What Are These Protests About?

Many are weighing in and spinning what these protests are about. Liberal pundits slam only banks and couple Republicans to the problem, ad nauseum. Conservatives defend the banks against what they perceive as a monolithic group of liberal protestors while ignoring the banks’ obvious and blatant fraud as well as their disregard for the law and yet at the same time (appropriately) slamming liberals like Michael Moore for absurdly wanting to get rid of capitalism.

While I agree with Herman Cain on a lot of issues, he proved to not understand what is happening either and frankly offered a very arrogant assessment of those without jobs or aren’t rich that can’t seem to help him win many points with voters, especially independents: “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed.” In other words, pull up your bootstraps you unemployed yobs!

Now I’m all for personal responsibility and taking ownership, but I also believe in the ability and likelihood of elites using power and prominence for evil. Our situation economically came from and was initiated by fraud, both in the private and public sectors, and is being perpetuated and protected by people in his position, at his level. I know a couple of people who have not been able to find jobs for over 52 weeks. It is mean and arrogant to slam them as if this is something they can prevent.

But regardless in the midst of all this back and forth and nonsensical discourse that misses the forest for the trees, the message is being lost as to what this is all about.

It really comes down to something I wrote in a couple of comments on Facebook related to the protests recently:

I think what’s so interesting about this movement and others globally are the diversity of viewpoints who all agree on one thing (something I recognized a couple of years ago): the whole of the established system (though of course not everyone, on all sides) has been co-opted by special interests in favor of their own selfish agenda, all at the expense of the majority. And it’s getting worse. It’s essentially the neo-cons and the neo-libs causing it, an established kleptocracy of sorts that has its own interests against that of the people. The worse it gets, the more people will become outraged. These are just the rumblings. Greece is a good look into our future I’m afraid. The system in its present form, at all levels and facets, is unsustainable and no one seems willing or able to fix it because it’s like trying to keep the Titanic from hitting the iceberg … only my opinion is we hit the iceberg in 2008 and the reality of that is fixing to catch up with us. And that was caused by special interests of greedy individuals both in the private and public sector who became vastly wealthy on a system based upon fraud (Bill Black: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld5tERIBvsg). Talk about a moral failure of epic proportions … The merging of state and corporate powers is called fascism (and this definition is from Mussolini) [Celente]. Even if all the protesters aren’t able to name or explain all that’s wrong, they all see the system is broken, vastly broken. Amazing how corporate interests with both Fox and CNN and MSNBC and ABC seem to not get it. Yet there’s a reason they don’t get it: they’re a part of the system.

In addition:

You can call it crony capitalism, but it’s deeper than that. It’s not just a few rogue individuals. It’s an inherently corrupt system. It’s a meshing of bad government and a broken capitalist system. Obviously I disagree that capitalism as an ideology is the problem. The problem is that fraud has gone unchecked and persists to this day, primarily in financial services. The Clinton and Bush admins enabled it and the Obama admin covers it up and supports it. Long story short, we live in an Enron-style Economy and Government. Bernie Madoff even admitted as much and said realizing this 20 years ago was how he was able to game the system for so long. It’s a fraudulent co-opted system where the winner takes all at our expense.

Essentially our politicians are beholden to a financial/political elite that runs the country by fiat in their own favor at our expense and keeps us at bay through propaganda via their ownership of all major media outlets. This issue isn’t from a left/right paradigm. It’s an issue that comes down to us, the people, versus them. The initial beginnings of the Tea Party are related to all of this in a frustration with the establishment Republican party. Unfortunately a good deal of it was co-opted by the establishment Republican party and big money coming from the likes of the Koch brothers and used in their favor. Conservatives, of which I consider myself, seem to not get this. The big banks and big corporations can do no wrong is the assumption for some reason. Yet they are the cause of all of these major problems and through massive lobbying they buy off politicians from going after them. It’s quite an amazing moment in our history as a country. The media doesn’t get it.

Here’s some good articles on this that highlight the problem, including an article on wikileaks … all of this related to the protests, and can help put it in better perspective:

The Rise of the New Global Elite:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/8343/

America’s Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution:
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the

It’s the Establishment Versus the Web:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article937990.ece

William Black on the 2008 Economic Crisis – PBS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz1b__MdtHY