re: #469 Jimmah

Killgore has a perfectly good point. It is Adbusters who put out the call for OWS. And Adbusters really did launch a kludgy, stupid, “Too many Jews” campaign during the Iraq war. It really, really actually infuriates me that with Bush and Cheney at the helm Adbusters decided that talking about how many Jews there were in the administration made any sort of sense. Iraq was a war that Bush wanted, that Cheney wanted, and that they made happen because of what they believed. It was not because there were too many Jews in the administration.

This means it’d be very difficult for someone like me to go to a protest sponsored by Adbusters. Not just because I’m Jewish, but because of the idiocy of that attack. And because they were started by guys with close ties to ANSWER.

However, the issue that the people out there are protesting, of how unfair it is that the banks, which precipitated the financial crisis, were basically rewarded rather than punished, is a very real one. For anyone who’s not familiar with Adbuster’s history, I don’t blame that at all for showing up.

But I really don’t know how effective this protest is at doing anything in particular. Most of the US already supports higher taxes on the rich, more regulation on banks, etc. etc. The will is there. I’m not sure how these protests will transform that will into actual political action.

I think what we really need is voting drives, and ID drives in those states with the new, restrictive laws. I think we need campaigning for the various Democratic senators who are up for re-election or replacing retiring ones.

I do think that the goals of Adbusters and ANSWER are revolutionary ones, because they flat-out say so. Adbusters really are anti-capitalist and pro-anarchist.

And they really are the ones who called for OWS.