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BlueWaveNeverEnd

(8,046 posts)
Wed Apr 24, 2024, 09:39 PM Apr 24

these protests remind me of the "Occupy Wall street" protests of 2011

anyone else reminded of Occupy Wall Street? not stating agreement or non agreement... just commenting on the vibe. and spread from college campus to campus.

protests at Trump's elections were centered around street cornders.
 BLM was more city focused/off campus geographically.

OWS was the last set of nationwide protests that developed at college campuses.

23 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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these protests remind me of the "Occupy Wall street" protests of 2011 (Original Post) BlueWaveNeverEnd Apr 24 OP
Absent thre anti-semitism? ripcord Apr 24 #1
interesting... i have no memory of the protests during that time. BlueWaveNeverEnd Apr 24 #3
There werent protests ripcord Apr 24 #4
The never ending drama against the backdrop of a presidential election reminds me of the Iran hostage crisis. LeftInTX Apr 24 #7
It reminds me of the sixties boomers MOMFUDSKI Apr 24 #2
wrong date for OWS, which (the main NYC part) was from September to November 2011 Celerity Apr 24 #5
you are right... I was thinking 2008 because that's the housing market crash that preceded BlueWaveNeverEnd Apr 24 #6
it was not the housing market that caused the global financial crisis, the housing market crash was a an outcome Celerity Apr 24 #9
Thx Celerity. You always provide the full context yorkster Apr 25 #10
The Warning (PBS - 2009) An excellent, must-watch (IMHO) documentary Celerity Apr 25 #11
great reminder of the derivatives issue. BlueWaveNeverEnd Apr 25 #16
Every protest campaign is different LeftInTX Apr 24 #8
OWS had no center, no ethos, no spokesperson articulating goals or plans. Drum Apr 25 #12
OWS was structurally designed to fail, it was used as a shock absorber/damper for discontent that would burn bright then Celerity Apr 25 #13
"OWS had no center, no ethos, no spokesperson articulating goals or plans." student loan crisis BlueWaveNeverEnd Apr 25 #17
The 1999 WTO protests really freaked out the systemic controllers. OWS's topdown straitjacketing contrivances, Celerity Apr 25 #18
It was a resume padder 617Blue Apr 25 #21
OWS fizzled out Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin Apr 25 #14
it sure did BlueWaveNeverEnd Apr 25 #15
Seems like these things tend to happen during Democratic administrations. betsuni Apr 25 #19
George Floyd protests (during Trump) Iraq War protests (during Bush the shrub) Both dwarfed OWS & the current Celerity Apr 25 #20
Not the point. betsuni Apr 25 #22
I think it is. Those are all valid examples that show massive protests are not limited to Dem POTUS administrations. Celerity Apr 25 #23

ripcord

(5,537 posts)
4. There werent protests
Wed Apr 24, 2024, 10:01 PM
Apr 24

Just people attacking those they thought might be Iranian, turns out most were Sikh or Hindu.

LeftInTX

(25,551 posts)
7. The never ending drama against the backdrop of a presidential election reminds me of the Iran hostage crisis.
Wed Apr 24, 2024, 10:38 PM
Apr 24

But I don't remember protests back then either.

There were lots of protests in Iran, but they don't count..LOL

MOMFUDSKI

(5,637 posts)
2. It reminds me of the sixties boomers
Wed Apr 24, 2024, 09:54 PM
Apr 24

making noise against a horrific war in Vietnam. The kids were right then and the kids are right now.

Celerity

(43,497 posts)
5. wrong date for OWS, which (the main NYC part) was from September to November 2011
Wed Apr 24, 2024, 10:03 PM
Apr 24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a left-wing populist movement against economic inequality, corporate greed, big finance, and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Financial District, and lasted for fifty-nine days—from September 17 to November 15, 2011.

The motivations for Occupy Wall Street largely resulted from public distrust in the private sector during the aftermath of the Great Recession in the United States. There were many particular points of interest leading up to the Occupy movement that angered populist and left-wing groups. For instance, the 2008 bank bailouts under the George W. Bush administration utilized congressionally appropriated taxpayer funds to create the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which purchased toxic assets from failing banks and financial institutions. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC in January 2010 allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts on independent political expenditures without government regulation. This angered many populist and left-wing groups that viewed the ruling as a way for moneyed interests to corrupt public institutions and legislative bodies, such as the United States Congress.

The protests gave rise to the wider Occupy movement in the United States and other Western countries. The Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters initiated the call for a protest. The main issues raised by Occupy Wall Street were social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. The OWS slogan, "We are the 99%", refers to income and wealth inequality in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. To achieve their goals, protesters acted on consensus-based decisions made in general assemblies which emphasized redress through direct action over the petitioning to authorities. The protesters were forced out of Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011. Protesters then turned their focus to occupying banks, corporate headquarters, board meetings, foreclosed homes, college and university campuses and social media.

Origins

The original protest was called for by Kalle Lasn and others of Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerist publication, who conceived of a September 17 occupation in Lower Manhattan. The first such proposal appeared on the Adbusters website on February 2, 2011, under the title "A Million Man March on Wall Street." Lasn registered the OccupyWallStreet.org web address on June 9. The website redirected to Adbusters.org/Campaigns/OccupyWallStreet and Adbusters.org/OccupyWallStreet, but later became "Not Found". In a blog post on July 13, 2011, Adbusters proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, the lack of legal consequences for those who brought about the global crisis of monetary insolvency, and an increasing disparity in wealth. The protest was promoted with an image featuring a dancer atop Wall Street's iconic Charging Bull statue. In July, Justine Tunney registered OccupyWallSt.org which became the main online hub for the movement.

snip

BlueWaveNeverEnd

(8,046 posts)
6. you are right... I was thinking 2008 because that's the housing market crash that preceded
Wed Apr 24, 2024, 10:25 PM
Apr 24

the economy crashing. Thanks... I will correct.

Celerity

(43,497 posts)
9. it was not the housing market that caused the global financial crisis, the housing market crash was a an outcome
Wed Apr 24, 2024, 10:53 PM
Apr 24

that occurred ex post facto.

The global financial crisis was caused to fundamental degree by deregulation of the banks that started under Clinton (who was pushed by Rubin/Greenspan/Summers, etc) with the horrific Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. It re-legalised multiple types of long banned extremely risky derivatives (what Warren Buffett called weapons of financial mass destruction) and allowed other types of dodgy derivatives to remain legal. Even before that, there was the also horrid 1999 Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which significantly repealed major parts of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 (the repeal allowed regular banks and other firms to engage in highly speculative and risky investments).

This unleashing of those malign forces led to wild speculation, huge bubbles, huge risk, and was compounded by outright fraud and manipulation (for example the infamous Goldman-Sachs scams in subprime market MBS (mortgage backed securities) and CDOs (collateralised debt obligations) that were junk bond level but passed off as highly rated via corrupt rating practices).

Celerity

(43,497 posts)
11. The Warning (PBS - 2009) An excellent, must-watch (IMHO) documentary
Thu Apr 25, 2024, 12:24 AM
Apr 25
Watch the full video here: https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-the-warning/

Long before the economic meltdown, one woman tried to warn about the threat to the financial system...

Aired: 10/20/09

snapshot:



“I’m opposed to all forms of control. I am for an absolute laissez faire economy,” Ayn Rand told Mike Wallace back in 1959, “for the separation of state and economics.” As sure of herself and her philosophy as she was, Rand could hardly have known how far-reaching her effects would be, some 50 years after this pronouncement. According to this week’s episode of Frontline, faith in such “separation” led directly to Wall Street’s recent collapse.


https://www.popmatters.com/114968-frontline-the-warning-2496113218.html

By Cynthia Fuchs

20 October 2009


It didn’t have to be this way. Even as The Warning traces a direct line from Rand’s narcissistic pontificating to the more consequential maneuvers of her most powerful disciple Alan Greenspan, it also reveals that at least one doubter spoke out, early and insistently. The would-have-been hero of this story is Brooksley Born, first female president of the Stanford Law Review, friend of Hillary, and one of Bill Clinton’s appointments to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 1994. When she became head of this small federal regulatory agency in 1996, Born became aware of the “dark market” of over-the-counter derivatives. These unregulated contracts are not traded on exchanges, and leave behind no records or reports. Thus functioning beyond “all forms of control,” they seem, at first look, an ultimate expression of Rand’s ideal system.

Born saw in derivatives the possibility for fraud, that is, the precise domain of the CFTC. When she instructed her staff to look into such activities, however, she was instructed to back down. The edict came from on high, namely the President’s Working Group, a committee that discussed and essentially set financial policy called at the discretion of Secretary of the Treasury, at the time, Rubin. With a membership that included Larry Summers, Arthur Levitt (SEC Chairman from 1993-’01), and the “wizard” Greenspan, this group was “not welcoming of someone who looked at the world differently,” says David Wessel, author of In Fed We Trust. A special meeting of the Working Group was called, the “clear mission” of which was to keep the CFTC from issuing its report, recalls Michael Greenberger, director of CFTC after Born, from 1997-’99.

Born might have known what was coming as she and Greenspan were famously at odds. The Warning lays out their opposing ideologies, noting as well the “odd” circumstance that Greenspan was Fed Chair, the most powerful “central banker,” given that, as Joseph Stiglitz of the Council of Economic Advisors (1993-’97) says, “central banking is a massive intervention in the market, setting interest rates.” The program recounts one particular meeting between Greenspan and Born in 1997, when she took over the CFTC. Though Greenspan (and Rubin and Summers, et. al.) declined to speak with Frontline and Born won’t speak about “the Alan Greenspan lunch” on camera, the program floats the story — via the New York Times‘ Joe Nocera, among others — that Greenspan told Born that her agency was not supposed to pursue fraud, that the “market would figure it out.” This laissez faire approach didn’t hold up, as Born read it, when Procter & Gamble sued Bankers Trust over fraudulent derivatives trading.

But even this exposure didn’t lead to new regulatory legislation. As The Warning has it, Born’s refusal to drink the free-market kool-aid resulted in a series of difficulties for her and her office, not least being some hostile congressional hearings during the summer of 1998. Born recalls now, the Working Group and other financial players in the administration “were totally opposed to [the CFTC report]. That puzzled me. Why did it have to be a completely dark market? So it made me very suspicious and troubled.” As the New York Times‘ Tim O’Brien describes the ordeal, she was “stepping into the maw of the most well oiled and highly financed lobby in the history of Washington, DC, the financial lobby.” That these dark markets have not been made completely transparent and that this lobby is currently resisting efforts to regulate Wall Street now are probably not surprising turns of events. But they do indicate that few “lessons” were learned a decade ago.

LeftInTX

(25,551 posts)
8. Every protest campaign is different
Wed Apr 24, 2024, 10:49 PM
Apr 24

This one is unique because it tends to isolate Jewish Americans.
In the 60's, our boogie man was the military.
OWS had financial institutions.
BLM had police brutality.

All the villains in those protests were things that people could get behind.

Vietnam protests pitted young Americans against "everyone over 30" but 30 yo Americans generally weren't students on college campuses.

College campuses are full of Jewish students.
Polls shows that Americans still favor Israel over Palestinians.

During OWS, the only other Americans rebelling against financial institutions were the Tea Party. The average American really didn't pay much attention to OWS protests. The Tea Party was the louder noise maker then.
Lots of Americans paid attention to BLM protests.
Lots of Americans are paying attention to these protests.

Drum

(9,197 posts)
12. OWS had no center, no ethos, no spokesperson articulating goals or plans.
Thu Apr 25, 2024, 01:18 AM
Apr 25

To me, here in NYC, at the time, it just seemed like unfocused discontent, opportunist activists with no true agenda. Posing. People taking credit for being dissidents, but without effect.

And where is that gonna get you? Nowhere, it turns out. I fully agreed with their sentiment at the time, but felt really let down by the weakness of the execution. A missed opportunity. If only someone had envisioned something more than just disrupting.

In response to this OP: it’s much different now in the sense of political and religious and martial elements (truly incendiary now) but the lack of cohesion in leadership and goals makes me, sadly, shrug once again.

Mobilization of the people can be so powerful, as we have seen through history. But squandering opportunities can make it harder going forward when such power is truly needed.

Celerity

(43,497 posts)
13. OWS was structurally designed to fail, it was used as a shock absorber/damper for discontent that would burn bright then
Thu Apr 25, 2024, 02:19 AM
Apr 25

quickly flame out.

As you correctly stated:

OWS had no center, no ethos, no spokesperson articulating goals or plans


It made no concrete demands, and one of it's major architects, David Graeber (who coined the 'we are the 99%' meme) set about to rigidly enforce (with aid from other organisers) a non-hierarchical consensus decision-making model and the use of prefigurativism that handcuffed it to a real degree. Without concrete demands, no movement will gain mass-traction stage/levels, which are needed to see real results.

As you put so well:

it just seemed like unfocused discontent, opportunist activists with no true agenda. Posing. People taking credit for being dissidents, but without effect.


The very nature of interactions at the OWS demonstrations was straitjacketed from the beginning, including the use of the human microphone system, and a number of unaccountable, pre-selected organisers/controllers maintaining discipline and removing people and groups whose messages and agendas they did not like (especially ones with actual real, concrete sets of demands and action plans).

The OWS model was test-bedded in the late spring, early summer of 2011 in Madrid, Spain with the anti-austerity protest groups Movimiento 15-M and the Indignados Movement. After some time, those massive protests were strangled by the allowing in of bad actors, criminal elements, and a general decay in safety and sanitary conditions. The same thing (plus the oncoming winter in NYC) happened to OWS. Some of the OWS leaders were over there in Madrid to observe, and some of the Indignados Movement leaders also came over to advise just before and during the beginning of OWS as well.

From speaking to many people who were at OWS (not just in NYC), and some who were in Spain for the protests, it all seemed artificial at the end of the day, and designed to fail. A giant steam release valve that in hindsight did not accomplish much of any real permanent import.

BlueWaveNeverEnd

(8,046 posts)
17. "OWS had no center, no ethos, no spokesperson articulating goals or plans." student loan crisis
Thu Apr 25, 2024, 03:19 AM
Apr 25

its flames were partly fed by the student loan crisis.

Celerity

(43,497 posts)
18. The 1999 WTO protests really freaked out the systemic controllers. OWS's topdown straitjacketing contrivances,
Thu Apr 25, 2024, 03:35 AM
Apr 25

ones that ensured its failure at the end of the day (especially the failure to put for any real, concrete demands and action agendas), are an example of the 'damper model' that was put in as a template to be adopted. Loud bark, not bite, and ultimately a fizzle out to nothing much but memories that haze up as time flows on.

617Blue

(1,281 posts)
21. It was a resume padder
Thu Apr 25, 2024, 07:07 AM
Apr 25

The average local GOP potluck dinner fundraiser in Bumfuck had more impact than OWS. It was a con.

Celerity

(43,497 posts)
20. George Floyd protests (during Trump) Iraq War protests (during Bush the shrub) Both dwarfed OWS & the current
Thu Apr 25, 2024, 07:03 AM
Apr 25
Palestinian/Israel ones.

You also had the Global Climate Strike on 20–27 September 2019 (during Trump)

The massive anti Vietnam war protests that were during both LBJ and Nixon

The first Earth Day protests (1970, under Nixon) 20 million people across the US

Celerity

(43,497 posts)
23. I think it is. Those are all valid examples that show massive protests are not limited to Dem POTUS administrations.
Thu Apr 25, 2024, 07:12 AM
Apr 25
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