Occupy Wall Street, 2 Views

RE: Occupy Wall Street, 2 Views:

Occupy Wall Street, another futile peasants’ protest.

OCCUPY WALL STREET (the theory).

In a sense both views are correct as we still do not know where it may lead, but I believe the former is more realistic.  Only widespread insurrection and/or economic collapse will break this oligarchical system.  For the latter, one need do nothing.

Still protesting is far better than voting.  At least it does not validate the status quo.

I will give the open source theory credit: it can certainly work as such, but not likely here.  The US is not Egypt.  People here are not willing to get shot.  Hence, the long slow Fall will most likely be the means to end the power of kleptocrats.

Elite Support

1. Excepting Maoists*, contingent on their preservation, revolutions cannot succeed without elite** support.

2. After the celebration settles, fundamentally very little has changed. (As if.)

3. Thus the purge follows.***

4. The old way actually looks better.

5. Repeat.

* And who wants that?  (Peasants.)
** But not necessarily the same elite.
*** And who wants that? (Fanatics.)
**** And who wants that? (non-Fanatics.)

Mass

When the mass moves, the elite tremble.

Serf Wages

I also couldn't believe it when I read this:

Will work for taxes
By The Mogambo Guru

From AP, we can't believe our eyes when we read, "Plan Would Let Seniors Work to Pay Taxes". It seems that in Greenburgh, NY, the damned local government is eating the financial guts out of its citizens. For example, a 76-year old woman named Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a US$620 Social Security check per month ($7,440 a year), and has to pay $12,000 a year in property taxes on the house that she has lived in for 43 years!

Instead of the town saying, "Oh, my God! What kind of ravenous vampires have we become?" and lowering their damned spending and the damned taxes, "The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes."

Some bozo named Scott Parkin, who for some reason is the spokesman for the National Council on Aging, said that the program "sounded interesting" to him, "as long as it wasn't limited to menial work." Apparently, easy "make-work" labor for old people is insulting, but gulag-style, back-breaking forced-labor is okay! With whips! Hahaha! "And if they fall under the load, grind them into pet food and take their houses!"

He doesn't answer my question directly, but with a little clever editing, I can make it appear that way when I now insert his quote, "It's certainly in line with what we stand for, keeping seniors involved in work or volunteering as a part of healthy aging." Hahaha! Forcing old, sick people to work to pay their taxes is "in line with" what the National Council on Aging stands for! Hahaha!

Even more astonishing, he went on to say that he would, "Eventually ... like to see the county and the local school districts adopt similar plans!" I can't believe what I am reading!

I thought that I had misread it, but then he said, "If we got seniors working for the schools, there might be a more intergenerational feeling there", and apparently with all the forced labor to do the work, "It might be easier to pass the school budgets."

JMR Wayne T agrees with me when he says, "This is surely in the top five most horrible examples of Government abuse of its citizens I have ever seen. This is beyond Communism, this is serfdom."

(Read the rest Here.)

$7/hr is certainly serf wages, especially for retired professionals or trades people. So in this regard, menial labor is actually preferable. It's revolting to contemplate that anyone could seriously consider such a scheme, let alone approve of it. The manacles are always in the details.

Now, that's just plain revolting!