Recently, a relative of mine asked me to please explain these Occupy Wall Street protests. I will do my best.
I believe that on the surface, these protests are simple to understand. In essence, it’s a battle between capitalism/individual freedom, and a collectivist state. On that level, we can understand that this is a manifestation of a battle of ideologies that’s been going on for years.
However, peel back the layers and get to the core, and it’s far more sinister than a simple group of disastified Americans. These people are calling for revolution.
In my observation, I’ve found that there are 3 such layers.
Layer 1: These are the college kids. Some are the Ivy League trust-fund children with a whole lot of wealth-guilt and not a lot of purpose in life. They are enticed by the pull of the protests; the excitement of feeling that they’re actually “doing” something about society’s issues. These are also the “average Joe” young people who really have had a hard time at it. They’re frustrated, and they are projects of an education system and an entitlement mentality that has brought them up to place the blame for their problems on anything and everything other than themselves. It has taught them that they deserve EVERYTHING. These are the ones demanding that their student loans be repaid, because the rich don’t pay enough taxes. (Keep in mind: there’s a difference between being frustrated with the way Washington has been choosing winners and losers, and believing that the “rich” class is an “evil” one.) These people aren’t dyed in the wool leftists, but they’ve been certainly educationed to think a certain way. They are, to use Lenin’s own words, the “useful idiots.”
Layer 2: These are the ideologues. These people firmly and unequivocally believe that our system is inherently wrong and should be replaced with a collectivist model, and it is their life-goal to do so. They’ve had years working on this. They are not on-a-whim protestors; these are the real deal. These are different than the young kids that come out, just caught up in the excitment and the chaos of the whole affair.
Layer 3: These are the financial backers; the movers and shakers; the nuts and bolts of this protest. Despite what the mainstream media has tried to portray, these protests are by no means “spontenous.” They’ve been planned. They’ve been WELL planned for quite some time. In fact, the domain name “occupywallstreet.org” was registered all the way back in June of this year. The individuals at layer 3 actually have dangerously strong pull in the world of finance and media. They are the most extreme wing of this movement. These are the people stirring up the crowds. These are the pulling bring OUT the crowds. These are the people starting the catch phrases and the chants (i.e. “We are the 99%). They are the man behind the curtain; a la Wizard of Oz.
What do they want?
As much as it pains me to give these people internet traffic, naturally I had to visit their site to at least attempt to ascertain what it is that they want. When I attempted to visit the site www.occupywallstreet.org, I was immediately redirected to http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet. Very interesting. Why does Adbusters matter? Adbusters happens to be an uber-anti capitalist magazine out of our northern neighbor, Canada. It also happens to be beneficiary of a certain anti-capitalist American (isn’t it ironic?) billionaire. . .George Soros. This matters, because for those of you who thought this movement was completely spontaneous, Adbuster’s involvement makes things a little more official and a whole lot more serious. A report from Reuters sums it up well:
Reuters did find indirect financial links between Soros and Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests with an inventive marketing campaign aimed at sparking an Arab Spring type uprising against Wall Street. Moreover, Soros and the protesters share some ideological ground.
According to disclosure documents from 2007-2009, Soros’ Open Society gave grants of $3.5 million to the Tides Center, a San Francisco-based group that acts almost like a clearing house for other donors, directing their contributions to liberal non-profit groups. Among others the Tides Center has partnered with are the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation.
Disclosure documents also show Tides, which declined comment, gave Adbusters grants of $185,000 from 2001-2010, including nearly $26,000 between 2007-2009.
Aides to Soros say any connection is tenuous and that Soros has never heard of Adbusters. Soros himself declined comment.
Mmhmm.
Interestingly, Adbusters is infamous for an article back in 2004 with a decidely anti-Semetic slant. David Brooks at the New York Times summed it up well in his recent article covering the protests. In his analysis, the essay entitled “Why Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?” was “an investigative report that identified some of the most influential Jews in America and their nefarious grip on policy.”
Back to that “We are the 99%” slogan for one quick sec….
Can anyone tell me what the Jewish population in America is? Roughly 1%.
Just a thought.
It is indeed ironic that according to registrant information pertaining to the individual or entity that first registred the domain name www.occupywallstreet.org back in June, the site’s registrant is none other than Kalle Lasn, author of the aforementioned article, and, (drumroll), Editor-in-Chief of Adbusters.
Forgive my digression. I was going to tell you what the protestors want. Please note, the demands are always listed as “unofficial” and do in fact change from day to day.
In essence, these individuals want cradle-to-grave, womb-to-tomb government coverage of life in its entirety. The demands range in specificity, and include but are not limited to forgiveness of all debt, permanent living wage regardless of employment, abolishment of all credit reporting agencies, free college education, etc. The site, before its revamp to include a redirect to Adbusters’ site, included the following disclaimer at the top of the page, which incidentally includes quite the handy-dandy clenched fist in the upper left-hand corner; very a la U.S.S.R.:
Admin note: This is not an official list of demands. This is a forum post submitted by a single user and hyped by irresponsible news/commentary agencies like Fox News and Mises.org. This content was not published by the OccupyWallSt.org collective, nor was it ever proposed or agreed to on a consensus basis with the NYC General Assembly. There is NO official list of demands.
Yet, the “admin” never could find the time to remove this “unofficial” and “hyped up” list.
Ah what a tangled web they weave .
Great post! good way to start the day well informed…