What If Occupy Really Wanted Change?

Let's assume that the Occupy protesters have good intentions to actually change the system they feel is onerous and tyrannical and is not just a means to create havoc for the sake of havoc. What could they do to actually make their case for substantive difference in our system?

1. Stop acting like spoiled brats and remember that they aren't the only ones with rights to move freely. There are people in the areas they are protesting in that have rights as well. Those people want to live and work in peace. It's tough for them. They couldn't take TWO MONTHS out of their schedule to sit around and meet. What about their rights??

2. Actually have some stated goals, not just "the 1% sucks". Squatting in a park on Wall Street did not affect one trade or bond deal. If they wanted to get a media hit out of it, they could have gotten a permit to march for a couple of days with their "hand-made" signs and 1960s slogans to start things off. Then, more substantive actions could have been taken: for example, there was an activist in California, I believe, that pushed the idea of moving one's money from the national banks to local credit unions. What better way to get the attention of major companies that hitting their bottom line and making them compete for your business?

3. Don't treat PRIVATE property as your own personal outhouse. Come on people! Really? Defacating on police cars and sidewalks? Public urination?

4. The most outrageous of the behaviors is the outright crime going on in these areas. The supporters of the "movement" don't want to talk about this, but the idea that rapes, child molestation, drug use, murder, assault, theft and any combination of these is going on in these supposedly peaceful protest areas is sickening. Why would anyone listen to your demands when you have basically created an outdoor prison environment?

5. Of all the places in the country where the Occupy movement should have been protesting is Capitol Hill, Washington DC. The traders and banks on Wall Street could care less what you people do because Congress will continue to fund their largess. Go to Capitol Hill and ask the congressional leadership (both Democrat and Republican) why they gave billions (if not trillions) of dollars to companies that were "too big to fail". After that, march on over to the White House and demand the answer to the same question. THOSE are the people that made this system the way it is. Why would you blame the recipient of ill-gotten gains and not the donor?

6. Don't be partisan. If you really want to change things, become an anti-incumbent movement and throw all the bums out! The Tea Party flirted with this idea, though they are largely a Republican organization, but they started out of dissatisfaction with both parties and their spending habits. Actually, there could be some solidarity with the Tea Party (if you drop all of the communist, union support, oh, and the rapes and drug use) on some issues if the Occupiers were so inclined.

Those are just a few things that the Occupiers could have done to make their movement more effective. But, we all know there is no interest on their part to actually change anything. They are bored, overwhelming white, middle to upper class kids that don't like homeless people and want to "do something". I guess every generation has to have their college protesters who think they are the best and the brightest, but turn out to be nothing of the sort.

GE and the Left

Making connections between political actors can be fun sometimes. Especially when those connections highlight a hypocritical aspect of their stated beliefs and notions. In this case, the connection is between standard leftist thinking and the actual facts of a modern corporation. The Occupy folks have been railing against corporations, capitalism et al. for weeks now. It has been shown that they are a tad bit disingenuous about their protestations considering they are using Apple iPhones to communicate, wearing Gap clothing and drinking Starbucks coffee as they scream about the corporate takeover of the country.

I want to make another connection and it starts with GE (General Electric). GE's CEO is Jeffrey Immelt, who just so happens to serve as President Obama's informal economic adviser. Obama has spoken out against fat cats and private jet users, so it's curious that he would name the CEO of a multinational conglomerate as his adviser, but whatever. GE's business is pretty broad-based. They are involved in consumer appliances, loans, media, aviation, oil and gas among other things. The particular connection I want to make today has to do with their aviation and media businesses.

GE Aviation builds aircraft engines for civilian and military aircraft. Pretty much all of the military aircraft's engines are made by GE. From the F-16, F15 and F117 to the B-1, B-2 and C-5, GE has pretty well cornered the market on powering our military's aircraft. No problem right? Right. Now, let's go to the media. GE is a 49% holder of NBCUniversal, which has a cable division called MSNBC. MSNBC is a combination of two corporations: Microsoft and NBC. As most people know, MSNBC is a left-leaning news organization that competes with FoxNews, which is a right-leaning news organization. Still no problem.

Here comes the problem: leftist are usually about peace and love and harmony and such right? Well, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has set up a foundation with his wife Melinda. You've probably heard of it. It's goal is to help underdeveloped regions of the world. Noble goal. So, the problem comes when the global conglomerate that makes engines for some of the most advanced killing machines in the history of the world, runs a peace/love/harmony-loving media outfit that is partnered with a billionaire philanthropist helping in some of the regions that those aircraft have or could be dropping bombs. Not to mention that the anti-corporate messages coming out of the White House in support of the Occupy movement belie the fact that one of the largest (actually the 6th) corporations in the country has its hands in some weird, disparate operations.

I'm not saying that any of this is corrupt or illegal, it just struck me as overly hypocritical on the left's part to not see this connection as problematic for their beliefs.

Better Luck Next Year...

Well, I guess it was too good to be true. During and after his first legislative test, President Obama declared that we would know exactly how and where every dollar, actually, every DIME, would be spent. He made a big deal about Recovery.org, a website that would list, down to the contractor level, how and where the "stimulus" money would be spent.

I took a gander at Recovery.org to see how things are going and to my surprise, after looking for stimulus spending sent to NJ, all I could find was a general overview (NJ gets about $2 billion). There's nothing specific about who is getting it and how EXACTLY it's going to be spent. So much for transparency. But to top things off, the actual information that Obama bragged about providing won't be available sooner than October and possibly as late as next Spring!

The man who is leading the government's effort to get Recovery.org up and running, Earl Devaney, said that it would be a "challenge to have the site ready to present data in five months" and, after the hearing before the House Subcommittee on Science and Technology, that "the board [Recovery Transparency and Accountability Board] doesn't have enough storage capacity".

Ok. I'm not a huge techie who spends hours figuring out how to program this or that, but I do realize that computers have a limited capacity to store and process information. If there is a lot of information that needs to be used on a computer, you have to ensure the computer is capable of handling it right? If the government is planning on sharing $800 billion worth of spending information, don't you think you should have a friggin' Cray computer set up to handle the data? Asleep at the switch doesn't even begin to describe this.

I know, politicians make promises all the time, but this is supposed to be the era of enlightenment and super technology with one of the most "plugged-in" presidents in our nation's history! What happened?

Anyway, just to make us feel confident in the Board's ability to take charge of its mandate and get the job done, Devaney said that after they wait six to nine months for the White House Office of Management and Budget to come up with rules on how the stimulus spending information should be released, he would, "...push them for as much data as possible".

Man, I feel so much better.

Don't Do It!

President-elect Obama is floating the idea of naming New York Senator Hillary Clinton to be our next Secretary of State. Big mistake.

If I can offer him a wee bit of advice: Keep her out of the Executive Branch if you value your Administration (and your sanity)!

The simple way to look at this is you have three large planetary masses orbiting each other: Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton. These three masses have tremendous gravitational pull on each other and on millions of smaller masses. If these masses are brought closer together it would make the Big Bang look like a firecracker.

Here's a scenario: President Obama is having some trouble with, oh I don't know, Iran. He decides that, without preconditions, he's going to send SecState Hill over to talk to our new friend Mahmoud. She stumbles and says the wrong thing or doesn't wear the proper head scarf or whatever and the press gets wind of it. Who do they go running to for a comment? Big Bill. You know the press LOVES controversy, so this could turn into a great story!

Bill: "Heck, I don't know what she was thinking, but if I was over there..."

You see Mr. President, you are asking for a lot of trouble and a lot of leaks if the Clintons are anywhere near the White House or your foreign policy apparatus.

Leave her in the Senate and help pay off her debt. If she starts jet-setting around the globe she'll only be making more friends to help her in 2012 and you don't want to face that possibility do you?

Oh, and one more thing Mr. President: If your main reason for mentioning Senator Clinton for the most important cabinet position in the government is to bring the Democratic Party together, shame on you. Now is the time for a professional diplomat with an understanding of the geopolitical minefields that await us as we move further into the 21st Century.

Managing the problems brought by Venezuela, Russia, China, Afghanistan, Iraq, India, Pakistan and all of Africa are a bit more important than political party unity don't you think?