Posted by PhilN on October 19, 2011 at 12:45:52:
In Reply to: Book aobut the occupy wall street movement posted by JimHK on October 18, 2011 at 12:30:24:
It IS NOT a repeat of the protests of the sixties. Those protests were mostly about war and the government's lying about why they were sending young Americans to die in far-off Vietnam. That hasn't changed: the government is still fighting wars in far-off places (and assassinating people in far-off lands using high-tech drones), and they are still lying about it. But now, in the twenty-first century, people are more worried about their financial situation than what the US military is doing invading some far-off place like Iraq or Afghanistan.
Maybe today's protesters are just smarter. The protesters in the sixties thought they could change the US militaristic foreign policy by bringing the sleepy public's attention to it. Turns out, that war was lost anyhow (as all wars of invasion are always lost), and they didn't change the US military policy at all. So now the protesters are appealing to something almost everybody can relate to, the contrast between their personal financial problems and fast-growing wealth of the super rich.
: What do you all think of the occupy wall street movement (that has now spread far beyond New York)?
: Some questions:
: Will it help or hurt? Make a change or not? Is this deja vu all over again (the sixties)? How will it affect next year's elections?