Wall Street protesters: We're in for the long haul

[crazy canuck]

The way you guys make it sound, the teabaggers and OWS are essentially all about the exact same thing and should join forces.

In many ways I think they are, and should.

Of course, the discontent with the structural problems is understood through different cultural filters. With the addition of different views orthogonal to this issue there's plenty of both superficial and substantive issues to clash over it seems.

How does a teabagger who wants lower taxes and lower spending anything like the occupier who wants wealth redistribution?

[Sheilbh]

So far the occupiers have taken pride in the fact they are leaderless.  I think this is because there is no coherence to what they are saying and it is a convenient dodge to say that is because no one speaks for them.

I think the Tea Party have been largely leaderless too.  There's a suspicion of 'leaders' in these movements and I think in wider society.  The perception is that it was our leaders who got us into this mess.  I think it would be peculiar for two very anti-elite and anti-establishment movements to have leaders.

But this is a trend.  The Arab revolutions have, for the most part, lacked leaders.  Los indignados haven't had leaders, neither have the tent cities in Israel.  I watch the anti-cuts march in this country, organised by the unions with union banners and a stage at the end from which the Labour Party Leader addresses the crowd and it just looks deeply anachronistic.

How does a teabagger who wants lower taxes and lower spending anything like the occupier who wants wealth redistribution?

A poll of the OWS found their biggest gripes were special interests in politics, partisanship and unemployment.  I think you'd probably get something similar in the early days of the Tea Party.  They both stem from a sense of deep dysfunction in the way your politics and economy's working.  The occupiers have gone global because I think the Tea Party was too peculiarly American.  I'm not sure what a group of Brits dressed in 18th century costume would be supporting...

Sadly that poll also asked what the OWSers wanted to achieve.  The largest answer was to influence the Democrats as the Tea Party have influenced the GOP, which doesn't seem to address partisanship at all.  On the other hand a significant plurality wanted to break the two party system - which is, again, something I think many early Tea Partiers could get behind.

Their analysis from that starting point will be difference but I think they're both motivated by the same problems.

Edit: 

What is this common problem that vexes people across the world - since Sheilbh asserts this is a function of globalization.

I don't think that's the case.  We've all got similar problems is all.

My comment on globalisation was just that I don't see how we can address the way wealth is distributed or the nature of growth in an easy way in a globalised world.  What's to stop the banks and executives relocating to Geneva or Hong Kong if they don't like the situation in the UK or US?  In the UK the banks have threatened to do this quite regularly over bonuses.

[Valmy]

How does a teabagger who wants lower taxes and lower spending anything like the occupier who wants wealth redistribution?

Haven't we been over this dozens of times in this thread?

[Valmy]

What is this common problem that vexes people across the world - since Sheilbh asserts this is a function of globalization.

Well I think it has something to do with the pressure to keep wages low to keep competitive on a global level.  But again that is most evidently an American issue.  Not sure how that impacts your Vancouverites with...whatever it is they are upset about.

[Josephus]

I do not get what the Canadian protestors are protesting about at all frankly. 

I don't think they do either. But I think it's wrong to think that a protest needs a specific cause. It's a pretty vague, general protest. Basically something to the tune of, "The current system sucks and we don't think the powers-that-be know how to fix it, mostly because they're in bed with the biggest harm-doers."

Other than that, there's no real consensus, from what I could see, about what they're doing and what exactly they hope to accomplish. But sometimes it's only about getting attention.

[Martinus]

Both teabaggers and OWS are popular/populist movements, in that they perceive an actual, legitimate grievance but either are unable to offer a solution or offer unrealistic solutions. In that they are both a lot like medieval peasant revolts. They were unlikely to develop into anything bigger/gamechanging.

It is in the enlightened self-interest of the elites to try to find a solution and address the grievance however because if they don't, eventually someone nasty will harness this popular anger and then they will be sorry.

[Valmy]

I don't think they do either. But I think it's wrong to think that a protest needs a specific cause. It's a pretty vague, general protest. Basically something to the tune of, "The current system sucks and we don't think the powers-that-be know how to fix it, mostly because they're in bed with the biggest harm-doers."

Other than that, there's no real consensus, from what I could see, about what they're doing and what exactly they hope to accomplish. But sometimes it's only about getting attention.

Does the current system in Canada suck?

[Admiral Yi]

I don't think it was ever made clear to Germans that they could end up being on the hook for Greek debt.

That is/was a choice, not an inevitable result of monetary union.

[fhdz]

It is in the enlightened self-interest of the elites to try to find a solution and address the grievance however because if they don't, eventually someone nasty will harness this popular anger and then they will be sorry.

Agreed.

[Berkut]

I would bet that if you got the 1% together in a room and polled them about what they thought ought to be a systemic/cultural functional model, they would agree that wealth should be more evenly distributed.

Now, that doesn't mean that any of them as individuals would support their particular means of concentrating wealth be changed, because surely the problem is elsewhere, but I bet that in general the set of the super rich (especially those who got their by their own efforts rather than inheritance) are pretty smart people who fully understand that as a society their group continually getting more and more of the share of wealth is probably not a good thing.

[Oexmelin]

But others did understand the deeper issues, and assumed leadership positions that were actively or passively endorsed by those whose participation was more emotive.  Without that, the revolution would have been an abject failure, just a Boston Massacre-type uprising writ large (like the later Whiskey Rebellion).

Indeed, but: a) they were elites who had a stake in refashioning polities in their image, and played the partisan politics game until they felt they could no longer benefit from them. I don't see anyone stepping to the plate today, which might have somehting to do with b)   

b) they lived at a time of over-investment of the political, where problems were thought to be solvable by political action, and therefore participated heavily. We live in a time where political action has been declawed and neutered, when we have been told the political must bend knee before economics and forces beyond everyone's control. And yet, "bankers" and "financial elite" seem either to control something, or to benefit immensely from the set-up. To continue the metaphor of early-modern politics, our economic experts today are the equivalent of the members of the Paris Parliament: they are part and parcel of the system: they are well-versed in the esoterics of the practices of law and politics, could tell you what's what in the theoretical underpinnings of the monarchy, grew immensely rich from it, and  and yet seen as utterly meaningless for what the problems are increasingly seen to be, because such problems are increasingly seen to stem from political, moral or ethical issues. 

[Ideologue]

The "corporations are people!!1" misunderstanding is one of things I like the least about the OWS movement and associated leftism.

In this case, the misunderstanding may lie more with the present Supreme Court, and less with the OWS crowd.

I dunno.  If it's down to Citizens United, I thought it was rightly decided.  Maybe there are other problems with corporate personhood of which I'm unaware, which is certainly possible, but as far as that case went, the decision seemed unavoidable, as much as I might abhor the speech actually in question.

In any event, reasonable minds can certainly differ, but most of the people I've discussed the matter with speak nonsense, sometimes asserting that's it only a Matter of Time!!!111oneoneuneодин before juridical personhood leads to corporations being able to vote or run for office and dumb shit like that (but applying the Thirteenth Amendment might be tricky).  As far as that sign goes, corporations get "executed" all the time, even without trial...

Edit:

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Damn.  Did the revolution start and nobody tell me?

[Jacob]

Ok so I ask again.  What is this common problem that vexes people across the world -

I don't know. I'm only speaking of the US.

[fhdz]

As far as that sign goes, corporations get "executed" all the time, even without trial...

That's what I find so funny about it.

[Ideologue]

Criminal trial, anyway.