Overweening Generalist

Thursday, October 6, 2011

I'd Rather Not Write About the Federal Reserve (three more vids - two [?] from Occupy - early October, 2011)

I have my reasons. One reason: I went through a period of reading about the Fed's history, the conspiracy theories about it, what some ballsy economists have said about it, etc. I find very many educated people I talk to know little or nothing about it. (Part of our paideuma?)

I'd say Google "Federal Reserve history" and "Federal Reserve conspiracy theories" and just read and read and watch vids. Then Wiki it and note the books on it, maybe read one or three over the next few months...if that's your thing. The best book I've read on the subject, so far, is William Greider's Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country. HERE's an article by Greider from 2009 on the topic.

I have other reasons for not writing about the Fed, and they're related to writing about Ezra Pound on banking: it's an oddly dicey thing, requiring too many caveats; there's too much baggage, and you're climbing onto a vehicle with a ton of unsavory characters, most of them who still seem to have a point, but...Oh anyway. If you want to weigh in on the Fed, go ahead. In the comments section. Set me straight!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Speaking of the Fed, the closest thing to a Mario Savio for the Occupy Wall Street movement - that I've seen - is this young guy (first video, below), a Ron Paul supporter. I think Ron Paul's particular ideas of laissez faire are probably wrong, or I simply find too many faults with them, given my non-privileged vantage point and current understanding about how people "really" act. I do think Ron Paul has the sanest foreign policy ideas of any of the candidates running, including Obama.

This fiery young guy I find gripping, and you're not going to see this on corporate TV. (The person who titled it chose to put Beck and Rush in the title, but they are not mentioned by the young firebrand):


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Compare this to the tenor or Mario Savio's now 47 year-old "machine speech," from the Berkeley FSM:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This third video I found fittingly October-Halloweenish creeeeepy. The production values seem oddly high. It's Free Speech in my book, and enthralling. It's purportedly from "Anonymous," and the text fascinates me. I'm captivated by the history of extreme speech, and avidly collect books filled with what almost all citizens would find "outrageous" speech/texts/ideas. Those who've studied the antisemitic and notorious hoax  The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion will recognize some tropes here. I see up-to-date left-wing anarchist tropes here, too. I see some riffs that remind me of Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers.  I'd guess the writer(s) of this text were influenced by Georges Sorel, although that's a preliminary guess. According to the Wiki link I gave for Mario Savio, above, Anonymous has sampled from Savio, too. (It all comes full circle!)

I daresay I agree with the general thrust of the message; there are many who will want to shy away from some of the more inflammatory rhetoric, delivered in a diabolically "cool" style, almost cartoonishly suave, with hip middle-eastern quasi-qawwali music swirling around in the background. Rather than an impassioned speech like the one from the young New Yorker above, who is thoroughly steeped in 20th century populist rhetoric about monetary reform and the 2008 bank bailouts, this one seems more aptly placed as conspiracy rhetoric. One group alone is the problem...They cause Everything Bad...

I confess a marked squeamishness about the violent undertones, which at times percolate to the surface of the text. Especially "frontier justice." That's what interests me most about this video, uploaded to YT the first week of October, 2011: the sorts of rhetorical flourishes used. This one has some doozies. And I don't understand it: did they get a trained actor to deliver the text? It's a marvelously well-chosen speaking voice for this sort of rhetoric, and there's the now-familiar Anonymous V For Vendetta mask...

Which brings up another point: Anonymous seems to me to leave themselves open to a particular sort of Agent Provocateur: what's to stop the Far Right from adopting the same masks and calling themselves Anonymous? How would the original "Anonymous" group defend themselves?

Another thing we will not see on TV, to say the least!:

Does anyone think I've been irresponsible for including this on my blog? Speak now, free-speechers!

6 comments:

ARW23 said...

I think "the protest videos" should be played on TV now instead of commercials in order to rise the awareness. I wonder which TV channel will do it first? (Do I sound too optimistic?)

BTW: Nice comment on "Anonymous".
What an artfuly done video.

Thank you for being "irresponsible" and including it on your blog.

michael said...

@ARW23: corporate TV will neer show this stuff. Here's a basic test: if they have commercials, they're not showing this stuff. Besides, the fiery New Yorker (anyone know his name?) said "fuck" a few times, to good poetic effect, I thought. FCC! Fines, etc...

"Anonymous"'s message seems not only anathema to anything close to corporate TV, it seems totally threatening.

Okay, so here's the thing: if you're under 30, you may see You Tube as your major "TV" source. People over 40 don't seem to get that; I read about it a couple years ago and didn't get it. But I've thought a lot about it, and for sombunall under-30ers, it's mostly true.

I've started to classify YT as Wild West TV, but there are some things that are not allowed, like porn. But we can find that elsewhere, with ease, wot?

ARW23 said...

Fuck corporate America.
Fuck FCC.
I just thought it would be very practical now to have TV channel, for example: We The People (WTP)?
I guess, that's where YouTube comes in. How would we otherwise see "Anonymous"!?

ARW23 said...

I want to apologize for using word "fuck" in the above context. I should not have used it in that context. I feel I abused the word "fuck". Let me make it very clear: I do not discriminate among words. In my view, words consist of letters. And, yes, words do have connotations. And speaking of connotations, word "fuck" most of the time has a pleasurable connotation, at least from my experience I do not understand why the word "fuck" still sounds shocking to many, or as a swear word? I don't know about you, but in my view this world would be much better place if people would fuck more. Sounds familiar? : "Make love, not war."

Although when it comes to most corporations and Wall Street the closest most of them come to sex is by sucking on dollar bill.

So, do not fuck corporations and do not fuck FFC. Rather let's put corporate gangsters in prison and make them return the money they stole from us.

michael said...

@ARW23: No need, to apologize, man! I think I get what you mean on the semantics of "fuck."

It's difficult at times to see our adversary as fully human, eh?

As Tom Jackson replied in another blogpost to me, he thought anything like a "show trial" for the kleptokrats was not...wise..

I thought he was probably right.

But we can expose these guys: what they did, how they did it. Poetically, of course...

Finally: you know how the Republicans say they want to get rid of governmental departments entirely? The ones that I can easily see going - but seem to be favored by Republicans - is the TSA, DEA, and ATF.

Won't hold my breath/go figure.

No but seriously: I think we can de-fang the FCC, and we ought to.

Eric Wagner said...

Thank you for another interesting post.