The "Occupy" Movement

[Jed]

Circular logic: the Occupy movement occupies a farm in order to turn it into a farm. The attached photo essay is pretty illuminating as well.

http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2012/04/29/meet-the-new-farm-same-as-the-old-farm/

BTW the actual owners of the farm are pissed, and since this is a research farm the science has been ruined for this season

Reminds me of the book "Animal Farm". A very appropriate observation on life.

 

[Sythen]

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/30/news/economy/occupy-may-day/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Occupy movement is organizing a nationwide protest on Tuesday, asking Americans not to attend work or school on a day that's already a progressive holiday overseas.

In what Occupy organizers are calling "a day without the 99%," protesters are planning to participate in a "general strike" on Tuesday: no work, no shopping, no banking.

For some strange reason I don't think it will be hard for most of these guys to not "attend work or school". Guess they're trying a reverse Atlas Shrugged?

 

[Rifleman62]

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/hannity-destroys-occupy-wall-st-organizer-in-fiery-segment-about-movements-violence/

Hannity Destroys Occupy Organizer In Fiery Segment About Movement’s Violence

Watch video embedded at link.

 

[larry Strong]

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/hannity-destroys-occupy-wall-st-organizer-in-fiery-segment-about-movements-violence/

Hannity Destroys Occupy Organizer In Fiery Segment About Movement’s Violence

Watch video embedded at link.

Amen

 

[Sythen]

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/hannity-destroys-occupy-wall-st-organizer-in-fiery-segment-about-movements-violence/

Hannity Destroys Occupy Organizer In Fiery Segment About Movement’s Violence

Watch video embedded at link.

I couldn't even watch the whole thing.. I felt embarrassed for that kid LOL

 

[larry Strong]

Personally I thought he showed what a free loader the idiot was.........

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Couldn't get it to play on the Man Cave computer.

Redeye must've hacked the system ;D

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Worked on my home computer.

Fucking Awsome!!!!

About time someone told these self entitiled assholes that nothing in life is free 8)

Everything has a cost

Sounds like the push back against the Marxist model has started to take hold.

 

[a_majoor]

Occupy people get tossed from the farm, so real farming can get done. I don't suppose any of them considered that farming is hard work (even a small garden...). An interesting link on Instapundit's reporting on the story suggests the Occupy movement isn't either a mass uprising against the 1% or an evil, Soros inspired mob of Brownshirts, but rather the losing side of a "class struggle" within the upper echelons of society:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-raid-occupy-camp-on-uc-berkeley-land-after-protesters-fail-to-meet-deadlines-to-leave/2012/05/14/gIQAD6lxOU_story.html

Police raid Occupy camp on UC Berkeley land after protesters fail to meet deadlines to leave 
By Associated Press, Published: May 14AP

ALBANY, Calif. — University of California police raided a four-week Occupy encampment at a college-owned farm used for agriculture research early Monday, arresting nine people after protesters ignored yet another weekend deadline to leave.

About 100 officers clad in riot gear arrived shortly after 6 a.m. at the camp known as Occupy the Farm, but there was no violence, university spokesman Dan Mogulof said.

University of California, Berkeley police raided the Occupy the Farm encampment on university-owned land early Monday morning after protesters ignored another weekend deadline to clear out.

Officers moved in after issuing a dispersal order to about 10 protesters sleeping at the Gill Tract in Albany, a 10-acre plot used primarily by UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources.

Two protesters, both women, were arrested on trespassing charges while the other occupiers left voluntarily. Seven protesters were also arrested for unlawful assembly.

Monday’s raid allows UC faculty and students to begin planting their research crops.

“We simply could not wait any longer,” Mogulof said, adding, “If our faculty and students couldn’t get in this week to begin planting research crops, we would’ve lost a full year of work.”

Protest organizers issued a statement Monday saying they planned to reassemble at a nearby community center Tuesday afternoon.

“UC needs to let go of control and supervision of this land,” said Anya Kamenskaya, a spokeswoman for the protesters. “For decades, it has fenced off this land from use by the community.”

Demonstrators moved onto the tract on Earth Day, April 22, and began planting their own crops to encourage urban agriculture and protest planned commercial housing development.

University officials said they tried negotiating, and they allowed protesters to join them at a meeting to discuss the tract’s future if they agreed to pack up and disperse.

Last week, the university filed a lawsuit against 14 unnamed protesters, claiming they conspired to cut locks, trespass and establish an illegal encampment.

On Friday, university officials said it would drop the lawsuit if protesters left the encampment peacefully and did not attempt to re-occupy the land.

Mogulof said UC intends to preserve as much of the crops planted by the protesters as possible.

He also added that there’s a slight possibility university officials would still be willing to talk to the protesters about using the land, but only on the university’s terms.

http://volokh.com/2011/10/31/the-fragmenting-of-the-new-class-elites-or-downward-mobility/

The Fragmenting of the New Class Elites, or, Downward Mobility
Kenneth Anderson • October 31, 2011 11:27 am

Glenn Reynolds is correct in his weekend post to point to the social theory of the New Class as key to understanding the convulsions in the middle and upper middle class; I’ve written about it myself here at VC and in a 1990s law journal book review essay.  The angst is partly income, of course – but it’s also in considerable part, as Glenn notes, “characterized as much by self-importance as by higher income, and is far more eager to keep the proles in their place than, say, [Anne] Applebaum’s small-town dentist. It’s thus not surprising that as its influence has grown, economic opportunity has increasingly been closed down by government barriers.”

The problem the New Class faces at this point is the psychological and social self-perceptions of a status group that is alienated (as we marxists say) from traditional labor by its semi-privileged upbringing – and by the fact that it is actually, two distinct strands, a privileged one and a semi-privileged one.  It is, for the moment, insistent not just on white-collar work as its birthright and unable to conceive of much else.  It does not celebrate the dignity of labor; it conceived of itself as existing to regulate labor.  So it has purified itself to the point that not just any white-collar work will do.  It has to be, as Michelle Obama instructed people in what now has to be seen as another era, virtuous non-profit or government work.  Those attitudes are changing, but only slowly; the university pipelines are still full of people who cannot imagine themselves in any other kind of work, unless it means working for Apple or Google.

The New Class has always operated across the lines of public and private, however, the government-university-finance and technology capital sectors.  It is not a theory of the government class versus the business class – as 1990s neoconservatives sometimes mistakenly imagined.  As Lasch pointed out, it is the class that bridges and moves effortlessly between the two.  As a theory of late capitalism (once imported from being an analysis of communist nomenkaltura) it offers itself as a theory of technocratic expertise first  - but, if that spectacularly fails as it did in 2008, it falls back on a much more rudimentary claim of monopoly access to the levers of the economy.  Which is to say, the right to bridge the private-public line, and rent out its access.

The OWS movement against this social theory backdrop?  (Let’s leave aside the material reality of its occupation, so far as one can tell today from shifting reporting: geographies in which public order was deliberately withdrawn to indulge a certain class of youth and not-so-youth (and the aging generation of New Class professionals projecting its political nostalgia onto it). The result is theft, violence, sexual assault, and levels of filth that, absent the infrastructure of the world’s richest large society, would mean what it means in Haiti – dysentery, cholera, epidemic disease.  Epidemic disease is what happens when you shit your nest, unless there is a larger society that will clean up after you.  The culture industry averts its eyes in its effort to have its nostalgic dream intact.  But leave that aside, and leave aside, too, the folks who send in the organic beet root and goat cheese – for the consumption of the wanna-be New Class that, somehow, has notions of property and entitlement of an intensity that only a born regulator can have, and therefore fine-tuned notions of who eats organic and who goes to the soup kitchen.  This is further complicated by the confused politics of the protestors, engaging in confrontations with police, as Harry Siegel reports from New York, who seem to have responded by encouraging the homeless and disturbed to join them.  Ann Althouse is right to point to Joan Didion’s Slouching Toward Bethlehem, on the decline of the Haight-Ashbury utopia.)

In social theory, OWS is best understood not as a populist movement against the bankers, but instead as the breakdown of the New Class into its two increasingly disconnected parts.  The upper tier, the bankers-government bankers-super credentialed elites.  But also the lower tier, those who saw themselves entitled to a white collar job in the Virtue Industries of government and non-profits – the helping professions, the culture industry, the virtueocracies, the industries of therapeutic social control, as Christopher Lasch pointed out in his final book, The Revolt of the Elites.

The two tiers of the New Class have always had different sources of rents, however.  For the upper tier, since 1990, it has come through its ability to take the benefits of generations of US social investment in education and sell that expertise across global markets – leveraging expertise and access to capital and technological markets in the 1990s to places in Asia and the former communist world in desperate need of it.  As Lasch said, the revolt and flight of the elites, to marketize themselves globally as free agents – to take the social capital derived over many generations by American society, and to go live in the jet stream and extract returns on a global scale for that expertise.  But that expertise is now largely commodified – to paraphrase David Swenson on financial engineering, that kind of universal expertise is commodified, cheaply available, and no longer commands much premium.  As those returns have come under pressure, the Global New Class has come home, looking to command premiums through privileged access to the public-private divide – access most visible at the moment as virtuous new technology projects that turn out to be mere crony capitalism.

The lower tier is in a different situation and always has been.  It is characterized by status-income disequilibrium, to borrow from David Brooks; it cultivates the sensibilities of the upper tier New Class, but does not have the ability to globalize its rent extraction.  The helping professions, the professions of therapeutic authoritarianism (the social workers as well as the public safety workers), the virtuecrats, the regulatory class, etc., have a problem – they mostly service and manage individuals, the client-consumers of the welfare state.  Their rents are not leveraged very much, certainly not globally, and are limited to what amounts to an hourly wage.  The method of ramping up wages, however, is through public employee unions and their own special ability to access the public-private divide.  But, as everyone understands, that model no longer works, because it has overreached and overleveraged, to the point that even the system’s most sympathetic politicians understand that it cannot pay up.

The upper tier is still doing pretty well.  But the lower tier of the New Class – the machine by which universities trained young people to become minor regulators and then delivered them into white collar positions on the basis of credentials in history, political science, literature, ethnic and women’s studies – with or without the benefit of law school – has broken down.  The supply is uninterrupted, but the demand has dried up.  The agony of the students getting dumped at the far end of the supply chain is in large part the OWS.  As Above the Law points out, here is “John,” who got out of undergrad, spent a year unemployed and living at home, and is now apparently at University of Vermont law school, with its top ranked environmental law program – John wants to work at a “nonprofit.”

Even more frightening is the young woman who graduated from UC Berkeley, wanting to work in “sustainable conservation.”  She is now raising chickens at home, dying wool and knitting knick-knacks to sell at craft fairs.  Her husband has been studying criminal justice and EMT – i.e., preparing to work for government in some of California’s hitherto most lucrative positions – but as those work possibilities have dried up, he is hedging with a (sensible) apprenticeship as an electrician.  These young people are looking at serious downward mobility, in income as well as status.  The prospects of the lower tier New Class semi-professionals are dissolving at an alarming rate.  Student loan debt is a large part of its problems, but that’s essentially a cost question accompanying a loss of demand for these professionals’ services.

The OWS protestors are a revolt – a shrill, cri-de-coeur wail at the betrayal of class solidarity – of the lower tier New Class against the upper tier New Class.  It was, after all, the upper tier New Class, the private-public finance consortium, that created the student loan business and inflated the bubble in which these lower tier would-be professionals borrowed the money.  It’s a securitization machine, not so very different from the subprime mortgage machine.  The asset bubble pops, but the upper tier New Class, having insulated itself and, as with subprime, having taken its cut upfront and passed the risk along, is still doing pretty well.  It’s not populism versus the bankers so much as internecine warfare between two tiers of elites.

The downward mobility is real, however, in both income and status.  The Cal graduate started out wanting to do “sustainable conservation.”  She is now engaged in something closer to subsistence farming.

 

[a_majoor]

Quebec has gone to the next level of "Occupy", with brownshirts roaming the universities and disrupting classes (how many of these people are actually students is unclear). As one blogger pointed out:

So, they "own" an existing institution they didn't pay for in the past, and think they have a right to free tuition in the present and future. What does that make the rest of us, who actually pay for all of this? Slaves. Their slaves.

Which is entirely consistent with the basic instincts of socialism: my rights at your expense.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/16/masked-protesters-hunt-for-scabs-in-montreal-university-classes/

Masked protesters hunt for ‘scabs’ in Montreal university classes
Myles Dolphin, The Canadian Press  May 16, 2012 – 12:19 PM ET | Last Updated: May 16, 2012 4:11 PM ET
 
MONTREAL & QUEBEC CITY — Protesters stormed into a university, many of them with their faces covered by masks, moving through the hallways in a hunt for classes to disrupt.

The chaotic scene, which made some international news reports, was orchestrated Wednesday by protesters determined to enforce their declared strikes. They resented the fact that some students had used legal injunctions to return to school.

With a list of scheduled classes in hand, about 100 protesters marched through pavilions at the Université du Québec à Montreal and stopped at a few choice spots along the way.

Making noise with drums and whistles, they moved through the main UQAM building, splitting up on a number of occasions as they searched for ongoing classes. A masked protester would yell out marching orders for the next target, such as: “Pavilion M!”

Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
A few of the 100 or so protesters who marched through the Université du Québec à Montreal on May 16, 2012, disrupting classes and yelling “Scab!”
A few dozen entered a contract-law class at one point.

Having marched upstairs to that ninth-storey classroom, the group began flicking on and off the lights; they repeatedly yelled, “Scab!” at the stunned group of students seated inside.

A few men even grabbed two female students by the arm, telling them to get out. Some of the intruders jumped on desks and tables.

The teacher and students shouted at them to leave. But during the 10-minute standoff, most of the students eventually gave up and left the classroom, as did the teacher.

By the time it was over, there were chairs and tables knocked over. On a wall of the classroom there was a spray-painted message, written in red: “On strike, dammit!”

The protesters then worked their way toward another class. They had marched east on De Maisonneuve Boulevard for a few minutes before they found their target: 1001 De Maisonneuve East. They chanted, “Who owns UQAM? We own UQAM!”

None of the protesters were carrying weapons. They did, however, get into students’ faces, shouting at them, shoving their books and climbing on desks.

Protesters make their way through the hall of a Montreal university to disrupt classes, May 16, 2012. “They’re trying to make us afraid to go back to class,” one student said.
There were clearly differences of opinion among the protesters. When one masked man grabbed a desk and flipped it over, another looked at him and said: “You’re an idiot.”

Some annoyed students reported the incident to police. Others snapped photos of the intruders with their cellphone cameras.

At one point, while a student was talking to a police officer outside the school, several demonstrators who were watching shouted: “Scabs!” But she kept chatting with police.

“They’re trying to make us afraid to go back to class,” UQAM law student Celina Toia said after talking to the officers, who were sitting in a van.

“Teachers are more than willing to give their classes, so they’re trying to make it extremely inconvenient. They’re threatening us and they’re creating a hostile environment for us.”

The student unrest has lasted 14 weeks. Only one-third of Quebec students are actually on declared strikes, but the conflict has created considerable social disorder.

Wednesday’s events were notable — in that they were actually taking place inside classrooms, in face-to-face confrontations.

The social conflict so far has consisted of different sides fighting in court, and in the court of public opinion. It has also seen scuffles between police and protesters, but the events inside the classrooms Wednesday came as a shock.

The crisis appears headed for a crescendo.

The provincial cabinet was meeting Wednesday to discuss the possibility of adopting emergency legislation — a law reportedly laden with financial penalties for people who have played a role in encouraging the ongoing disruption.

Premier Jean Charest and his ministers were assembled in Quebec City. On her way into the meeting, new Education Minister Michelle Courchesne said she had noticed a hardening of demands from student leaders.

That remark came as a surprise to the student groups, who had emerged from a meeting with Courchesne the previous night saying they had had a constructive dialogue.

POSITION ‘HARDENING’

While student representatives seemed optimistic that a tuition hike moratorium was possible after meeting on Tuesday with Michelle Courchesne, Quebec’s new education minister, the minister had another reading.

“On their side I sensed a hardening of their position,” Courchesne told reporters Wednesday. “That was very clear.

“I will report to the cabinet soon. The government will judge what decision to make then.”

In a Twitter message, the Coalition large de l’association pour une solidarite syndicale etudiante (CLASSE) replied to Courchesne, “It isn’t the position of the students that has hardened, it is the position of the government that has hardened.”

Asked if a legislated end to the tuition-hike conflict was possible, Courchesne replied, “Don’t conclude on any scenario.”

The minister was on her way to National Assembly question period, to be followed by a meeting of the Quebec cabinet.

Asked for an indication of what he would do, Premier Jean Charest joked with reporters: “Are you lacking affection?”

The student representatives told reporters their meeting with Courchesne went well and that she listened to them.

“The tone was correct, honestly,” Courchesne said. “Their position didn’t really change. I didn’t have a view of any kind of compromise.”

With files from Kevin Dougherty, Montreal Gazette, and a file from Andy Blatchford, The Canadian Press

 

[a_majoor]

Since the Quebec "Student Strike" is just a variation of the Occupy theme (maybe with cleaner brown shirts), this seemed an appropriate place to repost this; an occupier in his own words as he goes to the Quebec Young  Liberal AGM:

http://www.konekt.ca/articles/behind-enemy-lines-a-communist-infiltrates-the-young-liberal-agm?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150874836003621_22349811_10150875523993621#f18dc9d05c

Behind Enemy Lines- A Communist Infiltrates the Young Liberal AGM

I have been involved in a war on the streets of Montreal against the Liberal party and their proposed tuition hikes for a few months. Two weekends ago though, I found myself in the midst of a Young Liberal AGM, behind enemy lines.

Earlier in the year, a good friend of mine, running for a spot on the Young Liberal exec, proposed the idea. Come to the AGM, vote for him, see what the Liberals are all about, and then share the experience.

    I was on the fence until he mentioned that there would be free booze at the expense of the Liberal Party.

I went into the weekend unsure of what to expect. On the one hand, I painted quite the romantic picture of the AGM in my head. Infiltrate the bastards, steal their alcohol, and sweep Liberal women off their feet. Fear and loathing on the Liberal trail 2012. It all seemed rather Hunter S. Thompson to me. On the other hand though, there was a good chance of it turning out to be a pure scuzz fest, capable of leaving me with only half of my hair intact, and bruised knuckles. It turned out to be somewhere in between.

~

As the first night came to a close, I stumbled into the hotel room we’d trashed, at around 2:30am, stumbling from a night of double Ballantines and coke, with a condom, a beer, and a hotel sign in my hand. The Liberals in the room momentarily paused their speech writing, and gave a few disturbed chuckles and disgusted looks.

    “You bastards,” I thought. “How can you judge me after the sleeze I’ve just trekked through?”

That sleeze of course, was a night full of schmoozing conversations with Liberals. John Stanley, a long-time crony of mine, told me that the only thing Liberals like more than talking about themselves is hearing other people talk about themselves. So, here we go…

~

When you lean so far left that you can give fist bumps to Lenin, Liberals tend to not be your favourite people politically. They certainly aren’t mine. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but when I went to the Young Liberal AGM I found, well, liberals…

While I met quite a few individuals, there were many common themes which tied them all together. The first of these was what I will call, the “Black Friend”. If you’ve ever met someone blatantly racist, and call them out on it, they’ll often come back with something along the lines of, “I have a black friend (or gay friend, or girlfriend) so I can’t be racist.” For many of the Liberals, it worked the same way. They all claimed that they couldn’t not be socially progressive because of X reason.

For one drunk stuttering fool, X reason was solar panels and Aboriginal reserves. Being quite drunk myself, I’m still not sure how we stumbled into the conversation, but we had got into a heated debate on the Quebec student movement. After noticing my red square, a sign of solidarity for my comrades in Quebec, he launched into a vicious tirade, calling the movement “retarded” over and over. He was pouring sweat, and seemed quite vicious; suspiciously like a Conservative. He claimed he wasn’t though, because he would require for 200 solar panels to be built in each new suburb along with the abolishment of Aboriginal reserves…

Most of the Liberals did the same thing, with different issues, like gay marriage for example. It seemed as though they measured their progressiveness in not being as bad as the Conservatives, while always actively separating themselves from the Conservatives in a paranoid manner.

As a whole, the current X reason for the party seems to be the legalization of marijuana. But this is something I can get behind entirely, and when it eventually happens, I hope the Liberals won’t gloat about it for the following twenty years, and will instead move on to other progressive issues; even if it is one at a time.

~~

    Then there was Joseph Uranowski.

He seemed like an average politico-geek to me, but amongst the Liberals he was described as a “Twitter God.” And to give him credit, when he referred to letter writing as an example of direct action to be admired, I knew without a doubt that he was a Liberal. I had a decently interesting conversation with him, yet one particular thing he said has been in the back of my mind since. “When it comes to women and gay rights, I’m 100% left.”

What was 100% left supposed to imply here? Progressive? That would make sense to me, but as a Liberal that would undercut most of his policies. Was it supposed to mean utopian? Dreamer? There’s nothing unrealistic about rights for oppressed groups. If he could see why it would make sense to be 100% left on those issues, why not for all others? Either way, I strongly doubt he’s 100% left on these issues. How could you be, without a critique of capitalism, which is inherently sexist and homophobic…

~

Another person who is probably a little less left than he thinks is Fernando Melo. As one of the only people I talked to who knew a decent amount about the student movement in Quebec, our conversation was a refreshing one. In fact, I found myself agreeing with him on quite a few things. That is, until the liberal hammer came down. He told me that he too was a Marxist, but a pragmatic one. I asked him what this meant, and he told me that he saw joining the Liberal party as the most realistic way to act upon Marx’s critique of capitalism.

    A part of me died inside.

Despite this though, he was a good indicator of the second main trend I identified amongst the Liberals, which was what they labelled as realism, or essentially economic conservatism. Most of the Liberals had a fetish for responsible fiscal spending. I think this pseudo responsibility is what lead most of the Liberals I talked to to their opposition of the Quebec student movement, and their unquestioned support of capitalism and neo-liberalism. Nothing exciting to see here folks, move on, these Liberals aren’t much different from their ancestors.

~~

After finally stumbling out of bed the next day, climbing over the clothes and shoes sprawled on the floor, throwing on a clean shirt, and re-attaching my red felt patch, I headed out for more Liberals. The main event on the Saturday was a series of speeches and debates from the candidates. I was expecting an all out thrashing, some tears, and a lot of scandal. Instead, I got a couple hours of mind numbing recited bullshit, on the most part. There were a couple things that stood out though.

The first was when the OYL United candidate for Student Director, Clare Graham, took a pot shot at Jonathan Crombie, accusing him of relying on his family to make it in the Liberal party. The looks on the faces of the Liberals were priceless. She provided the only real source of entertainment, but I knew she would pay for it. Crombie delivered a far better speech, and it was clear that she would be stomped when it came to voting. She was.

The other incident which managed to break me out of my daze was a creepy speech by Jules Varshavska. It was like that drunk weird person hitting on you all night at a club. I was repulsed at first, but as the speech wore on, I grew intoxicated, judgement went down, and when she mentioned showing off her Liberal tattoo that night, I was awake.

    Maybe she’d be as liberal and scandalous as the Liberal party.

~

As 9pm rolled around, with voting done, I decided to get the hell out of Mississauga and head to downtown Toronto. Feeling a little gross after 2 days of political schmoozing, I decided to clean up by getting into a 12 hour night club bender with Toronto’s sketchiest. Sometime around 1pm on Sunday, just after leaving the club, my phone vibrated, telling me that my friend had won. And by quite a large margin too. I was extremely happy for him. Two years ago, he had run a campaign to become co-prez at our highschool, and now, he was elected to a position in the Youth Liberal party.

Despite this though, the weekend didn’t change much in my end of the court. Parliamentary democracy is still not for me, the Liberal party turned out to be what I thought they were, and I had an intense craving to get back to direct action in the streets of Montreal. But, whooping it up with the Liberals did make for some good material. See you guys at Summer Fling?

Section:

Tags: 2012, agm, hunter s thompson, joseph, Liberal, OYL, Politics, renew, united, uranowski, young

About the Author

Davide Giuseppe Mastracci

contributor
Davide Mastracci is originally from Cambridge, Ontario, but now lives in the moment. He studies at McGill University in Montreal, working towards an impressive sounding BA degree which will probably land him a job at Starbucks. He enjoys making his thoughts public in the written form, and currently does so as a columnist for the McGill Daily. Stroke his ego at davide.mastracci@mail.mcgill.ca.

 

[Journeyman]

contributor
Davide Mastracci is originally from Cambridge, Ontario, but now lives in the moment.

  :  He writes like the 19-year old that he is.....self-important, narcissistic, and in the end, completely irrelevant.

He studies at McGill University in Montreal, working towards an impressive sounding BA degree which will probably land him a job at Starbucks.

I doubt if he could hold a job at Starbucks for a whole week, before getting fired because the 22-year old manager was "oppressing" him.

        :boring:

 

[GAP]

Last week my son asked me to pick him up a triple expresso at starbucks on the way home.

The dweeb that served me at the cash register made out just like this guy sounds.....a twit....

then I had to go to the receiving station where another "engineer" made my triple expresso....she handed it to me and I had to ask where the rest of it was....it was less than 1/2 a cup.....and for this I paid 3+ $$?

 

[MJP]

Last week my son asked me to pick him up a triple expresso at starbucks on the way home.

That son sounds "retarded", you should be indulging your other, and quite frankly better oldest child.  :nod:

 

[GAP]

That son sounds "retarded", you should be indulging your other, and quite frankly better oldest child.  :nod:

Don't tell me he drinks that crap too!!! perish the thought....2 sons down the drain, thanks to Starbucks....at least the youngest only drinks anything with alcohol in it..... ;D


come to think of it, so do the others....hmmmm .... where did I go wrong......

 

[Nemo888]

Many of the occupy protesters may not be very bright but our current system of capitalism without moral constraints is not ideal by anyone's standards. Income inequality is a real issue. This extraction of wealth by the few has essentially been a tax on the rest of us. The problem being that they do not spend it. Without consumption they are artificially extracting demand from markets. They instead invest in property, positional goods(like art) and speculative financial instruments like hedge funds. Consumption creates jobs, not rich people having money. So governments and families have been borrowing to make up the difference. This is a structural, not cyclical problem.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Many of the occupy protesters may not be very bright but our current system of capitalism without moral constraints is not ideal by anyone's standards. Income inequality is a real issue. This extraction of wealth by the few has essentially been a tax on the rest of us. The problem being that they do not spend it. Without consumption they are artificially extracting demand from markets. They instead invest in property, positional goods(like art) and speculative financial instruments like hedge funds. Consumption creates jobs, not rich people having money. So governments and families have been borrowing to make up the difference. This is a structural, not cyclical problem.

Sweet baby Jesus on a cracker. You want more money, get off your ass and go earn it.

Did you ever, just once, stop and figure out it's not everyone else's fault?

Most times a look in the mirror will reveal the culprit.

 

[Nemo888]

I do fine, but many do not. In the third world it does not matter how hard you work. I don't think anyone disputes that. I have also had business opportunities there that involve basically slave labour making me ridiculous sums. The current 3000% mark up over wholesale is almost criminal. Medical devices is the business to be in right now.

Did you ever, just once, stop and figure out that you live in a system that has checks and balances and when people are ignorant of that system they get screwed over by those who do.
When I import these cheapo disposable plastic pieces of crap and mark them up 2000% you are telling me I earned that money? I live in a world where the less I do the more I get paid.  There is some weird morality that because I have money I am a better person. Harder working, morally disciplined, worthy of respect etc. I'm a douche who has more money because I have a relative who knows a guy who owns a factory. It's like welfare only better.

But to the point. I see that system slowly being brought here and many of our institutions being dismantled. Some of us will be smart and jump on board before the opportunities dwindle. But most will not. I want the level of social mobility and opportunity for my kids that I had.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I do fine, but many do not. In the third world it does not matter how hard you work. I don't think anyone disputes that. I have also had business opportunities there that involve basically slave labour making me ridiculous sums. The current 3000% mark up over wholesale is almost criminal. Medical devices is the business to be in right now.

Did you ever, just once, stop and figure out that you live in a system that has checks and balances and when people are ignorant of that system they get screwed over by those who do.
When I import these cheapo disposable plastic pieces of crap and mark them up 2000% you are telling me I earned that money? I live in a world where the less I do the more I get paid.  There is some weird morality that because I have money I am a better person. Harder working, morally disciplined, worthy of respect etc. I'm a douche who has more money because I have a relative who knows a guy who owns a factory. It's like welfare only better.

But to the point. I see that system slowly being brought here and many of our institutions being dismantled. Some of us will be smart and jump on board before the opportunities dwindle. But most will not. I want the level of social mobility and opportunity for my kids that I had.

Then just do the morally right thing, in your mind, and give away all that money you don't think you deserve.

To all those people that have done nothing for it, including your kids.

Heck, go to the third world and start a business paying your workers North American wages.

I'm sure everyone will invest your gifts wisely and escalate the world's poor to a better place.

You talk a lot of socialist tripe, but I don't see you practicing any sort of Co-operative lifestyle.

Just quit asking for the money I bust my ass for. It's mine, and I'll do what I want with it.

You can do whatever you want with yours.

 

[Nemo888]

I don't mind playing the game. But I won't piss in your face and tell you it's raining. I'm cheating and getting rewarded for it. I'd prefer to be rewarded for working hard. 

I worry that our system will devolve into theirs. You are born or marry into opportunity. Hard work is meaningless. Connections decide your entire life. I want the old work hard and get ahead days.