A Romantic, a Monk, and a Neoliberal Walk Into a Bar…
On Romanticism in Politics Romanticism is wonderful in a work of fiction, art or video game. As a died-in-the-wool modern day romantic, I’ve spent most of my life doing my best to use fantasy...
Tagged: Occupy Wall Street
Why Can’t the Leftists Teach Their Children How to Speak?
Michael Kazin in Dissent, echoing some of my concerns in recent posts: But the meaning of liberalism gradually changed. The quarter-century of growth and low unemployment that followed the Second World War understandably muted...
In Which I Discuss Jonathan Franzen’s Remarks at Length
Speaking recently at the Hay Festival in Cartagena, Colombia, American novelist, Jonathan Franzen, attacked what he identifies as the impermanence of ebooks. His following remarks are what Andrew Sullivan recently dismissed as “Wieseltierian piffle,”
Dante Occupies Wall Street
~by Arthur Emlen In the Fall of 1947 at the University for Foreigners in Perugia, I took a course in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. Dante completed this epic poem in 1321 just before he died. It...
One, Two, American Dream
Tom Van Dyke’s recent post on how we’re not so good at math when it matters reminded me that we’re not so good at math when it matters. When linguists first began investigating tribal...
Democracy and Occupy Wall Street
Shawn writes: After facilitating at a general assembly several weeks back, one of my best friends received a message from a participant thanking him for the empowering experience. Even in the “world’s greatest democracy,”...
Who Occupies the Occupiers?
I’m glad Mike Drew wrote a guest post. Mike’s comments are consistently the ones I meditate over most (which explains why I rarely respond to them while the thread is still active.), and Mike’s...
Democratic Participation and The Tactics of Occupy Wall Street
~by Michael Drew In comments, Professor James Hanley had this rebuke of the NYPD, followed by some advice for Occupy Wall Street: [C]olor me exceptionally disgusted by NYC’s shock and awe approach, which is...
You say you want a revolution, well…
Michael Drew, in the comments: First the knock was that they’d never last. Now the problem seems to be that they hung on too long and things got a little ripe. I would counsel...
OWS: Time to Grow Up
(Photo of “An empty Zuccotti Park” by @jimbradysp via Andrew Sullivan) Yesterday, Elias Isquith asked what should occupy Wall Street do next? His own answer is that OWS should rally against “voter suppression.” Doing so, Isquith...
Can the Occupy Movement Tackle Crony Capitalism?
In a comment on Shawn Gude’s previous post on the main page about the Occupy movement, I asked who the “1%” is and whether Occupy protesters were primarily aggrieved about “Wall Street,” or whether...
Would J.R.R. Tolkien Have Occupied Wall Street?
I’m not sure where this came from originally (I found it on Facebook) but it’s pretty hilarious. Of course, it’s hard to say what Tolkien would have thought of these particular protests. He was...
Found Conversation
SCENE: News footage of Occupy Boston protestors getting manhandled by police comes on screen, patrons at American Legion bar smirk and shake their heads. Bartender: Ya’know what these clowns want, do yah? Socialism! Socialism...
Promises Were Broken
by E.C. Gach In a recent guest post, Aaron B. pointed out that the Occupy Wall Street movement is, perhaps more than anything else, about forging a shared political identity and civic community. And...
Occupy Wall Street
~by Aaron B. Slowly but surely, the Occupy Wall Street protests are gaining the attention of the mainstream media. A New York Times story on global protest movements makes a passing mention of the...
