Tea Party Wins

[cupper]

Semantics. USPS has a monopoly and is exempt from paying Federal taxes. It's inefficiency and poor service is a direct tax or increased cost compared to what a more efficient and competent system would provide. It's not because the workers are lazy or incompetent. It is that an inefficient and poorly run service provides lots of jobs while improvements or service cut backs means fewer jobs.

How is it semantics when there is no factual basis for anything the Tea Party rep said?

And how is the USPS a monopoly, when you have so many options to move items from A to B? Fed-Ex, UPS, e-mail, carrier pigeon. One is not required to send "mail" through the Post Office.

The problem is that their main business of moving "mail" (and I don't include the junk that ends up in the trash) is declining yearly as more people switch to electronic means to deliver bills and pay in return. They have seen increases in their parcel delivery for the same reason. But ithe revenues gains from one do not offset the other.

And raising rates does not help, as it will drive customers to alternate means faster than they are leaving now. And the efficiency question is debatable.

And do not forget that there is a Constitutional requirement for the government to provide a postal service.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

And how is the USPS a monopoly, when you have so many options to move items from A to B? Fed-Ex, UPS, e-mail, carrier pigeon. One is not required to send "mail" through the Post Office. 

If you don't think USPS is a monopoly, try setting up your own postal service and see how long you stay free. The same thing applies here in Canada in regards to Canada Post.

Fed-Ex, UPS, DHL do not delievery mail per se, they delivery packages.

 

[cupper]

If you don't think USPS is a monopoly, try setting up your own postal service and see how long you stay free. The same thing applies here in Canada in regards to Canada Post.

Fed-Ex, UPS, DHL do not delievery mail per se, they delivery packages.

Actually, one can set up a "postal service", as long as you charge more than the current rates of the government postal service, and it doesnot follow a "regular schedule". This is how the courier services can get around the laws.

 

[Nemo888]

This monopoly was set up very purposefully as when it was private many people got no service at all. Mail was made a public service so that all areas could be served equally, not just the profiltable ones.

After centuries of trial and error it turns out many natural monopolies are better off in public hands. Firemen, police, water delivery, etc.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Actually, one can set up a "postal service", as long as you charge more than the current rates of the government postal service, and it doesnot follow a "regular schedule". This is how the courier services can get around the laws.

But, only if you deliver packages and/or time-sensitive documents; you cannot deliver regular mail.

 

[cupper]

But, only if you deliver packages and/or time-sensitive documents; you cannot deliver regular mail.

Define "mail"

 

[Fishbone Jones]

This thread is not about the friggin' mail. Stop the pissing contest and let the thread get back on track.

Milnet.ca Staff

 

[a_majoor]

After centuries of trial and error it turns out many natural monopolies are better off in public hands. Firemen, police, water delivery, etc.

No, after centuries of trial and error, the modern nation state suceeded over competing organizations because they held a monopoly of force. This was pretty definitavely settled by the Treaty of Westphalllia.

The only legitimate monopolies that a State has is the use of force to protect citizens from external enemies, internal threats and to enfoce impartial adjudication of disputes. In modern terms, the Military, Police and Courts of Law.

Every other service you mentioned has been successfully provided by the private sector either in the past or even currently. The citizens of Walkerton, ON were rescued from their government monopoly water service which was poisioning them with e-coli by a short term importation of bottled water donated by concerned fellow citizens (who happend to own private water bottling plants...). [Incidentally, anyone who wants to try and claim this was caused by Mike Harris better check their facts, the cronology of the disaster goes back to the 1970's]

Regardless; the USPS union employees who are abusing their positions should be exposed and censured as a minimum. In Ontario we have a similar problem with Public Service Unions taking their members dues (which are extracted from our tax dollars, as is their pay and benefits) to wage a poitical campaign against the PC party in this and the last election. Once again, Union bosses are quite free to take their own money and carry out political activism on their own time (and by their own money I mean after tax dollars, not union dues). They are free to persuade people to jpin them, and in Canada, at leastl I suspect they would be able to do so even without millions of tax dollars behind them.

 

[mariomike]

In Ontario we have a similar problem with Public Service Unions taking their members dues (which are extracted from our tax dollars, as is their pay and benefits) to wage a poitical campaign against the PC party in this and the last election. Once again, Union bosses are quite free to take their own money and carry out political activism on their own time (and by their own money I mean after tax dollars, not union dues). They are free to persuade people to jpin them, and in Canada, at leastl

I believe most of their funding comes from FIREPAC ( Political Action Committee ), rather than union dues: http://www.iaff.org/canada/firepac/index.htm
"IAFF members are encouraged to make voluntary contributions to FIREPAC Canada every year, to ensure the voice of professional fire fighters is heard loud and clear at all levels of government."

 

[Nemo888]

An open letter and warning from a former tea party movement adherent to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

I don't expect you to believe me. I want you to read this, take it with a grain of salt, and do the research yourself. You may not believe me, but I want your movement to succeed. From a former tea partier to you, young new rebels, there's some advice to prevent what happened to our now broken movement from happening to you. I don't agree with everything your movement does, but I sympathize with your cause and agree on our common enemy. You guys are very intelligent and I trust that you will take this in the spirit it is intended.

I wish I could believe this Occupy Wall Street was still about (r)Evolution, but so far, all I am seeing is a painful rehash of how the corporate-funded government turned the pre-Presidential election tea party movement into the joke it is now. We were anarchists and ultra-libertarians, but above all we were peaceful. So, the media tried painting us as racists. But when that didn't work they tried to goad us into violence. When that failed, they killed our movement with money and false kindness from the theocratic arm of the Republican party. That killed our popular support.

I am sharing these observations, so you guys know what's going on and can prevent the media from succeeding in painting you as violent slacker hippies rebelling without a cause, or from having the movement be hijacked by a bunch of corporatists seeking to twist the movement's original intentions. If you think this can't happen, it happened to the Independence Party and the tea party movement. Don't let it happen to your movement as well.

Here's how they turned our movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Republican party rebranding astroturf, and this is how I predict they are turning your movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Democratic party rebranding astroturf. I believe many of these things are already happening, so take note.

1- The media will initially and purposely avoid covering your dissenting movement to cause confusion about what your movement is about within mainstream audiences. This is to enrage you and make you appear unreasonable, and perhaps even invisible.

2- While the obsfuscation is happening, stooges will infiltrate and give superficial support, focus and financial backing to the targetted movement. In the tea party movement's case, it was the religious Republicans and Koch Brothers. In this case, it's the Public Sector Unions (the organizations as quasi-human entities, not the members themselves) and Ultra Rich liberals who pretend to care, but frankly do not serve liberators and freedom seekers but rather the interests of those who run the Public Sector Unions and the Democratic Party. Democrat, Republican, these parties are all part of the same corporate ruling system. Case in point: http://www.debates.org/

3-The media will cover the movement only after this infiltration succeeds. Once the infiltration is completed the MSM will manufacture public media antipathy towards the movement by using selective focus on the movement's most repulsive elements or infiltrators on the corporate Conservative media side, while the corporate Liberal media will create a more sympathetic tragic hero image -- this is the flip side of the tea party, but same media manipulation tactics. I go into greater detail on this tactic: http://vaslittlecrow.com/blog/2011/09/08/how-the-media-and-ideological-groups-manipulate-your-beliefs/

4- Someone in the Democratic Party will feign sympathy for the movement and falsely "non-partisan" entities provide tons of funding and unwanted organization, just as was done with the tea party movement by Republicans. Once people assume that the pro-corporate government operatives are their friends, they will hijack the movement and the threat of your movement will be neutralized.

If this new Occupy Wall Street movement is to survive, here's what needs to be done.

1- Loudly denounce violence and disavow the violent rabblerousers of the movement. They do not help the cause.

2- Be image conscious. Present your best face and call out those who act like fools within the movement. People are more likely to pay attention to you in your Sunday dress and bringing homemade food, than when you are drinking a bottle of Snapple and chomping on Big Macs while you are looking like a slacker rich hipster/unwashed hippie stereotype.

3- Accept that you've already been infiltrated by the corporate-funded government, and work hard to say, and state what your movement is and is not about. "No, this isn't about unions or Liberals, conservatives or bored spoiled brats. This is about 99% of our population being exploited and manipulated for the sake of profit." "No we will not resort to violence." "Yes, all we want is for for the end of government collusion with corporate entities that are illegitimately recognized as people." And, so forth...

4- Don't forget who you are as the illusions are thrown at you. Corporatists are masters of illusions. That's the most powerful weapon they have. That's how they sell products you don't need and convince you to justify accepting atrocities for the sake of products Don't fall for it. Otherwise, your cause will be lost. Be wary of large donations from special interest groups or non-profit corporations that were not involved this movement from the inception. Special interests groups are not your allies. Non-profit corporations are still corporations, and unfortunately, too many of them care more about donations than doing the right thing. Killing a movement with kindness is easy.

5- Remain independent and focused. If you can, pick a face to represent your movement. Rosa Parks wasn't just a random lady in a bus. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/bus-boycott/ -- She was chosen. You too can use the power of illusion against those who oppose you.

I wish your movement better luck than we had with the tea party movement before it got hijacked by the theocrats and corporatists. We used to be non-partisan too. We were the older version of you. But, I believe that as the media apparatchik and infiltrators start to twist your cause, you will understand the frustration us early adopter tea partiers felt and that we were not your enemy after all. A fascist oligarchy on the verge of winning is our common enemy. This should be your focus. Don't be dazzled by the illusion as we were. For the sake of our future, know who you are.

Thank you for reading. I would love to read your ideas on the subject. Correct me where I am wrong. Explain what is going right. This is ultimately your fight.

EDIT: To understand how movements get hijacked, check out this fantastic video that JamesCarlin shared: http://vimeo.com/20355767

If my essay seems too conspiratorial or tl;dr for your tastes, try Hibernator's excellent and much less paranoid sounding summary below:

"Someone starts a movement. It starts small, and there's a lot going on in the world, so the mainstream media gives it minimal coverage. Today's mainstream media is also understaffed, so they don't investigate and they wait for someone else to slap a label on it.

Eventually a sound byte X pops up above the noise and the mainstream media uses this to engage viewers and define the movement. This defining characteristic X spreads like a meme.

People in power now notice what's going on, and think to themselves "Hmm, this new movement is defined by X, and that's almost in line with my goals, so maybe I can use them to further my ends."

But people in power are all labelled as Democrats or Republicans, so now the media applies the polarizing filter of American politics to associate movement X with one of the parties.

The original movement has now been labelled X, and associated with a political party, and none of this happened because of any 'government conspiracy.' It just happened because that's what you get as output when you plug something new into the American political system."

EDIT: Thanks to Whiskey With My Coffee, The Free Patriot Press and all the other redditors who have been sharing my message around the Web. I am so grateful to you.

EDIT: I am disabled and I am very adverse to crowds where the environment isn't tightly controlled. While I appreciate speaking and event invitations, I must respectfully decline them all.

http://www.reddit.com/r/occupywallstreet/comments/kyjo2/an_open_letter_and_warning_from_a_former_tea/

 

[a_majoor]

Whiel the TEA Party movement has often been accused of being in the pay of soemone or other, no actual proof has ever been demonstrated. Here, on the other hand:

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/organizer-admits-to-paying-occupy-dc-protesters-video/

Organizer admits to paying ‘Occupy DC’ protesters [VIDEO]
Published: 6:37 PM 10/06/2011 | Updated: 8:37 AM 10/07/2011

By Michelle Fields - The Daily Caller
Archive | Email Michelle Fields
Get Michelle Fields Feed

A liberal organizer told the Daily Caller on Thursday afternoon that he paid some Hispanics to attend “Occupy DC” protests happening in the nation’s capital.

TheDC attended the protest event, an expansion of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that began in New York City. Some aspects of the protest, it turned out, are more Astroturf than grassroots.

One group of about ten Hispanic protesters marched behind a Caucasian individual from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting rent control in Washington, D.C.

Asked why they were there, some Hispanic protesters holding up English protest signs could not articulate what their signs said.

Interviewed in Spanish, the protesters told conflicting stories about how their group was organized. Some said it was organized at their church, and that they were there as volunteers. Others, however, referred to the man from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition — the only Caucasian in the group — as their “boss.”

TheDC asked that organizer whether he was paying the group to attend the protest, and he conceded that some protesters “aren’t” volunteers.

“Some of them are volunteers. Some of them aren’t,” he explained. “I can’t identify them. I’m not going to get into an identification game.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/organizer-admits-to-paying-occupy-dc-protesters-video/#ixzz1a6vFyCMp

and

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203476804576615073164484688.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

The Hippie Stimulus
Occupy Wall Street, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
 
By JAMES TARANTO

The so-called Occupy Wall Street movement is drawing some support from beyond the standard assemblage of superannuated hippies, dopey college kids and fatuous liberal journalists. Yesterday "several prominent unions, struggling to gain traction on their own, made their first effort to join forces with Occupy Wall Street," the New York Times reports: "Thousands of union members marched with the protesters from Foley Square to their encampment in nearby Zuccotti Park."

"Several major labor groups--including the Transport Workers Union, the Service Employees International Union, the United Federation of Teachers and the United Auto Workers--took part in the march," the Times adds, although "some more traditionally conservative ones, like those in the construction trades, stayed away."
[botwt1006] Associated Press

Your tax dollars at work.

One common characteristic of the four unions the Times cites is that they all include members who work for the government or, in the case of the UAW, for corporate welfare cases. As Michael Barone noted in a February 2010 column: "One-third of [2009's] $787 billion stimulus package was aid to state and local governments--an obvious attempt to bolster public-sector unions."

Thus far Occupiers have been carrying around largely hand-lettered signs saying things like "I could lose my job 4 having a voice" or "Bank's got bailed-out We got sold out!!!" to quote verbatim a couple of examples from a recent slide show from London's Daily Mail.

In the interest of truth in advertising, the unions ought to print up signs that read "Project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act." And now of course President Obama is demanding yet another stimulus, which would subsidize these protests further.

The fatuous lefty journalists are convinced that the Occupiers are going to prove helpful to Obama's re-election effort. "The anti-Wall Street demonstrators have created a new pole in politics," exults E.J. "Baghdad Bob" Dionne. "Both Obama's [Stimulus Jr.] initiative and the revolt against Wall Street mark a shift on the progressive side from defense to offense. . . . For conservatives, the days of wine and roses are over."

Prog ventriloquist Rich Yeselson, speaking through Journolist founder Ezra Klein, says the one thing the Occupiers are missing is "an articulate exposition." That, of course, means "the brainy liberal left infrastructure's time has come. . . . [Former Enron adviser Paul] Krugman's Army may be on its way."

Hang on a second here. Wasn't the man in the White House supposed to have been a community organizer and a brainy expositor himself, not to mention a hell of a lot more charming than the splenetic former Enron adviser? Why does the left need a populist movement when it has such a great leader?

That last question, of course, is both rhetorical and facetious. This morning, and into the afternoon, found us professionally obliged to sit through another Obama press conference, and it was a pitiful spectacle. As Politico notes, NBC's Chuck Todd summed things up when he asked the president: "Are you worried about your own powers of persuasion and that the American public is maybe not listening to you anymore?"

"Blah blah blah blah," the president replied. Just kidding--that would at least have shown a little wit. Instead, Obama said: "So if the question is are people feeling cynical and frustrated about the prospects for positive action in this city? Absolutely."

And if the question is the one that Todd actually asked? No comment.

Not all fatuous liberal journalists have given up on Obama. Greg Sargent insists that "Obama is clearly winning the argument . . . with the public . . . Obama has made big gains over Republicans on the specific question of who is more trusted to handle jobs. . . . Today's poll shows strong support for Obama on jobs among moderates and independents. . . . Obama is persuading the public to back his plan."

Oh, but on the other hand: "Obama's overall approval numbers are very bad. . . . You can't sugarcoat the fact that Obama's overall approval numbers on the economy are very bad, including among independents."

How does Sargent square this circle? Simple: "Those numbers are a referendum on the economy, and the failure to fix it so far--and not a referendum on his current policies, which have strong public support, even as they're being blocked by Republicans."

So the voters love Obama's policies, they just think he's done a poor job because so far his policies have failed. Or something like that. What definitely does not come through in either the survey results Sargent cites or his analysis of it is a sense that Obama has provided strong leadership.

Hence the eagerness to believe that the Occupiers represent some sort of true populist uprising. The Hill reports that some Democratic politicians are joining in:

    "We share the anger and frustration of so many Americans who have seen the enormous toll that an unchecked Wall Street has taken on the overwhelming majority of Americans while benefiting the super-wealthy," Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said in a joint statement.

    "We join the calls for corporate accountability and expanded middle-class opportunity."

    The fourth-ranking House Democrat, Caucus Chairman John Larson (Conn.), released a statement Wednesday saying, "The silent masses aren't so silent anymore. They are fighting to give voice to the struggles that everyday Americans are going through."

This could easily end up backfiring on Obama. One of the reasons he was able to win so resoundingly in 2008 was that, once he dispatched Hillary Clinton, all of liberaldom was united behind him, particularly including the media, who seem now to be aligning with the Occupiers.

If a ragtag protest movement--or, in Baghdad Bob's words, "an active and angry band"--plays a central role in the campaign of 2012, Obama may find that, like Lyndon Johnson in 1968 or John Kerry in 2004, he is at the mercy of events beyond his control. An example may be found in this Politico report:

    Several influential New York state lawmakers have received threatening mails saying it is "time to kill the wealthy" if they don't renew the state's tax surcharge on millionaires, according to reports.

    "It's time to tax the millionaires!" reads the email, according to WTEN in Albany. "If you don't, I'm going to pay a visit with my carbine to one of those tech companies you are so proud of and shoot every spoiled Ivy League [expletive] I can find."

    The email, with the threatening subject line of, "time to kill the wealthy," was detailed and disturbing.

    "How hard is it for us to stake out one of the obvious access roads to some tech company, tail an employee home and toss a liquor bottle full of flaming gasoline through their nice picture window into their cute house," wrote the author of the email.

    The email references terminology that has been used in the "Occupy Wall Street" movement--that the 1 percent, the super rich, are exploiting the remaining 99 percent of Americans. The angry message demanded that Albany politicians "stop shoveling wealth from the lower 99 percent into the top 1 percent" and "set aside your 'no new taxes on anybody' pledge."

It may be that "Krugman's army"--and Obama's inability to pacify it--will end up scaring the hell out of Americans. Or, as Gen. Krugman himself says: "This might be the start of something both big and good."

You can also watch the embedded video. This is the sort of proof that can be used in a court of law...

 

[ModlrMike]

Whiel the TEA Party movement has often been accused of being in the pay of soemone or other, no actual proof has ever been demonstrated. Here, on the other hand:

http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/organizer-admits-to-paying-occupy-dc-protesters-video/

and

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203476804576615073164484688.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

You can also watch the embedded video. This is the sort of proof that can be used in a court of law...

So the warnings sounded in the article at reply 169 seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

 

[a_majoor]

Not warnings, hearsay.

More circumstantial evidence, but watching how similar actions (protests) are treated when two groups with differing orientations protest in the same place:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1371593

Occupy’s pass steams Tea Party
City, state OK with lack of permits
Dave Wedge By Dave Wedge
Friday, October 7, 2011 - Updated 7 hours ago

The Hub’s hands-off approach to unpermitted Occupy Boston protests has Tea Partiers up in arms and has even rankled a top civil libertarian who said all groups should be subject to the same rules — regardless of the cause.

“It’s always a dangerous precedent when the city treats one group differently than another,” said civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate. “I’m opposed generally to these requirements, but if they are required of one group, then they should be required of all. The precedent (the city is setting) is, if there are so many people joining a demonstration that the city doesn’t want to tangle with them, then they will waive the requirements.”

Organizers of the Occupy Boston tent city in Dewey Square have never sought nor received any permits from the state, the city or the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, which controls the property.

What do you think about the Occupy movement? Join in a live chat about Occupy Boston today on the Friday Throwdown.

To avoid unrest, the Conservancy, like the city and Boston Police Department, has not booted the campers off the 1⁄2-acre plot. Conservancy chief Nancy Brennan called the makeshift campsite “an extraordinary situation” and said it would not pave the way to allow people to randomly “camp out” on the Greenway.

“In addition to supporting free speech, we’re aware that asking the protesters to leave will create conflict and significant expense,” Brennan said. “Should circumstances become unfavorable, we will work with the Boston Police Department to determine the appropriate response.”

Christen Varley, spokeswoman for the Greater Boston Tea Party, said she’s “miffed” by the laissez-faire attitude of city and state officials. The Greenway has provided electricity to the protesters, while other groups, such as the Tea Party, have to pay for power at events, she said.

“I think public safety is a huge issue here,” Varley said. She added that the Tea Party will seek the costs of the Occupy Boston protest and cleanup and “will be looking into recouping those costs for the taxpayers in the city of Boston.”

-— dwedge@bostonherald.com

Instapundit sums it up well:

That’s because the officials are Democratic hacks, and the “protesters” are Democratic tools. Duh

 

[cupper]

Whiel While the TEA Party movement has often been accused of being in the pay of soemone someone or other, no actual proof has ever been demonstrated.

I'll see your speculation and raise you one New Yorker investigative report:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_mayer

And one NPR interview:

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/06/141078608/the-multimillionaire-helping-republicans-win-n-c

 

[a_majoor]

The opposite of the TEA Party movement.

I once had an interesting conversation with a Bob Metz (a Freedom Party official) who suggested the meaning of "New" in New Democrat was to institute a form of direct democracy similar to what is described here. The ancient Greeks had a similar experience with direct democracy and the problem of demagogues whipping up the masses for the pasion of the moment (one of the reasons the Romans instituted a Res Publica rather than an ekklesia) The results are... interesting (embedded videos in link)....

http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/10/silencing-john-lewis-is-what-d

Silencing John Lewis Is What Democracy Looks Like
Tim Cavanaugh | October 10, 2011

Video of an Occupy Atlanta “general assembly” not allowing Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia) to speak has been going virological on the interwebs.

But Occupy Atlanta’s “consensus” against giving speaking time to the 13-term member of Congress and one-time chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee isn’t as striking as the self-parodic and smilingly Maoist process by which consensus was reached (or not).

When Lewis showed up last week to address Occupy Atlanta, he was initially greeted with applause (disallowed, as it turns out, by event organizers who prefer that the collective show its approval through less disruptive finger-wiggling gestures). But Fox News, which is one of many conservative outlets picking up on the Lewis event, describes the epic fail that followed:

Instead of giving the floor to a man who is not just a longtime U.S. representative but a revered civil rights icon, the protesters employed a tangle of parliamentary procedures to ultimately prevent him from speaking.

A stunned Lewis could be seen watching the whole thing unfold before ambling away.

The procedures they used -- rather, invented -- would make the Senate blush. Imagine some combination of Model U.N., Lord of the Flies and a Phish concert.

Here’s Lewis doing the slow burn as a mob of apparatchiks without portfolio debate whether to risk their “agenda” in order to let him speak. If you want evidence for the case against pure democracy, this is it:

Lewis is downplaying the incident, and Occupy Atlanta has issued a statement:

Occupy groups are governed by procedural rules that allow them to function in chaotic circumstances and to exercise participatory democracy in a large group. These rules are based on the principle of absolute equality and each voice being heard.

Anyone may come and speak to or participate in a General Assembly. There is a set order which includes a point where the floor is opened for comments. Anyone present may put their name on the “stack” as it is called and speak. It might seem a simple thing to break the order, but in a large crowd where everyone is supposed to get a chance to be heard, deviating from it quickly causes chaos. Each deviation encourages the next until no conversation can be maintained.

All of the speakers who have attended a General Assembly in New York have followed this process. Occupy Atlanta is unaware of any exceptions. Congressman Lewis, who attended Occupy Atlanta’s 5th General Assembly on October 7, is familiar with consensus from his days as a civil rights leader but was unable to stay long enough to allow the process to unfold due to prior commitments.

One important characteristic of mob rule is that it tends to get the outcomes the ruler wants, not the outcomes the mob wants. In this case, the group clearly voted to let Lewis talk, even if that meant risking a slight breach of the day’s agenda. But the point here was not to get a voting result but hive-mind unanimity. Of course unanimity can’t exist among human beings, so the real purpose of the exercise is to keep checking the crowd’s “temperature” until you get the result you want. And what apparatchiks want, always and everywhere, is to put process above product. You can hear that in the iron-in-velvet tones of the Occupiers’ touchy-feely vocabulary:

"How do we feel about Congressman John Lewis addressing the assembly at this time?"

“The purpose is to kick-start a democratic process in which no human being is more valuable than any other human being.

“This is not a vote, this is just how you feel.”

"Allowing Senator [sic] Lewis to speak does not make him a better human being. It's just that we respect the work that John Lewis has done and that we respect the position he holds in the government we want to change.”

“This is a democratic process. There is a time on the agenda for other business. I propose we let John Lewis speak after we've gotten through the rest of the agenda.”

“Mic check! Mic Check! Mic check! This assembly just voted by consensus to follow the process that we're using. Therefore we will continue with the agenda. Mic check! Mic check! This group makes its decision by consensus!”

Most dismaying of all, nobody in the crowd seems aware that they’re enacting a joke from Life of Brian – and if you can’t trust a bunch of miseducated white people to know Monty Python bits, the movement is in serious trouble:

The Occupiers have every right to run their own program of events, and not giving another platform to a politician is, in and of itself, laudable. But to pretend that the program of events is the work of a leaderless consensus rather than of interested parties is wimpy and disingenuous.

 

[ModlrMike]

For those not well versed in Python references:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YawagQ6lLrA

 

[RangerRay]

The opposite of the TEA Party movement.

I once had an interesting conversation with a Bob Metz (a Freedom Party official) who suggested the meaning of "New" in New Democrat was to institute a form of direct democracy similar to what is described here. The ancient Greeks had a similar experience with direct democracy and the problem of demagogues whipping up the masses for the pasion of the moment (one of the reasons the Romans instituted a Res Publica rather than an ekklesia) The results are... interesting (embedded videos in link)....

http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/10/silencing-john-lewis-is-what-d

I watched the video of that.  I don't know whether to laugh, or be afraid...

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Wow.....just............wow :facepalm:

 

[Pencil Tech]

I think the cheerleading here for the Tea Party and American rightwing anti-government agitating in general while rhapsodizing about the glories of unfettered capitalism is rich coming from a bunch of people who have spent their entire careers in the employ of the state, paid from the public purse. The Canadian state actually. You know what the big problem with the US economy is? Eleven carrier battle groups for God's sake, and everything that goes with an economy beholden to that.

There I've said it. Flame away at me with your belt-fed teabag guns. 

 

[Redeye]

I think the cheerleading here for the Tea Party and American rightwing anti-government agitating in general while rhapsodizing about the glories of unfettered capitalism is rich coming from a bunch of people who have spent their entire careers in the employ of the state, paid from the public purse. The Canadian state actually. You know what the big problem with the US economy is? Eleven carrier battle groups for God's sake, and everything that goes with an economy beholden to that.

There I've said it. Flame away at me with your belt-fed teabag guns. 

Brilliantly put.

One of the worst teabaggers I've ever had the "pleasure" of interacting with spend most of his working life in the USMC, and now lives on a disability pension. He's also a deadbeat dad, and a bankrupt. So much for "personal responsibility".

And I agree with the key point you make - any discussion of "fiscal responsibility" which isn't accompanied by plans to discuss significant downsizing of the US military is completely pointless. Bear in mind that the morons of the rabid right will decry anything of the sort. When President Obama worked on New START to significantly reduce the US nuclear arsenal (while retaining more than enough weapons to wipe out the world's population a few dozen times over), they attacked him as though he was giving away all security. The cost of maintaining that arsenal must be astronomical. They're in similar hysterics when it comes to Iran.

I also found it rich that they were falling all over themselves to attack federal funding of Planned Parenthood and National Public Radio (into the low hundreds of millions) while ignoring the $3.5 billion given annually to Israel as "foreign aid", much of which goes directly into the pockets of the defense industry.