JOHN MOORE

Occupy one year later. Was something happening there?

Posted By: John Moore · 9/17/2012 11:38:00 AM

The Occupy movement began its anarchy a year ago today; encampments, protests, mic-checks, oddball speeches and a lot of feel good new liberalism. Did it accomplish anything?  I wrote and said at the time that I thought Occupy was the pulse on something fundamentally wrong with our economy but certainly not the heart or the brain of it. 

A year later activist and journalist Judy Rebick has written an e-book titled Occupy This. You can listen to my conversation/debate with Judy here.

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  1. Sonny posted on 09/17/2012 02:35 PM
    It takes time. How did the Quebec students do in stopping the 75% increase in tuition?
  2. proton posted on 09/17/2012 03:49 PM
    having read judy rebick and heard her in the past i don't think she's worth my cleaning my ears to listen to.

    I've never heard anything sensible from her, even if I disagreed with her position.
  3. nike free run 2 posted on 09/18/2012 03:15 AM
    The Occupy movement began its anarchy a year ago today
    1. V posted on 09/22/2012 11:15 AM
      @nike free run 2 There is a mistake in believing that Occupy is about Anarchy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

      If one were to understand and research the issue, it would be learned that the Occupy movement is not about Anarchy, nor is it about being against Capitalism. Occupy is about being against fascism.

      The oddball speeches and mic-checks are what the lamestream media presstitutes focus on, sell to the public, and paint the Occupy movement with a broad brush to portray them as all as nutters. It is designed to make you mad at the 'protestors'.

      If you actually take a few minutes to research who does attend those rallys, you'll see people like yourself; young, old, men, women, white, black, business owners, middle class, students, et al.

      It upsets those who know, and see, that something is wrong in our current politico/socio/economic state, but don't want to see the truth as the truth upsets them. It's easier to be complacent and apathetic. As long as there are karaoke popularity contests and stars dancing on tee vee, all is well. Sometimes I feel that they may think that what is comfortable to them may be taken away as uppity serfs protest. They pay their taxes and they should left alone. They are doing their due diligence. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We are all paying our share. IMO, we all pay far too much.

      Know that in today's economic and political climate, we are under a state of fascism. We past being capitalists a long time ago. Globalism has a lot to do with that. Corporations now dictate policy. Usually, those corporations pay little or no taxes. Case in point: Microsoft...just avoided paying $4.5 billion in taxes on $21 billion in profits between 2009 and 2011. Jobs are off-shored. And now debt is money. We are all pawns and slaves to that debt. In most cases, especially with gov't debts, you and I did not incur those debts, but we are expected to pay for them.

      Look into a film called 'Inside Job', released in 2010, narrated by Matt Damon. It won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2011. It didn't receive much attention since it told the truth about what has and continues to happen.
  4. Gene posted on 09/18/2012 12:33 PM
    The occupy movement had an impact on me. It got my attention and made me pay more attention to income inequality. Sure there were some nuts involved and they hurt the movement a bit, but the reasons for it's inception are not lost on me. I realized that the reason there weren't more "normal" people down there isn't because they didn't support the cause, they just had to go to work. But I'm sure a lot of the people at work, like me, were glued to the story and did our own research when we had the chance.

    Income stats, gini indexes, poverty stats, education stats... they are all just meaningless numbers when you hear them in the news and on the radio. Usually because the person or the media outlet presenting the information has a bias and chooses not to actually take the time to truly examine the numbers and explain them to people.

    But once you start looking on your own it becomes quite clear that there is a cold war between the rich and the rest and the rest aren't winning.

    If all Occupy accomplished was getting a few people to start looking for themselves, then it was worth it.
  5. Toby Lake posted on 09/19/2012 03:45 PM
    To whom it may concern:


    How would you like me.. to be leftist so you can attack me? Be right wing something or other so you can agree with me? So much of government is about compromises to introduce programs funded either by the church, private sponsorship, tax funding, and it is all about charity. I find positive arguments for both Liberal left ideology and right wing conservatism to support social funding of a variety of services. How those services are funded is a simpler issue as having the best care available for everyone when we grow old and most closely held plans begin to fall to the wayside as reality takes over.

    But about your views, what is it you disagree that for you is apprehensible? What makes my views so against yours? In all my defense, I have supported and defended values we should all have in our respect for one another. We may not all agree on something, but it is not a character flaw. We should embrace our differences and measure them by the number of people who share personally held values and beliefs.
  6. Toby Lake posted on 09/19/2012 03:48 PM
    To whom it may concern:


    How would you like me.. to be leftist so you can attack me? Be right wing something or other so you can agree with me? So much of government is about compromises to introduce programs funded either by the church, private sponsorship, tax funding, and it is all about charity. I find positive arguments for both Liberal left ideology and right wing conservatism to support social funding of a variety of services. How those services are funded is a simpler issue as having the best care available for everyone when we grow old and most closely held plans begin to fall to the wayside as reality takes over.

    But about your views, what is it you disagree that for you is apprehensible? What makes my views so against yours? In all my defense, I have supported and defended values we should all have in our respect for one another. We may not all agree on something, but it is not a character flaw. We should embrace our differences and measure them by the number of people who share personally held values and beliefs.
    1. toby lake posted on 09/19/2012 03:49 PM
  7. V posted on 09/22/2012 11:47 AM
    Occupy is only for 'those' people.

    Really now. Your turn to rage will come soon. Don't kid yourself. The 'buying power' of the dollar in your wallet will be worth even less thanks to taxpayer sponsored [against our will] banker bailouts and gov't monetization of debt. But you won't hear any of this on CFRB. What is important is not be discussed.

    Thanks to Globalization, all the phony liquidity being pumped out in form of bailouts [DEBT] to Europe and the US from their central banks, will affect Canada.

    Canada’s Housing Bubble Set to Burst

    'Isn’t that what Bubblenomics is really all about, creating a Capitalist Valhalla where pay-for schools and pay-for roads and pay-for health care are the norm, where the old and infirm must drain their bank accounts to buy their own medication and shelter, where the sick and unemployed are left to fend for themselves, and where all the working class gains of the last century are wiped out in one fell-swoop plunging the country into a Dickensian nightmare of 7-day-16 hour-workweeks with zilch benefits and zero pension?'

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/11/canadas-housing-bubble-set-to-burst/

    Sinking in yet? Think it won't happen?

    Here is another reality to consider:

    'For these reasons, LEAP/E2020 maintains its June 2012 Red Alert and estimates that, by the end of October 2012, the global economy will be sucked into a black hole against a backdrop of world geopolitics heated white-hot. Suffice it to say that the coming weeks will, according to our team, carry the planet away in a hurricane of unprecedented crises and conflicts.'

    http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-67-is-available-Global-systemic-crisis-October-2012-The-global-economy-sucked-into-a-black-hole-and-world_a12189.html

    More still:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5N_huInM0k&feature=player_embedded#!
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