$$$$$Moneyman$$$$$ Where the Crisis Began
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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2011 ISSUE 2, 2ND PRINTING The Most Important Thing in the World f there is one thing I know, movements spring up like beauti- it’s that the 1% loves a crisis. ful flowers but quickly die off. It’s When people are panicked because they don’t have roots. And I and desperate and no one they don’t have long term plans for seems to know what to do, that is how they are going to sustain them- the ideal time to push through their selves. So when storms come, they wish-list of pro-corporate policies: get washed away. privatizing education and social Being horizontal and deeply security, slashing public services, democratic is wonderful. These 11 a.m. — March on banks @ liberty square getting rid of the last constraints on principles are compatible with the corporate power. Amidst the eco- hard work of building structures and 1 p.m. — student Meet-Up @ washington square nomic crisis, this is happening the institutions that are sturdy enough world over. to weather the storms ahead. I have 5 p.m. — TAKe TiMES sQUAre — nycga.net There is only one thing that can great faith that this will happen. Oct.15 block this tactic, and fortunately, it’s Something else this movement NEW YORK TURNS OUT TO OCCUPY WALL STREET: Labor unions and student walkouts brought tens of thousands to Foley Square on Oct. 5. After dusk, crowds filled lower Manhattan around Zuccotti Park, re-named a very big thing: the 99%. And that is doing right: You have commit- Liberty Square by the occupation. Despite high spirits among the protesters and no incidents of violence or vandalism, NYPD officers arrested numerous people. Pepper spray and batons were also deployed. PHOTO: Jen Ross 99% is taking to the streets from ted yourselves to non-violence. You Madison to Madrid to say “No. We have refused to give the media the will not pay for your crisis.” images of broken windows and That slogan began in Italy in street fights it craves so desperately. To The Sept. 17 Occupiers, 2008. It ricocheted to Greece and And that tremendous discipline has This rebellion will noT sTop France and Ireland and finally it meant that, again and again, the has made its way to the square mile story has been the disgraceful and $$$$$moneyman$$$$$ where the crisis began. unprovoked police brutality. Which he lords of finance in the come to work within the system. porate state is extinguished. It will “Why are they protesting?” ask we just saw more of Wednesday skyscrapers surrounding We are not pleading with the Con- not stop until the corporate abuse the baffled pundits on TV. Mean- night. Meanwhile, support for this Hey MoneyMan the crowd is outside. T Zuccotti Park, who toy gress for electoral reform. We know of the poor, the working class, the while, the rest of the world asks: movement grows and grows. More The past, the future and the now is outside. with money and lives, who make electoral politics is a farce. We have elderly, the sick, children, those “What took you so long?” “We’ve wisdom. The teachers and cooks and the drop-outs too. the political class, the press, and the found another way to be heard and being slaughtered in our imperial been wondering when you were But the biggest difference a Word on the street is they looking for you… judiciary jump at their demands, exercise power. We have no faith in wars and tortured in our black sites, going to show up.” And most of all: decade makes is that in 1999, we who destroy the ecosystem for profit the political system or the two major stops. It will not stop until foreclo- “Welcome.” were taking on capitalism at the Hey MoneyMan they saying whats the score? and drain the U.S. Treasury to gam- political parties. And we know the sures and bank repossessions stop. It peak of a frenzied economic boom. And how much blood have you spilled on the ble and speculate, took little notice corporate press will not amplify our will not stop until students no lon- AUTHOR NAOMI KLEIN Unemployment was low, stock port- butcher shop floor? Those numbers keep running at first activists on the street below voices which is why we have a press ger have to go into massive debt to SPEAKS TO THE OCCUPIERS folios were bulging. The media was but what they running into? The crowd is outside them three weeks ago. of our own. We know the economy be educated, and families no longer drunk on easy money. Back then and they asking of you… The elites consider everyone serves the oligarchs. We know that have to plunge into bankruptcy to Many people have drawn par- it was all about start-ups, not shut outside their sphere marginal or to survive this protest we will have pay medical bills. It will not stop allels between Occupy Wall Street downs. Hey MoneyMan MoneyMan the mayors’ on the invisible. What significance could to build non-hierarchical communal until the corporate destruction of and the so-called anti-globalization We pointed out that the deregu- phone. He says he wants to know if all those people a young woman named Ketchup, systems that care for everyone. the ecosystem stops, and our rela- protests that came to world atten- lation behind the frenzy came at went home. Those momma’s and poppa’s and who worked in a Chicago theater These are goals the power elite tionships with each other and the tion in Seattle in 1999. That was the a price. It was damaging to labor students and cooks. Those teachers and preachers, cooperative and paid her bills as cannot comprehend. They cannot planet are radically reconfigured. last time a global, youth-led, decen- standards. It was damaging to envi- one second I’ll look… a waitress, have for the powerful? envision a day when they will not And that is why the elites, and tralized movement took direct aim ronmental standards. Corporations What could she and those in Zuc- be in charge of our lives. The elites the rotted and degenerate system of at corporate power. And I am proud were becoming more powerful than Hey MoneyMan MoneyMan the tents are still up, the cotti Park do to them? What threat believe, and seek to make us believe, corporate power they sustain, are to have been part of what we called governments and that was damag- songs are still singing and the coffee’s in cups. The can the weak pose to the strong? that globalization and unfettered in serious trouble. That is why they “the movement of movements.” ing to our democracies. But to be nights due to fall and the sun’s going down but its Those who worship money believe capitalism are natural law, some keep asking what the demands are. But there are important differ- honest with you, while the good still a whole mess of good folks hanging round... their buckets of cash, like the $4.6 kind of permanent and eternal They don’t know what is happening. ences too. For instance, we chose times rolled, taking on an economic They eyes are wide and their voices are loud. Its million J.P. Morgan Chase gave last dynamic that can never be altered. They are deaf, dumb and blind. summits as our targets: the World system based on greed was a tough white and black and colorless proud. The signs are week to the New York City Police What the elites fail to realize is that Trade Organization, the Interna- sell, at least in rich countries. big and the smiles are bright. By heaven I reckon Foundation, can buy them per- rebellion will not stop until the cor- BY CHRIS HEDGES tional Monetary Fund, the G8. Ten years later, it seems as if its gone be one hell of a night! petual power and security. Masters Summits are transient by their there aren’t any more rich countries. all, kneeling before the idols of the nature, they only last a week. That Just a whole lot of rich people. Peo- Hey MoneyMan poor MoneyMan you should slip marketplace, blinded by their self- made us transient too. We’d appear, ple who got rich looting the pub- out the back. Cuz the forces of greed are under importance, impervious to human grab world headlines, then disap- lic wealth and exhausting natural attack. No bombs or bullets or rocks or guns. Just suffering, bloated from unchecked pear. And in the frenzy of hyper resources around the world. hashtag’s and voices at the tops of their lungs! And greed and privilege, they were about patriotism and militarism that fol- The point is, today everyone can Moneyman Moneyman I wont need a ride. But if to be taught the folly of hubris. lowed the 9/11 attacks, it was easy see that the system is deeply unjust you need me… Even now, three weeks later, to sweep us away completely, at least and careening out of control. Unfet- the elites and their mouthpieces in in North America. tered greed has trashed the global You can find me outside. the press continue to puzzle over Occupy Wall Street, on the other economy. And it is trashing the nat- what we want. Where is the list of hand, has chosen a fixed target. And ural world as well. We are overfish- BY WASALU ‘LUPE FIASCO’ JACO demands? Why don’t they present you have put no end date on your ing our oceans, polluting our water us with specific goals? Why can’t presence here.