OWS slipped into the pundi-blogo-chatter zone faster than Herman Cain's hand up a dress. No surprise. It inspires, enrages and entertains. It's got cops, robbers (alleged) and car chases (until stopped by pedestrian impact). It's a prune danish buffet of good copy that races though Google's digestive algorithm to fertilize the news cycle over and over.
Per the the metaphor, a lot of the coverage stinks. May be even be dangerously infected.
But not all. A few threads are sprouting like vines out of the heap, some intertwining, in the growing season of our political weather system. And these vines could bear some tasty fruit.
Let's peruse the garden:
According to (insert poll here), Americans believe by a huge margin (insert percentages here) that the country is on the wrong track, going off the rails, offending God, defiling Mother Earth and broke.
And they are right. Latest evidence, via the Washington Post (emphasis by TGW):
Census Bureau measures more Americans living in poverty
By Michael A. Fletcher, Published: November 7
The Census Bureau on Monday released a new, comprehensive poverty measure that painted a more dismal picture of the nation’s economic landscape than the official measure from September.
The report found that 49.1 million Americans — 16 percent of the population — lived in poverty in 2010, which is higher than the 46.2 million Americans found to live in poverty by the official measure released in September.
The new report marked the culmination of a years-long effort by the Census Bureau to come up with a poverty measure that takes into account the huge amounts of money in social services benefits provided to the needy, as well as their expenses for things such as medical care and payroll taxes.
The increased level of poverty revealed by the supplemental measure is at odds with what some poverty experts expected. The increased level of poverty was fueled by the sharply higher levels of poverty among senior citizens found by the alternative measure.
“The elderly just overwhelm it,” said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The poverty rate for those 65 and older was 15.9 percent based on the supplemental measure, much higher than the 9 percent rate for the elderly when using the official poverty yardstick.
The biggest factor increasing the poverty rate for seniors under the alternative measure was out-of-pocket medical expenses, which are not captured by the official poverty rate but are by the alternative measure. At the same time, neither the accumulated wealth of senior citizens nor their Medicare benefits are included in the official or supplemental measure, which some experts said skews the number of elderly who are counted as impoverished.
Among whites, 14.3 percent were found to be in poverty under the supplemental measure, more than a percentage point higher than the 13.1 percent poverty rate found by the official measure.
Hispanics had a poverty rate of 28.2 percent under the alternative measure, higher than the official poverty rate of 26.7 percent.
The proportion of black Americans living in poverty declined slightly under the alternative measure, from 27.5 percent under the traditional measure to 25.4 percent. Among children younger than 18, the poverty rate under the alternative measure was 18.2 percent, much lower than the official rate of 22.5 percent.
Note the bold sections on the elderly poor. We'll come back to them.
On to the next vine in the twine. Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post live chat with Bank of America protester Molly Katchpole. I like her. She's humble and committed and rejects the idea that she is either famous or that fame is required to make a difference.
But that's beside the point, which is that one of the nation's largest newspapers decided to cover the injustice that led to her action:
What's next for Bank of America protester Molly Katchpole?
NOVEMBER 7, 2011
Molly Katchpole is credited for starting a petition to get Bank of America to back off its proposal to charge a monthly debit-card fee. The bank abandoned the plan....
– November 07, 2011 11:55 AM Permalink
Q.
STUDENT LOANS
Molly, thanks for chatting. I noticed on the comments to the article that when someone made reference to the quote you gave on your impending student loans ("Really."), you would comment in reply that you'd like a chance to email with them on that topic. So please, here's your chance: would you elaborate on your quote in the story? Because it came off as though you were both suprised and upset that you had to pay off the student loans you obtained in order to get your degree. I thought you sounded unrealistic in the quote, but I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt, and more space to explain. Thanks.
– November 07, 2011 10:00 AM Permalink
A.
MOLLY KATCHPOLE :
Ah! The question I wanted to answer. So glad you've asked.
So, paying student loans is not surprising, of course. I've known all four years that I'd have to start after 6 months of graduating. When I was talking to Ian, we were having a more in-depth discussion about student loans. My response isn't fully in the article, of course - he only has so much space.
My sentiment is this: it doesn't seem to do any good to have just a 6-month period to "save money." I think the root of the problem lies there - I'd love to try to change that. Every single one of my friends who has loans to pay off is terrified. We're scared. We just had 4 years of learning and trying to earn money, and now it's like, Well shoot. Six months goes by pretty fast.
I'm not unrealistic - I think my quote was just a quick, passionate response and very much encapsulates how every recent grad feels.
Understand?
– November 07, 2011 12:06 PM...
Q.
STUDENT LOANS
I don't understand why you (or anyone) takes on so many loans when it seems impossible you will be able to pay them. Why didn't you start with community college, or school part time paying as you go, or a less expensive school or a degree that was more likely to make you employable. I really don't understand if kids today are so financially illiterate that you truly do not understand what a loan is or interest or what signing a contract to repay those loans really means.
– November 07, 2011 10:24 AM Permalink
A.
MOLLY KATCHPOLE :
I'm not sure if this is a question or a criticism, but I'm going to try to answer it regardless.
I'm not financially illiterate, and neither are my friends who have loans. We understand what a contract is and we understand what repaying loans means.
That being said, I think it's perfectly okay and reasonable to frankly get pissed off and frustrated with not making much money and knowing that you worked your tail off.
I know you're referring to my quote, and it was just a burst of frustration. I find it hard to believe that other people don't get caught up in their feelings sometimes, too.
– November 07, 2011 12:12 PM
Did you expect the petition to get as big as it did?
– November 07, 2011 12:15 PM Permalink
A.
MOLLY KATCHPOLE :
I thought it would get maybe a few ten-thousand signatures... but never 300,000+
So what's going on? We've got three generation being squeezed here. The elderly are increasingly poor, and youth are more and more in debt. And let's not forget the middle aged, who are understandably worried about each of the other groups.
Everyone's in trouble and everyone's upset.
Okay, so how did we react to the debunking of what Michael Moore called "the myth of the invincible American Economy? Well, first angry people marched though the streets, armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and tea bags, and stomped on protesters who disagreed with them.
Next, angry people took to the streets, set up camp and got stomped on by police who disagreed with them.
Eerie symmetry, that. Even though the stompees are seem the same folks in both cases. By why quibble?
Time to reiterate what has been said by many: despite all other differences, the activist right and left are both pissed off by those they see pushing them around, either big government or big business. And to reiterate another often cited fact: government and business have essentially become the same. There's the problem.
But so what? Is there really any hope that the Tea Party and OWS can act together, when one sees the unfettered free market as the cure for most evils and the other as the cause?
I'm thinking that a formal alliance is a long shot. But I have to wonder if the overlap of some interests might, just might provide elected officials with cover to make some real, reformist policy.
The next vine hints at this illustrated by the following clips:
Via the Oakland Tribune:
A movement out of focus
(Mind you, this is not particularly favorable, but we'll twine it in elderly poor down the line. Just wait.)
Thirty-five years ago this month, the English punk band The Sex Pistols released a debut single called "Anarchy in the U.K.," in which Johnny Rotten, the group's wild-eyed, gyrating lead singer, wailed these words: "Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it."
Three decades later, the song remains a classic of the genre. And if the thousands of Occupy protests spreading across the country are any sign, the words Rotten sang back then are echoing louder now than ever before. With the Occupy movement, Rotten's song may finally have found the revolution it was looking for.
The protesters who have occupied cities across the country, and now across the world, don't always agree on what they want. But with increasing speed, technological savvy, irony and rage, they do seem to know how to "get it" _ that is, how to organize, how to spark a national debate and, above all, how to keep themselves in the spotlight....
Although many Americans may sympathize with the anti-greed, humanistic vision at the core of the movement, they nevertheless question what the protesters hope to achieve. They're asking, what will it take to end the occupation?...
...
None of this is lost on the savviest of the protesters, many of whom recognize that their aims may seem fanciful, their goals ambitious or unworkable, but who feel all the more emboldened to fight for them. "I don't know what to make of any of this," said Josh Chavanne, a 29-year-old Web designer who eschews the concept of private property and representative democracy, but respects people with much more conservative views than his own. "I think looking at things as points of unity is much more important than what divides us."
The Occupy movement, writ large, has been heavily criticized for its leaderless, consensus-based approach, for its relative lack of engagement with the existing political parties, for its acceptance of often radical ideas that have no other home in American society. But this is to be expected, says Robert Bulman, a professor of sociology at Saint Mary's College, in Moraga, Calif., who has studied how protest movements develop in America.
"One reason the Occupy movement seems so amorphous is because it is trying to be as inclusive as possible," says Bulman. "The benefit is that everyone feels a part; the downside is that it's hard to present a focused public face."
Bulman argues that the movement needs to have an electoral strategy, much like the tea party did, if it hopes to sustain itself through the next election cycle. If it does, he says, it will have helped place issues such as economic inequality, unemployment and the hardships of millions of Americans at the forefront of the national consciousness, and in that sense, it will have succeeded.
Key takeaways: The fact of inclusiveness and the need for an electoral strategy.
Here's a shockingly nice post from the conservative Virginal Right! blog that was in Technorati's "Hottest Political Posts" as of 10:00 AM this morning:
Virginia Right! Blogger Visits Occupy Richmond and Is Shocked by What He Finds
Going perhaps a bit undercover I wandered down to Kanawha Plaza in downtown Richmond this afternoon to get a few pictures and gauge the people of whom I have been so critical first hand, up close and personal...
I expected exactly what I had heard and seen on the news. Trash, filth, drugs, human excrement and terrible odors. And obnoxious people demanding handouts.
In fact, that is what I went down there to document.
But a strange thing happened on the way to expose these greedy freeloaders for the vermin we believe them to be...
There were tents, hand painted signs, almost child-like art work in poster paint reminiscent of the 60′s. Love. Peace.
I was politely greeted by several as I snapped pictures and looked around. I came upon a medical tent and was greeted by a young African-American man named Chris. I asked him a few questions and then asked his permission to record him as he gave me the grand tour. I really hadn’t expected to find a clean camp, let alone a medical tent – one of two!..
My biggest problem with this movement has been their disregard for the law. But it seems that they are at least making an effort to comply with the law and the City of Richmond is actually dragging their feet. I have no reason to believe this woman was not being truthful, which means that the City and local media has been less than candid about the Occupy Richmond group’s efforts to do things the right way.
Shame on Mayor Jones. While I criticized Jones earlier today in a post for not evicting the scofflaws who refuse to abide by the law and obtain the proper permits, it seems that the criticism of Jones was deserved, but not because he failed to remove this group who is unlawfully assembled, but because his administration has failed to either approve or disapprove the permit...
I believe that the mainstream media has managed to ferret out the worst of the Occupy participants and what we have seen is not representative of the majority of the group. I believe Chris and the woman I spoke with were more a part of the core of the group.
For the ones I spoke with today, what they have found is a group of humans who feel pushed out of the society we live in today. The sense of community they are seeking no longer exists. It has been replaced by an everyone for themselves mentality. I think the reason that they have no real demands is that they have yet to realize that they are looking for a time I remember as a boy. When the entire neighborhood knew one another. Where you could never get away with anything because everyone knew your name and your parent’s phone number.
I believe that while those on the outside see a group of Communists or Socialists – I know I did – what they really are is Community-ists. They just don’t know it. Sure there are aspects of communes and I was having 60′s flashbacks during my visit. And I suppose that any good movement needs a villain. For the Hippies it was the Vietnam War and the Establishment. For the Occupiers, it seems to be banks. I am not sure how that actually fits the puzzle, but it seems to work as the catalyst that binds the Occupy Movement together...
But I now think that this is, at the very least, an interesting experiment. It is not the TEA Party. The two are totally different.
The TEA Party is a community looking for a specific list of items to be addressed. The Occupy Movements are a group searching for a sense of community. So far, at least. The two groups have little in common, but they also have little in opposition, either. They are not opposites in any way. Just two groups on the same path in pursuit of happiness.
O Please, Great Divinity, may there be more encounters like this one. (And there may be, considering that Tea Party Co-Founder Karl Denninger recently expressed support for OWS.
So let's look at what we've twined together here:
1. We're all going broke
2. We're all upset
3. We have responded by building and/or strengthening communities on both sides of the political spectrum
So what is a community, anyway? Well, at the basic level, a family. Parents, grandparents and children. And there are a lot of parents out there worried about the other two groups, for the same reasons, no matter what their political affiliations.
As Molly Katchpole points out, we all understand the idea of a contract. And contracts, implicit and explicit, are being broken by the powers that be in their efforts to screw the last cent out of three generations. The contract that was made by those who paid into social security is on its way to being breached. The contract that we all make when we exchange taxes for needed services (remember what Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said: "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.) seems forgotten. And the endlessly repeated promise, embedded in the American Dream, that work will be rewarded, is under economic and political siege.
How did Tina Turner put it in Beyond Thunderdome? "Bust a deal, face the wheel!"
Now I'm not about to don my form-fitting chain mail and fire up the old jet-powered chariot, but she had a point. One that resonates.
Here's a piece from The Hill Newspaper that suggest where all the the vines we've discussed might bear fruit.
Ron Paul and Occupy Wall Street can change the world together
By Brent Budowsky - 11/07/11 09:56 AM ET
I view Ron Paul and his supporters as a movement and a cause as much as a conventional campaign, in the same way I view Occupy Wall Street as a movement and a cause that originated far outside the conventional political system...
I listen carefully and respectfully to what Ron Paul says, and what Occupy Wall Street says. There are two levels of analysis. On the matter of the role of government, there will never be agreement. On the matter of private-sector solutions, there are profound and powerful opportunities for agreement.
Ron Paul and Occupy Wall Street agree that what is called capitalism is, in many cases, not capitalism but cronyism in which special interests game the system to accumulate wealth in ways that involve special access to government monies and favoritism and not creating products that consumers want to buy.
If there were a way to build a de facto consumer alliance between Ron Paul supporters and Occupy Wall Street supporters based purely on private-sector initiatives that make profit by putting customers first, it would change the world...
The truth is, as most Ron Paul supporters and most Occupy Wall Street supporters would agree, far too often the fix is in against us.
The most powerful answer to crony capitalism is customer capitalism. The most powerful weapon for change is a unity between conservative populists and liberal populists.
While we will never agree on the role of government, the most powerful revolution waiting to be tapped is to join forces in support of those in the private sector who stand with the 99 percent, giving individuals real choices in the private market in support of companies that believe that the customer is always right.
I welcome specific ideas, and will soon offer some more of my own.
I agree with the author that the two sides will never agree on the role of government, but I think he's right on about the need to push for private sector companies that work for the consumer. Just as there is a need for a government that works for those who pay their taxes, not those who avoid them. It's time they honored the contract.