Up with Chris Hayes 11/17/2012 -- The active small percent

I don't know what percentage of the population OWS represents, but it has to be small -- however, when watching Chris Hayes's show you'd think OWS has national influence and are really changing fundamentals in this country. Media have propped up OWS and given them more favorable coverage than they merit, and Haye's conflation of the last Presidential election with signals showing OWS influence is terribly misguided and delusionally hopeful.

The first progressive panel on Hayes's show talked about the fiscal cliff talks and how the premise regarding debt reduction is all wrong. Hayes and his guests, which included an OWS type, the congress person Jerry Nadler and couple of other progressives/Obama supporters, all said we should tax, borrow and spend on stimulus/investment. Heather McGhee recommended hiring a million or so young people in publkic service positions to spread out across the country and rebuild America, doing infrastructure-like stuff.

The panel said that Obama really believes in deficit reduction and trying to balance the budget. Yes, Obama's actions in office scream deficit reduction and balanced budget. Progressives are still pushing their agenda and smearing Romney and Republicans -- they're still in campaign mode. They're in campaign mode because no one has any idea how to implement their vague plans. They just know that if they tax the rich and find various ways to transfer money from the private to the public sector, they can spend money and create jobs and this ought to make things better.

The other panel represented the other part of the vague plan they don't know to implement -- relieving debt owed by people who can't pay it back. Debt is oppressive, so if debt is relieved this will liberate people to...uh...to pile up more debt they can't afford, I guess. Seriously, if people can't afford to pay their debt now, and if they are using debt to pay for basic needs, then when the debt is relieved government will have to pay for their basic needs if the problem is to be solved. I think this is what they are getting at -- debtors and poor people in general have to have basic benefits that cover food, clothing, transportation and shelter, with enough for computer access.

I think this percentage that needs basic benefits is around 17%, but it will quickly rise when those between 17% and 25% or so understand that they can get basic needs taken care of if they reduce their income by a small margin. This is what's important to Hayes and OWS buds. Free the people, or free to the people, whatev.

OWS and their apologists

There's been much talk about OWS, with some saying it's a politically impotent movement that lacks focus and defined purpose, and other saying it's a movement outside a corrupt political process attempting to affect a response from without.

From what I've gathered, in spite of the mercurial posturing to avoid definition, the movement is a new form of counter-culture represented by a relative handful of young people separating themselves from the "system". There are older 60's throwbacks and those in the political class on the Left who "relate" to OWS, but the main core is a counterculture group displeased with the way things are.

While OWS apologists rail against outside analyses, nothing prevents observers on the outside forming opinions. As convenient as it would be to insulate the group from critical analysis, it's not the way things work, especially when outsiders can be affected if OWS influences change. This counterculture collective appears to have little desire to work within the system to affect change -- they want the system to respond to their displeasure. OWS has promoted few morally righteous, floating abstractions, , like fairness and equality, disconnected from messy facts in reality and nuance.

My best guess is that this counterculture group wants the system, the State, to respond to their partially formed ideas of fairness and equality, whether this means having access to meaningful, good paying jobs, forgiveness of debt, disempowerment of Wall Street, or a more comprehensive entitlement structure that includes meeting the basic human needs of shelter, food, clothing and income for everyone who's not rich. In order to meet the requests, OWS wants the State to fund the transformation through fair redistribution from the 1% to the figurative 99%, and by making corporations responsive to hiring needs and debt relief.

OWS appears to want a more pure and direct government control over industry, free of cronyism and dedicated to general welfare. In some ways Obama is pandering to these requests from the OWS counterculture movement by calling for fairness and denigrating the free market as an "on your own" losing proposition for the middle class and the poor. OWS requests are purposefully vague because they don't want to short themselves of potential benefits. As long as their displeasure is not sharply defined, the umbrella of fairness and equality can cover many requests for fairness and equality going forward -- the main victory is subjugation of the 1% to the needs and wants of the not-1%. Of course, if OWS gets their way, the golden goose will sicken and die, and then there will be a shared decline and lowered standard of living for all. In the long run (not that long though), there will be financial collapse, but in the long run we're all dead, right?