"We must reinstate Glass-Steagall!!!!"

[Teacher]

Among the lines that we were apparently supposed to get really fired up about at our local Occupy Wall Street event today in Texas. I have to say I was very disappointed.. 90% of the attendees (small crowd) were weirdos and counterculture anarchist types.

Has anybody else around the country had better experiences today?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Damn, I thought that was a pun on class struggle.

[Lynx]

If its any consolation, reinstating Glass-Steagall would require a revolution.

[Lucretia]

What must be explained again and again, then again if necessary, is that the things so many of these protesters are complaining about did not come about by chance, and did not come about because a few isolated people just happened to make a bad decision here or there. Deregulation has NOT been the result of greedy bad people choosing to do bad things for the heck of it. It's been the direct consequence of the way firms within capitalism have been forced to operate as a result of a declining rate of profit. They have been forced to operate this way because of the system in which these firms, and the people who manage them, happen to find themselves.

*****ing about banks laying off workers while accepting bail outs is understandable, but in order to change society to prevent things like that from happening requires more than just trying to shame a bank here or there. These banks did this not because they were evil, but because they operate in a system where that sort of behavior makes sense. So it must be stressed repeatedly: the problem is the system in which the banks operate, a system which structures their decisions and imposes serious consequences if people who manage the banks attempt to do what is "right" instead of what is most profitable. It is the system in which the lawmakers operate. That system is capitalism, pure and simple.

What must be fought at all costs is the liberal myth that everything in the US economy was perfectly fine until around the 1990s, when a few bad apples were motivated by their own wickedness to muck things up and pull off an "inside job" by deregulating everything, and that our goal is just to get us back to the healthy capitalist status quo that existed before then.

[Die Neue Zeit]

If its any consolation, reinstating Glass-Steagall would require a revolution.

Why, comrade (assuming you're not referring to the pun)? :confused:

[Jose Gracchus]

Among the lines that we were apparently supposed to get really fired up about at our local Occupy Wall Street event today in Texas. I have to say I was very disappointed.. 90% of the attendees (small crowd) were weirdos and counterculture anarchist types.

Has anybody else around the country had better experiences today?

I guess you were expecting a massive wave of principled Marxist-Leninist anti-imperialists, ready to equip the mass line?

[Ocean Seal]

Why, comrade (assuming you're not referring to the pun)? :confused:
Because the ruling class doesn't need it at this point. But I don't think that a revolution would be necessary for such a meager demand.

[Salyut]

The LaRouchite I saw had a sign about this. I suspect its their angle to play for the Occupy protests.

[Lynx]

The two leading capitalist parties will not reinstate Glass-Steagall. They won't even allow regulators to prosecute Wall Street criminals for the fraud that was committed. What other option is there?

Reform is not possible and I thought that might be of some consolation.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Meh, I'm not exactly down with that kind of "transitional" assessment. Just because politicians won't do something doesn't mean they can't. ;)

[Lynx]

They won't do it. Financial reform in the wake of the crisis was buried and that wasn't accidental. There's no credible alternative to current economic policy, as far as they are concerned.