Archive | October, 2011

The real reason OWS terrifies conservatives – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com

27 Oct

Here’s what’s making professional right-wingers jumpy, as described by Rolling Stone’s resident hothead Matt Taibbi: “The reality is that Occupy Wall Street and the millions of Middle Americans who make up the Tea Party are natural allies and should be on the same page about most of the key issues.”

That’s not going to happen over the short term. The populist left, such as it is, has long had the dream of persuading working- and middle-class Americans to ignore the “tribal” differences that divide them—regional, racial, religious and cultural—to vote their shared economic self-interest.

Except during times of grave national danger—the Great Depression, for example—it’s pretty much remained a dream. Taibbi’s point, however, is that the ongoing economic crisis created by Wall Street greed and recklessness makes it possible that a new movement taking aim at incestuous political and financial corruption in Washington might have a chance.

via The real reason OWS terrifies conservatives – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.

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Patrick Blanc « Green College Online Blog

26 Oct

World famous French botanist, Partick Blanc, is known as the original creator of the vertical garden concept and has since travelled the world creating green urban master pieces without parallel. With his incredible modern approach and naturally green fingers, he takes on commissions with the attitude of “no wall is too big”. The beauty of his flowing and flowering work defies gravity and his incredible urban art form contributes to the built environment from New York to London, Cape Town to Paris, Hong Kong to Istanbul and beyond.

“In any city, all over the world, a naked wall can be turned into a Vertical Garden and thus be a valuable shelter for biodiversity. It’s also a way to add nature to the daily life of city inhabitants” said Patrick Blanc who started out as a scientific researcher in the 80’s until he made a trip to Malaysia and Thailand which inspired him to start his work in bringing plant life to corporate and urban spac

via Patrick Blanc « Green College Online Blog.

Field Studies

25 Oct

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Soldiers, Pundits Debate Whether Iraq War Was Worth It | Middle East | English

25 Oct

Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D, is a retired United States Air Force lieutenant colonel…

“It’s pretty sad, really,” she said, “that almost ten years have gone by since stories were told to justify the invasion of Iraq, a country which was very weak militarily, very weak economically, that had been suffering under sanctions that we enforced for many years, over a dozen years, and had no air force, had no navy, had nothing to do with 9/11, had nothing to do with associations with al Qaeda… and yet we were able to basically drum up a war and invade, topple their government, destroy not just their political system, but their society – you know; we went for the infrastructure, the water and electrical grid. And yet, to this day, we have not yet repaired that. And now, we’re drawing to a close and leaving behind what? Not a victory, but probably multiple generations of hatred for Americans – and oh, are we pumping oil there yet? No, we’re not.”

via Soldiers, Pundits Debate Whether Iraq War Was Worth It | Middle East | English.

The Occupy Wall Street image that marks the end of the global | guardian.co.uk

25 Oct

There were “anti-capitalist” protests in the boom years but these were self-evidently marginal to a society lapping up the joys of credit. Today, the world is ready to listen to Occupy Wall Street and its claim to speak for the 99% against the profiteering 1%. Everyone knows what they are talking about and everyone can see some truth in it.

via The Occupy Wall Street image that marks the end of the global consensus | Jonathan Jones | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Two Puzzle Pieces | Easily Distracted

25 Oct

Where larger protests and anger are breaking out against the elites who have commandeered political systems, it’s because the publics behind those protests have dissolved or tabled most of their more specific demands or commitments, have recognized that you won’t get good policy until you get something close to a social revolution, until the connection between democratic process, genuine responsibilities to broad publics, and a constraining ethics of bureaucratic power and expertise is forged anew.

In the United States, I think the specific move that needs to be made is the recognition that the rank-and-file hostility of Tea Party adherents and sympathizers towards “big government” has an intimate, potentially generative connection to the possibility of a wider mobilization against the powers-that-be, that this is the cognate American form of the energy that’s flowing into protests in India, in Egypt, in the European Union. Which in turn requires a less knee-jerk response by progressives about the wonderful things that government can do or already does. It’s true that government action at all levels of American life could do a great deal of good, that it already secures many fundamental rights and protections, that we are dependent upon that power in so many ways. But when our first response to a fierce, wild and often reactionary anger at “government” is to recite a litany of its benefits, I think we disclose too much our own desire to retain an intimate access to acting within as well as against a deeply entrenched political class.

via Two Puzzle Pieces | Easily Distracted.

“Occupy Tokyo:” Nuclear Power and Protest in Japan — The Yale Globalist

25 Oct

Though initially focused on a very unique American institution—Wall Street—the movement, with its simple but compelling call for social and economic justice, found a global audience. In Japan, where two decades of economic stagnation have provided a fertile ground for class-based discontent, the protests in Tokyo this past week took on a unique character in light of March’s tsunami and nuclear catastrophe.

For many Japanese, these Occupy protests come only as a continuation of earlier, much more intense anti-nuclear agitation throughout the past few months. Obvious concerns with the safety of nuclear power usage in a country so often plagued by earthquakes had combined with outrage over the clear failure of corporations and government alike to properly regulate the source of 29% of Japan’s energy inspired mass protests this past September, with over 60,000 taking to the streets in Tokyo.

via “Occupy Tokyo:” Nuclear Power and Protest in Japan — The Yale Globalist.

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Governor Andrew Cuomo failed to get aid in shutting down the Albany version of Occupy Wall Street – NYPOST.com

24 Oct

About 200 mainly young, hippie-like demonstrators “occupied’’ Albany’s Academy Park across from the Capitol on Friday night, pitching some 30 tents, claiming solidarity with Zuccotti Park protesters, and chanting for, among other things, higher taxes on the wealthy.

Cuomo, fearful the action could spark a larger protest that would carry over and potentially disrupt the next legislative session — where his continued opposition to a “millionaire’s tax’’ will be highly controversial — demanded that Mayor Jerry Jennings, a longtime friend, enforce a city ordinance closing parks at 11 p.m. … ” we had allowed this before . . . and my counsel said we’d be opening ourselves up to civil liability if we forced them out,’’ Jennings told The Post. But there was another reason as well, he conceded.

Albany’s leftist-oriented and highly political district attorney, David Soares, told city officials he wouldn’t prosecute demonstrators who were arrested by Albany police.

via Governor Andrew Cuomo failed to get aid in shutting down the Albany version of Occupy Wall Street – NYPOST.com.

How I Learned to Love the Goddamn Hippies – The Daily Beast

24 Oct

And in a strange kind of way, Occupy Wall Street made me think more fondly of the Tea Party as well.

The theme that connects them all is disenfranchisement, the sense that the world is shifting deeply and inexorably beyond our ability to control it through our democratic institutions. You can call this many things, but a “democratic deficit” gets to the nub of it. Democracy means rule by the people—however rough-edged, however blunted by representative government, however imperfect. But everywhere, the people feel as if someone else is now ruling them—and see no way to regain control. In Europe, you see millions unemployed because of a financial crisis that began thousands of miles away in the U.S. real-estate market—and grim austerity being imposed to save a currency union that never truly won mass democratic support in the first place. In the U.S., the hefty majority for sweeping reform behind Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 has been stopped in its tracks by slightly more than half of one House in the Congress and by a historically unprecedented filibuster in the Senate. Even when it is perfectly clear what the only politically viable, long-term solution is to our debt crisis—a mix of defense and entitlement cuts and tax increases—it is beyond our democratically elected leaders to reach a deal.

via How I Learned to Love the Goddamn Hippies – The Daily Beast.

Paul Wants To Phase Out Federal Student Loans – From the Wires – Salon.com

24 Oct

The congressman from Texas says that federal lending for college is a failed program that has put students $1 trillion in debt when there are no jobs and when the quality of education has deteriorated.

via Paul Wants To Phase Out Federal Student Loans – From the Wires – Salon.com.

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