Month: October 2011 Page 1 of 2

Notice something: Oakland is where the Occupy movement voted to try a general strike of sorts. Since the Longshoreman’s union is onside, this will have an effect.

Oakland is also where the worst police brutality has occurred, and it began before the vote on the general strike.

The police and mayor are fools. By committing atrocities, they are forcing people to engage in effective action. They are forcing the protestors to strike back and do something which will actually hurt the powerful.

But the police and mayor are also doing the necessary work of educating people. These folks would not believe those of us who told them that simple peaceful protest would not accomplish anything. Only the police, and a Democratic mayor whose resume is that of a DFH, could convince them of that.

I have said little about OWS, because there is little to say. OWS is necessary. People needed to try for peaceful redress, to make an attempt to convince elites to do the right thing, and see the response of the elites. The response was foreordained, but you can’t tell anyone anything, so they have to learn at the end of a nightstick, or while suffering from tear gas or pepper spray, or while being forced away from helping a critically injured man.

This will continue to play out, as it must. It is necessary and insufficient, but it will produce the cadre of radicals who will go on to the next steps.

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

By Ian Welsh

On October 22, 2011

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– Frederick Douglass

In our current age the word demand has been debased. A day does not go by without some person or organization “demanding” an apology or retraction or that someone do something.

These are not demands as a prior generation would have understood them.

Why?

Because there is no “or else”, not even an implicit one.

When I was a child if someone demanded something of me I always understood that they meant “or else”.

A demand which does not have a threat or a promise behind it is hollow. It means nothing. It is not, in any meaningful sense, even a demand.

A request is very distinct from a demand yet we use the word demand when we are really requesting something.

We have grown infantile in our relation to power, in our understanding of power and in our use of the language of power.

Sometimes the powerful will give something that is requested. If they do, it is because they were already considering it, because many amongst them think the benefit exceeds the cost.

But power concedes nothing that matters to the powerful without a threat, it never did and it never will.

I see the police are providing an education

By Ian Welsh

On October 11, 2011

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by beating protestors, destroying their medical gear, sending riot cops in to stop “serving food without a permit” and throwing protestors camping gear in garbage trucks.

Yes, this is an education. They are teaching them that the police and elites are their enemies.

I am bitterly amused.

Someone explain to me what will convince them to stop? What’s the theory, here?

Only thing I can see, on the current terms of engagement, is for the protests to grow so large that the police literally can’t throw them all in jail, because there is no room. Might set up camps, then, but you can overwhelm them too. Are enough Americans going to be willing to be arrested for this to work? It’d be great, if so.

Revolution Basics #1: Who cares what you think?

By Ian Welsh

On October 7, 2011

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Once upon a time, a man informed George Bush Jr. that he didn’t like the President’s policies. Bush then said “who cares what you think?”

Bloomberg and Wall Street may not like Occupy Wall Street, but they aren’t going to negotiate in any meaningful sense.

Why should they?

What are the consequences, for them, of not cooperating? They have to see some noisy people. Does it appreciably reduce their income? No. The men or women they get to sleep with? No. The amount of power they have over DC? No. Their actual physical safety, or the safety of those they care about? No.

For Occupy to be successful, on its own terms, will require shutting down Wall Street and probably all of NYC. There must be so many people on the street that it is impossible to arrest them all or to get rid of them without resorting to a lot more than a whiff of grapeshot. The elites must be be faced with a decision tree “negotiate or lose a ton of money and be massively inconvenienced or shoot hundreds of thousands of people and build mass detention camps.” That will require two or three million people occupying New York City.

Remember, modern elites are trained to think in terms of cost-benefit analyses. If the cost to them of not giving in is less than the cost of not giving in, they won’t give in. It took trillions of dollars to bail out Wall Street. They take home billions of dollars in personal bonuses. You must cost them, personally, more than that, for them to want to give in.

If you want politicians to take out Wall Street for you, it has to be worth their while. Either the Koch Brothers have to pay them to take out one part of the elite on behalf of another part of the elite, or they have to know that not only will they lose their positions if they don’t do it (remember, the Soviet Politburo had more turnover than the Senate does) but that they will never have a good job afterwards, that whatever monied interests they have served either will not be able to give them a good life afterwards, or they will be unable to enjoy that good life.

You want a velvet revolution? A revolution in which you never so much as throw a punch? You’re still going to have to make the elites decide to give you what you want, or you will have to have the unilateral power to remove those elites and replace them with your own leaders.

Rephrase Bush’s “who cares what you think?’ as “Why should I care what you think?”

Don’t bother trying to appeal to shared morality, ethics or fellow feeling. These people were selected because they are functional sociopaths. They do not care about your suffering. Their ideology labels you as worthless eaters and them as the only truly productive people in society. Everything they have is because they earned it, and everything you have is because you sponged off your betters. That is what they believe.

They will not give you what you want, whatever that is, unless they either have no choice, or you make it rationally their best choice (and then they’ll screw you on the reverse side, everything they give you they will take away again, which is what you get for thinking you can cut a deal with such people).

I see the “progressive” begging class

By Ian Welsh

On October 7, 2011

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is fund-raising off of Occupy Wall Street. Welcome to co-option, whether you like it or not. Most big blogs and organizations like MoveOn exist to beg, nothing more, nothing less.

Ontario Liberals Win

By Ian Welsh

On October 7, 2011

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They are fundamentally a right wing party, and their leader is a serial liar about important policy issues. But, at the end of the day, the NDP did not want to win. If they had wanted to win they would have promised a referendum on repealing the HST. They refused to do so, they chose to run as liberal light “no new income taxes” and so they lost. If Ontarians want to be lied to about taxes, they can vote Liberal.

As for Horwath, she needs to go. Does not have what it takes.

Liz Warren decides to lose to Scott Brown

By Ian Welsh

On October 4, 2011

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Seems her comment on #Occupy is that people should obey the law, and she wasn’t talking about the cops. Oh, and she’s against marijuana legalization.

Leaving all else aside, this is awful politics in the most technical sense. Her statement, if she didn’t want to endorse #Occupy should have been something like “this movement shows that until we reform Wall Street and the Banking system unrest will continue to grow,” or something similar. As a politician, when asked about something, say it proves the need for your program. In Warren’s case it’s even plausible.

But let’s be frank, she is a stalking horse for Obama. She is deep in his pockets, supported strongly by his organization. She is the spokesman for “saving the Middle Class”, saying things which Obama can no longer say and pass the laugh test. The problem with “saving the Middle Class” is that for the people in #Occupy movement, it’s too late. Most of the core people are no longer in the middle class. Saving those still in it will do nothing for them, even if the policies suggested would work, which they wouldn’t.

But what this mainly reveals is that Warren is incompetent. She has just told most of the left, the very people who are reluctant to work for Obama, that there is no real point in working for her. She may believe in some consumer protections, but she’s still a conservative Democrat, who just wants to tweak the status quo. She regards the #Occupy people as illegitimate, as law breakers. She wants to keep the war on drugs going, even though, as a Law Prof, she has to know it doesn’t work and causes unimaginable suffering.

Contemptible and incompetent.