalist views, are the far side of what Obama seems to evoke, however dishonestly or veiled he is about it. Their anarchist-seeming chatter can make the anti-success, anti-rich, anti-business rhetoric of the vote-pandering White House seem more in the center of political discourse than it is. So the OWS movement is to Obama's advantage, possibly benefiting him among the most pliable of the public's eyes and ears. 

Media organizations from (the commonly liberal) Reuters -- as I saw and noted here -- to (the commonly thrashing liberals) Andrew Breitbart sites have made connections from the movement to Obama. 

O'Reilly is correct, but he has not seen the tweets, Facebook rants, and overt allegiance of "OWS" joiners to the Obama agenda.


-- 

J Ruse 

Like, Totally Political Dude! 
Twitter: @airfarceone

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Slumber: it's the new purpose-driven existence! #OWS #fail

A Washington Post headline that bounced to the top of the crop on Google News: "Postponement of NYC park cleanup heartens protesters, who say it buoys their cause."

They prevent the cleanup of a park they've kinda been trashing for four weeks, confront police, and this is a victory for their cause. 

So, let me get this straight: according to popular media (the mainstream media, SMS, whatever) the Tea Party went wrong by not attacking public parks with their butts. Being angry about a government gone giant-size, attacking the system with views of America's political legacy of limited federal government control, is where the Tea Party failed. They should have attacked ONLY the Wall Street banks (which they did, based on principles of taxation and cronyism, attack, but nobody wants to bring that up on the left)?  

That's sooo pathetic. 

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Slumber: it's the new purpose-driven existence! #OWS #fail

A Washington Post headline that bounced to the top of the crop on Google News: "Postponement of NYC park cleanup heartens protesters, who say it buoys their cause."

They prevent the cleanup of a park they've kinda been trashing for four weeks, confront police, and this is a victory for their cause. 

So, let me get this straight: according to popular media (the mainstream media, SMS, whatever) the Tea Party went wrong by not attacking public parks with their butts. Being angry about a government gone giant-size, attacking the system with views of America's political legacy of limited federal government control, is where the Tea Party failed. They should have attacked ONLY the Wall Street banks (which they did, based on principles of taxation and cronyism, attack, but nobody wants to bring that up on the left)?  

That's sooo pathetic. 

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Canadian anti-capitalist group created #OccupyWallStreet, is on list of Soros' pals #tcot #TeaParty

Who's behind the Wall St. protests?
from Reuters: those damned capitalist-loving, lapdog to the soul-crushing one percent, PIGS! 

Soros and the protesters deny any connection. But Reuters did find indirect financial links between Soros and Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests with an inventive marketing campaign aimed at sparking an Arab Spring type uprising against Wall Street. Moreover, Soros and the protesters share some ideological ground.

Like the protesters, Soros is no fan of the 2008 bank bailouts and subsequent government purchase of the toxic sub-prime mortgage assets they amassed in the property bubble.
 
The protesters say the Wall Street bank bailouts in 2008 left banks enjoying huge profits while average Americans suffered under high unemployment and job insecurity with little help from Washington. They contend that the richest 1 percent of Americans have amassed vast fortunes while being taxed at a lower rate than most people.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/13/us-wallstreet-protests-origins-idUSTRE79C1YN20111013?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71

That's funny. Who ELSE is against bailouts, "too big to fail" ideas, and crony capitalism? THE TEA PARTY. But don't tell anyone. That will only confuse the insular, label-obsessed far left. After all, the Tea Party movement is actually thinly-veiled racism, according to them. That's why they HAD TO launch the Bowel Movement -- err, Occupy Wall Street (sleep-in?) movement. 

This was not created to distract from Obama's stunning failures, or to push noise into the air that suggests the Tea Party has nothing to say against Wall Street and government corruption. Still amazes me just how widely supported this became by leftists and many in the Democratic Party leadership within WEEKS. But, of course they like anyone making Wall Street bad, even while they take their donations, because it gives government all the more reason to boss around all of those who build business, add jobs, and earn big money. The DNC is all for big government!

And therein lies the PRIMARY DIFFERENCE between Occupy and Tea Party. One supports limiting government power while the other wants other people's hard work to -- beyond cronyism and crookedness -- go for their own good. One believes in individuals succeeding while the other believes in the successful propping up the rest not just a little, but to a ridiculous degree. 

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Bowel Movement: Loved by the left. The faaaaaar left

So the everyone-is-equally-as-important-as-everyone-else types over at Scallywag & Vagabond are among the, uhh, cultural commentators who embrace the Occupy hippies. No shock there. 

I watch you turn away from what is easy and stand up for what is right. I see you understand we as a society are only as strong as our weakest link. I see you wise beyond your years. And I am proud. Give ‘em hell, kids. You are beautiful.
 
Together we are strong.

WTF? Together we SMELL strong, more likeTheir strength comes in several scents: armpit sting, putrid clothes and feces. 

So, rational commentators are happy about this sit-in, public park ruining, trash spreading, public pooping movement? Oh, sorry, I only ASSUME you're rational. My mistake. 

You're happy about these yammering clowns, these union-funded, Democratic Party beloved hippie public defecating distractions? What do you think about the Tea Party? Would love to know. 

This is not Occupy Wall Street so much as it is the Bowel Movement, as we've seen. After all, taking a rule of the far left -- which this is SO CLEARLY driven by -- one or several idiots represent the whole. Just as one crazy creep allegedly appearing in a crowd in any given SANE, peaceable, organized and non-defecation Tea Party rally makes the entire movement racist, a pack of "tea baggers", a few morons crapping in public make this the Bowel Movement. 

Do tell: what's the Tea Party if not the rational, change-the-system from a place of stubborn American tradition. And what is this if not the directionless few drooling on themselves as they flick their fingers in the air like a pack of cult members, repeating each others' words as if The Borg?

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Postcards from the Wedge -- "Fwd: Getting to Charlotte"

The White House is "getting to Charlotte" and everyone who agrees with their policies is invited! What's more, everyone in the convention hall will MEET THE PRESIDENT! From the Obama 2012 campaign::
In Denver, in 2008, "we were nominating a candidate who reflects our hopes and our core values -- someone who's looking out for all Americans, not just those with the most money or the most power..."

As that quote shows, the Obama 2012 squad is hard at work while our president does federal government and "leader of the free world" stuff. Only recently, President Barack Obama did more of that working over of America when he lied, at a mic while making a statement at the White House, that he had met a jobless teacher from Boston. He didn't. It was a perfectly needless, self-ingratiating lie used to put lipstick on this pig: a clumsy, class president campaign-type comment to the effect of "it would be nice to have a budget to fund that guy a teaching job, wouldn't it?"

It would be terrific, Mr. President, truly. If there is money for it and an actual budget (a speech doesn't count!!) to do that and lots of other really neato stuff it would be jump-for-joy nutty good to do. But we're still arguing about where trials for terrorists ought to be, in some corners, thanks to your Admin's totally off-the-path policy priorities. What's the big deal about his little lie? It's one of many, for starters. This one: Obama blossomed the fact that he was in the general vicinity of a Boston teacher, claimed having "had the honor of meeting" the teacher (who may actually have a job, were now being told!), to make a really, really lame point. Obama was in the White House garden, lying for no good reason, and adding that we should get that teacher back into a classroom teaching some children.

The teacher complained that he had been laid off three times because of budget cuts or something bureaucratic and impersonal. Well, Obama knows impersonal! He said he met the teacher without sharing a word with him, from about five or six arm-lengths away at best. What an amazing man! Obama can even meet people without them realizing it until Obama tells the media about it! Here's more of that magical Obama power, as Juliana Smoot tells the fawning masses in a campaign email "Getting to Charlotte" (where the 2012 DNC Convention will be):

"I watched him [Obama] accept the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States in Denver.

It was a powerful moment for a lot of reasons, but for many of us who were there, the point was driven home: It was so important that we were nominating a candidate who reflects our hopes and our core values -- someone who's looking out for all Americans, not just those with the most money or the most power."

Uh-huh.

Unlike those evil, racist, bigoted Tea Partiers, Republicans and zombie brain-eaters from Hell who have conservative economic and Constitutional views, the president cares about you! Just ask his buddy the CEO of GE! Yes, President Obama, one-term president, blamer-in-chief, supporter of the basic socialist-communist concept of "redistribution of wealth," is looking out for YOU! Isn't that nice? He is literally thinking about you right NOW, while having a cold milk with Santa -- it's a dairy summit. All hail the chief! Like your mom, your big brother (if he is cool), hall monitors, the camp counselor who pats your back a bit too long and slowly, an imaginary giant white rabbit, or the railings that your captor put on your bed sides, Obama is there for you. How is he showing it? Did you know that Obama never goes to sleep without first looking at a list of all of America's unemployed and underemployed. Of course, he reviews any deals for his illegal immigrant uncle (the drunk driver who drives for a living) or undocumented aunt in New England, or whichever relative will next stumble out into the light and be a terrible eyesore for a mostly in-the-tank press. He, obviously, caps off his night reading with the latest of his Department of Justice's emails regarding the failed sting, the cartel gun-running "Fast and Furious" fiasco nobody knew about till the week the story broke the MSM noise barrier (that was August, or July, some time, though some have been reporting on it since 2009). Oh now look at me, exaggerating: Obama does none of those things. But like the Boston teacher was, those issues are milling around him, so, therefore, he is right on top of them all, "dealing" with them like the big world leader that he is so clearly learning to be.

It's not important that Obama is much better at inventing stories of how he is dealing with such issues than how he is ACTUALLY dealing with them. That's what Congress is for: actually handling the issues. The White House doesn't have to deal with that, they just have to look... presidential-ish. But Pelosi had to stop being Speaker and that is when things got all messed up; they were going so well those first two years! There was the pledge to close Gitmo, to end the two wars, inspire love and respect for America from all the Islamic nations, hold the jobless rate to 8% or less, create 300,000 jobs a month, to name a few. All those successes! Well, possibilities, at least. The evil GOP had to get in the way and win those 2010 elections and prevent this from becoming a one-party nation like some nutty far left Democrats had been hoping for.


The White House and drips such as former Speaker Pelosi are "Getting to Charlotte" -- and whole lot of other communities, and not in a good way. I hope the amateur leaders (but professional campaigners) can hold themselves back when they lose the WH in 2012, and step down with the same impersonal grace with which Obama told of his fake discussion with an unemployed (employed?) Boston teacher in early October. Only 13 months to go. Best of luck, non-leftists, I am pulling for you to take the White House, and hold the House!! Perhaps non-leftists can even take a majority in the Senate. Thirteen months is a long time to watch amateurs run a country, after all.
- jR

"Postcards from the Wedge" - posts about the wedge that the White House drives between itself and the inconvenient facts of their clear failures. In the process, they put a wedge between Americans. We cannot let thoroughly self-centered politicians ruin this nation. (Ex: the sheep in their flock and informed Americans who like America better than they do redecorated socialist economic goals of redistribution that are peddled by the left.)

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