4 ms·

A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives

A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter. I believe this was deliberate. That doesn’t mean I necessarily believe some evil people twirled their mustaches to plot evil in secret, but is rather the result of many organizations working unison towards common goals without the necessity of central planning.

pmoriarty 6y ago
"A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter" Completely different issues. They are aligned against discrimination, but divided on economic inequality.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  They are aligned with anything that lets them continue to make money. And they are more than happy to keep your finite attention on topics that don’t affect them. One hits the bottom line and the other is some execs go on a retreat and they hang a few signs up.
- barbacoa 6y ago
  It the same issue but with a slight of hand to shift blame. There is a sentiment that at a macro level the economic system is geared to advantage those at the top. What I see mega corps are doing now is try to shift that frustration from a discussion of class to a discussion of race. Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > It the same issue No, its not. The racial justics movement predates OWS, and was active when OWS was a thing. Its true that BLM was, triggered, or coincided with a reenergization of that movement, but it wasn’t grounded in OWS’s complaints. (There was a big-money sponsored grouo which coopted some OWS complaints but shifted the focus go better serve particular institutiobal interests; but it was the Tea Party Patriots, not BLM.) > What I see mega corps are doing now is try to shift that frustration from a discussion of class to a discussion of race. At the time BLM emerged, much less when theie efforts started bringing corporations around, its not like there was a widely salient class-based but race-free narrative that institutions paying lip service to BLM werr marginalizing. > Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists The BLM movement is about powerful institutions and the lack of unequal lack of accountability and concern they exhibit by race. As a class, the “white working class outsidd of major economic centers” is not a focus, positive or negative of BLM activism, and are only really relevant, in any negative sense, to the extent they actively or passively support or participate inbthe racist institutions and actions BLM addresses.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    > Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists. May you please expand on this, because I am not following how white working class outsiders are involved. To my knowledge, corps & MLB have commented on specific actions by organizations such as the police or legislatures.
    - barbacoa 6y ago
      There have been countless corporations that are openly supporting BLM and pushing the "everything is about race" narrative because it is a distraction from the increasing wealth inequality that has led to rising economic popularism, which has in the past helped candidates like donald trump or bernie sanders who the powers-to-be want to keep out of office.
      - sangnoir 6y ago
        > There have been countless corporations that are openly supporting BLM and pushing the "everything is about race" I'm afraid that still doesn't answer my question. Corporations supporting BLM does not does not make "white working working class the villain and racists" unless you assume supporting black activists automatically pits you against white working class folk - and I disagree with this unstated assumption (if I'm parsing you correctly). I apologize if this is not the implied logic - and I ask that you break it down for me so I can understand, as briefly as you possibly can.
        barbacoa 6y ago
        >supporting black activists automatically pits you against white working class folk That does seem to be the perception. One of the core ideas of BLM is that we live in a systematic racist society. If that is true who are the perpetrators?
        sangnoir 6y ago
        > That does seem to be the perception. Thank you for making this explicit. Thus we come full circle to culture wars - that's the only reason for this perception, IMO. From where I stand, culture wars are all about short-circuiting critical thinking and logical analysis, aiming straight to the emotional core - that is how sound-bytes like "kneeling is disrespecting the military/veterans" comes from - there's no sound logic, but it gets people going (I'm sure you can come up with examples used by the left). > One of the core ideas of BLM is that we live in a systematic racist society. If that is true who are the perpetrators? The system? It's paradoxic how a group can feel "left behind" or feel like "the forgotten" and simultaneously identify as part the system.
- jrsj 6y ago
  But why are the aligned on this issue now when they never were before? Because after the Great Recession people were beginning to align against them outside of their predetermined demographic categories. These narratives and the way we talk about them don’t arise organically, they’re constructed and pushed out intentionally to serve a political purpose. Less than 20 years ago the same people unanimously told us that the war in Iraq was good and necessary. I don’t think these institutions and in many cases the exact same people have suddenly become interested in doing the right thing.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > But why are the aligned on this issue now when they never were before? Major institutions were brought around by activist pressure to pay lip service to racial justics issues before by thr Civil Rights Movement; BLM isn’t unique in that. > Less than 20 years ago the same people unanimously told us that the war in Iraq was good and necessary. No, the people positions of influence supporting BLM do bot consist exclusively of people who were Iraq war supporters.
    - jrsj 6y ago
      Why would it have to be exclusively? That doesn’t even make any sense, nothing works that way. There’s still a HUGE overlap. Regardless, if you actually quantify it over time, there is a sharp uptick in discussion of race and identity politics in general shortly after Occupy Wall Street. The same rhetoric was used to attack Bernie Sanders and his supporters despite from the 2016 primary onward. Is it technically a “conspiracy theory” to suggest this is intentional? Sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true, or that this is purely a coincidence.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > Why would it have to be exclusively? Because “the same people” isn’t the same thing as “a group that includes some of the same people” > There’s still a HUGE overlap. I see no evidence of that. > Regardless, if you actually quantify it over time, there is a sharp uptick in discussion of race and identity politics in general shortly after Occupy Wall Street. I see no evidence of that. That’s very much not my memory, and doing a review of the easily verifiable facts (like Google Trends), I can see that various racial justice issues saw a turn from a preceding long gradual decline to gradual increasing interest about a year before OWS which continued long past (some dropping off a bit after 2016), and then took a sharp uptick around the beginning of 2020. > The same rhetoric was used to attack Bernie Sanders and his supporters despite from the 2016 primary onward. So was anti-gun rhetoric and lots of other things pertaining to core Democratic constituencies that other candidates had better relationships with. That's... kinda normal politics.
- equality_1138 6y ago
  Completely different issues, maybe. Notice that the major media outlets started pumping stories about racism right about the time of the occupy protests. This is how politically motivated segregation works in general - make the commoners fight each other instead of against their oppressors.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter. It is a mistake to equate these two unrelated movements, with “the activists”. I mean, you might as well say that “the activists” took a break from BLM on Jan 6 to storm the Capitol. BLM isn’t a cosmetic rebrand of OWS. It is also misleading to suggest BLM “is aligned with megacorps”; the institutions which have been brought around by pressure (public, employee, and otherwise) to at least paying lip service to BLM were largely indifferent and in some cases hostile when the movement started, and for some time after, much as occurred with the earlier Civil Rights movement. That’s kind of the point of activist movements, though some are successful and most are not.

pmoriarty 6y ago

"A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter" Completely different issues. They are aligned against discrimination, but divided on economic inequality.

Consultant32452 6y ago
They are aligned with anything that lets them continue to make money. And they are more than happy to keep your finite attention on topics that don’t affect them. One hits the bottom line and the other is some execs go on a retreat and they hang a few signs up.
barbacoa 6y ago
It the same issue but with a slight of hand to shift blame. There is a sentiment that at a macro level the economic system is geared to advantage those at the top. What I see mega corps are doing now is try to shift that frustration from a discussion of class to a discussion of race. Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > It the same issue No, its not. The racial justics movement predates OWS, and was active when OWS was a thing. Its true that BLM was, triggered, or coincided with a reenergization of that movement, but it wasn’t grounded in OWS’s complaints. (There was a big-money sponsored grouo which coopted some OWS complaints but shifted the focus go better serve particular institutiobal interests; but it was the Tea Party Patriots, not BLM.) > What I see mega corps are doing now is try to shift that frustration from a discussion of class to a discussion of race. At the time BLM emerged, much less when theie efforts started bringing corporations around, its not like there was a widely salient class-based but race-free narrative that institutions paying lip service to BLM werr marginalizing. > Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists The BLM movement is about powerful institutions and the lack of unequal lack of accountability and concern they exhibit by race. As a class, the “white working class outsidd of major economic centers” is not a focus, positive or negative of BLM activism, and are only really relevant, in any negative sense, to the extent they actively or passively support or participate inbthe racist institutions and actions BLM addresses.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  > Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists. May you please expand on this, because I am not following how white working class outsiders are involved. To my knowledge, corps & MLB have commented on specific actions by organizations such as the police or legislatures.
  - barbacoa 6y ago
    There have been countless corporations that are openly supporting BLM and pushing the "everything is about race" narrative because it is a distraction from the increasing wealth inequality that has led to rising economic popularism, which has in the past helped candidates like donald trump or bernie sanders who the powers-to-be want to keep out of office.
    - sangnoir 6y ago
      > There have been countless corporations that are openly supporting BLM and pushing the "everything is about race" I'm afraid that still doesn't answer my question. Corporations supporting BLM does not does not make "white working working class the villain and racists" unless you assume supporting black activists automatically pits you against white working class folk - and I disagree with this unstated assumption (if I'm parsing you correctly). I apologize if this is not the implied logic - and I ask that you break it down for me so I can understand, as briefly as you possibly can.
      - barbacoa 6y ago
        >supporting black activists automatically pits you against white working class folk That does seem to be the perception. One of the core ideas of BLM is that we live in a systematic racist society. If that is true who are the perpetrators?
        sangnoir 6y ago
        > That does seem to be the perception. Thank you for making this explicit. Thus we come full circle to culture wars - that's the only reason for this perception, IMO. From where I stand, culture wars are all about short-circuiting critical thinking and logical analysis, aiming straight to the emotional core - that is how sound-bytes like "kneeling is disrespecting the military/veterans" comes from - there's no sound logic, but it gets people going (I'm sure you can come up with examples used by the left). > One of the core ideas of BLM is that we live in a systematic racist society. If that is true who are the perpetrators? The system? It's paradoxic how a group can feel "left behind" or feel like "the forgotten" and simultaneously identify as part the system.
jrsj 6y ago
But why are the aligned on this issue now when they never were before? Because after the Great Recession people were beginning to align against them outside of their predetermined demographic categories. These narratives and the way we talk about them don’t arise organically, they’re constructed and pushed out intentionally to serve a political purpose. Less than 20 years ago the same people unanimously told us that the war in Iraq was good and necessary. I don’t think these institutions and in many cases the exact same people have suddenly become interested in doing the right thing.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > But why are the aligned on this issue now when they never were before? Major institutions were brought around by activist pressure to pay lip service to racial justics issues before by thr Civil Rights Movement; BLM isn’t unique in that. > Less than 20 years ago the same people unanimously told us that the war in Iraq was good and necessary. No, the people positions of influence supporting BLM do bot consist exclusively of people who were Iraq war supporters.
  - jrsj 6y ago
    Why would it have to be exclusively? That doesn’t even make any sense, nothing works that way. There’s still a HUGE overlap. Regardless, if you actually quantify it over time, there is a sharp uptick in discussion of race and identity politics in general shortly after Occupy Wall Street. The same rhetoric was used to attack Bernie Sanders and his supporters despite from the 2016 primary onward. Is it technically a “conspiracy theory” to suggest this is intentional? Sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true, or that this is purely a coincidence.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Why would it have to be exclusively? Because “the same people” isn’t the same thing as “a group that includes some of the same people” > There’s still a HUGE overlap. I see no evidence of that. > Regardless, if you actually quantify it over time, there is a sharp uptick in discussion of race and identity politics in general shortly after Occupy Wall Street. I see no evidence of that. That’s very much not my memory, and doing a review of the easily verifiable facts (like Google Trends), I can see that various racial justice issues saw a turn from a preceding long gradual decline to gradual increasing interest about a year before OWS which continued long past (some dropping off a bit after 2016), and then took a sharp uptick around the beginning of 2020. > The same rhetoric was used to attack Bernie Sanders and his supporters despite from the 2016 primary onward. So was anti-gun rhetoric and lots of other things pertaining to core Democratic constituencies that other candidates had better relationships with. That's... kinda normal politics.
equality_1138 6y ago
Completely different issues, maybe. Notice that the major media outlets started pumping stories about racism right about the time of the occupy protests. This is how politically motivated segregation works in general - make the commoners fight each other instead of against their oppressors.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter. It is a mistake to equate these two unrelated movements, with “the activists”. I mean, you might as well say that “the activists” took a break from BLM on Jan 6 to storm the Capitol. BLM isn’t a cosmetic rebrand of OWS. It is also misleading to suggest BLM “is aligned with megacorps”; the institutions which have been brought around by pressure (public, employee, and otherwise) to at least paying lip service to BLM were largely indifferent and in some cases hostile when the movement started, and for some time after, much as occurred with the earlier Civil Rights movement. That’s kind of the point of activist movements, though some are successful and most are not.