Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The one picture that tells you everything you need to know about America in 2011

Cops on overtime guarding the Merrill Lynch bull in lower Manhattan -- what a metaphor for everything that's wrong in this country!

61 comments

The one picture that tells you everything you need to know about America in 2011

POSTED: Sunday, September 18, 2011, 11:47 PM

You've heard of a sacred cow, right? Only in America do we have a sacred bull -- a bronze idol to the false gods of Merrill Lynch and assorted other bankster racketeers. It's arguably outrageous enough that there's an official monument to these rodeo clowns on one of the most famous streets in America (Broadway, just off of Wall Street), a place that was once known as "The Canyon of Heroes" where people who actually contributed to the betterment of America were honored with ticker-tape parades. But it's more outrageous that the taxpayers of New York City are being charged God knows how much in police overtime to "defend" this graven image of Wall Street avarice

Kind of like how two straight administrations -- one Republican and one Democratic -- have worked overtime to protect the banksters from any criminal penalties for their crimes.

Right now, a small band of protestors -- it was several hundred to as many as 1,000 people on Saturday, probably less than that now -- are camped out near the center of American finance, part of a fairly spontaneous, social-media organized protest ( #occupywallstreet , among other Twitter hashtags ) aimed at going all Tahrir Square on Lower Manhattan. I don't think I'm going out on a huge limb to predict that they won't succeed -- not this time, not yet. I know we're all in love with the power of Twitter and all that, but the truth is that the Tea Party was able to get big (big, but not huge) crowds for its earlier protests because it had a national TV network, Fox News, mainstream conservative pols like Rick Perry and billionaires like the Koch Brothers promoting it. A left-wing protest isn't going to have that, especially not with the cowardly scared chickens of the Democratic Party clucking their way to the 2012 slaughterhouse.

The good news/bad news is that there's a pool of about 25 million unemployed and under-employed Americans from which to draw potential Wall Street occupiers, and the worse things get (just wait until the Boehner-Obama austerity program kicks in), the more likely that you'll see an American Winter take the ball from the Arab Spring.

I'll be pulling for 'em.

Will Bunch @ 11:47 PM  Permalink | 61 comments
61 comments
Comments  (61)
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:31 PM, 09/19/2011
    Psyrus, isn't it horrid to live in a country where you're constantly annoyed by liberal media and by a majority of voters who elect guys like Obama?
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:33 PM, 09/19/2011
    "What about the Huffington Post, Media Matters, Mother Jones and The Progressive to name a few" The Progressive? Mother Jones? Real media powerhouses, those! And HP joined the establishment a long time ago (actually, I've always thought it was The New Republic of online media - fake liberals trying to contain the arguments of the left).
    Hamlet
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:37 PM, 09/19/2011
    Please stop all the assembling,on Wall Street or Main street! go do something productive.
    Street Sense13
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:46 PM, 09/19/2011
    @Murrayman, I do not have to jusitfy any of my comments to you. Just because you do not agree with them doesn't make you right and me wrong. I formed my opinion based on multiple sources, including the left leaning Daily News and Inky. If that is too much for your overindulgent, self-righteousness to comprehend that is not my fault.
    psyrus
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:56 PM, 09/19/2011
    Obamacare was shoved down our throats -- uh, because it was. I don't have to substantiate -- it just was. NO, me not agreeing doesn't make you wrong -- you're wrong because the statements you make are stupid and lame and false and unsubstantiated and the more you try to act unbiased the more partisan you are, and thats fine, but embrace it. I don't necessarily support Obama and think him weak and timid, but the nonsense people like you come up with must be justifiably combatted.
    Murrayman
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:08 PM, 09/19/2011
    "must be justifiably combatted." --- So you are a true liberal. Liberals feel compelled to do just that. Along with the near constant insulting prove that you are a liberal, without a single doubt. I didn't want Obamacare. The people I elected to represent me didn't want Obamacare. My friends and family didn't want Obamacare. Why? I do not trust the government to competantly run or regulate healthcare (Lobbyists.). I do not want to give healthcare away to illegals (they can't keep them out of the country how can they keep them out of the healthcare?) nor do I want to give it away to America's territories. I do not want a government panel deciding on my medications or treatments when I get old (No its not "death panels" but some form of review board is in the law). I do not want a law that doesn't apply to EVERYONE. There are too many union exemptions. Coincidence? As for the deals, I believe it was called the Cornhusker Kickback. Google it. Now if Bush can be held accountable for all of the ills of the Republicans, so too can Obama be held liable for his Democrats. You can't have it one way and not the other.
    psyrus
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:11 PM, 09/19/2011
    ///I'll be pulling for 'em.///

    It's pretty sad to see someone promoting a revolution which has, so far, resulted in 20,000 deaths.
    General Turgidson
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:28 PM, 09/19/2011
    WHAT??????

    Can you tell me about these 20,000 deaths?

    You where promoting a revolution just last year, now that the people who can read and do not suck up the propaganda are rising you are against revolution in this country?
    DavidAG
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 11:59 AM, 09/20/2011
    Please show me where I was promoting a revolution, David. Especially promoting that revolution to be on the streets of the US as you claim I did, and as Will is doing with this post.

    As for the 20,000 deaths, it's pretty easy to find. Political World View (http://tinyurl.com/68jxm8s) estimated 15,000 Arab Spring deaths as of May 22 -- which doesn't include several months of heavy fighting in Libya since then.

    Wikipedia has it listed at an estimated 35,000.

  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:40 PM, 09/19/2011
    LA Times: Obama's urgent jobs plan: Right now, 'right now' means sometime next month maybe. However before we vote on it, he is going on another vacation. How you liberal minded people care so much, so open, and do not realize, this guy is lazy to the core. He demands and demands, but doesnt come to work to get things done. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/09/obama-jobs-speech-right-now-dick-durbin.html
    Fisher
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:33 PM, 09/19/2011
    WHAT????? AGAIN?????? MAKING UP FACTS??????

    Obama has taken 70 days compared to GW Bush 225 days of Vacation.

    Crazy, right wing wackos. Facts are facts, you can have your dumb opinions, you can have your self loathing attitudes but YOU CANNOT MAKE UP YOUR OWN FACTS!!!!!!
    DavidAG
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:02 PM, 09/19/2011
    There's no oligarchy? Are you serious, CleanUp. That's insane talk, even for a fascist.
    HandNik
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:31 PM, 09/19/2011
    "Liberals feel compelled to do just that. " Wow! I've only been gone a couple of months and Attytood signed on a mind reader. Not mearly a reader of people's minds, but a reader of millions of people's minds.
    Psyrus, impress me. What is everybody in northern California thinking right this minute? (You may pick any large American population, if you like…I’m easy to impress.)
    Hamlet
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:35 PM, 09/19/2011
    Should I Smoke the Red or the Blue?
    DavidAG
  • Comment removed.


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Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.

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