Why the Elites Are in Trouble (Chris Hedges)

Cross posting from Editorials - great!:


Posted on Oct 9, 2011
By Chris Hedges


Ketchup, a petite 22-year-old from Chicago with wavy red hair and glasses with bright red frames, arrived in Zuccotti Park in New York on Sept. 17. She had a tent, a rolling suitcase, 40 dollars’ worth of food, the graphic version of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and a sleeping bag. She had no return ticket, no idea what she was undertaking, and no acquaintances among the stragglers who joined her that afternoon to begin the Wall Street occupation. She decided to go to New York after reading the Canadian magazine Adbusters, which called for the occupation, although she noted that when she got to the park Adbusters had no discernable presence.

The lords of finance in the looming towers surrounding the park, who toy with money and lives, who make the political class, the press and the judiciary jump at their demands, who destroy the ecosystem for profit and drain the U.S. Treasury to gamble and speculate, took little notice of Ketchup or any of the other scruffy activists on the street below them. The elites consider everyone outside their sphere marginal or invisible. And what significance could an artist who paid her bills by working as a waitress have for the powerful? What could she and the others in Zuccotti Park do to them? What threat can the weak pose to the strong? Those who worship money believe their buckets of cash, like the $4.6 million JPMorgan Chase gave a few days ago to the New York City Police Foundation, can buy them perpetual power and security. Masters all, kneeling before the idols of the marketplace, blinded by their self-importance, impervious to human suffering, bloated from unchecked greed and privilege, they were about to be taught a lesson in the folly of hubris.

Even now, three weeks later, elites, and their mouthpieces in the press, continue to puzzle over what people like Ketchup want. Where is the list of demands? Why don’t they present us with specific goals? Why can’t they articulate an agenda?

The goal to people like Ketchup is very, very clear. It can be articulated in one word—REBELLION. These protesters have not come to work within the system. They are not pleading with Congress for electoral reform. They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power. They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties. They know the press will not amplify their voices, and so they created a press of their own. They know the economy serves the oligarchs, so they formed their own communal system. This movement is an effort to take our country back. .............(more)



http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/why_the_elites_are_in_trouble_20111009/

“Work groups make their own decisions,” Ketchup said. “For example, someone donated a laptop. And because I’ve been taking minutes I keep running around and asking, ‘Does someone have a laptop I could borrow?’ The media team, upon receiving that laptop, designated it to me for my use on behalf of the Internet committee. The computer isn’t mine. When I go back to Chicago, I’m not going to take it. Right now I don’t even know where it is. Someone else is using it. But so, after hearing this, people thought it had been gifted to me personally. People were upset by that. So a member of the Internet work group went in front of the group and said, ‘This is a need of the committee. It’s been put into Ketchup’s care.’ They explained that to the group, but didn’t ask for consensus on it, because the committees are empowered. Some people might still think that choice was inappropriate. In the future, it might be handled differently.”

I love how the authoritarians cannot wrap their minds around this movement. :D

:wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow: :wow:

He who has the gold makes the rule.

was when these alien occupiers came and said, "We come in peace."

...with all the working groups and caucuses. It reminds me more of the 30s movements than the 60s ones. Which does not suprise me, us Millenials are the same generational type as the Greatest Generation, "Civic", while the Boomers are a "Prophet" generation.

This is such a great piece. Thanks, Dover.


Chris Hedges:


From Why the Elites Are in Trouble

October 9, 20111






Illustration by Mr. Fish (via Hedges)




History is unfolding before our eyes.

But I don't know what the next step is. My gut feeling is that every Big Media and Hate Radio outlet should have been occupied instead of Wall Street. As it is, it's plain to see that it's something, but what it is and what comes next is unclear. Any guesses?

That's where the real conversation happens. What comes next? You wouldn't want to ruin the surprise would you?
I'm sure we'll all surprise ourselves...

and 60 House members. Hate Radio runs this country, period. That needs to be addressed before any significant progress can be made.

that is all.

Because things are so fucked up in so many ways, there isn't just one place to start. How's that for an agenda, you muffin-headed tools of the popular media?

never thought I'd see it in my lifetime.

Best quote (about establishment's attempts to infiltrate):

“There was a woman . This guy was pretending to be a reporter. The first question he asks is, ‘Who’s the leader?’ She goes, ‘I’m the leader.’ And he says, ‘Oh yeah, what are you in charge of?’ She says, ‘I’m in a charge of everything.’ He says, ‘Oh yeah? What’s your title?’ She says ‘God.’ ”

and fascinating. Looks like it might sustain