A Tale of Two Towers: 8 Spruce Street and One World Trade Center

11 Oct

Spruce Street and One World Trade Center I took part in last Wednesday’s Community/Labor March To Wall St. in New York City. I met some musician buddies at Washington Square Park and we marched to Foley Square with the New York University group, though none of us are affiliated with NYU. From Foley Square, a bit Northeast of City Hall. There we joined up with the main crowd, and a passel of musicians, and headed on to Liberty Plaza, flanked and guided by police all the way.

Not long after we left Washington Square Park, say a five or six blocks out, I noticed this building ahead, and I kept tracking it all the way down:

NYC - Civic Center: 8 Spruce Street

Photo of 8 Spruce Street by Wally Gobetz

That’s a new luxury apartment building at 8 Spruce Street, just south of City Hall. It was designed by starchitect Frank Gehry.

Does anyone who lives there care about us marchers? I thought. It’s a pricy building, with studio apartments starting at $3770 a month, which is over $42,000 per year, and two bedrooms at $6045 per month, almost $61,000 per year. I’m thinking that, no, the folks who live there are more likely in the 1% who’re living high off of banker’s bonuses than in the 99% who can’t afford health insurance and who won’t have pensions when they retire.

More likely than not, they think things are pretty much OK as they are. Maybe the bonuses are a little slim, but the rabble down here marching to Liberty Plaza, we don’t figure in their view of the world. They have no empathy with us.

But then how could they?

My father was an engineer. He worked in an office. But his work took him into coal mines to collect samples and to inspect the coal face. He knew that mining was dirty and dangerous work and believed that no one should have authority over coal miners unless they’d worked in the mines themselves. Continue reading →

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Wall Street Protests Gain Support From Leading Democrats – NYTimes.com

11 Oct

But while some Democrats see the movement as providing a political boost, the party’s alignment with the eclectic mix of protesters makes others nervous. They see the prospect of the protesters’ pushing the party dangerously to the left — just as the Tea Party has often pushed Republicans farther to the right and made for intraparty run-ins.

Mr. Obama has spoken sympathetically of the Wall Street protests, saying they reflect “the frustration” that many struggling Americans are feeling. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, have sounded similar themes.

The role of groups like the Democratic campaign committee and Mr. Podesta’s group, sometimes working in recent weeks with labor unions, moves support from talking points to the realm of organizational guidance.

It is not at all clear whether the leaders of the amorphous movement actually want the support of the Democratic establishment, given that some of the protesters’ complaints are directed at the Obama administration.

via Wall Street Protests Gain Support From Leading Democrats – NYTimes.com.

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Occupy Wall Street

11 Oct

Dead Face of Domination

For an explanation with a positive, if silent, ending, see Wall Street: The Dead Face of Domination.

On why the protests won’t stop, see The Banker’s Don’t Get It.

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Dems backing Occupy Wall St. are funded by Wall St. – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com

10 Oct

Ah, yes, life is complicated. And ideological purity is the enemhy of people who want to get things done.

The irony is that the same elected Democrats singing the praises of Occupy Wall Street are themselves major recipients of money from … Wall Street!

Does this mean that the Democratic embrace should be rejected? Not necessarily. Occupy Wall Street could, of course, open up political space for Democrats to address unemployment, income inequality, criminality by banks, the overwhelming influence of corporate money in politics and so on. But it’s worth keeping in mind that most if not all of these politicians have been cozy with Wall Street for years; so there are grounds for suspicion.

via Dems backing Occupy Wall St. are funded by Wall St. – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.

“It’s a protest. It’s not Woodstock” – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com

10 Oct

Actually this encourages me. Our problems are deep, very deep. Our existing institutions, certainly including the two major parties, filled as they are by self-serving millionaires, are broken and in conflict. We need to grope about, perhaps aimlessly for awhile, but not forever. New coalitions will emerge. But who knows what they will be.

“I understand their cause, I understand their movement, I agree,” he says. “I’m ex-military, I have a college degree, and look what I’m doing: dirty, sweaty, making hardcore money — yet I get taxed crazy. I agree with everything they’re doing, but this is something out of ‘Lord of the Flies.’ I’m waiting for the conch to come out and people to start burning pigs.” He looks around at the more bombastic characters on the scene — a tear-streaked man angrily yelling “I need money!” while banging an empty white bucket, a woman in a Marie Antoinette costume holding a platter of cake. “This is so unorganized,” the laborer says. “The protesters aren’t doing anything that people are gonna listen to and say, ‘You know what, they’re right.’”

via “It’s a protest. It’s not Woodstock” – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.

What’s behind the scorn for the Wall Street protests? – Wall Street – Salon.com

10 Oct

Most of these so-called progressives are just technocratic troglodytes in disguise.

But much of this progressive criticism consists of relatively (ostensibly) well-intentioned tactical and organizational critiques of the protests: there wasn’t a clear unified message; it lacked a coherent media strategy; the neo-hippie participants were too off-putting to Middle America; the resulting police brutality overwhelmed the message, etc. etc. That’s the high-minded form which most progressive scorn for the protests took: it’s just not professionally organized or effective.

Some of these critiques are ludicrous. Does anyone really not know what the basic message is of this protest: that Wall Street is oozing corruption and criminality and its unrestrained political power — in the form of crony capitalism and ownership of political institutions — is destroying financial security for everyone else? Beyond that, criticizing protesters for the prominence of police brutality stories is pure victim-blaming (and, independently, having police brutality highlighted is its own benefit).

Most importantly, very few protest movements enjoy perfect clarity about tactics or command widespread support when they begin; they’re designed to spark conversation, raise awareness, attract others to the cause, and build those structural planks as they grow and develop.

via What’s behind the scorn for the Wall Street protests? – Wall Street – Salon.com.

The Great 8: Billionaires who will pay more – Patriotic Billionaire Challenge – Salon.com

10 Oct

Aka Cheapskates Rise to the Top

Salon queried the Forbes 400 richest on whether they’d be willing to pay more taxes. The vast majority ducked the question. I’m betting that most of them think they deserve what they earn. After all, did they not work hard? Yes, they did. But . . . well, more on that later.

Of 400 billionaires, only eight (including Buffet) say they are willing to pay more. Three others indicated opposition; one said maybe.

But most declined to comment at all. Oprah Winfrey, who endorsed Obama in 2008, did not respond. Nor did liberal media mogul Ted Turner. Prominent Democratic Party donors from Hollywood such as Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Barry Diller did not express a view. Philanthropists Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg — whom we queried repeatedly — refused to comment on Buffett’s argument, even as it became a central part of Washington’s political conversation.

On Sept. 19, President Obama rolled out his jobs plan, calling for individuals making more than $250,000 to pay higher taxes for the sake of paying pay down the deficit and funding the president’s jobs plan.

via The Great 8: Billionaires who will pay more – Patriotic Billionaire Challenge – Salon.com.

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Panic of the Plutocrats – NYTimes.com

10 Oct

What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny.

via Panic of the Plutocrats – NYTimes.com.

Protesters Against Wall Street – NYTimes.com

9 Oct

No wonder then that Occupy Wall Street has become a magnet for discontent. There are plenty of policy goals to address the grievances of the protesters — including lasting foreclosure relief, a financial transactions tax, greater legal protection for workers’ rights, and more progressive taxation. The country needs a shift in the emphasis of public policy from protecting the banks to fostering full employment, including public spending for job creation and development of a strong, long-term strategy to increase domestic manufacturing.

It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That’s the job of the nation’s leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies. Because they have not, the public airing of grievances is a legitimate and important end in itself. It is also the first line of defense against a return to the Wall Street ways that plunged the nation into an economic crisis from which it has yet to emerge.

via Protesters Against Wall Street – NYTimes.com.

Wall Street: The Dead Face of Domination

9 Oct

IMGP4452rd - The Face of Domination

Look at those huge buildings. What do they say? What do they express?

Only one of them, the smallest one, at the lower right, has any articulation (detail, action) on its surface. The others, smooth, glassy, slick.

Dead.

Those buildings are in New York City’s financial district (aka Wall Street). That’s where the captains of finance manipulate our world while playing ‘King of the Hill’ against one another. They’re keeping score with our money, while we go without health care, without pensions, without hope for our children and grandchildren.

The design of those buildings speaks volumes. Clean and slick, very smooth and efficient. But completely out of scale with human life. That’s what the lack of articulation in the surface says, nothing at human scale.

Nothing.

We don’t have to wait for the future in which the machines take over. They already have.

Those buildings are the machines. They are the Borg. We ARE living in The Matrix. We are nothing but feedstock for the adolescent games those machines play with one another.

See those people down front, left of center? That’s us, the 99%, the feedstock, as it were. See the foliage, the foliage that breaths life into the air by transforming the sun’s energy into bioenergy? More feedstock for the Borg Buildings. Continue reading →

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