ex VRWC
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From a market perspective, they are irrelevant or are rapidly becoming so. From the perspective of the real world, they are very relevant, because their policies are leading to inflation where it hurts most – food and energy prices. of course there are other factors, but I think we too readily discount the effects of easy money, and few people make the connection, preferring instead to lambast the other side over ‘not enough drilling’, or ‘too much consumption’. Central banks get a pass on their role.
Its not an edifice or a facade. Its a sarcophagus. Its dead inside, and has no hope of life in its current form, but yet we keep piling layer after layer of riches on the outside so it looks good, so we can pretend it has vitality and life. All the while worms and decomposition eat away at the insides, who happen to be the people and businesses needed to sustain it.
Yeah, my beef is that these kinds of phenomena are shallow. I listened to a lot of OWS protestors get their 5 minutes of fame when they had wide media attention, and they pretty much didn’t make the easy, convincing case they could have when they had the chance. But, as you say, maybe it has to evolve. Or, maybe the current organization methods are too shallow? Maybe Facebook is not a good mechanism for building the foundation we are hoping for?
I disagree on the point that the mass protests of even OWS laid down “the necessary and mutual foundation for systemic change”. I don’t think, in fact, that they reached a level of mutual definition and identification of the problems – in Egypt or within the cronny-capitalist western powers. In Egypt, for example, you had the real power base of an entrenched elite in bed with the military that, in effect was raping the country. But the ‘Facebook revolution’ focused on sweeping aside a figurehead, doing nothing more that paving the way for a worse situation and an impending tragedy on economic, religious, and social levels.
In OWS, you had a decentralized protest that failed to even finger the real problem – that the political systems in western countries are in bed with financial interests, and that their policies such as ZIRP, militarism, destructive embrace of globalization, and vote pandering are the real issue. They got stuck on the fact that some people are rich. Violence is only one of OWS problems. Lack of identifying the true issues is far more fundamental in my view.
A site like TAE with its clearly well thought information and thinkers like Raul, Nicole, and you is a great resource that should somehow be distilled down to something a real protest movement can latch onto. I’m afraid it hasn’t happened just yet.
