- Occupy LegoLand
Have you ever attended a protest?
What do YOU think of “free speech zones”?
Do you find it odd that we have to get a permit to protest and can only protest on certain areas, and if we step outside of certain areas, we can be arrested, despite being in a public street or on public land?
Is your nonprofit like “We Are Oregon” and working to make a better future for ALL Americans? Are you helping foreclosed families stay in their homes? Are you helping people find jobs? Are you helping the homeless? Are you helping the hungry?
I salute you for accepting reality, and wanting to change it. It may not be glamorous, it may not make the news as often as we’d like, but the work you’re doing is valuable and important.
This post is for you.
It’s not about love it or leave it.
It’s about hate it and change it.
“Look, if we can’t face reality, we can’t accept reality. If we can’t accept reality, we can’t change reality.” -Umair Haque
This is why I’m not going to sugarcoat this stuff for you.
“Let’s cut the childish crap that I need to hold your hand and sing you happy songs. This is about reality, not you and your insecurities.”
“My advice, read more “self-help” books. I mean, it’s not like your society needs to change–nor that you need to be part of changing it.”
“Wouldn’t it be cool if we could all turn into couch potato zombies and society could run itself? Oh, wait.”
On the Financial Crisis
“It’s a system for feudal patronage. RTÂ @umairh: It’s not really a “financial system” anymore…It’s a zombie machine, an algorithm of self-referential numbers that generate self-fulfilling crises. Endgame: self-destruction.
“If you don’t understand the anti-logic of the neofeudal agenda–stripping away not just your future, but your dignity and humanity…start.”
Two kinds of experts. expert in building a working economy, expert in blowing it up. of course, that doesn’t make them experts in anything but screwing us. that’s my point.
It only matters when a banker says it. When you say, it doesn’t. The logic of serfdom at it’s purest. You should be chilled by that. Because the job of a working fourth estate is to speak for the people, not the plutocrats.
The assumption is still the same: the morons that blasted the economy apart know better than the rest of us. Absolute bullshit.
Dear media. It’s highly embarrassing to keep citing “bankers” as “experts”. These folks *blew up the economy*. Welcome to reality.
I find it chilling that our national discourse has sunk to this level of barbarism. You should, too. It’s so, so, so wrong.
“Large chunks of our former prosperity were based on Reality Deficit Disorder.”
On Occupy Wall Street
Media logic: protestors aren’t just kids struggling with transformative issues–they’re dumb. Bankers? Repentant geniuses to glorify.
Does anybody hear phrases like “Free-speech zones” and “First Amendment areas” without getting the shivers?
Look, just because you only have freedom of speech in certain places at certain times doesn’t mean you’re not free to buy stuff.
The art of subversion begins with using the logic of a system against itself.
So, stifled dissent, a toothless judiciary, a broken economy, and a fractured society aren’t merely coincidental. They’re the point.
-Umair Haque is a goddamn genius. that is all.