[SeaGypsy]

Agent, you have pretty much nailed it methinks. Your rant sums up my core difficulty with the Occupiers, reconciling their 9% with the lower 90 when they are in reality much closer to the top 1% in both living standards (3 squares& running water on tap/ clean bed& safe housing) and in alliegence, for the reasons described.

Ibon did you get out of bed on the wrong side?
Of course there is going to be a lot of recycled conversation here. But remember everyone posting or reading here is somewhere along that journey we keep talking about; Kubler-Ross/ grief. Many here have come right through and are well and truly at acceptance. The sharing across stages of personal acceptance, from those in devastating grief to those in post acceptance fully actualized intentional activity.

Think of it like a large dinner party where the same folks keep coming, the conversation circles around, new folks come in and need to catch up. The long timers need to balance informing newbies with not boring folks who have known each other for years; that is a real skill.

[radon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')Notable in this regard is the observation that 1 billionaire consumes less than a 1000 millionaires.

[SeaGypsy]

PStar, remember my background includes over a decade in Australia's own 3rd world theme park; remote Indigenous communities, besides being married to a woman who slept on cardboard all her life but was considered part of the ruling class.

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '
')our dialogue is quite a bit more substantial than the 8 word, 5 second sound bites that make up regular media.

[ralfy]

The IEA admitted a few months ago that we reached a peak in oil production sometime in 2006, and at best we will see only around a 9 pct increase in energy production from oil and gas resources during the next two decades, and that's assuming that conventional oil sources will not follow historical flow rates. Meanwhile, energy demand may rise at around 2 pct per annum. And if conventional oi sources do follow historical flow rates....

BP has shown that for the past five years energy consumption has been exceeding production from oil, and we've been meeting the excess by using other sources of energy, including biofuels, and this may be contributing to higher food prices.

The IEA adds that to just maintain current global economic growth we will need the equivalent of one Saudi Arabia every seven years, and likely substantial amounts of "easy oil," not shale or oil from Manifa.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')gent, you have pretty much nailed it methinks. Your rant sums up my core difficulty with the Occupiers, reconciling their 9% with the lower 90 when they are in reality much closer to the top 1% in both living standards (3 squares& running water on tap/ clean bed& safe housing) and in alliegence, for the reasons described.

[Heineken]

Perhaps, pstarr, but if we hadn't had this recession, by and large they wouldn't be there with their tents and their trash piles (and worse). Of course there's a long history of protests against "the system," but I'm specifically talking about Occupy. It's primarily a response to unemployment; they are angry because the system hasn't provided them with the lucrative employment they felt entitled to; and they have the time (and means) to elaborately express that anger. Ergo, deep down, they want to work for the system more than they want to change it (as if it could be changed!).

Ever since the Big Chill and the venal abandonment of Sixties ideals by those who radically espoused them, I've been skeptical of protest movements like Occupy.

At heart we all want the same damned stuff and will kill the world to get it.

[Heineken]

If the Occupiers got their way and shook the Elite out of their limousines, eventually they'd be only too happy to take their places in those cushy seats. That's the biggest issue I have with protests and revolutions---if they succeed, one elite merely replaces another. We've seen it happen several times in Russia; we're seeing it in modern Egypt. Dress them up any way you like, monkeys will be monkeys.

It's another reason why we're doomed. Human behavior (human nature) evolves too slowly to save us.

Orwell said it best, in "Animal Farm."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not "anti-protest." Protests sometimes help air the truth. But the truth isn't enough to save us, either.

But yes, back to topic. Now that I've "been back" for a few weeks, I definitely have the impression that the group of active participants on PO.com is much smaller than years ago. That's consistent with others' observations.

I'm glad you're here too, pstarr.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f the Occupiers got their way and shook the Elite out of their limousines, eventually they'd be only too happy to take their places in those cushy seats. That's the biggest issue I have with protests and revolutions---if they succeed, one elite merely replaces another. We've seen it happen several times in Russia; we're seeing it in modern Egypt. Dress them up any way you like, monkeys will be monkeys.

It's another reason why we're doomed. Human behavior (human nature) evolves too slowly to save us.

[Heineken]

Maybe, Vision.

Looking candidly into my own venal soul, I'm think I'm down on the kids because I see them as a threat to my oil stocks. Disgusting.

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')Orwell said it best, in "Animal Farm."

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'P')Star, remember my background includes over a decade in Australia's own 3rd world theme park; remote Indigenous communities, besides being married to a woman who slept on cardboard all her life but was considered part of the ruling class.

[SeaGypsy]

That's pretty reactionary and way paranoid Loki. The US' demise has very little to do with what people outside the US' would 'love to see happen'.
Who is the fight with? Silly 'aggression as solution/ panacea'?
If there were a majority of Americans like you Loki, the US would neither be locked into it's self destructive paradigm or engaged in pariah nation activity such as has become the norm.

[ennui2]

The last thing Occupiers think about is human footprint or population overshoot. On that basis, it's probably not the movement doomers with any sort of ecological bent should rally with. I saw a lot here align themselves with the right-wing Tea Party a few years ago and now it's Occupy and it's merely a case of trying to find some mainstream traction with anyone who claims to be anti-TPTB, but when it all comes down to it, nobody wants to powerdown, and therefore when we really hit the backside of LTG, we're going to hit hard and no amount of social justice movements will help matters.