In The USA: the Next Revolution

[motorfirebox]

Surely you don't think that's all there was to it, or that these events emerged from some sort of vacuum...

I think they emerged from fortyish years of financial deregulation and other forms of political favor for the financial sector.

What makes you think the new incumbents are going to be any better, as long as Americans keep voting for whoever's best at propping up scapegoats and doling out feelgood promises? That includes people like OWS and the tea party... it's all their fault, get them under control and everything will be ok...

I'm not sure it's any more useful to talk about centrism than it is to talk about 'real America' or 'what most people want'. There's a huge chunk of the country that thinks Obama is a left-wing extremist. I mean, good lord.

I don't view OWS as something that creates solutions, or which can create solutions. I view it as a source of political energy. Its main purpose is to get the left angry and keep it that way. Which, frankly, the left is badly in need of.

I don't think it's accurate to compare OWS to the Tea Party anyway. The Tea Party is about immigration. The Tea Party is about closing down abortion clinics. The Tea Party is also mad at Wall Street, but when you try to talk about solutions... well, how 'bout those dang immigrants, huh? On the flip side of the coin, you can make a lot of generalizations about OWS that will probably be correct: you can say that most OWS participants are in favor of Obama's health care bill (or, if they're not, it's because the bill didn't go far enough). You can say that most OWS participants are in favor of legalizing gay marriage. You can say that most OWS participants opposed the Iraq war. But OWS remains about money and jobs and the system which creates both.