Andi comments on the previous post – The 99 Percenters – Why is New York the Center of their Protests?

On By southwerkIn Comments

This is a comment on a previous post –  The 99 Percenters – Why is New York the Center of their Protests?

(The article was actually motivated by one of my reader’s comments on Facebook and while I hope there are elements of a call for economic justice implied in it, I didn’t have any ethical argument except for inequality itself – James Pilant)

Here’s Andi’s response to the post –

While reading this article, I wondered about the ethics and what the author wanted us to tell. Is it the question whether it is morally right that people do the protests in NY or is it the question if it’s ethically that 1 percent of the population in NY owns about 44 percent of all income?! Or is it the more general question whether it is ethically to do protests in the street?

To answer this question it is necessary to know the definition of an ethical decision. A decision is ethically if it affects others, has alternative courses of action and is perceived as ethically relevant by one or more parties.
By comparing the questions with the definition, it becomes clear that the second question cannot be discussed under ethical terms. Only the questions whether it is ethically to to protests or to do them in NY, has alternative courses of actions.
Therefore I focus on protests and try to state my opinion about it.

To answer the question with the postmodern ethical theory (= decision is morally right if the person follows his emotions in a situation), I would say that doing protests to point to abuses is morally okay because it is a good medium to raise high attention in the press and in tv newscasts. But that’s only half of the story. To answer this question in a more rational view, the combination of postmodern ethical theories and ethics of rights and justice is needed. Here the question of fair procedures or fair outcomes comes up.

Whether protests are morally right or wrong, is difficult. What do you think about the following questions?:

Can a protest really influence decisions that there are fair outcomes for everybody? Or is it only a way to highlight unfair procedures?

My great thanks to Andi for taking the time to comment and not just to comment but to comment with intelligence and insight. I want Andi to know that author identification is up to the contributor. If you want to be clearly identified with e-mail, blog links, etc.., you have only to ask and I will modify the posting.

Thanks!!!

James Pilant

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The 99 Percenters – Why is New York the Center of their Protests?

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice2 Comments

There are a lot of good reasons for centering the protests in New York, the proximity of the video and print media, the enormous number of opinion leaders in the area, and certainly the ability to recruit and maintain large numbers of protestors.

This would have been very difficult in Washington. Most of that city is a ghetto with little of the private infrastructure available in a modern metropolitan area.

But the history of Wall Street has to be a factor. It’s been a center of corporate power in the United States for almost two full centuries, and only the excesses of the Gilded Age rival the current levels of self-contentedness and pride among the wealthy today.

But there is also this article below. It has some powerful observations about why New York is such a good venue for the 99 percenters. —

Christopher Ketcham writing in McClatchy’s has a new article entitled –

Occupy Wall Street: The new populists?

The focal point, however, is specific: Manhattan. The capital of the finance corporations whose speculation, chicanery and outright fraud have produced havoc and pain for so many Americans. It sets the model nationally for a metastasizing economic regression: the maldistribution of wealth into the hands of the few.

Out of the 25 largest cities in the United States, New York is the most unequal when it comes to income distribution. In New York, the top 1 percent of households claimed 44 percent of all income during 2007 (the last year for which data are available). That’s almost twice the record-high levels among the 1 Percenters nationwide, who claimed 23.5 percent of all national income in 2007. During the housing bubble that ended in our current calamity, the average income for the 1 Percenters in New York went up 119 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of homeless in the city rose to an all-time high last year, with 113,000 men, women and children retreating night after night to municipal shelters. The real hourly median wage in New York between 1990 and 2007 fell by almost 9 percent. Young men and women age 25 to 34 with a bachelor’s degree and a year-round job in New York saw their earnings drop 6 percent. Middle-income New Yorkers – defined broadly as those earning between $29,000 and $167,000 – saw a 19% decrease in earnings. Almost 11 percent of the population in New York, about 900,000 people, lives in what the federal government describes as “deep poverty,” which for a four-person family means an income of $10,500; the average 1 Percenter household in New York makes about that same amount every day.

(Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/10/07/126534/occupy-wall-street-the-new-populists.html#ixzz1aKQk8zI2)

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Will the Wall Street Protestors’ Movement, Be Absorbed into the Democratic Party?

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

Robert Reich writing in his blog has this to say on the subject –

But if Occupy Wall Street coalesces into something like a real movement, the Democratic Party may have more difficulty digesting it than the GOP has had with the Tea Party.

After all, a big share of both parties’ campaign funds comes from the Street and corporate board rooms. The Street and corporate America also have hordes of public-relations flacks and armies of lobbyists to do their bidding – not to mention the unfathomably deep pockets of the Koch Brothers and Dick Armey’s and Karl Rove’s SuperPACs. Even if the Occupiers have access to some union money, it’s hardly a match.

Yet the real difficulty lies deeper. A little history is helpful here.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the Democratic Party had no trouble embracing economic populism. It charged the large industrial concentrations of the era – the trusts – with stifling the economy and poisoning democracy. In the 1912 campaign Woodrow Wilson promised to wage “a crusade against powers that have governed us … that have limited our development … that have determined our lives … that have set us in a straightjacket to so as they please.” The struggle to break up the trusts would be, in Wilson’s words, nothing less than a “second struggle for emancipation.”

Reich goes on to analyze the gradual “escape” of the Democratic Party from Populist issues and its transformation into a financial party much like the Republicans. He is, of course, correct – while the movement has some sound bites that seem to the untrained ear to mimic the occasional Democratic politician, the message of the Wall Street Protestors is inimical to the interests of both political parties.

The Republican Party and these Wall Street Protestors are alien to one another but to the Democrats these protestors are only slightly less strange. The Democrats have been selling free market fundamentalism, de-regulation, tax cuts, tax breaks, tax holidays, subsidies, free trade pacts, etc. for years. If that sounds exactly like the Republican Party, it should because it is. The parties vary dramatically on many issues but on the treatment of our financial elites they are both little more than courtiers at the court of the king, the top one percent.

The things that motivate the protestors may from time to time provide the Democrats with useful dialogue for a quick commercial but they haven’t been important to the party apparatus for decades. Once the commercial is cut, the message will be forgotten unless the poll numbers move briskly in which case the line will have a brief second life.

The Democrats are going to do what the Democrats always do, pretend to care. They’ll throw some crumbs to the demonstrators, endorsements, praise, nice op-eds and eventually “proposed” legislation. The legislation will be gradually forgotten, or re-written until there is nothing left or passed in one house to languish in the other. The fix is always in.

When the Democrats care about something like “free” trade deals, it goes right to the top right away. The damn things can annihilate the economic fortunes of millions of Americans but the Democrats vote for them quickly, easily and in almost total lockstep because that is what the “real” Americans, the top one percent want.

A political party built around the protecting the welfare of the bottom 99% of the population is not just a radical idea, for the professional campaigners is simply doesn’t make any sense, by their reasoning, the bottom 99% doesn’t have the kind of money or influence to run elections.

That conventional wisdom is unlikely to change. Campaigns have been run for the interests of the top one percent for decades, and it is no doubt much easier to win with incredible sums of money from a handful of donors, who can be counted upon to give large sums year after year, than it is to actually work an election from point of view of actual human beings.

Is this going to be a turning point in history? I hope so. I don’t see the protestors handing their movement over to the President or anyone else. Identification with either major political party inevitably leads to an absorption of the least controversial elements. It is destructive to the political process to allow such co-option.

Only movements separate from the parties can have a long term effect on the party itself. The reason for this is that parties exist to elect candidates, not to effect change. Thus, we have the spectacle of the Democratic Party developing into a party of professional politicians purchasable virtually at will. To make a party tow the ideological line, you have to beat and humiliate politicians who hold other beliefs. It has to be done outside the party.

James Pilant

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Ten Worst American Cities for Murder – from the Star-Telegram

On By southwerkIn News

I have criminal justice students and they tend to believe that the cities like Los Angeles or New York are the leaders in murder. Their television induced wisdom is a problem. It disguises the developing geographic picture of crime, and that picture is of the most violent crimes moving more toward the South and Central United States.

The data, in particular the top cities for murder list below, surprises most people. I was shocked by the ranking of Anchorage. I went and had a look at the overall stats and while murder is bad compared to much of the United States, the rate of forcible rape is much, much worse than the rest of the country.

Here you are presented for your information – the top ten –

No. 1 – Detroit

No. 2 – Memphis

No. 3 – Springfield, Ill.

No. 4 – Flint, Mich.

No. 5 – Anchorage, Ak.

No. 6 – Lubbock

No. 7 – Stockton, Calif.

No. 8 – Tallahassee, Fla.

No. 9 – Las Vegas, Nev.

No. 10 – Rockford, Ill.

Read more: http://blogs.star-telegram.com/crime_time/2011/10/which-texas-city-do-you-suppose-made-the-forbes-list-of-most-dangerous-in-the-us.html#ixzz1aGVKxCO7

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The Wall Street Protests – “This has the feel of something very big happening.”

On By southwerkIn Opinion

Is ‘Occupy Silicon Valley’ next?

This is an article from Reuters written by Connie Loizos. It is in large part an interview with Paul Saffo, a futurist.   I call your attention to this paragraph. –

Saffo doesn’t know where all of this economic dissatisfaction will lead, but he is worried. “I think there’s a sea change afoot that’s going to sweep over everything the same way,” he says. “I still think there’s a lot of uncertainty, but all my instincts as a forecaster tell me this has the feel of something very big happening. I’m standing on the beach and noticing the water heading back out toward the horizon.”

I feel the same way. It’s possible this is all just smoke and mirrors but I don’t think so.

James Pilant

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Wall Street Protests Picking Up Speed

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

The Wall Street Protests are starting to catch on in the media. One major factor is that the protests have spread to 250 cities.

Old story? I don’t think so. I’m seeing a lot more serious articles. The one at the bottom of the page is from the venerable publication, Reuters.

The early coverage suggested that the protesters were crazed lefty’s with no vision and no ideas beside the bizarre. This suggests that much of the national media are effete snobs who don’t know anybody that make less than 250k a year. Unfortunately that is probably true. Here is a quote from Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake. –

Unsurprisingly, the corporate media continue to ignore and deride this movement. It will take independent outlets like Firedoglake and citizen journalists like yourself to give these protests the attention they deserve.

FDL has been covering Occupy Wall Street since day one, and the Dissenter’s intrepid Kevin Gosztola has been the premier source of information for those following the protest. He’s in Washington D.C. right now and will be heading to New York to report live from Occupy Wall Street.

Here’s a quote from Glen Greenwald –

But for those who believe that protests are only worthwhile if they translate into quantifiable impact: the lack of organizational sophistication or messaging efficacy on the part of the Wall Street protest is a reason to support it and get involved in it, not turn one’s nose up at it and join in the media demonization. That’s what one actually sympathetic to its messaging (rather than pretending to be in order more effectively to discredit it) would do. Anyone who looks at mostly young citizens marching in the street protesting the corruption of Wall Street and the harm it spawns, and decides that what is warranted is mockery and scorn rather than support, is either not seeing things clearly or is motivated by objectives other than the ones being presented.

Well, they’re not laughing quite so much in the corporate media. They are less amused in the 24 hour news programs that long ago abandoned any attempt to inform the population resorting to popcorn for the mind – “If it bleeds it leads.” The moral bankruptcy of the journalist class is more and more evident every day.

I want change. The bottom 50% of this nation’s citizens have been shorn like sheep over and over again. It’s time for fairness and above all justice, long prison sentences for the malefactors who destroyed our economy, were bailed out by the government, and now enjoy huge profits. This is the antithesis of justice, a Bizarro society in which up is down and justice is for the “little people” (the ones that build and maintain this country by their hard work and honesty).

Here is Jack Shafer discussing his views of demonstrations. I suggest you go to Reuters and read the whole thing. Shafer is sort of a dinosaur from a different era but he does appear to be willing to learn from experience.

How to cover a demonstration. Or not. By Jack Shafer from Reuters –

The organizers of Occupy Wall Street (or non-organizers, as they would prefer it) have shown real media savvy by staging their demo where the network cameras and the New York Times are. Anything that happens in New York (especially Brooklyn!) is considered by New York media operations to be 100 times more interesting than anything that happens anywhere on the other side of the Hudson River. So what if the Occupy Wall Street message is muddled? The OWS pictures and energy are fresh, mostly because a mass, ongoing demo in New York is a relative novelty. How else to explain the New York Daily News‘ fevered blog coverage today: “Here’s the scene at Zuccotti Park. It is packed. There are about 3,000 people here.” No kidding?! 3,000?! That’s like the attendance at a Midwest high school football championship game!

The press corps would probably be doing more toe-dipping than immersion in its Occupy Wall Street coverage if not for the way it underestimated the rise of the Tea Party over the past couple of years. Just because a group’s message skews toward the inchoate and the emotional doesn’t mean that it doesn’t represent a worthy point of view. The non-organizers of the Occupy Wall Street have deliberately embraced this thought. As long as cameras are counting bodies and recording slogans, the harder work of defining the message can be postponed. The more important task is to introduce people who share frustrations to one another. One measure of OWS’s successful strategy is that labor unions are now joining the “movement.”

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Are Lion Burgers in Poor Taste?

On By southwerkIn News2 Comments

Sometimes something happens that catches your attention. This is it.

I laughed when I first heard this. Why the fuss, I thought, calling a fancy burger, a lion burger is hardly crime. Then I read the article. The burgers are 80% lion meat. I didn’t know you could get it. I can’t figure out why you would want to get it.

So, my second thought was, well maybe, a lion killed his sister and this is revenge. Not a good reason to eat lion, but better than nothing. Nope, no family losses to lions. What does that leave? Is he allergic to cats?

This is just a bad idea. Get a regular burger, call it a lion kill burger, a lion victory over some beefy animal. We have lots of beefy animals and very few lions.

I suppose we should ask at some point – is it ethical to eat lion meat or to sell it? If you believe that meat eating is okay, eating lion is probably okay save from an aesthetic point of view. Currently the lion is not an endangered species although I have confidence that human greed and incompetence will eventually get it there.

James Pilant

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Some You Tube Video’s You May Find Interesting in the Context of Business Law

On By southwerkIn Teaching

This first selection is a documentary telling the story of how General Motors bought out the public transit systems particularly cable cars and replaced them with bus lines. It’s an older documentary but it’s a good one. You should watch it if only for the scene of the cable cars being put to the torch.

Documentary Film Video General Motors History = Taken for a Ride.flv

This documentary discusses whether faults in the design played a major role in the loss of the ship.

Titanic’s Achilles Heel (2007) History Channel

This one is about an unusual fire in a high rise building in Hong Kong. If you are interested in fire investigation, this one is fascinating.

Blueprint For Disaster – S02E05 – Hong Kong Inferno

Try these three on for size. Remember the rules on tort liability from your business law class and see if you can tell which ones apply.

James Pilant

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Is a New Movement in American Politics Being Born?

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

I have been thinking about whether or not the Wall Street Protests now spreading nation wide are the beginning of a significant turning point in American history.

I believe the answer is “probably.” I would prefer a ringing “Yes, this is it!” but after the Obama campaign of 2008, I have lost faith in what are supposed to historical turning points. In that case, we elected a leader who promised real change but who turned out to be a pitiful caricature of his promises. I remember reading Will Durant, an essay he wrote after he felt the disappointment of Woodrow Wilson’s Administration. The Progressives, Durant among them, came out and fought for Wilson’s election only to find he had only limited use for them and their policies. He wrote that you can’t place dependence on any one man when you are part of a political movement. I forgot that lesson of history during the 2008 election. I promise I will not be so foolish again.

But this new movement has several things going for it. One is timing. The United States is suffering under a recession which is highly likely to turn into a full scale depression with the big D. The people of this country who are witnessing the day to day collapse of small businesses, they personally out of work or having direct knowledge of their friends and family out of work are not beguiled by the word of record corporate profits. That money does not flow to them and they are well aware of it. (You are aware the bottom 50% of the citizens of our great democracy have 2.5% of the wealth?)

My local paper is replete with stories of how the real estate market has turned or will turn around – all this while a rational person watches housing prices continue to fall. The local real estate captive paper is more useful for training a dog than as a provider of useful information.

Another thing the movement has going for it is the ability to use the new media effectively. I use a desktop computer and that is the end of my desire for electronics. I don’t want to be communicated with all the time. I like my privacy. But these individuals are quite clever with these new devices using them in a manner more advanced than those who advocated change this Spring in the Middle East and China. They have an amazing web presence.

My third and last reason for the movement’s likely success is the international political climate. The neoliberals of the Chicago School of Economics have been driven from South America and their policies found to be the height of madness and lunacy in Ireland and Iceland. The great philosophical adventure of free market absolutism is dying although I am well aware this beast of prey still has teeth to harm the middle class and poor. Their corporate support is unabated and the money they continue to receive from the looney billionaires who feel oppressed will continue. But being repudiated in much of the world is going to cause the movement many problems most of them long term.

So, I have some hope and a little faith. This may be a turning point in American politics.

James Pilant

Sara Kenigsberg writing in the Huffington Post has a new article:

Occupy Wall Street Protests Ignite Progressive Political Fire In Washington

Leaders at the conference also pressed progressives to focus their energy beyond Obama, highlighting broad dissatisfaction with an administration that has repeatedly derided liberals, dismissing many of the activists present at the conference as “the professional left.” The message from progressive leaders — who included Jones, economist Robert Reich and The Nation publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, among others — was clear: Neither political party in Washington is listening to working Americans struggling through the worst recession since the Great Depression. Progressives will have to continue hosting events like Occupy Wall Street that bring voters into the streets and pressure political leaders to take action on the jobs crisis. Progressive members of Congress have already taken note, with the Progressive Caucus — the largest alliance of House liberals — endorsing Occupy Wall Street amid the conference cheerleading.

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Why Young Adults Are Walking Away From Church by Christian Piatt

On By southwerkIn Opinion

In a column in Huffington Post, Christian Piatt discusses the why behind the exodus of the young from church.

Here’s my favorite paragraph –

Alisa Harris’ memoir, “Raised Right: How I Untangled My Faith from Politics,” reflects on the apparent cultural, spiritual and economic desert time in which we find ourselves. We have witnessed the carnage of a financial system that was intended to perpetually buoy a nation, but whose “invisible hand” has instead crushed the dreams of millions. We’ve watched as the two-headed political serpent attacks itself until it is impotent. We’ve seen religious figures scandalize their institutions empty, as a generation walks away in search of something more relevant to their daily struggle.

Church attendance has fallen dramatically over the last twenty years. In 2005, Protestants represented half those practicing a religion in the United States for the first time.

What’s going on?

I see two trends. The mainline Protestant churches continue to bleed membership. The evangelical movement has hit a wall in recruitment and can neither maintain its growth and or maintain its current numbers. The second trend is new. I suspect that it has a great deal to do with the impact of the political action on a church organization. It is probably a delight to go out and organize precincts handing out conservative literature instead of sitting through a boring sermon, after all, politics is a lot easier than Christianity. But for many the Christian call remains a powerful inducement and a church that acts as a political action committee has little time for gospel issues.

I do not see these trends reversing although I suspect the mainline bleed has to end at some point.

James Pilant

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