Matt Taibbi: Occupy Wall Street Is A Rejection Of Everything

Rolling Stone:

I have a confession to make. At first, I misunderstood Occupy Wall Street.

The first few times I went down to Zuccotti Park, I came away with mixed feelings. I loved the energy and was amazed by the obvious organic appeal of the movement, the way it was growing on its own. But my initial impression was that it would not be taken very seriously by the Citibanks and Goldman Sachs of the world. You could put 50,000 angry protesters on Wall Street, 100,000 even, and Lloyd Blankfein is probably not going to break a sweat. He knows he's not going to wake up tomorrow and see Cornel West or Richard Trumka running the Federal Reserve. He knows modern finance is a giant mechanical parasite that only an expert surgeon can remove. Yell and scream all you want, but he and his fellow financial Frankensteins are the only ones who know how to turn the machine off.

Read the whole story: Rolling Stone

Comments

[Konnie]

08:28 AM on 11/12/2011

OWS is acting as a mirror. they don't need a leader to be vulturized. they don't need to LIST their grievences. the 1% broke the system - it's their responsibility to fix it. The 1% and the 99% know exactly what needs to be fixed and how to fix it. The 1% just doesn't want to give up their obscene profts and power. So the 99% will be in their face, reminding them what they have done to destroy the American Promise. sort of like a thorn in their side, that blister on their heel, the tree branch in their eye.

[vmf211]

01:03 AM on 11/12/2011

So far we have had attacks,assaults,rapes,murder,sickness,fighting with the police,going to th ebathroom on th estreets and parks.
http://biggovernment.com/jjmnolte/2011/10/28/occupywallstreet-the-rap-sheet-so-far/

Ubama says this is just like the Tea Party really you have 1000's arrested at OSW and almost 0 at a tea party protest. Sorry im not seeing it Liberals.

[Konnie]

08:29 AM on 11/12/2011

note: change the channel.

[TILL]

10:09 PM on 11/11/2011

Read this yesterday. I think he's got it. The President needs to get it, too. They aren't going to disappear, and No one is going to make them. An adage from Snowdrops a novel, says: No person, No problem. Just Not going to happen. Plenty of time...No disappearing, there either.

[GoldwaterKid]

09:51 PM on 11/11/2011

Blaming our police departments as OWS Movement moves from city to city, is not a long term plan.

[inmyhumbleopinion]

09:41 PM on 11/11/2011

As usual, Taibbi nails it. People have just had enough. Of everything.

[vmf211]

01:04 AM on 11/12/2011

Tell them to quit blaming others for their problems and take resposibility for their own lives instead of blaming everyone else for their failed life choices.

[Ama1]

03:03 PM on 11/11/2011

Well written and spot on (as usual). The so called "leaders" and pundits that just can't see what OWS is about are missing it because they are not looking in the right place ... which is the mirror. That is the root cause of the problems we face. They are the apparatchiks of what has become am inherently corrupt system.

[hoperequired]

02:52 PM on 11/11/2011

Here about how someone was killed today at OWS? Did you hear how the Portland media is reporting people are being scared and threatened by the OWS people? The violence is picking up and they said they were peaceful.....yea, right.

[TBinSD]

03:21 PM on 11/11/2011

It's actually spelled 'hear'. And if the cops stop bullying these people, then maybe the people wouldn't have to push back. What's your beef with the First Amendment anyway?

[anastmosis]

06:20 PM on 11/11/2011

Yes, I heard about the violence and how someone was killed at OWS. I also heard about how the Attorneys General of all 50 states united to investigate wrong doing on the part of banks, but instead of prosecutions, they are now negotiating a paltry monetary settlement with the banks in exchange for no further legal action against them. I also heard how the Securities and Exchange Commision has "disciplined" those who failed to stop the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme with a paltry fine and 30 day suspension. I also heard how the SEC "disciplined" a company for breaking the law with a paltry fine and making them promise to obey the law. Problem is, many have not heard of these outrages, and if it takes OWS to get the word out, even if there is some violence along the way, I am all for it. I don't want violence. I want awareness so that people can take action to end the chaos and anarchy in our country today.

[rdk70816]

02:15 PM on 11/11/2011

Here is a demand. I demand that they clean up, quit spreading pestilence and disease, and get out of town.

[carolina919]

02:35 PM on 11/11/2011

.......I absolutely agree. The exploitative corporations have ruined enough of our mountaintops and polluted enough of our air in their insatiable grab for profits at all costs.

[Ama1]

02:45 PM on 11/11/2011

Nicely done!

[rdk70816]

07:47 PM on 11/11/2011

Why don't you get a job with one of the corporations and find out a little bit about work? Instead of being a lazy, shiftless bum go and improve your life. Maybe then you can travel to some of the beautiful mountain tops and breathe the cool, clean air.

[fopplssiegeparty]

12:48 PM on 11/11/2011

Mr. Taibbi is a national treasure. Thank you for your continued work.

[carolina919]

02:47 PM on 11/11/2011

Amen...we'd do well to remember that the last Progressive / Reformist surge in this country had its "muckrakers" too and they had to fight for attention from the ranks of highly politicized newspapers (the social media of their day). Just think what those folks would have done (and would want us to do) with today's technology. It's about time that we cast off the complacency, apathy or despair that has brought us to this sorry pass and started solving the huge issues that confront us with incremental movements forward...

There's another candidate I'd put forth as a national treasure: Wendell Berry, who says:
A community economy is not an economy in which well-placed persons can make a 'killing'. It is an economy whose aim is generosity and a well-distributed and safeguarded abundance. -- Wendell Berry

"We assume that we can have an exploitive, ruthlessly competitive, profit-for-profit's-sake economy, and yet remain a God-fearing and a democratic nation, as we still apparently think of ourselves. This simply means that our highest principles and standards have no practical force or influence, and are reduced merely to talk."

[laura r]

11:53 AM on 11/11/2011

Matt is spot on the mark----we are tired of the crony capitalism that exist between Washington D.C and Wall Street (inside job).

We are tired of our politicians giving stupid answers, lying and talking down to the public to get elected----What ever happen to having good policies for American for the long term.

When you look to the beltway and Wall Street all you see now is a bunch of phonies, knee deep in crime. I think it will take a third party to fix the damage that the two party system has done.

Basic fixes to start with:

-A policy that is fair in the free-trade deals, no give away deals. Fix the hyper-globalized world, with regulations on the game. Maybe it’s time for a new Bretton Wood agreement too.

- Financial regulations to stop the manipulation of the markets that are causing prices to be inflated. Put the Glass-Seagull act back on the financial market.

-Tax the rich at a higher rate, like they did in the past to fix the deficit problem. Hell, Reagan raised the taxes 11 times in his eight years in office. Lower taxes do create jobs, but a lower deficit would help businesses grow.

- Investigation of banks for the crash of 2008. Crime is crime and if you let it go un-punished---it just breeds more crime.

[CSNC]

10:56 AM on 11/11/2011

It is written on the shirt: "The American Dream is Over"

And do you know who crushed it? The American people... voting in the people in the last 30 years or so. Do you recall the enemy is within quote...?

We created the monsters and now we live with the consequences.

H

[OldTulsan]

10:38 AM on 11/11/2011

Some Goldman Sachs bankers were afraid of an uprising in 2009..

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSyjc_AAwWi0
Arming Goldman Sachs With Pistols: Alice Schroeder

"Corrects second paragraph of story published Dec. 1 to say the New York Police Department believes some bankers may have received handgun permits.)

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- “I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank..."

[carolina919]

02:48 PM on 11/11/2011

Investment bankers in Europe earn significantly less than their counterparts in the US....."our citizenry just wouldn't stand for it. It simply wouldn't be tolerated."

[OldTulsan]

05:02 PM on 11/11/2011

Americans have started to wake up.

"Peasants are armed and they are angry" -- bumper sticker

[RightRealDeal]

10:35 AM on 11/11/2011

They were clear though, forgiveness of ALL debt including student loans, free stuff at the end of the day.

[carolina919]

02:50 PM on 11/11/2011

...........oh, sort of like the tax credits that companies get after paying no taxes at all on record breaking profits, yeah, you can kind of see where they might get the inspiration for that sort of deal....

[RightRealDeal]

04:16 PM on 11/11/2011

All legal, but OWS is looking for free stuff but no work, very nice

[TBinSD]

03:26 PM on 11/11/2011

That's what Wall St got in their bailout. Forgiveness and bonuses!

[Photon55]

10:26 AM on 11/11/2011

They don't need to be specific. The economic indicators during the last term of the Bush administration warned of the economic calamity ahead and it all came to fruition. We are now in the aftermath of the most destructive administration in our history. We weren't in this mess until the Bush/Cheney adminstration took control the government and our lives. Anyone can in a few minutes come up with the reasons why OWS has grown in numbers in the US and around the world and it's not as tough to understand as quantum mechanics.

[carolina919]

02:53 PM on 11/11/2011

and actually, not being specific is not only perfectly appropriate for a movement that is as much about 'awareness' as it is any specific thing...and besides, it's driving the GOP and the 1% crazy trying to get them to commit.....it must feel, to them, "like trying to nail jello to a tree"

[iskra]

10:10 AM on 11/11/2011

Matt, I think you're exactly right. 

While the right mocks the protesters for hygene the number of mentions of 'inequality' in the news continues to skyrocket. Would we be having that conversation without them? No. 

Will it have an effect on anything? It already has. 

As for the message, my takeaway is "the game is rigged in favor of corporations and the very wealthy". There's a lot of different manifestations of that, but to me that's the problem at the core. 

And yes, the right is trying to make it the 60's all over again with their talk of 'hippies' and 'get a job'. What they forget is that those kids in the 60's had a profound effect on the country, advanced civil rights, forced a president to step down and ended a war. 

So let Republicans ignore this and belittle it. Those who don't learn from history.....

[carolina919]

02:53 PM on 11/11/2011

or as Ghandi is said to have commented:

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.

[iskra]

12:09 PM on 11/14/2011

We're getting to the 'fight you' part I think