h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And, I must say that I agree with the critics that say the U.S. occupiers started two years later than they should have. There should have been occupations when the bailouts happened, not two years later. They let the Tea baggers steal the spotlight.

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I hope my point is visible: while I support the spirit of the movement, and while I very much agree that the world economic/political system is busted in exactly the ways the movement indicates, the economic/political system *here* isn't broken in exactly the same ways it's broken in the rest of the world.
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Nor here in NZ. However I'm not convinced that Canada is the rosy picture you paint anhaga

- are all your native people's feeling happy and well fed?

- what about those homeless people that outnumber of the Occupiers?

- in what ways do Canadian 1%

give mobilisation a chance

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I hope my point is visible: while I support the spirit of the movement, and while I very much agree that the world economic/political system is busted in exactly the ways the movement indicates, the economic/political system *here* isn't broken in exactly the same ways it's broken in the rest of the world.
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Nor here in NZ. However I'm not convinced that Canada is the rosy picture you paint anhaga

- are all your native people's feeling happy and well fed?

- what about those homeless people that outnumber of the Occupiers?

- in what ways do the Canadian 1% benefit from what is happening globally?

- in what ways does Canada as whole benefit from what is happening globally?

If your point is that Canada is currently better insulated from the global situation than most places and therefore any Occupying would not gain traction because the middle classes aren't pinched enough, and so other forms of action are needed, then fair enough. But if you're saying that Canada isn't sufficiently part of the world to have to be involved, or that you don't have a 1%, then I'm going to be raising my eyebrow.

I'm also curious if there are insufficient problems in Canada, how it spawned Adbusters


(my apologies for my bluntness, I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning).

Apologies also for the double post, a slip of the trackpad (is the Post Message button closer to the text box than it used to be?).

That really isn't fair or accurate, Anhaga. Or did you not notice Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana? They might not have gotten much airtime up where you are.

The Teabaggers are a bought and paid for astroturf movement funded by the Koch brothers. They receive tons of media brought to you by Rupert Murdoch.

Contrasted with that, the media is still trying to ignore Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Everywhere.

The difference is at once incredibly small and totally enormous. The media establishment is used to a mass media model in which they broadcast a message to a largely passive audience. To get airtime a movement has to have a designated spokesperson and stick to talking points.

But that mass media model is as obsolete as a buggy whip. Because we have public media, including the Internet. We aren't forced into a passive roll, we can have a conversation. Social media, for example h2g2, allows for a real conversation. We can talk about the news, we can talk about how the exact same Wall Street entities that engineered the housing crisis in the US also engineered the financial crisis in Greece.

And we can Occupyh2g2

I don't think it this is just about the last few years though. For many people the last few years is just the worst bit of a long standing problem. The reason this is happening now is that the educated classes needed to feel the pinch hard enough to go do something. I think one of the core themes of this is people in the US with high education debt who were 'promised' by the system that they would have a job in their career, and now they can't even get a job cleaning toilets. *thats* what's made the difference, and it takes time for people with those privileges to actually believe how bad things are.

>>Yahbut, that's because their governments got taken in by it all.

Anhaga, you make it sound like the corporate greed is ok as long the govt controls it well. I know there is diverse opinion about this within Occupy circles, but there is a big chunk of protest that says that the 1% is wrong in and of itself. The fact that they got even more excessive in the past few years is boon really, because it's finally making the general public look at how wrong the system is inherently.

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I simply don't understand the comments and placards by people who think it's OK to work their asses off off, even having to do loads of overtime or take on additional jobs, just to "get by"... ...

...When I see someone say "I work two jobs, I don't have health insurance, and I'm OK with that", I want to throttle them a little bit and tell them "but I'm not happy that you have to live like that, and neither should you be".
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Psychocandy, were you saying in your post that some people are doing a kind of counter protest?

And, unless Canada is not buying any good from places like China or Thailand or the Phillipines, the it *is* part of the problem and needs to be Occupied (although I do agree that how it is occupied is up to the Canadians and I take your points about the usefulness of other ways of responding than an actual occupation of public space).

Yes, there is a counter- protest here:

http://the53.tumblr.com/

I stand corrected. You all know best.

Witty that website looks like piece of nasty welfare bashing. Anyone know where the 53% comes from?

No, I've just seen it referred to in Facebook postings. Now that I've dug up that link, I intend to find out more about it. Like who is sponsoring that website, for instance.

From the fertile imagination of right-wing Photoshop users, apparently. Here is a blog about a faked image:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/15/1026620/-We-Are-the-53-is-Using-Fake-Images

Note that debunked image at least has been removed from the the53's blog.

#occupyh2g2

Thanks for posting the link to the "53%", etc, Witty Moniker.

kea, there's a bit of a 'blame the victim" bandwagon here with people who have "I am not the 99% and if you are, it's your choice" kinds of messages. Insinuating yet again that people who can't find work or who are buried under debt are in that situation because of "bad decisions". Never mind that most debt (and most bankruptcy) is due to medical bills and student loans.

Here's another really hateful one that's been making its way around FB. I don't get how this person claims to be struggling but responsible, but thinks other people in the same boat are there because of "bad decisions".

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=64746

Never mind that it's one thing to be struggling as a college student and another entirely to still be doing so after working for 20 years or more.

Here's a good recent blog explaing Occupy Wall Street:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/23/1028206/-Occupy-Wall-Street-is-not-difficult-to%C2%A0understand?via=blog_1

That's a very good write-up. Very appropriate.

A good blog piece, thanks