Slog Comments
Reader Disappointed in Stranger Coverage
1
There is a specific message: the system doesn't work. What people want to do about that does and should vary. That's healthy for democracy. The outcome is uncertain but it's a mistake to think that nothing is happening.
3
I seriously doubt that this is a reader. If you look at Fox News or other right-of-center news sources, you'll see the exact same talking point over and over again. "They have no focus."
Again, and again and again and again.
It's almost as if they know saying something over and over and over again will make it the truth. My guess is that this 'disappointed reader' is from a PR agency, and The Stranger, by publishing this letter, is doing its little bit for the 1%.
Doesn't that make you proud?
Again, and again and again and again.
It's almost as if they know saying something over and over and over again will make it the truth. My guess is that this 'disappointed reader' is from a PR agency, and The Stranger, by publishing this letter, is doing its little bit for the 1%.
Doesn't that make you proud?
5
"That barking dog has not articulated anything resembling a specific grievance much less a viable, sustainable solution to such. Guess I'll just ignore it's barking and continue robbing this house."
7
though the protests have been primarily bent towards corporate greed, I've heard plenty of speeches on anti-colonialism/imperialism, anti-free trade, and bringing end to the wars and prosecuting war criminals. Don't have to go digging for it too hard, its on Occupy Seattle's demand page.
8
Right. It's futile to try to change things, so why bother? Protests certainly didn't help bring an end to child labor and the 70 hour work week, had nothing to do with prohibition, contributed nothing to civil rights, women's suffrage, or help end the Vietnam War. Nope, protesting is a waste of time. Nothing to see here. Move along, folks. Walmart is having a sale.
9
@3
You know what they say about broken clocks.
What you ALSO see again, and again, and again is the reflexive painting of perfectly understandable criticism from those of us totally sympathetic to the the Occupy "movement" as turncoats and tools of Fox News. This is the reflex of fanatics everywhere. Is that hat you want?
Stating the movement appears unfocused to an outsider happens to be true. To some on the inside this is a feature not a bug. That remains to be seen. If it fails then we will know. Then what will be the excuse?
If you want to be successful you want to attract people to your cause.
If you don't want more people - without passing them through some sort of ideological purity filter first - then all you end up with is a special little cult of failures.
If the movement is so open and democratic then it should be willing to entertain the idea that perhaps the messaging can be done better. Because it can be.
You know what they say about broken clocks.
What you ALSO see again, and again, and again is the reflexive painting of perfectly understandable criticism from those of us totally sympathetic to the the Occupy "movement" as turncoats and tools of Fox News. This is the reflex of fanatics everywhere. Is that hat you want?
Stating the movement appears unfocused to an outsider happens to be true. To some on the inside this is a feature not a bug. That remains to be seen. If it fails then we will know. Then what will be the excuse?
If you want to be successful you want to attract people to your cause.
If you don't want more people - without passing them through some sort of ideological purity filter first - then all you end up with is a special little cult of failures.
If the movement is so open and democratic then it should be willing to entertain the idea that perhaps the messaging can be done better. Because it can be.
10
@9 - but that's not what the letter writer ends up saying, really. Basically, we get "their demands are unclear," followed immediately by a statement of a few concrete political things that most protesters probably agree on - maybe not so unclear after all, huh guy?
The letter writer's real complaint is that the protests aren't solely focused on the issue *they* are most interested in.
The letter writer's real complaint is that the protests aren't solely focused on the issue *they* are most interested in.
11
Taylor may have a point. The Occupy protests have shown the dissatisfaction of the '99%' without being entirely clear on what, exactly, 'we' are all dissatisfied about. Walking thorough the protest in Westlake Park yesterday and watching the coverage I saw many individuals with the certainty that they've been screwed over by the 'system' with no clear understanding of how that system screws them.
There's a level of irony here because it's exactly this ignorance of banking practices, monetary theory, and trans-global 'speculation' markets that allowed the financial industry to screw the worlds 99% in the first place.
Since were throwing out ideas here I call on the Stranger to use the power your readership gives you to increase awareness about these issues. Lets see some in depth reporting on the financial practive and get some slog pulgs for informative documentaries about the financial system. The Money as Debt series and the American Dream, both of which are available on YouTube, come to mind but I'm sure there are more.
Bottom line, the pissed of 99% will never change the system without an understanding of how that system works and the money changers will always profit of our, collective, ignorance.
And since I'm on my soap box I have one last idea. Slog has taught me the power or rhetoric (cough, cough, Santorum, cough) so I'd like to propose the following. Lets all start a movement to rename the Federal Reserve to something like "The Private Corporation That Calls Itself the Federal Reserve." When it comes to clearing up ignorance concerning the financial system, that would be a great place to start.
Just an idea
There's a level of irony here because it's exactly this ignorance of banking practices, monetary theory, and trans-global 'speculation' markets that allowed the financial industry to screw the worlds 99% in the first place.
Since were throwing out ideas here I call on the Stranger to use the power your readership gives you to increase awareness about these issues. Lets see some in depth reporting on the financial practive and get some slog pulgs for informative documentaries about the financial system. The Money as Debt series and the American Dream, both of which are available on YouTube, come to mind but I'm sure there are more.
Bottom line, the pissed of 99% will never change the system without an understanding of how that system works and the money changers will always profit of our, collective, ignorance.
And since I'm on my soap box I have one last idea. Slog has taught me the power or rhetoric (cough, cough, Santorum, cough) so I'd like to propose the following. Lets all start a movement to rename the Federal Reserve to something like "The Private Corporation That Calls Itself the Federal Reserve." When it comes to clearing up ignorance concerning the financial system, that would be a great place to start.
Just an idea
12
Now, let me just say (because I neglected to before) that I'm not actually involved with the OWS movement in any activist/organizer sense. I'm sympathetic, make no mistake, but I'm not out there.
Very few times in history have successful movements in the large scale been about coherent messaging and PR. Protests and popular revolts, full-scale revolutions and riots are about rage, pure and simple. They're about people getting fed up enough with the inattention, incompetence or outright hostility of their current leadership that they opt to change it.
Change it to what? That's a different question entirely, and one whose answer usually comes in the chaos after the uprising as the new leaders (whomever they may be) crush their revolutionary rivals and work to solidify their power base into a working government.
-The foundation of the United States, from the first act of open revolution in 1775 to the constitutional convention in 1787.
-We saw this process's more violent aspect in the French Reign of Terror of 1793/1794.
-In Russia, we saw the rage in February and the solidification in October, 1917 (well, a major one).
-We're watching the first part in Syria and the second part in Egypt right now.
So no, there's no coherent message, but to say that the movement will fail without one isn't accurate either. The message comes later if the movement is victorious, and the victors will claim that the message was there all along, which it most certainly was not.
Very few times in history have successful movements in the large scale been about coherent messaging and PR. Protests and popular revolts, full-scale revolutions and riots are about rage, pure and simple. They're about people getting fed up enough with the inattention, incompetence or outright hostility of their current leadership that they opt to change it.
Change it to what? That's a different question entirely, and one whose answer usually comes in the chaos after the uprising as the new leaders (whomever they may be) crush their revolutionary rivals and work to solidify their power base into a working government.
-The foundation of the United States, from the first act of open revolution in 1775 to the constitutional convention in 1787.
-We saw this process's more violent aspect in the French Reign of Terror of 1793/1794.
-In Russia, we saw the rage in February and the solidification in October, 1917 (well, a major one).
-We're watching the first part in Syria and the second part in Egypt right now.
So no, there's no coherent message, but to say that the movement will fail without one isn't accurate either. The message comes later if the movement is victorious, and the victors will claim that the message was there all along, which it most certainly was not.
14
Yeah, the OWSers should have a more concrete message. Like keep your gubment hands offn' my medicare.
15
I think they have a clear message, for anyone who wants to hear it, I just don't see any of it will make a difference.
17
@12, so yes! This is a populist movement, this is how they start. The message will become clearer. Whether or not it makes a difference is yet to be seen. Something will have to give, one way or another.
18
I think most of OWSers would agree that there ought to be higher taxes on rich people and greater regulation of business. I think that's enough of a policy platform as they need right now.
19
Conform to the single issue voter paradigm or you are incoherent! It just can't be that so much is so wrong all at the same time, right?
20
WOW what a dipshit! Wars suck, yes, but far fewer Americans are being hurt by the wars than are being hurt by the lack of proper restraints on the country's rich people. Guy might want to look at some numbers before spouting off next time.
21
I always find it quaint when folks talk about "US Corporations."
The OWS was inspired by the actions of the financial organizations, who are by no means "American." Their loyalty is certainly not to America, or any other country, ftm. Thanks for playing, though.
The OWS was inspired by the actions of the financial organizations, who are by no means "American." Their loyalty is certainly not to America, or any other country, ftm. Thanks for playing, though.
22
Here's the problem: in today's world of the goddamn Internet, saying "I don't get it, that is incoherent" is just a fucking cop out. Every single person who is acting totally baffled by why people would be dissatisfied with the current economic system has access to google, to Democracy Now (for example), to a million library's worth of books, articles and videos on the topic.
Most people don't care, but why won't they admit that publicly? Because it's fucking embarrassing to say "I could learn about that, without really interrupting my day very much, but I'd much rather check Facebook". And rightfully so.
Most people don't care, but why won't they admit that publicly? Because it's fucking embarrassing to say "I could learn about that, without really interrupting my day very much, but I'd much rather check Facebook". And rightfully so.
23
This guy is obviously a teabagging paul-tard. We are at war with fundamentalist, homophobic, murderers. They treat women like dogs and treat dogs like vermin. We need to accelerate the march toward a unifying world govt. by any means necessary.
26
Geez, I dunno, Taylor, I think most people believe that predatory capitalism system must continue to exist (like that Plantation Jive-ass, Herman the Pizza Dood) in order to continue the mass stealing of other countries' resources, both physical and economic slavery, the many fascist enterprises of our current Nobel Prize recipient*** in office ("kill" committee instituted by Obama, the recent fascist construct, the "super committee" came into being with Obama's signing the Budget Control Act of 2011 -- that debt ceiling legislation scam crapola), and wholesale slaughter of people everywhere and anywhere, while turning a blind eye to Bahrain (thanks Hillary, the capitalist turd bucket) and supporting the overthrow of democratically-elected presidents of Honduras and the next place it occurs.
***No Nobel Peace Prize actually exists, only those wannabe stenographers --- never competent enough to be full-fledged stenographers --- misspeak -- it is the Swedish Central Bank's International Peace Prize in Memory of Nobel.
Eff those idiotic politicians in Norway who select for it!
***No Nobel Peace Prize actually exists, only those wannabe stenographers --- never competent enough to be full-fledged stenographers --- misspeak -- it is the Swedish Central Bank's International Peace Prize in Memory of Nobel.
Eff those idiotic politicians in Norway who select for it!
Comments (27) RSS