That said, nowhere on the web is there a more perfect example of how the Wall Street Occupation is being absorbed by political thinkers who represent the status quo.

September 26: “Wall Street Wankathon”:

I don’t understand why I am supposed to care about this whole #OccupyWallStreet protest. There is no platform, no legislative vehicle, no coherent call to action, no overriding message, and very little in the way of any point. While the enterprise is less nihilistic than the Rodney King riots or the recent unpleasantness in England, it is even less effectual. I am not sure they are even being successful in inconveniencing anyone. The best I can say for the whole effort is that at least they haven’t created a right-wing backlash. If you want to hurt Wall Street without hurting everyone else in the process, develop a legislative goal that sticks it to Wall Street without further tanking the economy. Walking around in circles in Lower Manhattan and chanting “This is what Democracy looks like” is little different from holing up in your apartment with a week’s worth of free porn. It’s nothing more than a Wank-a-Thon, and I find the whole thing boring and depressing.

Shorter: You damn kids get offa my lawn!

September 28: “What’s Eating the Left”:

despite efforts at campaign finance reform, the problem has grown much worse over the last decade. Anyone looking at the Democrats to solve this problem is going to be disappointed. Even where the Democrats are attempting to do the right thing (such as increasing marginal income tax rates on the wealthy) they are easily thwarted. So, I see the desire and the need for some kind of movement that doesn’t rely directly on politics. Neither political party is capable or really even willing to create a fairer system or to truly protect us from the excesses of global capitalism.

In any case, I understand the motive behind the #OccupyWallStreet drive, and I can see why people are seeking non-political avenues to express their discontent. But I’m bothered by the lack of specificity in the movement….

Is that really the point? Is Wall Street oozing corruption and criminality in a way that it was not last year or the year before that? Is it less accountable than it was before the Dodd-Frank bill passed? Or, is it more that people are sick of seeing how much these bastards pay themselves as they ship our jobs overseas and try to whittle away the safety net?

I suppose the answers to those questions will depend on whom you ask. But I get the feeling that people like Greenwald consider Wall Street investment firms and banks as criminal organizations by definition, rather than by circumstance. Or, to be more precise, there are many on the left who don’t believe in capitalism to begin with. They didn’t believe in it before the September 2008 crash, and they especially don’t believe in it now. And without getting into a defense of capitalism, I have to say that I’m not comfortable with a movement that has no more coherent message than ‘capitalism sucks.’ I don’t even like the name. You’ll occupy Wall Street until _____ happens?

Shorter: “Yes, things are fucked up, and neither party can be expected to change things. But these kids probably don’t even believe in capitalism, fucking COMMIES.”

October 2: “Abandoned, the President Needs to Pivot”:

Meanwhile, as the president tries to arouse the left in support of a modest, reasonable Jobs Bill, the left’s heart has left the building and is now focused on protests against corporate greed and mismanagement. …

This is a recipe for the failure of the Obama presidency and the emergence of a conservative revolution in this country unlike anything we’ve ever seen…

Yet, the eruption of protest on the left can help the president if he recognizes the opportunity. Unlike what Steven D has recommended, I do not think the administration should align itself with the protestors. What they should do is what FDR did with Huey Long. While the protesters call for Wall Street to “Share the Wealth” the president should tack to the left but maintain himself as the safer alternative. “If you don’t give me a win on this jobs bill, these protests will continue to grow and the pitchforks will really come out.” I don’t know how many of the protesters would agree with my advice, but I do think that at least part of what they’re trying to do is to change the political consensus in this country and yank the discourse out of the death-hold it seems to have become locked in…

The administration has to look at this as an opportunity, because if it doesn’t adapt to take advantage of it, his effort on jobs will die a pathetic death, and his presidency will likely follow.

Shorter: “Holy shit, these people are serious and actually have a point! If the administration can’t figure out who to use this to their advantage, they are FUCKED for 2012.”

To me, it’s like that scene in the old 1980s movie, “War Games”, where the nuclear weapons are about to be launched and the heroes are sitting around this computer muttering “learn, damn you.”

Anyway, I’m going to be taking, I think, a long break from blogging, and probably from ye olde facebook as well. I’m just so angry, so disappointed, and so worried for the future that anything I have to say is going to be so deeply bitter, so cynical, and so gut-wrenchingly angry that it’s not going to even be worth reading. There are better things to do with my time than keeping myself angry over things that simply are not going to change.

So for the time being, I think this blog might be closed.

Idiotic mistake or brilliant publicity move? GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons recently posted a video of himself killing an elephant in a sorghum field in Zimbabwe. Many were appalled. Others called it a P.R. disaster. Boycotts are underway.

But PR Daily called it a successful stunt: “This story will be dead by Sunday, and GoDaddy will have won tons of coverage.” And Parsons derided critics as uncomprehending or hypocritical. He refused to take down the video, and promised to post one next year, when he plans to shoot another elephant.

What a fucking dick. I’ll be contacting my admin later this week, but I’m not going to be giving my business to Parsons the douche. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.

Now, a group of House Republicans is launching a new stealth attack against union workers. GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Tim Scott (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), and Louie Gohmert (TX) have introduced H.R. 1135, which states that it is designed to “provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs.”

Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer

Sounds pretty bad.

Atrios wonders if, DUH, “It’s Almost As If This Was Part of A Grand Plan”, and links to Think Progress.

the Daily Kos takes note too:

So cut off federal food stamps for an entire family if one person in that family strikes a private corporation, company, business?

Forward – to the 19th Century. RepublicSCUMS are the most evil, wicked fuckers on the face of the earth.

Sponsors of this bill, H.R. 1135, include, GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Tim Scott (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), and Louie Gohmert (TX).

Susie Madrak takes aim, and so does John walker at FDL. All of them describe this as an attack by the GOP on organized labor, by making it more difficult to strike. And how cruel the GOP is, cutting off whole families from food stamps if even one member strikes. That is just so terrible and awful of them.

The problem with all of this is that it’s not news. I know because I work at a hunger-relief organization, and part of what we do is help individuals and families sign up for food stamps (now known as SNAP). It has now been confirmed to me, by three people who work here, including our policy manager, that this has been the case dating back to about 1996. In fact, it’s in the training materials I was given when I first got hired: “Strikers: make a whole household ineligible.” That’s because of a 1988 court decision abstracted here: “THE wives and children of men who are on strike lost one of their rights on March 23rd, when the Supreme Court upheld, by five votes to three, Congress’s decision in 1981 that they could be denied food stamps.” here’s the policy as it pertains to Pennsylvania.

But furthermore, while the language is offensive, it’s largely unworkable if the idea is to kick people already receiving SNAP off the program. When you apply, there’s a requirement to report if you’re on strike. If you’re already receiving SNAP, it’s a lot harder to determine that, simply due to the fact that the welfare offices where the majority of SNAP cases are handled are overworked, understaffed, inefficient, and in general swamped. That’s the reason my employers screen applicants and do case management. County assistance has enough trouble handling their already huge workload: no one has the time (or for that matter the resources) to go through every applicant’s files to see which ones belong to unions and which unions are on strike at any given time. The only way this “policy” (and I’m using the term charitably) could work is if a striker went into the county assistance office and said “hey guys, those food stamps i’m getting? Cancel them, I’m on strike”. So if that’s the case and it’s not simply a repeat of legislation that was passed by House Democrats and Senate Republicans in 1981 and upheld in 1988, it’s ludicrous, empty posturing to make the GOP look tough to their foaming-at-the-mouth, mentally ill, right-wing retards (”cognitively challenged” is too kind a term for the thickwitted GOP base).

But this has not stopped my friends in left blogistan from acting like the hysterics on the right. Not one single poster, except for Think Progress, has amended their claims. Not one.

hey guys? I thought we were the honest, thoughtful, level-headed, reality-based community. Just because you’ve only just now heard about this policy, which I agree is an unfair thumb on the scale that makes it more difficult for people fighting for better working conditions to strike. But that’s policy for both the hated Republicans and our so-called “friends” the Democrats.

Thanks!

Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis knows I’m deeply interested, and concerned, about all of the above. What really impresses me about Morsels and Seeds is that it’s produced entirely by African American women: that’s so important on so many levels. For example, as many readers know, I live in southwest Philly, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city (although nowhere near as PA’s 1st congressional district). The neighborhood is primarily black, and there’s a lot of poverty and not too many high quality groceries. From what I see in the shelves, the emphasis is on high fat/high cholesterol soul food and far less on vegetables and fruits. The only way to change people’s diet is through education, and so to me it’s awesome to see a strong voice for nutrition come from the community FOR the community (even if I’m not necessarily part of that specific community myself). The blog is, in my opinion, so important, timely, and relevant to my work, that I have shared it with my office.

Not that you have to give up soul food to eat right, as Denise Agnew explains here. I might have to steal her recipe for red beans and rice.

i gotta say, Brendan, that logging onto this here “comments” is no stroll in the hay either. Just sayin’… the damn password you get assigned is like 8 miles long…

if your brendancalling password is too long, a series of random numbers and letters, and generally impossible to memorize, here’s what to do.

First, log in using the hateful wordpress-generated password to comment. Above the comment window it will say “Logged in as [Username].” Click your name: this should take you to your profile. Scroll all the way to the bottom of that page, and you’ll see an option to change your password. It’s a pretty easy process: type your new password, then type it again, and click “update your profile.”

See how much I love you?

Just a quick note. As you know Sam’s been visiting, so blogging has been light. I have a pretty large, and probably inflamatory, post coming up about my run-in with the TSA at Philadelphia International Airport, and the thoroughly useless response from Senator Bob Casey’s office, which can be boiled down to “senators don’t do anything but pass laws, so you’re out of luck.”

I’ve been meaning to write this all down for the past week or so, but either haven’t had the time or the energy. I promise I will try to get to it this weekend.

thanks for your patience.

You can watch the whole thing here.

and call me a firebagger all you want: jane hamsher has passion and grit that you rarely see anywhere else.