The Occupier's Manifesto

The Occupier’s Manifesto

(my apologies to The Mentor)

Another one got pepper sprayed and arrested today—it’s in all the blogs.  “Occupied Wall Street Protest Gets Ugly.”  Damn protestors, they’re all alike.

But did you ever stop to think, unplug from your cushy upper-middle-class-baby-booming-GenX life and ask yourself why these Americans are so outraged?  I am an activist, enter my world…

My world begins at work.  I’m an underpaid cost consultant for the advertising agencies on Madison Avenue.  I’m smarter than most of my coworkers and my managers feel threatened by me.  Damn nonconformist, they’re all alike. 

I made a discovery today: A Demonstration.  A group of people who are as disgusted by our failed healthcare, financial and education systems as I am.  This group doesn’t shut me up if I speak at a meeting.  There’s no performance review here.  If I have a health concern, the people in The Park don’t tell me, “your health insurance doesn’t cover that.”  If I feel the group is moving in the wrong direction, I can say so, without fear of being fired. 

Suddenly it spread like wildfire across the country.  Tens of thousands of protestors united by the common bond that America does not have to remain a place where only the rich thrive.  People with jobs that could be more rewarding; people with one or two college degrees, with aspirations for the America their parent’s had—people with vision. 

I feel cheated by my country.  When I was a kid you told me to work hard, attend college and get a job in Manhattan.  I did all of this, yet it’s impossible for me to pay my mortgage, save for retirement and put a kid through college—what my parents did for me.  Damn spoiled brat, they’re all alike.

You take my tax money, use it to wage wars so your friends can get rich, lie to me and tell me it’s for my own good and when your same friends squander away all their profits, you ask me to bail you out.    

Like any other 29 year old New Yorker, I’m concerned with my career.  My company pays me enough to pay my bills and eat, but anything else is a stretch.  If I want to buy Christmas presents for my girlfriend, I have to get a second job.  A second job just so I can buy things people don’t need from a store that probably treats their employees worse than I’m treated at my first job!  Damn ungrateful 20-something, they’re all alike.

And then it hit me, like a person who is drowning wishes he were hit with a life preserver: Occupy Wall Street can work.  Demonstration is back in Democracy.  Democracy is back in America.  Activism is the new black.  A revolution which will rival the antiwar movements of the Sixties has already begun and it is too late for it to be stopped. 

No longer will students with no prospects of a career be relegated to their bedroom at their parent’s house.  No longer will disaffected workers, given raises that are less than the rate of inflation (if they even get a raise) have to squirrel themselves away in their cubicles.  No longer will the workers of America shut up.  We will not be silent. 

I am an activist and this is my manifesto.  You may stop me, but you cannot stop us all.  After all, we’re all alike. 

[This piece is an adaptation of The Hacker Manifesto, by The Mentor]

A Response to OWS Criticism re: Economic Knowledge

A response to today’s MSM accusations that OWS demonstrators are blind to economic issues. 

*NOTE: MSM typically polls persons they assess as being aligned with the subjective theme of their story, or persons who are too young to have been in the workforce for any duration of time.

Questions ranged from what is the SEC? to who is Elizabeth Warren?

As an OWS demonstrator, who is currently employed full-time, an active equities and commodities trader and a person who holds a seat on a Board of Directors as a Treasurer, I wish to offer some enlightenment.  I am also offended by the tactics of the MSM at targeting protesters who are clearly too young to understand the architecture of economics.   This media smear campaign will be disproved by the contents of this post.

The SEC is the Securities and Exchange Commission.  They are tasked with tracking and regulating illegal trading practices, such as insider trading—let’s say I ask my ex girlfriend for a heads up on a quarterly earnings report, or a 10K annual report on her company called XYZ.  She gives me news that her company’s earnings will “miss the street”; in other words, analysts’ estimates (provided by FAs at big banks, money management companies, ratings agencies, etc.) are higher than her firm’s numbers.  I act on the insider information she provided me with and decide to short the stock.   For individual investors as well as institutional investors, shorting is an aggressive form of capitalizing on the depreciation of a stock price.  It is perfectly legal, an integral part of the free market, bolsters liquidity, as well as overall capitalism.  Shorting a stock is also beneficial, with respect to Efficient Markets Hypothesis, because the share price (theoretically) will always incorporate all relevant information—short positions and put options do affect the underlying share price. 

(1)     So I go ahead and act on the insider information I received and short her company’s stock—her company is trading at $10/share, but I hope to sell the stock at $5/share, when this move is all said and done…risky bet, but I cheated the system and have insider information.  I setup a margin account with my broker where I borrow 1000 shares ($10,000) of XYZ and immediately sell them on the open market, for $10,000. 

(2)    As predicted, the news on the street that XYZ has missed analysts’ estimates causes the share price to tumble to $50.  My broker calls me up and says, “hey, you owe me 1,000 shares of XYZ, pay up!”  I buy back the 1,000 shares at the newly discounted price of $5, for a total of $5,000 and gladly deliver them to my broker. 

(3)     My profit is $5,000. 

(4)    The SEC, with their watchful eye, finds out that I traded on insider information, I am arrested, tried and sent to prison.

Unfortunately, the fictitious situation posited above, occurs every day on Wall Street and around the world.   The perpetrators of insider trading are rarely investigated, seldom tried and almost never wind up in prison.

The SEC showed their ineptitude at investigating securities fraud during the Bernard Madoff saga.  Madoff had been investigated by the SEC for what is known as front running.  As a market maker (a company that matches buyers with sellers of stocks and vice-versa), Madoff was in a position to see the order flow of trades.  This is high-volume order flow, vs. what is referred to as “dumb orderflow” (when you or I place a small trade on E-Trade).  This visibility affords market makers the ability to purchase the same stock in advance of executing the transaction of the large order.  When a stock is purchased in high volume, there is a brief uptick in the price and the market maker—who purchased ahead of the large order—will profit simply based on the uptick.  This is corroborated by one of the major tenets of Dow Theory: Trends are confirmed by volume. 

The Lipstick Building, where Bernard L. Madoff Securities, LLC. operated on floors 17 and 19

In fact, it has never been proven that Madoff was front running and even if he was suspected of it, this activity could not substantiate the rate of returns (upwards of 16%) that he was delivering to his investors.  It was this realization that prompted Harry Markopolos (then of Rampart Investment Management) to notify the SEC that he believed Madoff was running a ponzi scheme.  As the SEC lacked the resources and the talent to investigate large firms, such as Bernard L. Madoff, Markopolos was ignored and billions of investor's dollars evaporated.

Elizabeth Warren was a Harvard Law school professor.  I first became familiar with her work when she published “The Two Income Trap,” which was an examination into the modern American economy becoming reliant upon 2 incomes per household vs. the traditional single income household and the ramifications of this trend. 

The country became familiar with Elizabeth Warren when Barack Obama appointed her to oversee the disbursement of the TARP funds, which were funds to help banks cope with the “Toxic Assets” that the big banks were stuffed to the gills with in 2008.  These assets were primarily financial instruments, such as SIVs and mortgage backed securities—a broth of bogus loans, backed by mortgages that were issued recklessly and in a predatory fashion (lenders did not conduct due diligence regarding the borrowers).  Furthermore, insurance giants (such as AIG) bet on the repayment of said loans, via Credit Default Swaps (CDS') which also required bailout assistance.  These unregulated practices, submerged the financial and insurance sectors into their home-cooked poison soup of “toxic assets.”  Hence the TARP bailout of 2008, monitored by Elizabeth Warren. 

So Bloomberg News, 1010WINS and Michael Savage, please stop depicting OWS demonstrators as being dumb with respect to economics.  I work hard, pay my taxes, trade in my free time and—when I’m not attending Occupy Wall Street protests—can clearly write intelligently on the subjects of finance and economics. 

Ciao. 

Washington Square -- "Welcome to the Paradigm Shift"

This mobilization is inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia, Britain and Egypt.  It is birthed by the surplus of talented individuals and students; those underemployed have found their occupation.  It is operated by a digital infrastructure; integrated and ubiquitous, this very medium for oppression has now been inverted into a means for activism.

Only minutes after the occupation of Times Square, people began trickling in to Washington Square Park.  Some took subways, some walked, some drove from North Carolina and caught a subway from their friend's apartment in Brooklyn--the trickle grew into a flood. 

After over 10,000 shutdown Times Square, the Washington Square crowd approached 3,000

A peaceful Police Officer looks on as a child partakes in the demonstration

In OWS' Standard Operating Procedure (and yes, there is one), the 9pm General Assembly was broadcast around the world, via livestream.  The viewership was lower than normal, as many viewers were busy demonstrating--a bridge from cyberspace to cityspace. 

Democracy unfurled, as a banner reads, "Welcome to the Paradigm Shift"

A paradigm shift has occured for our generation.  Masses of educated and employed persons, as well as disaffected citizens, have begun a mobilization.  This mobilization is inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia, Britain and Egypt.  It is birthed by the surplus of talented individuals and students; those underemployed have found their occupation.  It is operated by a digital infrastructure; integrated and ubiquitous, this very medium for oppression has now been inverted into a means for activism.  No longer will disenchanted Americans default to cynicism; no longer will the marginalized masses be muted. 

"To the extent to which the work world is conceived of as a machine and mechanized accordingly, it becomes the potential basis of a new freedom of man." --Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man

Times Square virtually shut down as our generation continues growing up!

Arriving at 5:30pm, on 42nd street, I watched as protesters appeared and marchers streamed uptown.  Some took subways, some marched and others miraculously amalgamated themselves, within Times Square.  My opinion that my generation does not know how to demonstrate is growing into my generation is learning how to demonstrate! 

This evening, Occupy Wall Street pulled off their biggest move yet: a march and temporary occupation of New York's Times Square!  Allegedly, 70+ arrests were made.  All protesters observed were peaceful, non-violent and positive.  There was an air of success, civility and sovereignty in Midtown Manhattan.

Demonstrators beneath the NASDAQ ad

The protesters amassed, in excess of 10,000 activists; they epitomized the respectful, civil and non-violent maxims practiced by OWS. 

Shut Down!

The taking of Times Square was a very special moment in America's history to have been a part of. 

Peace in front of the Boys In Blue

  

Solidarity





Peace with the Rickshaw

A young lady annointed us with sage.  When I asked if this would help to end the Wars, she joyefully replied, "yes!"

A total shutdown and mob of activists and photographers

Subway stations were cordoned off, while some found alternative seating.



Crowd gathers.  The "Silent Majority" (Baudrillard) is no longer silent!

The Beast in "the belly of the beast"



A message to not lose "Liberty Plaza"

The chopper looks down, as the peace children gaze upward

Jubilant Police Officers!

Concerns about America's foreign policies:

Protesters hoist a replica of a US Drone, on 45th street

My next post will include images and editorial on the 7pm General Assembly, held in Washington Square Park--as the protesters streamed into subways and teleported their demonstration to a new home-base of operations. 

A glimpse into the future from Cyberspace

A view from one of many Occupy Wall Street's livestream websites depicts a live video feed (left), ribbons to select OWS streams from various cities (upper-left) and an instantaneous chat room (right).  This is part of the cyber infrastructure as much as it is a part of the movement's architecture.  The chat is hosted by a technology resurrected from the early days of the Net:  IRC, or Internet Relay Chat.  It has been coupled with the technology of livestreaming video to produce a moderated forum--a sanctuary for solidarity, discourse and real-time feedback.  Users of the chatroom are now able to interact with those on-camera.  They are afforded the option to view streams from OWS encampments worldwide and the chatroom switches to that location as well, when the users select a new location ribbon. 

The facilitation of an active feedback loop has occurred.  Not only are cyber-users able to connect to movements in solidarity, they are able to contribute and pose questions to the demonstrators, on-the-fly.  The power of the feedback loop replicates, into the demonstrators watching the onliners, who are  watching the demonstrators (above).  This is a new iteration of the very concept of demonstration, never before seen en masse. 



 Given that much of this movement had begun via IRC--OWS had sown their Cyber seeds--and has harnessed the power of corporate technology, a new discourse is needed.  What has taken place is the exploitation of the digital sphere around the tangible globe. 

In 1989, cyberpunk author William Gibson published Neuromancer--the novel that coined the term Cyberspace.  Gibson painted a dark and daunting view of our future; a world where government was subserviant to corporations.  Where renegade "cyber jockeys" corral their needs, or those of their employers, through the corridors of computers and the influence of information.  The free-market is not governed by currencies nor corporations--the only relevant commodity is information, the only obstacle is dubbed "ice"--and all beings are individual entities.  Gibson's term "ice" refers to electronic/information technologies, acting as boundaries to obtaining the covetted commodity of information.  He felt that in the future, government has no relevance, corporations have no relevance and we are all left to our own devices to traffic, retain and confiscate information.  Worldwide, technology, business and government have been trending toward Gibson's anarchisitic view of the future.

In a World where the core of the global economy was shown to be a complete farce--the implosion of toxic "assets" and the credit crisis of 2008--the concept of information-based value is ever more plausible.  Look at the sectors that are currently in the highest of demand:  IT, consulting and computer programming (a field that has seen a twofold increase in salaries, over the past several years). 

Yet as we diverge into independent cells of bits of information, it appears this very phenomenon has brought us together in reality.  Ironically enough, it was the privatization of Zuccotti Park that allowed this very movement to usurp government regulations.  Clearly our ice is much more corporate than it is legislative.  Paradoxically, Occupy Wall Street has cut through many layers of ice to obtain a physical presence of unity.  Global movements and American will have now enraptured humans to a material manifestation of solidarity--a Pangea of core ideals...

"Bodiless, we swerve into Chrome’s castle of ice. And we’re fast, fast. It feels like we’re surfing the crest of the invading program, hanging ten above the seething glitch systems as they mutate.  We’re sentient patches of oil swept along down corridors of shadow.  Somewhere we have bodies, very far away, in a crowded loft roofed with steel and glass. Somewhere we have microseconds, maybe time left to pull out.

We’ve crashed her gates disguised as an audit and three subpoenas, but her defenses are specifically geared to cope with that kind of official intrusion. Her most sophisticated ice is structured to fend off warrants, writs, subpoenas.

When we breached the first gate, the bulk of her data vanished behind core-command ice, these walls we see as leagues of corridor, mazes of shadow. Five separate landlines spurted May Day signals to law firms, but the virus had already taken over the parameter ice. The glitch systems gobble the distress calls as our mimetic subprograms scan anything that hasn’t been blanked by core command.The Russian program lifts a Tokyo number from the unscreened data, choosing it for frequency of calls, average length of calls, the speed with which Chrome returned those calls.
“Okay,” says Bobby, “we’re an incoming scrambler call from a pal of hers in Japan. That should help.”

Ride ‘em, cowboy." 

-- William Gibson, Burning Chrome

Victory in the first of many Battles

The police have postponed arrests due STRENGTH IN NUMBERS.  We are now closer to peace and prosperity in America!!!

What will tomorrow bring?

After the mandate from the Mayor to egress Zuccotti Park, many hardcore (or "oathkeeper") Occupy Wall Street activists are refusing to budge.  Furthermore, the AFL-CIO has requested that their union members get to the park by midnight, tonight!  We are looking at a showdown here people. 

My prayers go out to the demonstrators, the police and our world.  As the Hacker Manifesto eloquently stated, "this is our world now, the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud."  I had the privilege of hearing the mentor narrate his words at the H2K2 conference, in the Hotel Pennsylvania.  Back in 2002, the need for this type of movement, begotten by hacktivism, was needed...now it is the only option.  Disaffected peoples from Harlem to Haiti now have a voice. 

My generation first made information (music, media and movies) free to all.  The digitizing of our escapades was more of a prank than a passion-fueled movement.  Now we have coupled the grassroots ideals of direct democracy with what was once known as Cyberspace. 

Occupy Wall Street's savvy looking techno-geek media team was backed by an infrastructure of activists who finally figured out how to mobilize IRL (In Real Life).  Forget Talib Kweli's freestyle and guest appearances by Michael Moore and Kanye West.  The Rhizome of proselytic memes--ideas with no owner, no author and no governing body, generated this movement.  Kanye, Kweli and Moore were only there because our history, written in Cyberspace, dictated their future actions. 

Pursuant to a report on MSNBC, Zuccotti Park is presently spic and span.  MSNBC's footage shows the scrubbing of stone walls, ground and benches, to a shine.  Tomorrow, will the immaculate walls of Liberty Plaza reflect the peace and prosperity that our generation desires?  Or will they reflect more images of defenseless, civil young women being pepper-sprayed in their American eyes?  A violent spit-in-the-face to the face of our cause--the cause for opportunity, freedom and democracy. 

Let us spiritually connect--online, in person or on the phone.  Let us bond over ideas of peace and civility.  Most importantly, let us continue to stay connected.  Tonight and tomorrow call your friends and tell them how much you love America.  In all the OWS movements around the world, turn to your neighbor and get their phone number, give them your's and establish a friendship.  Friendships take work, demonstrations take much more work, but this work is an investment in your idividual future, as well as in that of America's. 

Stay safe.  Stay sane.  Stay peaceful.  Stay connected.