This picture has a little of that iconic quality of historical moments when a society stands right at or in the process of passing a tipping point. A peaceful assembly to protest an obvious loss of democratic rights and influence is met with a screaming authority figure and reluctant horses. And it looks so futile. Even the horses understand that this is wrong.
Times Square, New York City.
And in some ways the whole scam of 1980-2008 might have reached its logical endpoint, when all credit was exhausted. The People and the Country are broke, Government is fully corrupted and a tiny 1% have taken everything. No matter what the spin of others, no matter how the occupy movement should evolve or get succeeded by or warp into some other form of movement, no matter how things might quiet down with the colder winter or have some brief periods of inactivity and silence, this simple dynamic of a massive pushback from the whole population cannot be restrained for very much longer. If you take all the marbles the other kids will come after you.
What is so completely awesome is that we are exercising our 1st Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances! Wow! is about all I can say, and why I want folks like Noam Chomsky to sit on the First National General Assembly. Such an historic moment!
Posted by Mo Brock | October 22, 2011, 1:40 pmOh yes!
This is really history in the making, and it could be up there among the invention of agriculture or the machine. A historic moment indeed!
Posted by talkandpolitics | October 22, 2011, 3:15 pmThanks for the visit to my blog, I like your blog and have linked you on mine. Great stuff, it’s going to take me more than five minutes to explore here.
AV
Posted by argentumvulgaris | October 22, 2011, 2:01 pmThanks! I liked your blog too. Let’s stay in touch!
Posted by talkandpolitics | October 22, 2011, 3:25 pmThis is what things have come to….
I have cautioned at the Dog….
The more of these type images….
The BIGGER Occupy will get…..
Posted by jamesb | October 22, 2011, 4:28 pmYep. Visuals like that could be dynamite…
And I’m starting to wonder if not this will become something other than a protest movement pretty soon. More of an organized political force outside the “system” and in some cases challenging the authority of the established officials. If a growing bloc of people feel more represented through a movement like this than the government, and the allegiances shift, things will suddenly look a bit different.
And another financial crash could speed things up.
Posted by talkandpolitics | October 22, 2011, 5:36 pmNew on this site–very enticing blog!
Your gravatar is that of a portrait of Jefferson. It’s fair to say that what he and the other framers never envisioned was a day when the Supreme Court would give the nod towards the concept that a Corporation was equal under the Law to a single citizen (1889). Because they (the framers) couldn’t/didn’t, the Constitution is helpless to rectify this egregious imbalance, whereby an entire law firm can be hired to oppose, say, an asbestos-exposed miner who’s simply trying to get restitution for on-the-job hazards.
Granting Corporations the status of being treated as individual citizens is not only wrong, but ensuring the death of the planet as they go about raping and pillaging every last natural resource–and doing so with impunity.
Reversing the effects of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), should be the rallying message of The Movement.
Thank you for the opportunity to chime in.
Lance in Canada
Posted by weisserwatercolours | January 16, 2012, 7:48 pmThank you!
And thanks for great input. I just briefly dug into the Santa Clara ruling – and it makes a whole lot of sense – that the origins of this mess was the Gilded Age with railroads and avoidance of taxes. Even if it looks kind of weird on the face of it, to go the route of enabling corporate “personhood” to avoid separate tax rules for corporations – by that token they should’ve been paying the private top marginal rate on income today, as individuals!
But of course, it’s just games and diversions.
As for the framers and founders – I’m reading the “John Adams” book by David McCullough at the moment – great read, but the state of the government of 2012 would probably have been an unimaginable nightmare for at least some of them, like Madison, Franklin and Jefferson. Hamilton might’ve loved it – money first and a complete commercial rule centrilized on the very south tip of Manhattan. Efficient and powerful, in his view.
But still; I’m mostly an optimist – thinking that the digital age provides the opportunity for more openness and democracy, and at least the possibility to avoid the aggregation of power so misused and widespread in the industrial centuries.
But we’ll see.
There’s a steep climb from a fully bought government into something more resembling a long-term democracy with the interests of the people and environment first. Even if it has been done before.
And hope you’ll keep chiming in!
Posted by mac | January 17, 2012, 10:32 am