Excessive force by police no new thing

Photo shows pepper-sprayed prisoner: MyFoxTAMPABAY.com

This year Americans have been inundated with photos and videos of police brutality since Occupy Wall Street announced one of its purposes was to expose the increasingly militarized police force. Despite the failures of the movement in many ways it did succeed in its mission to show the abuse of authority that is seemingly rampant in American police forces. Now that people are more aware and demanding information about these unconstitutional actions the media is responding with more incidents from days past that make the infamous "pepper spray cop" look tame. In the above video a local Fox news station out of Tampa, Florida shows a horrendous event where one man is pepper sprayed to death. 62-year-old and native Ohioan Nick Christie's death was ruled a homicide yet to this day there has been no form of disciplinary action at the Florida police station that is clearly guilty of excessive force.

Nick Christie died of heart failure after being stripped naked, gagged, tied up, and pepper sprayed over 10 times by officers, but he is not the only one to die at the hands of police officers using excessive force and coincidentally pepper spray. Earlier this year Jennifer Fox was accosted by police at an Occupy Seattle protest. Fox claims to have been kicked in the stomach, had a bike rammed into her stomach, and pepper sprayed by police as she tried to leave the protest area while yelling "I'm Pregnant! I'm Pregnant!" She later miscarried. There has been no further action due to apparent inconsistencies in her story.  If her allegations are proven to be true then an innocent and young life was ended unnecessarily. The young and the elderly alike have been on the wrong side of a cop with pepper spray finger. 84-year-old Dorli Rainey was pepper sprayed while at a protest as were young students by the infamous "pepper spray cop" that inspired a slew of popular memes.

Years of police abuse have been recorded but they hardly make a blip on the international or national media outlets. Now more people are looking into past events and wondering how they let all of these slip by unprotested. What could these revelations mean to an American already on the edge of a cultural and political civil war? Certainly fear of authority figures does nothing to further trust and peace in a land rife with suspicion of the government and its representatives.

Occupy Movement: Next Step Convergence

Occupy Movement

Joel S. Hirschhorn - There is a growing convergence of thinking about where the US Occupy movement should go as a next step to turning its values, concerns and commitments into changing what most Americans see as broken government under control of corporate interests.  When it comes to political and social movements, history shows us that they usually fail not because they disappear, but rather because they become marginalized, unimportant despite a core group of committed people and groups.


They lose popular appeal and support or never expand beyond a small early group of supporters.  The nation and many supporters move on.  Other movements grab the interest of the most informed, dissident-type people seeking truth, justice or change.  A good example of such a failed contemporary movement is the 911 truth effort.  The groups, websites and true believers keep on pushing their objectives a decade after the historic event.  But the goal of revealing what really happened that the official government story does not divulge is like a moldy piece of forgotten food in the refrigerator.


Movement death by inattention happens despite good resources, charismatic leaders and even great organization and communication skills.  Critical mass of public support simply never materializes, in large measure because diverse segments of the population never buy into the central arguments of the movement. The Internet is littered with websites of activist groups that persist despite clear evidence of decay and wide disinterest.  True believers have a mission in life tied to their egos that prevent them from admitting defeat.  They do not move on.

The biggest mistake that passionate advocates for a cause make is overestimating their ability to reach critical mass and underestimating the competition of other movements with greater appeal which rob them of both attention and supporters.



Make no mistake; I totally and enthusiastically support the Occupy movement because it offers the prospect of producing reforms to fix our broken government and attracting very wide public support for a nonviolent Second American Revolution.  What worries me, however, is that many of its participants seem over confident, as if they cannot fail.  On the other hand, I have become impressed by a convergence of thinking about what the next big step for the Occupy movement can and should be.  I will briefly identify examples of this convergent thinking.


Canadian author Erich Koch has written a compelling article: An Objective for the U.S. Occupy Movement: A Constitutional Convention.  He buys into the view that the Occupy movement could embrace the thinking of Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig who has presented the case for amendments to fix Congress.  Like others Koch is correct in saying that “No one in the movement would disagree with its main point: the fundamental problem is the corruption of Congress.”  Unlike others, Koch recognizes the path for obtaining reform constitutional amendments is using the provision in Article V for a convention of state delegates, having the same power as Congress in proposing amendments that still must be ratified by three-quarters of the states.  It has never been used despite many hundreds of state requests for a convention because, clearly, Congress and most status quo forces fear such a convention.


Koch cited a great article by Alesh Houdek: Has a Harvard Professor Mapped Out the Next Step for Occupy Wall Street?  Most is a review of Lessig’s book.  Correctly noted about using the convention option is “it bypasses the usual means of reform (Congress, presidential elections, etc.) which the lobbyists and other interested parties have learned so well to manipulate. And lastly, such a convention would be free to propose solutions that would otherwise be subject to be stricken as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.”  This is critical to understand.  Houdek concludes: “Properly presented, the strategies and aims of Lessig's book could make it the handbook the protesters have been looking for -- and provide a pathway for them to ride out the winter ahead.”



Dan Froomkin also has presented the same case in: Lawrence Lessig's New Book On Political Corruption Offers Protesters A Possible Manifesto.  He quoted what Lessig himself had said in an article about the Occupy movement and the concern that I share, namely that the Occupy movement “will become too diffuse and not focused" on the root issue of corruption of government.  And that the movement will only grow "if a wide range of people can be part of it."  This requires coalescing around an issue "as fundamental as the corruption of the system."  Only a constitutional amendment can fix the corrupting impact of money in politics.  This is also the focus of Dylan Ratigan’s fine effort, except that the use of the convention path has not been emphasized.



A specific call for an Article V convention was made by the pro-Occupy US Day of Rage group: “We are organizing a coordinated national campaign at local and state levels, including where necessary the occupation of state capitols, in order to demand an article V constitutional convention be called to restore representative democracy to our nation.”  A set of specific reforms to be fix the corruption-money problem are presented.


The 99 Percent Declaration group has also presented an important statementcentered on the call for a National General Assembly, where delegates would formulate a petition of a list of grievances that would be delivered to the main parts of the federal government on behalf of 99 percent of Americans.  A suggested list of grievances includes the need for constitutional amendments to achieve solutions, but only for a few of the issues.  Not explicitly acknowledged, however, is that constitutional amendments, not ordinary laws, would be necessary for other solutions, such as term limits for Congress and abandoning the Electoral College. Moreover, there is no specific recognition that serious amendment reforms will not be proposed by Congress, and that an Article V convention is needed.  Inattention to method was also the shortcoming of a similar list of solutions by Ralph Lopez.



Author Scott Turow has presented: How Occupy Wall Street Can Restore Clout of the 99%.  His recommendation to the Occupy movement is “work across the nation for a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to regulate the expenditure of private money on elections.  … The best antidote to this imbalance of income and influence would be to greatly reduce the role of private funding in our elections.  …As for the Occupy Wall Street movement, it has been criticized by some for not having a realistic agenda, even though polling shows that millions of Americans, including me, are sympathetic to the basic message of the protests.”  His prescription: “rally around a single goal and reinvigorate their movement.”  Fine, but missing from his analysis is the recognition that Congress will never propose reform amendments, only an Article V convention will do the job.


This sampling of recent writings clearly shows convergent thinking that the Occupy movement can and should focus on key reform constitutional amendments and, second, that some better informed critical thinkers recognize, this requires advocacy for using the Article V convention option that Congress has refused to honor.


As to Occupy movement success, I want again to emphasize that there is always competition for the attention and support of concerned Americans who recognize how broken our system is.  In particular, the well financed Americans Elect effort is impressive.  Because it is offering an alternative path to nominating a presidential candidate in 2012, over 2 million Americans have already signed up to be delegates for a web convention, with millions more very likely as the mainstream media keeps giving this effort attention.  The Get Money Out campaign has over 250,000 signatories.


Disgust with the two-party plutocracy is surely shared by Occupy participants and supporters.  But for movement success based on enticing many millions of Americans, the Occupy movement cannot ignore competition such as Americans Elect.  This means that the Occupy movement must explicitly start making the case to the broad public why their effort can achieve more of what is needed.  This is easily done.


Here are some key concepts that the Occupy movement could use.  No matter who is nominated by Americans Elect, the odds are that either the better financed Democrat or Republican candidate will win the presidency.  This may just require spending even more millions of dollars on campaigns.  And whoever is nominated by the group will likely be strongly linked to one of the two major parties, rather than some courageous reformer and enemy of the status quo.  Moreover, this group does not offer a realistic path to getting the key reforms of the system that most of us see critically needed, such as constitutional amendments, already recognized by many Occupy supporters.


A sign of trouble for the Occupy movement is a recent national poll that found: “In the latest survey, 33 percent voiced support for Occupy Wall Street, down from 35 percent in a previous poll, while opposition to the movement climbed from 36 percent to 45 percent. Twenty-two percent were unsure.”  These results are worse thanearlier polls.  From the left, Chris Bowers commented: “the decline in Occupy Wall Street's image is probably more connected to the increasingly negative coverage of the clashes between protesters and police than it is to declining support for movement's message.”  Now is the time to move the message from what is wrong to solutions, using an Occupy Congress approach.  Otherwise, this view from theconservative right might prevail: “OWS will linger … but I’d argue we’ve seen the movement’s high tide. It will now recede into a mere annoying shadow of itself as support is withdrawn by political figures and organizations.”


True, Occupy movement success is not inevitable.  The movement must better define what success means and how it can be achieved if it is to attract and keep the support of many millions of Americans.  It needs specificity for its solutions that ordinary Americans can relate to.  Never underestimate the power and commitment of status quo forces to maintain control over the political, government and economic system that has so harmed most Americans.  The fight against the Occupy movement mostly seen as local police violence against peaceful demonstrators and protesters as well disinformation from some news outlets and pundits are nothing compared to what could be mounted if the movement is viewed as more threatening to the status quo delusional democracy with its delusional prosperity.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Occupy Revolution

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Joel S. Hirschhorn - History tells us that it is nearly impossible to know in real time whether some kind of national, grassroots public protest ends up being the beginning of a true revolution against a ruling government system.  This is true for the earliest beginnings of the revolt against the British that produced the successful American Revolution and the creation of the US.  The British at the time surely thought that they could retain power and control.  More recently, the revolts inEgypt, Tunisia and Libya certainly could not be accurately perceived in their earliest stages as likely to topple well established dictatorships wielding incredible and cruel power.  Even now, the rebellious actions in Syria are not widely seen as surely resulting in successful revolution.

My central point is that the Occupy movement in the US offers the possibility of being seen, eventually, as the seed of a successful Second American Revolution, which I and many others believe is desperately needed to fix our corrupt, dysfunctional and unfair government, political and economic system.

What are the main similarities among successful revolutions?

At the beginning of ultimately successful revolutions the focus is almost entirely on what the rebels oppose and only in the most general terms what they want instead.  What rebels are always against is some form of tyranny that takes the form of repressed freedoms and economic pain for most ordinary people.  In other words, it is clear at the beginning what causes citizen anger and passion; what is intolerable and far less on the exact changes in the nation’s political and government system most desired.  Mostly what is being fought for is either a true democracy or a better one, a system where elections are open and free and really matter, where status quo powers can be replaced.  The more you think about it, the more sense it makes for nascent rebels taking great risks to have a single minded focus on what is wrong, unjust, corrupt or just plain evil in order to build wide public support for fighting a powerful, oppressive government.

Second, despite various forms of peaceful protests at the beginning, history tells us that violence usually becomes crucial for successful overthrow of a hated political system.  More pointedly, violence is usually precipitated by violent actions of the existing regime against early peaceful protestors which then causes rebels to also become increasingly violent, even though they may have few weapons to match what the reigning government has.  Relying on civil disobedience alone has rarely been sufficient, with a few notable exceptions.  But even though India and South Africa may come to mind it is easy to forget that violence was practiced by the then reigning governments against protestors and their leaders, especially imprisonment.  That the protestors seeking fundamental reforms do not become citizen armies but nevertheless ultimately become successful in overthrowing oppressive regimes should be seen more as the exception than the rule.  In other words, violence is sometimes one-sided, but still is an essential part of the revolution process, in large part because it motivates not only more widespread public support, but often international support, including economic sanctions, for achieving the central goal of the rebellious protest movement.



Third, what follows successful revolution is usually messy, chaotic and painful, in great measure because entirely new, effective democratic systems must be created to replace what previously was used to implement political and economic injustice.  Even in the case of the American Revolution, it took quite some time to actually create a new government system (including an early constitution that was ultimately deemed a failure and replaced).  Presently, the renewed violence in Egypt by both the military controlled government and the same rebels that overthrew the Mubarak dictatorship testifies to the considerable difficulty in establishing a true functioning and stable democracy. Ditto for what we see in Libya.  And many would say that Russia has not achieved a first class democracy despite the downfall of the Soviet Union.  The point is that it is best to think of two-stage revolutions, beginning with attacking the status quo, oppressive government and second creating a better system to replace it.  Nevertheless, we can conclude at some point that a revolution has been successful, merely on the basis of a successful first stage, letting time tell whether it becomes fully successful.

Apply this thinking to the current Occupy movement in the US.  What can we assess?  First, the Occupy movement has been focused on what is wrong with the US, principally economic injustice, and unfair wealth of the top one percent to the detriment of the 99 percent.  The focus on the terrible actions of the Wall Street, banking and whole financial sector that has wrecked the economy and the failure of government to punish the guilty and truly fix the economic system makes perfect sense.  Economic inequality is the target.  The Occupy movement clearly is against the status quo establishment, political parties that are both controlled by financial interests that manipulate the government and economy to benefit the few.  The Occupy protestors want to replace what they see as a system that no longer serves the overwhelming majority of Americans.

Second, it has become increasingly clear that mostly one-sided violence has emerged, with local police forces using violence and even anti-constitutional means in attempts to kill the Occupy movement.  Civil disobedience has been attacked with violence; free speech has been attacked; media access has often been prevented.  What is most interesting is that, unlike other revolutions around the world, it is not the national government using violence against this protest movement, but rather local police such as that widely seen in New York City.  Mayors seem to have taken the lead in protecting the status quo against the public distrust, dissatisfaction and disgust with the prevailing political and economic system.  Occupy means disrupting, and local governments are fighting back.

Third, even though it certainly is unclear whether the Occupy movement will turn out to be the beginning of a successful two-stage revolution, we cannot rule it out.  It is important to understand that about one-third of the USpopulation has been experiencing great personal pain produced by many failures of the system, including those losing their homes and jobs, those experiencing hunger and poor health care, and those unable to find any financial security despite hard work or incurring debt for college educations. However, the top 20 percent of Americans, not merely the top one percent, or some 60 million Americans are not suffering; they benefit from the corrupt, unfair system.  What is uncertain is whether the Occupy movement can expand its public participation and support to reach a large majority of Americans.

Here is some basis for optimism about the ultimate success of the Occupy movement.

A new report by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project asked Americans if they agreed with the statement “our people are not perfect but our culture is superior to others.” Only 49 percent agreed, compared to 60 percent in 2002, the first time that Pew asked the question.  That shows the malarkey about American exceptionalism, especially from conservatives, is being recognized.  Notably, among young people (those ages 18 to 29), the percentage who believed that their culture was superior was lower than young citizens of Germany, Spain and Britain.

Besides all the findings that Congress only has 9 percent public support, it is even more important to recognize that Americans do not feel very positive about their country. A Time Magazine/Abt SRBI poll conducted last monthfound that 71 percent of Americans believed that our position in the world has declined in the past few years.

Add to this that an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey conducted earlier this month found that beyond current hardships most Americans see their nation at “the start of a longer-term decline where the U.S. is no longer the leading country in the world.”   There is no rational basis for being optimistic about what the president or Congress will accomplish.

There is, in fact, enormous public support for addressing both political dysfunction of the two-party plutocracy, economic inequality, money in politics and a host of other public grievances.

James B. Stewart wrote a timely article An Uprising With Plenty of Potential that offers an optimistic view of the Occupy movement.  And David Carr has also offered an excellent analysis of the future of the movement.  Two leaders of the Occupy movement have also presented an important analysis worth your time, including this view “Occupy was born because we the people feel that our country and our economy are moving precipitously in the wrong direction; that America has evolved into a kind of corporate oligarchic state, a ‘corporatocracy’; and yes, that what is needed is a regime change.”  For a great history of the Occupy movement read this.  The role of the media in the Occupy movement has also been assessed and because I spent time at theOccupy Wall Street activity I know how inaccurate many media reports have been.  The mighty effort at takemoneyout.com is worth supporting as well as numerous efforts to get the first Article V convention.

Every American should use critical thinking to not only follow the Occupy movement but explicitly decide whether it is the seed capable of producing a Second American Revolution that truly reforms what is now a "delusional democracy" with "delusional prosperity."  For sure, voting for or against Democrats or Republicans will not suffice.

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All opinion articles are written as the opinions of the author and may or may not be the opinion of the publication.

Occupy Movement follows global trends in civil protest and conflictsince 2007

[caption id="attachment_10630" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Riots in Greece - wikimedia commons"][/caption]

Ezra Boyd - The financial meltdown and global recession of 2007 kicked off three waves of political protests and associated civil conflict.  Occupy Wall Street is just the most recent iteration of this global trend.

The three waves of civil unrest since the global meltdown of 2007 are the: (1) 2007-08 Global Food Riots, (2) the 2011 Arab spring, and (3) the ongoing austerity backlash.  Economic downturns are often associated with civil conflict, and the current downturn has been no different.  Further, while the major fractions speaking for Occupy Wall Street have repeatedly stated that they are conducting a peaceful protest, it is important that authorities tread carefully to avoid the violence that has experienced in many other countries.

2007-08 Global Food Riots

In 2007, in the months leading up to the global recession, global food prices spiked dramatically.  As food prices doubled during 2007, the meltdown of late 2007 set of the first phase of civil unrest associated with the global meltdown: a series of global food riots that lasted from 2007-08.  During this period, a string of food riots affected many countries, mostly developing countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Asia.  Impacted countries include Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

At this time, the world was on the heels of an unprecedented period of economic expansion and growth.  Many of these countries retained significant reserves of food stocks allowing governments to address the immediate factor driving this wave of unrest.  However, as we now know, this wave of unrest would be harbinger of coming wider unrest in many of the countries.

2011 Arab Spring

In January 2011, a Tunis street vendor set himself on fire to protest corruption, thus kicking off the second wave of violent protests associated with the global meltdown.  In Tunisia and Egypt, the protests quickly resulted in democratic transitions with relatively limited destruction and bloodshed. In Tunisia, transition took 28 days and ended when the former dictator fled the country after protesters stormed his palace.  In Egypt it took 25 days, and ended with the former dictator transferring power to a military council and is currently facing a trial in the country.  In both countries, the death tolls were in the hundreds.  However, for other countries caught up in this unprecedented regional protest movement, the process to be considerably more drawn out and violent.

By mid-February, "Days of Rage" were a common theme and destructive protests occurred throughout a region that stretched from Morocco to Iran.  On one "Friday of Rage", the protests spanned a distance of over 3,400 miles, nearly 15% of the Earth's circumference!!!  On that weekend deadly clashes occurred in Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and Bahrain with reports suggesting the collective death toll topping 250 spread across 2,000 miles.  In Libya, this protest movement quickly morphed into a violent civil war that lasted eight months and resulted in tens of thousands of deaths before the dictator died in battle-torn Sirte.  In Yemen, the protest movement also evolved into a much larger civil conflict.  At one point, the dictator fled the country due to injuries from an assignation attempt, though he has recently returned to the country and clashes quickly ramped up.  A violent crackdown to an initially peaceful protest movement in Syria has also morphed into a low level civil war.  In both Yemen and Syria, thousands of deaths have been reported.  Harsh crackdowns in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Iran appear to have squashed protestors for now. 

2010-11 Austerity Backlash

Greece was the first Western country to feel the acute effects of the global financial crisis.  It was also the first to adopt stringent austerity measures and the first to experience a violent backlash against those measures.  While tourism and shipping fueled a growing economy through most of the 2000's, the 2007 meltdown brought this expansion to a quick halt.  Unemployment rose, as did the budget deficient.  In December 2008, a police killing of a 15 year old citizen set off weeks of rioting throughout the country.  While the police shooting triggered the riots, the underlying economic and social conditions were also an important cause.  In early 2010, Greece became the first country to initiate widespread budgets cuts, and violent protests and riots have been common there ever since.

Just as other European countries have experienced the impacts of the global financial crisis, they have also experienced protests and civil conflict.  In Ireland in November 2010, up to 40,000 people protested against cuts to funding for higher education.  One group of protestors occupied the Department of Finance, while others clashed with police.  At the same time, up to 50,000 people in the United Kingdom participated in similar protests against cuts to higher education there.  Again, sporadic clashes between protesters and police occurred.  More recently, England was rocked by widespread riots in early August 2011.  Triggered by a police shooting, opportunistic criminality seems to have been pervasive through this outbreak of violence, though the events cannot be separated from the harsh social and economic context within which they occurred.

Most recently, this global wave of protests from the 2007 economic meltdown has reached the United States in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Starting out as a small group of protesters who occupied a park near Wall Street, this movement has gained widespread traction nationally and internationally.  While mostly non-violent occupations of public places to raise awareness of the dire economic conditions that have griped this country, this fractionalized movement has yet to unite under one cause and one method.

Conclusion

Throughout 2007 and into 2008, a first wave of food riots and protests hit a number of countries throughout the world.  Governments of the affected countries responded with expanded food rations and price controls, and with the peoples’ immediate needs met those same people returned to normal life.  However, three years into the great recession, circumstances had changed drastically.  By early 2011, chronic unemployment has taken hold, leading to deeper, lingering civil discontent.  Because of the drop in global productivity, food stockpiles have been diminished, and this time the grumpy old, out-of-touch dictators were unable to respond quickly and effectively.

So far, three North African regimes have fallen, Yemem is very close to falling, and Syria is facing an increasingly violent low level insurgency.  Greece continues on a downward spiral and the Eurozone continues to have trouble containing the upheaval.  During the recent "Global Day of Rage," we saw the violence in Athens spread to Rome.

While Occupy Wall Street is only two months old, this protest movement fits within social and political trends that have played out over years.  Certain groups, speaking about the goals and methods of the movement, say they are non-violent protesters and they do not seek to overthrow the government.  However, recent events in Oakland have demonstrated that the fractionalized nature of this movement creates the potential for violent confrontation, particuarly when authorities aggressively deploy well armed riot police.  Without doubt, Oakland is starting to resemble Athens.  Most folks hope that an aggressive response by authorities there and in other U.S. cities does not escalate the violence to a point where these cities start to resemble Cairo, Sana, or Misrata.

Jobless and Clueless

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Joel S. Hirschhorn--When Americans who are the most victimized by our cruel economy still believe in something that is demonstrably no longer true, they are deeply delusional. They desperately want to believe in something once great about American society.  The reality is that upward economic mobility has been destroyed, replaced by widely observable downward mobility.  Some of the mostly younger jobless that have embraced the Occupy Wall Street and related Occupy efforts know the truth.

Consider the results of a new survey of unemployed adults this month:

“More than half of those polled said that they had experienced emotional or mental health problems like anxiety or depression because of their lack of work, and nearly half said that they had felt embarrassed or ashamed not to have jobs.”

“More than a third said that they had had more conflicts or arguments with family and friends because of being jobless.”

“Threats of foreclosure or eviction were reported by a fifth of the unemployed, and one in eight said that they had moved in with relatives or friends.”

“More than half said that they lacked health insurance.”

“A fifth said that they had received food from a nonprofit organization.”

“Nearly two-thirds said they would probably not have enough money to live comfortably during retirement.  More than half said that they had taken money out of savings or retirement accounts.”

“7 in 10 of those receiving unemployment benefits said that they feared their benefits would run out before they could find new jobs.”

So far, all those results paint an unsurprising profile of unemployed, suffering Americans.

Now, consider the result that blew my mind, the reason I am writing this, because more people need to understand something critical about delusional thinking that ultimately makes getting deep, sorely needed reforms of our government and political system extremely difficult.  Without that our economy will stay awful, unfair, promoting even more economic inequality.

“Two-thirds of those surveyed said that they still believed it was possible to start out poor in this country, work hard and become rich — only a little lower than the three-quarters of all Americans” not in the unemployed category who held the same view and were surveyed at the same time.  In fact, considerable research in recent years has consistently found that upward mobility in the USis no longer a hallmark of the society.  Indeed, there is more upward mobility inCanada and a number of European countries than in the US.  Moreover, the jobless more than most should be able to comprehend the ugly reality that downward economic mobility is now a large part of American society.

No surprise that the cover story on the new Time magazine is What Ever Happened To Upward Mobility?  The basic theme of the article is that the US is no longer an “opportunity society.”  In other words, our country is no longer a place where everyone, if he or she works hard enough, can get ahead.  But despite this reality, conservatives and Republicans love to publicly proclaim that the US still offers everyone upward economic mobility.

Those two-thirds of the unemployed will probably pay a steep price for their false optimism about their country.  They are likely to fall prey to the political propaganda of either Democrats or Republicans.  If they are delusional about the American Dream, are they also delusional about other things that may stand in the way of them getting a job?  Rather than feel ashamed or embarrassed about being jobless they should get some feedback from others so they can fix their thinking.

As Ezra Klein noted: “Americans are in the odd position of fervently believing in upward mobility while not actually having very much of it.  Europeans, conversely, don't really believe in economic mobility but have plenty of it.”

Those jobless with this delusional thinking, refusing to think critically, judge the facts and come to a hurtful conclusion, are not the ones I expect to be participating in or supporting the Occupy Wall Street protesters, about three-quarters of whom now disapprove of Mr. Obama’s performance as president. Though the Occupy protesters speak of the rich 1 percent, that is a big underestimate.  As Anne Applebaum correctly noted “Despite all the loud talk of the ‘1 per cent’ of Americans who, according to a recent study, receive about 17 per cent of the income, a percentage which has more than doubled since 1979, the existence of a very small group of very rich people has never bothered Americans. But the fact that some 20 per cent of Americans now receive some 53 per cent of the income is devastating.”  Becoming part of even that larger group of rich Americans is now more difficult than ever.

Do unemployed have the right kind of jobs to aspire to the top one percent of income earners?  Consider the jobs that account for the top one percent; the top four categories account for nearly 70 percent: corporate and business management not in the financial sector, medical, financial industry executives, and lawyers. This also shows how difficult it is to somehow negatively impact the one percent by protests by the Occupy movement.

In our delusional democracy with its delusional prosperity thinking that hard work, great ideas and superior performance will get you into the top one percent is self-delusion, even getting into the top 20 percent is a long shot.  The economic system is too rigged against economic justice.  Sure, every once in awhile someone starting out poor or average becomes superrich, but that is like winning a super lottery.  Best to stop believing in the rags-to-riches myth, unless the system is reformed.

A new report by a German foundation examined the nation members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, essentially the world’s democracies.  The US ranked terribly low for poverty and poverty prevention as well as income inequality.  Only Chile, Mexico and Turkey were ranked lower than the US.  What a story.

The US two-party plutocracy has allowed the rich and powerful to buy the political system.  Except for the rich, the results are dreadful.  This is why 89 percent do not trust that government will do the right thing.  The best solution is what you find at the getmoneyout.com website, a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Occupy Wall Street Visited

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Joel S. Hirschhorn--Last Saturday while in New York City I went downtown to visit the Occupy Wall Street group and also ended up walking in their protest march around big bank buildings.  It was a terrific experience with a huge group chanting things like “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!”

My first impression was absolute amazement at how many police surrounded Zuccotti Park, as massive a police presence as any I had ever seen in countless news accounts of protests in other countries, including those trying to overturn awful regimes.  No wonder that New York City has spent over $3 million so far on policing the Occupy events.

As I slowly walked through all the groups at the park seeing how things were organized, how people were living and having occasional conversations I became increasingly impressed.  The park is really very small.  So there is very little space to walk around and some people are sleeping under various kinds of coverings.  Most exceptional of the high quality of place is that it is like a small village with a medical center, food serving area, library, makeshift clothing store, including someone with a sewing machine tailoring clothes, and even two people offering haircuts.

Overwhelmingly, the whole park area was exceptionally clean, and there was a large set of cleaning utensils and I saw one person going around sweeping a small amount of litter.  None of the flower beds were destroyed.

The choice of foods and their quality were exceptional, especially considering that the city outlaws any open flame cooking or heating equipment.

From my conversations and what I listened to demonstrated that the protesters were highly informed and totally committed to their Occupy goals.  Something that does not get enough attention is that a good fraction of the protesters are not very young people, many are in the sixties or seventies.  A large number of people in the park were busy working on their laptops.  I saw no evidence of alcohol or drug use.  And protesters were well dressed, always courteous and very friendly.

Many of the group’s serious discussions and votes are held in offsite locations.

There were a very large number of media people around and inside the park; they also followed the marchers.

Much of the information about the Occupy movement in downtown Manhattan is seriously misleading.  Most ludicrous are criticisms by many politicians and media pundits that specific policy proposals are missing.  The clear success of the Occupy movement as evidenced by an explosion of similar groups in countless US and foreign cities is a testament to its success, not to mention endless media coverage.

The central and correct focus of the Occupy movement is on the failures of the banking and finance sector that has provided insane money rewards to those that have raped the US and global economy and caused great harm to the 99%.  Economic inequality and injustice that come from both a corrupt political and economic system owned by the rich and powerful corporate elites are what I and many others have been writing about for years.  To get bogged down in very specific policy actions would not serve a useful purpose, especially because the Occupy movement sees nothing positive about the two-party plutocracy running and ruining the US political system.  I sensed no faith whatsoever in Democrats, including President Obama, and Republicans and their Tea Party supporters.

If the Democrats or Obama try to convert the Occupy movement into something that serves their political ambitions it would be a shame, especially if it succeeded to any extent.

Even without conventional “leaders” the Occupy movement is succeeding at being a direct democracy and its organizational capabilities are outstanding.  They have been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and also huge quantities of boxes of donated materials stored somewhere, much of which have not even been opened yet.  I think mainly because of too little space in the park.  Clearly, as some polls have shown, there is massive public support for the Occupy movement.  It has what it takes to last for a long time.

The big question is how true and deep reforms in our political and economic system needed to fight economic inequality and injustice harming most Americans will be achieved.  In this regard, one of my hopes is that the Occupy movement in the US will get behind the effort by Dylan Ratigan at getmoneyout.com to get a constitutional amendment that would get money out of politics.  This is the only way to directly fight the corruption of government by rich and powerful interests.  The path to getting such an amendment, however, is through the use of the Article V convention option in the Constitution, not by relying on Congress for proposing something to reform it.  Supporting use of the convention option is something I hope the Occupy movement will also support.  I now have more hope that the much needed Second American Revolution may happen.



[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Does God want us to be stressed?

Samantha Torrence - American culture is in an uproar between warring factions that have very different notions on how to achieve ultimate happiness. One faction is the Christian Right which comes under much scrutiny for being heartless and hard. The Christian Right has defended itself by stating their beliefs come from values such as self-control, self-reliance, personal responsibility, and perseverance. The influence of fundamentalist Christianity on American culture is irrefutable and one of its major contributions to American society is the romanticizing of suffering, sacrifice, and its rewards.

Where does the impression come from that suffering builds character and therefore is desirable? Many times Christians point to God as the source of the inspiration so to understand the foundation of valuing stress the Bible must be consulted. When God created Man in the Garden of Eden, humans lived a life with no stress, worry, or care. This type of life is what God had meant for us but as the book of Genesis goes on to explain, man committed sin. The price paid for this transgression was the introduction of stress into the world.

Genesis 3:16- 19
To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."

Simply put, for Original Sin, man was condemned to sorrow, pain, toil, and ultimately death. It is accepted in the scientific community that stress is the major factor in illness and ultimately death of the human body. So how did this curse become associated with positive values? Perhaps it was Man’s self-defense mechanism that transferred this transgression into a simple lesson in the value of hard work and reward? The Bible has much to say on the subject of suffering and faith. Many times the stressful trials in the Bible are tests from God to strengthen the faith of an individual. These examples of trials rewarded by the grace and mercy of God seem to be inspirational to many of the Christian Right.

The attempt to find value in stress and suffering has become an almost zealous pursuit in America. Many churches praise those who go through trials and hardship as people oppressed by the evil of Satan for being pious and righteous. Even outside of the church in other aspects of life pain and stress are seen as precursors to achievement, and this perception does have some merit. Take the concept of muscle strength and exercise for example, one must tear muscles and tire the body so it knows to repair and become stronger. Another example is in the financial sector, you must sacrifice time and money into an investment to receive a growing return. On a more basic level, to survive an encounter with danger an animal must experience great stress and overtax its mind and body to escape its stressor. In all of these aspects the hard work and stress put in comes back with rewards. These are examples of eustress or positive stress that can motivate people.

Eustress can be a positive influence but in certain cultures the instances that cause Eustress are looked at as necessary trials for all to overcome. So body builders are not satisfied with just tearing their muscles a little at a time they overdo it and cause injury to their body. Some people over invest and lose greatly with no returns. Animals die because their bodies were too weak to fight off an attacker. In these cases, Eustress becomes Distress. Americans take Eustress and form it into Distress utilizing the same attitude which caused Eve to first sin, the need for complete control.

Faith churches, which are growing faster than almost any other Christian faction, put great distress on people who are already going through hardship by preaching that people with horrible situations simply do not have the faith in God they should and that is why they cannot overcome. This could almost be considered a form of mental abuse which contributes to the cycle of abuse in churches, families, and communities. The Church’s need for control to enforce the value of suffering and protect people from hopelessness has morphed into a need for control to keep a flock in line. The conditioning Christians receive to accept and practically seek stress has become a detriment to a society as they condemn others for not accepting the stress in a willing manner.

A recent example of this seeming lack of compassion for not accepting unnecessary hardship comes with the Right’s attack on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) initiative. OWS has the catch phrase” We are the 99%” referencing the percentage of people who do not control the majority of the wealth. The Right has come back with its own anti-advertisement with the catch phrase “We are the 53%” The stories on the website sponsoring “We are the 53%” reference personal stories of people who claim to have been through horrible trials and hardships and still have many but they persevere and accuse the OWS of not being able to suck it up and take it. Many of the stories could be inspiring by showing how self-reliance, self-control, perseverance, and personal responsibly can help one overcome the mountains before them. They could be examples of how accepting ones situation and meeting the problem head on without relying on the help of others can build personal strength and character which are valuable in the American individualistic society. These stories could be used to inspire and teach people frustrated and down trodden by their lot in life. Truly the people who write them and the people who agree are inspired and have a very positive reaction to the age old saga of overcoming hardships. Those who overcome are inspiring individuals and at the heart of it wonderful people. It is the method of imparting the stories onto others that has made them seem heartless. They make the lesson of overcoming to be a lesson of seeking out hardship and stress rather than what may be the more pointed lesson, that perceiving a hardship in a more positive manner is the surest way to find contentment and to prosper.

Occupy Wall Street is protesting the diminishing quality of life for the 99% around the world who have very little of the world’s wealth under their control. The movement has taken on socialistic undertones as non-affiliated liberal crowds join in the protests. Many liberals who are accused of wanting socialism and communism maintain that they want the world community to come together to provide for one another the very basic necessities of life that can be found on the bottom two tiers of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. These bottom two tiers are said to have to be fulfilled so one can have the opportunity to peruse happiness which is a corner stone of the American culture. Incidentally Maslow agrees and shows that happiness and the ultimate goal of enlightenment cannot be achieved without the first two tiers being met.  By eliminating the struggle for basic needs one could eliminate the stress caused from the pursuit and thus promote health and happiness.



So who has it right? And what would God want for his children?

Certainly God wants humans to be self-reliant and accept problems as they come so they can in the end overcome these problems. Existence itself is hypothesized by spiritual philosophers to be a lesson and a test to reach enlightenment. However, one cannot forget that God created man originally in paradise, and designed the human body to function optimally in situations of happiness rather than situations of distress. In the Bible God continually commands the human race to ease the suffering of one another, to perform charity, and to display love. All of his commands on how to treat others and the concept of “You reap what you sow,” are meant to inspire man towards a life of happiness and love rather than hardship and toil. God does not want humans to be ‘stressed out,’ and perhaps it is a time to challenge the ingrained American love for hardship and replace it with a love of happiness. If the Christian Right let go of its value of all things distressing how much could be accomplished towards the goals of God, Jesus, and the great philosophers that have for centuries been trying to teach the simple lessons of the value of love.