Occupy Wall Street? The last issue of Montclarion, a student newspaper at Montclair State University,(*)published an article of Grover Furr, about the Occupy Wall Street movement: http://www.themontclarion.org/archives/3740261(*) Yes, rich people always want to be richer and richer. This is unfortunate; no one knows how to stop this, without taking away constructive motivation. What fraction of Bill Gates' fortune is consumed and what fraction is productively invested? My guess is that the first fraction is much less than 10%, and that he is not a rare exception. What does Professor Furr have to offer us? Consider a complex machine which works but not perfectly. Anyone can destroy it; no advanced knowledge is usually needed to accomplish this. But one has to be highly knowledgeable in order to repair it, or to design a better replacement. I am thinking about sophisticated engines, airplanes, TV sets, X ray scanners, computers, airconditioners, oil refineries, etc. The same is true for an economic system. No system is perfect; but some are more efficient than others. Trying to destroy US capitalism (*)without offering something better is likely to create a lot of misery. I am thinking about what Lenin and Stalin did, as decribed in my two short books. These books are now freely available online; the links are at: http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/links.html Note that even now, one hundred years after the Soviet revolution, standards of living in Russia are much lower than in the US, and in other western countries. Ludwik Kowalski(*)(see Wikipedia)
OWS protesters tear-gassed and arrested... Atlanta Police Arrest Protesters Who Refused to Leave Park October 26, 2011 With helicopters hovering overhead, police moved into a downtown Atlanta park and arrested around 50 Occupy Wall Street protesters who had been encamped there for about two weeks early Wednesday. See also: Police in Riot Gear Disperse Oakland Protesters With Tear Gas October 26, 2011 The scene was calm but tense in Oakland, Calif., early Wednesday as a crowd of hundreds of protesters dwindled to just a few dozen at the site of several clashes between authorities and supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement a night earlier.
OWS gets KKK endorsement... Former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke Supports Occupy Wall Street Movement October 27, 2011 -- David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, has joined President Barack Obama, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in expressing support for the Occupy Wall Street movement, whose protests have been marked by anti-Semitism.
This sets up the false dichotomy so beloved of neo-liberals. No-one in their right mind (who is not making money out of it) should tolerate the unrestrained capitalism we have now. No-one in their right mind would consider that Marxism Leninism is the answer. There is a vast intermediate ground that people in their right mind should seek to inhabit.
Here is what I found on another website, today: "What is needed is to curb undisclosed speculation on the financial markets and provide more transparency to commercial transactions. The problem with regulating banking and the stock market can be easily solved with a single piece of legislation. ..." That makes sense to me. Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia) .
A lot of what they are saying makes sense. Like switching to a credit union. Tomorrow is a big day . Check it out : "We have the money that they rely on for their escapades and games that they play. We can take that power away by taking our money back and putting it somewhere real and local. Bank Transfer Day on Saturday is a good first step. But credit unions are more than just a place to keep your money. Theyre your neighbors, too. Want to see how the bank treats your neighbors? learnmore.asmarterchoice.org. "
i agree that tearing down is much easier than replacing and that the USSR collapsed because of its inability to provide for its people rather that because of anything reagan did. The occupy wall street movement is unfocused and therefore appears to be mere ranting, but our founding father protested the lowest taxes in the british empire because of the lack of representation in parliament. today the supreme court and so called conservative 'representatives' have given giant corporations legal personhood, the right to become too big to fail and the right to buy representative and electoral victories. This is the road to ruin just as surely as government takeover of everything was, which by the way, no one is advocating.
