"Let the Arabs have spring. The OWSers of America own the fall."

[kpete]

Here Come the OWSers!

By James Howard Kunstler
on October 3, 2011 8:24 AM

..............

What part of that is unclear to interlocutors of what we called "the establishment" back in the day? That would be the day of the Vietnam War and the Aquarian Upsurge. One difference being that in 1968 we at least had some solidarity in the older generation coming from figures of gravity like Senators Robert Kennedy (bumped off), Eugene McCarthy, J. William Fullbright, George McGovern, Rev Martin Luther King (bumped off), and even one US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark. Today, the entire "establishment" is a clueless, hopeless blob of self-interested, craven opportunism. Even the arty fringe - the people who pretend to be an avant-garde - are nothing but narcissistic self-branding operations masquerading as culture leaders.

...............

It is cosmically ironic, of course, that the same generation of Boomer-hippies that ran in the streets and marched through the maze of service roads around the Pentagon has become a new "establishment" more obtuse, feckless, greedy and mendacious than the one they battled with over 40 years ago. I guess they just don't see that their time has come to get right with reality - or get shoved aside and trampled. The essence of the OWSer's argument is pretty simple: they've got a raw deal; somebody dealt them a bad hand; someone ran their society into a ditch and not a goddammed one of the older generation will set in motion the machinery to correct the situation, or even acknowledge it.

At the apex of this new establishment is the Baby Boomer's moral trophy president: Barack Obama, whose election made the Boomers feel good about themselves - while they preceded to loot the national treasury's accumulated capital, and then reach forward a few generations to rob their legacy, too. I haven't heard Nicholas Kristoff (or any of his colleagues at The New York Times) complain about Mr. Obama's stupendous inattention to the crimes of Wall Street, or to the dereliction of his proconsuls in the SEC and the Department of Justice. I'd at least send somebody to hold a mirror under Eric Holder's nostrils to see if he is actually alive.

For my money, the OWSers have plenty to yell about. Apart from the crimes and turpitudes of their elders, the younger generation hasn't even been prepared for the massive change in reality that these times are heaving them into. If it was me out there, I'd conclude that I'd better make up the future on my own, with no help from my parent's generation. In fact, that future is rushing toward all of us so cold, hard, and fresh even in this autumn season that it might splatter the banking establishment - and the global economy - like a bug on a windshield. The OWSers have a front row seat down there in lower Manhattan. The financial gangrene (thank you Zero Hedge) is not just seeping anymore, it's blowing through the arteries of the money underworld like fracking fluid. The damage can't be contained. Let the Arabs have spring. The OWSers of America own the fall. Rock on OWSers and don't let the "pigs" (as we used to call them) get you down.

http://kunstler.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-owsers.html

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Weird--I just finished Kunstler's novel

"World Made by Hand" yesterday.

Interesting read.

Lemme tell ya, this old Vietnam vet turned DFH is all ready for the American Fall. And winter.

[drm604]

2. Why the attack on boomers?

It's very dishonest to claim that the hippies and protesters of that generation are now the looters. We're talking for the most part about two different groups of people. Generations are not homogeneous.

While I'm sure someone can find the odd example here and there, the Wall Street boomers are for the most part not the people who were the hippies and the protesters of the 60s. Surely the author is aware of that.

Let's not let this become some sort of generational war. There are 20 somethings on Wall Street who are just as guilty as the boomers on Wall Street, and there are boomers on the left and among the protesters who are just as dedicated as the 20 somethings that are there.

[DonCoquixote]

3. kunstler was

trying to focus on people who were pundits and boomers, whose general tone was "those kids are stupid." However, he needed to focus on people, not ages. Ted rall is a Gen Xer, and what he wrote about the OWSERs was awful.