If you thought this weekend's demo in DC was lame

Its because it was.  Gandhi taught that any demonstration that did not provoke a response was a failure.  In this video, a guy named Richard Wolff compares the focused, well-organized, multi-city demonstrations in Europe against the plans of the austerity ghouls, with the meetup in DC which was organized to protest...whatever.



And here we have Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO complaining about the kind of economic advice Obama is getting.  Whatever happened to labor leaders that made demands?  (See above)



The Altars of Fear: Wrong Turns on a Long, Dark Road 

WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD

SATURDAY, 02 OCTOBER 2010 21:19

All across Europe, thousands of people have been taking to the streets in angry protests against the “austerity measures” being imposed upon them by their governments. A general strike in Spain. Mass protests in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, France, Lithuania, Belgium and several other nations. Legislators in Iceland had to literally run and hide from their own citizens at the opening of the nation’s parliament this week.

Why, ask the outraged crowds, should our lives be degraded in order to pay for the crimes and follies of the financial elite –- who are richer, more powerful and more arrogant than ever today, despite having plunged the world into economic catastrophe?

The Europeans, forever cast in American myth as fey, feckless, wine-sipping weaklings, have roused themselves to such an extent that the UN is now warning of years of "social unrest" due to the policies of the austerity zealots -- policies which are greatly exacerbating unemployment (with all the inevitable knock-on effects throughout the economy), while severely corroding the physical and social infrastructure of whole nations. Although the European public might be compelled to submit in the end -- by brute force, if necessary, as governments call out club-wielding cops to put down dissent -- at least they are not going quietly.

The same can't be said for the big, bold, burly American public, who for years have meekly submitted to the ever-accelerating deterioration of their lives and communities with nary a peep of protest. Trillions of their dollars are spent on murderous, pointless, wasteful rampages of war-profiteering in foreign lands, on obscene handouts and "guarantees" for the silk-suited scamsters of Wall Street, and on the monstrous expansion of a covert security apparatus that is seeking to invade and control every aspect of their lives -- but the American people say nothing and do nothing. more