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So, Whither the Occupy (Wall Street, etc.) protests?

I can’t do a whole lot here other than echo what others have said. On the one hand, I have to agree with Uncle Paul in that this seems like a favor, or at least an opportunity, for the Occupy protests in some ways. They had kind of plateaued, in terms of raising awareness of inequality and winner-take-all-capitalism concerns, and appeared in danger of fading away. That may still happen, but I think that if “The Man” had wanted to silence their voices he would have been better off letting short attention spans and cold weather do the work through slow attrition.

Frankly I can’t quite figure out the thinking behind this crackdown. It really does seem to do nothing but make the protesters look more relevant than before, and make Bloomberg, et al., look like heavy-handed dictators. In return for what? Is it just an instinctive reflex, “this rabble is challenging my authority, I will destroy them” i.e.? Is the establishment actually admitting that Occupy Wall Street has rattled them, then? Why?

Honestly, it’s tough for me to see the threat; interest in the protests seemed to be waning, as noted, and in the meantime I’m unsure what they were disrupting. To be blunt, the parasitic business of Wall Street seems to have continued pretty much uninterrupted despite its “occupation.” Are the big city bosses really that sensitive? And, more to the point, that sensitive on the issue of questioning the prevailing wealth=virtue dogma? I suppose they probably are, as Uncle Paul among others has chronicled since Obama took office (“Ma, he’s looking at me funny,” etc.).

Still, whatever the reasoning it all looks like a horrible reactionary assault. I have difficulty believing that, whatever Bloomberg, et al. may tell themselves, there isn’t a big ideological element to this establishment repression of protesters. The official justifications are just so easy to poke holes in that they’re pathetic, though at the same time also scary. (more…)

“What are they?”

“Indifferent.”

“Bad…?”

“Wicked.”

Wicked times, indeed. I’m mostly back following the news again, but serious trepidation remains. Last night I visited Uncle Paul’s blog for probably the first time in more than two weeks, and it was just like, “how did I ever look at this on a daily basis?” I like and respect our scruffy-bearded friend, of course, and find little to disagree with… but confronting it all at once, it just struck me that his blog seems to pointedly ask and leave unanswered the question “why don’t I just slit my wrists?”

I must assume that other people manage to avoid quite so intense a reaction, but for me at least that seems to be the inescapable quandary posed by reading a bunch of Krugman all at once. Not that it’s so much him, I imagine, as it is the situations he’s focusing on. Still, I can’t cope with so concentrated a distillation; I hope it really isn’t quite that bad, after all, and if it actually is, I just don’t see why I would really want to know.

Meanwhile, if for some reason you’re jonesing for one of my own laments with that utter-despair flavor, do check out “America’s Locust Years.” It really feels like something I might have posted, here, almost word for word.

Six months that could have been spent boosting the long-run growth potential of the American economy through infrastructure investment, educational reform, or an overhaul of health-care financing – greatly easing America’s long-run deficit and debt dilemmas in the process – have been lost.

During the run-up to World War II, Winston Churchill, speaking in Parliament, lamented “the years that the locusts hath eaten” – the period during which preparatory action to face the great crisis of his day (the rise of Continental fascism) could have been taken, but was not.

Have we pretty much reached that point, here, finally?

I have to say it feels like that to me. I’m ready to get out, if I could/can figure out the inconvenient little details like how to support myself. Of course, I have just a bit of a nomadic instinct… But honestly, I’m not sure that you really need that any more. I’m really at the point where I think I would advise young people beginning their own lives to look seriously at beginning them somewhere outside the United States. Do it now, before your life gets complicated, and when you still have yet to form many of the connections which emigration in your 30s will involve writing off at considerable expense.

I would advise this even though, especially as I’m not going anywhere for the time being, in any sort of fantasy scenario where young people had the least interest in my opinion I probably should be telling them “no, don’t go.” Telling them please, stay here and get involved, register to vote and help nominate better candidates and then help elect them to office and then help hold them accountable, and do all you can to stop our society going over the cliff in the first place.

But, y’know, that’s sort of like “strategic voting;” in that realm as in this, my advice is contingent on how many people are realistically likely to be persuaded by it. Which, of course, is usually “none.” And if there should be anyone at all who did want my advice, on an individual level I think it would have to be “go west, young man or woman.” Or east, or north or possibly even south, so long as you go far enough in any of these directions to take you to a state which isn’t badly in need of an intervention and long rehab. (more…)