Whereas uptown populations are increasingly sequestered in green showpiece zones, residents in low-lying areas who cannot afford the low-carbon lifestyle are struggling to breathe fresh air or are even trapped in cancer clusters. You can find this pattern in many American cities. The problem is that the carbon savings to be gotten out of this upscale demographic — which represents one in five American adults and is known as Lohas, an acronym for “lifestyles of health and sustainability” — can’t outweigh the commercial neglect of the other 80 percent. If we are to moderate climate change, the green wave has to lift all vessels.
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In Phoenix, the Dark Side of ‘Green’ – NYTimes.com
7 NovWelcome to the “augmented revolution” – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com
6 NovSimply put, the terms “real” and “virtual” to describe the physical and digital worlds are inadequate: Facebook is real as the rest of the world grows increasingly virtual. It is this massive implosion of atoms and bits that has created an augmented reality where properties of digitality — information spreads faster, more voices become empowered, enhanced organization and consensus capabilities — intersect with the importance of occupying physical space with flesh-and-blood bodies.
via Welcome to the “augmented revolution” – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.
Gates offers G20 a lesson in philanthropy – The Globe and Mail
6 NovIt’s nice the Bill Gates is devoting all this time and money to good works. But that doesn’t mean that he can’t also be a self-important arrogant dorkwad!
To confront the concerns of protesters who call themselves “the 99 per cent,” the G20 decided to invite a member of the 0.000000001 per cent.
Mr. Gates laughed at this comparison, but had little time for the new inequality protests.
“Good old Occupy Wall Street! I will certainly be glad to print up signs for them if they want to hold them up saying ‘More bed nets!’, ‘More vaccines!’, ‘More agricultural research!’ ” Mr. Gates said. “I’ve never met any of these people … but I haven’t seen them holding any banners speaking up on behalf of the world’s poorest.”
Mr. Gates was invited because he has a reputation for getting things done: His foundation played a key role in getting the African AIDS crisis under control, and was the key actor behind the successful development of vaccines against meningitis and malaria.
via Gates offers G20 a lesson in philanthropy – The Globe and Mail.
Occupy Wall Street Protest Reaches a Crossroads – NYTimes.com
6 NovCommunity Board 1, which represents the area, recently passed a resolution to support Occupy Wall Street. Loving the protesters and hating the problems that have accompanied them “are not mutually exclusive,” said the community board chairwoman, Julie Menin.
“Half the residents are completely out of their minds and need Occupy Wall Street to leave immediately,” said Patricia L. Moore, who lives near Zuccotti Park and also leads the Quality of Life Committee for the community board. “And half are residents who came to the last meeting and said, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood.’ ”
Ms. Moore said that most of the residents’ complaints were less about Occupy Wall Street’s presence than about getting the city to make life better for the protesters and the neighborhood.
via Occupy Wall Street Protest Reaches a Crossroads – NYTimes.com.
Elites Who Back the Wall St. Protesters – NYTimes.com
6 NovYet when I interviewed the two of them in a wide-ranging public conversation last week, hosted by the Center for International Governance Innovation, a independent, nonpartisan Canadian research organization, they sounded an awful lot like the people camped out in Zuccotti Park in New York.
Neither Mr. Zedillo [former President of Mexico] nor Mr. Martin [former Canadian prime minister] had sympathy for the complaint that Occupy Wall Street lacked a clear agenda. As Mr. Zedillo put it: “These criticisms — ‘Oh, they don’t have an agenda, they only pose problems and provide no solutions’ — well, they are citizens and they have earned the right to express a very serious, real problem.”
The truth, the two statesmen agreed, was that the protesters were articulating a real, important and global concern.
Is Obama Toast? Handicapping the 2012 Election – NYTimes.com
6 NovThree factors are considered:
• The first factor, Americans’ performance reviews of Obama, can be measured through his approval ratings.
• The second factor, economic performance, can be measured through statistics like G.D.P.
• The third factor — essentially, the ideological positioning of the Republican candidate — is sometimes thought of as an “intangible.” But it can be measured too, and it matters a great deal.
Four scenarios: 2 Obama vs. Romney, 2 Obama vs. Perry; for each paring, one where the economy stagnates, one where it’s improving. If the economy is improving, Obama wins against each, otherwise he loses. But the loss against Perry is worse.
Average these four scenarios together and the probabilities come out to almost exactly 50-50. A month or two ago, when Perry and Romney appeared about equally likely to be the Republican nominee, it would therefore have been proper to think of the election as a toss-up.
With Perry having slumped in the polls, however, and Romney the more likely nominee, the odds tilt slightly toward Obama joining the list of one-termers. It is early, and almost no matter what, the election will be a losable one for Republicans. But Obama’s position is tenuous enough that it might not be a winnable one for him.
via Is Obama Toast? Handicapping the 2012 Election – NYTimes.com.
Occupy Wall Street: America HAS a Ruling Class
5 NovThe OWS movement recognizes that America is divided into a ruling class and a class of servants.
Yes, America DOES have a ruling class. It’s not a hereditary ruling class, like the old European aristocracies. It’s permeable. One can enter it from below, and one can be thrust out of it too.
Of course the existence of this ruling class contradicts official doctrine, which says that American is ruled by the people and for the people. Members of this ruling class, therefore, will deny its existence. Certainly, the politician members MUST deny it.
Just what these rulers say among themselves, at the Bohemian Grove, in board meetings of for-profit corporations (e.g. General Motors, Goldman Sachs) and not-for-profit (e.g. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ford Foundation), in private clubs of various kinds, that’s a different matter. On that, I suspect, some are frank about being among The Rulers while others persist they are still of the people.
Nor do non-member Americans recognize the existence of this ruling class. Well, some of us do, some of us don’t. It’d be interesting to see whether recognition of the ruling class is stringing among non-voters than among voters. After all, if you do see that there’s a ruling class, what’s the point of voting? You vote doesn’t matter. At the same time, one might vote out of identification with and affirmation of that very same ruling class. After all, maybe you too will be tapped to enter into the sacred halls of the ruling class.
All of which is to say that, while a ruling class exists, though not a classical ruling class, class consciousness is weak, on both sides of the divide.
Outing the Class Divide
And THAT’s the biggest service that is being performed by Occupy Wall Street: identifying the class divide in America. The 1%, that’s the ruling class. The rest, no matter how many things otherwise divide us, we are the 99%. Continue reading
Essay on the librarians in the Occupy movement | Inside Higher Ed
3 NovSteven Syrek, a graduate student in English at Rutgers University, has been working at the OWS library since about the third week of the demonstration. “People talk about this movement like it’s a ragtag bunch of hippies,” he told me when we spoke by phone, “but the work we do is extremely well-organized.” The central commitment, Syrek says, is to create “a genuine clearinghouse for books and information.” Volunteers have adopted a slogan summing up what the library brings to the movement: “Literacy, Legitimacy, and Moral Authority.” . . .
As with the “book bloc” that formed during protests against education cuts in Italy and elsewhere some month back, the occupation libraries seem like a new development. …
But the libraries at the anti-Wall Street protests are not quite as novel as they first appear. They have a tradition going back the better part of two centuries. In a recent article, Matthew Battles, the author of Libraries: An Unquiet History (Norton, 2004), noted the similarity to the reading rooms that served the egalitarian Chartist movement in Britain.
via Essay on the librarians in the Occupy movement | Inside Higher Ed.
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My soggy, frustrating, inspiring week Occupying Wall Street – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com
3 NovLivin’ the Occupation, paying your dues, a new rite of passage? Instead of touring The Continent, like the rich did back in the day, you go ‘on occupation’ for a few months when you get out of school.
. . . This last group includes a lot of slightly crazy, slightly sketchy, slightly “I hope he doesn’t stab me in the neck when I’m sleeping” people in camp who, seeking a free meal and a place to stay, have little to no interest in the movement. It was these sorts of occupiers — the wackos, the drunks — who were treated like celebrities on the red carpet by the media.
On the other hand, regular everyday visitors would go out of their way to engage with occupiers who came for idealistic reasons. Even though I’d merely be sitting on my pack, several passersby would thank me for “doing what you’re doing.” One middle-aged male offered me ponchos, scarves and gloves, telling me, “This should have happened years ago. Thank you so much for believing.” I overheard a well-to-do lady lean over to her friend and say, “They need to storm the White House. They need to storm the Capitol. Seriously.”
Late one night, in conversation
A girl with dreads chimed in, noting how incredible it was that the General Assembly just sent 100 tents and $20,000 of our raised money to the injured and incarcerated occupiers from Oakland (who’d just been violently evicted from their encampment), before going on a thrilling march up Broadway as a symbol of solidarity with people we’d never met, 3,000 miles away.
In this little circle, three ethnicities, two genders and two generations were represented. These occupiers didn’t fit Derrick’s depiction of the movement: They were neither slackers nor stoners, neither shiftless hipsters nor food-stamped freeloaders. They were smart, informed, articulate and passionate.
via My soggy, frustrating, inspiring week Occupying Wall Street – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.
Why the protesters are going to win | the new economics foundation
2 Nov… there is something else even more important. It is the potent idea that the protesters represent the 99%.
This is what has changed, and it is a political shift as important as anything over the past generation or more.
We have been brought up to believe that the right represents the middle classes and the left represents the working classes. It is now clear that neither right nor left in conventional politics represent the interests of either. . . .
Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair rose to power with the support of the middle classes. But the middle classes in the UK, while they may not support the protests, are no longer prepared to put up with the financial status quo.
via David Boyle – Why the protesters are going to win | the new economics foundation.
Truth and Traditions 