Slog
News & ArtsFriday, April 6, 2012
Occupy Down With Capitalism! Buy Our Stuff!
Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 4:56 PM
This Occupy Wall Street kids t-shirt—featuring a fist with six fingers plus a thumb—is hanging from a canopy this afternoon in Westlake Park. An orange shirt says, "We Are the 99 Percent" and bears the Amalgamated Transit Union logo. I asked the guy manning the table of Occupy Seattle literature, how much for the shirts? "It's a donation," he said. How much? "Ten dollars."
1
So apparently there are no artists involved in the local Occupy movement that could have made a reasonably decent logo. That's unfortunate.
2
Jesus, has that guy ever seen a hand before? That thumb is making Christ weep tears of motor oil.
Is that a giant cardboard brass knuckles behind it?
Is that a giant cardboard brass knuckles behind it?
4
Dominic,
Occupy? Occupy?
Wasn't that a political movement that was suppose to shake up the foundation of our society?:)
Occupy? Occupy?
Wasn't that a political movement that was suppose to shake up the foundation of our society?:)
9
Don't worry, it's only taken Dominic 6 months what we figured out the first week. This ain't no revolution. It's the world's smallest circle jerk with Holden giving blow-by-blow blog posts straight from Ian Finklewanker's mouth.
10
#9
Which is a knockoff of Robert Mitchum in "Night of the Hunter"
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_41h1KEUny6U/S6…
11
Oh lord, Goldy for heavens sake... Capitalism has a slight difference to a market. The idea that someone who dislike something - like pollution or poverty - should avoid it at all costs is just plain wierd. I mean I get the point, criticize them for their antipopular movement, but don't make up shit.
You don't like sexism, I bet, but your still part of it (like all of us) so why aren't you living in a cave secluded from the rest of humanity?
You don't like pollution, I guess, so why are you breathing it or eating, or buying clothes or just not living in a cave?
I'm pretty sure your not very pro poverty and the missmanagement of economy (anticapitalist or not), but your still very much a part of it. Why not live in a cave?
The reason popular movements (of all colours) sell tshirts, books and need membership fees is that its not for free. Everything is a commodity and the idea that you can break out of it by pretending it never happened died with the utopian movements failure to actually break out of a large global system of governance, philosofy and economy.
Like I said, please criticize them, but this is an argument that could just aswell been replaced with the equally relevant "go back to russia!".
You don't like sexism, I bet, but your still part of it (like all of us) so why aren't you living in a cave secluded from the rest of humanity?
You don't like pollution, I guess, so why are you breathing it or eating, or buying clothes or just not living in a cave?
I'm pretty sure your not very pro poverty and the missmanagement of economy (anticapitalist or not), but your still very much a part of it. Why not live in a cave?
The reason popular movements (of all colours) sell tshirts, books and need membership fees is that its not for free. Everything is a commodity and the idea that you can break out of it by pretending it never happened died with the utopian movements failure to actually break out of a large global system of governance, philosofy and economy.
Like I said, please criticize them, but this is an argument that could just aswell been replaced with the equally relevant "go back to russia!".
13
Yo, Can I suggest you learn a thing or two about what capitalism is? Read some Marx, perhaps? As long as this person isn't paying workers to sell the shirt and then paying them less than the amount of labor they do in order to extract surplus profit from them, this particular transaction wouldn't be reproduction the conditions of capitalism. Learn up a thing or two about market socialism, which could very well be a particular economic form this person seeks to live within. Me personally, I'd suggest you read up on a form of anarchism called mutualism, but that's just me.
14
Its also funny because after that little exchange you probably didn't ask him, "Well, isn't selling a graphic tee for slightly below market price simply perpetuating the economic system which you claim to want to abolish?", at which point, you probably could have gotten a lesson on how capitalism is a specific form of market-based relations. But instead, you got all smug and decided to blog about the imagined hypocrisy of the occupy movement to your little slog circlejerk.
15
This reminds me of Rage Against the Machine making mint off anti-corporate hate while selling CDs and merchandise from a corporate base.
Well, it reminds me of it.
Well, it reminds me of it.
16
We live within capitalism. We can't even begin to struggle against it without first having our needs met, which means selling our labor power. The only way you could really avoid it would be to go live in a shack in the woods and grow your own food, but what good would that do? Just because we're living in this situation doesn't mean that contradicts our struggle, though some lifestyle changes certainly help a bit. Seriously Dominick, your liberal nativity is astounding at times. It irritates me, but I won't hate on you too bad.
17
@Floater:
"When you live in a capitalistic society, the currency of the dissemination of information goes through capitalistic channels. Would Noam Chomsky object to his works being sold at Barnes & Noble? No, because that's where people buy their books. We're not interested in preaching to just the converted. It's great to play abandoned squats run by anarchists, but it's also great to be able to reach people with a revolutionary message, people from Granada Hills to Stuttgart." -- Tom Morello
"Yeah, to get as many people as possible to join the political debate, to get the dialogue going. I was wondering today, why would anyone climb to the roof of the American Embassy with a banner that says 'Free Mumia Abu-Jamal', why do you do that? That's to get the international press' attention. The international network that Sony has available, is to me the perfect tool you know, it can get even more people to join a revolutionary awareness and fight." -- Zack de la Rocha
"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." - Lenin
"When you live in a capitalistic society, the currency of the dissemination of information goes through capitalistic channels. Would Noam Chomsky object to his works being sold at Barnes & Noble? No, because that's where people buy their books. We're not interested in preaching to just the converted. It's great to play abandoned squats run by anarchists, but it's also great to be able to reach people with a revolutionary message, people from Granada Hills to Stuttgart." -- Tom Morello
"Yeah, to get as many people as possible to join the political debate, to get the dialogue going. I was wondering today, why would anyone climb to the roof of the American Embassy with a banner that says 'Free Mumia Abu-Jamal', why do you do that? That's to get the international press' attention. The international network that Sony has available, is to me the perfect tool you know, it can get even more people to join a revolutionary awareness and fight." -- Zack de la Rocha
"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." - Lenin
19
This is only of tangential following but:
The image of "Occupy" is in serious danger. People don't mind watching a cop beat the shit out of a dirty hippy. But replace that hippy with a man in a three-piece-suit and people will start talking. You don't have to shave; you don't even need to cut your hair, but you need to have the barest consideration for both hygiene and appropriate attire.
No-one's going to give a shit what happens to you otherwise.
The image of "Occupy" is in serious danger. People don't mind watching a cop beat the shit out of a dirty hippy. But replace that hippy with a man in a three-piece-suit and people will start talking. You don't have to shave; you don't even need to cut your hair, but you need to have the barest consideration for both hygiene and appropriate attire.
No-one's going to give a shit what happens to you otherwise.
20
@19 AMEN!! But Occupy doesn't give a shit about being taken seriously to create change...it's nothing more than an excuse to bitch while accomplish nothing. So let the cops beat the shit out of them. It's entertaining at this point.
22
Wow. Dom. Seriously. You have really resorted to turning the Stranger into a tabloid. Occupy clearly has to raise money because we exist in a capitalist society. Thus, we... RAISE MONEY.
Also, not all of Occupy is anti-capitalist. We DO have Marxists, we DO have anarchists, we DO have the Trotskyists (much to our chagrin at times), we have capitalists (and all the iterations thereof, Democrats, libertarians, etc) and we also have stinky hippies who don't care about all that and just want to save the whales.
So it's not just simplistic, this silly tabloid article you put up. It's incorrect.
You're starting to piss me off.
23
@3 thank you, btw, for pointing out an artistic reference instead of resorting to cheap shots about intelligence.
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