Jon Quackenbush

The greenest building is an existing building.

will do.

You have way too much faith in the system man and I am not sure why.  My “cynicism” has been cultivated over many years, as I have witnessed the whole sale purchase of our government.  That story you mentioned about your congressman is touching, but politicians are gifted as selling a narrative so I would observe caution.  Are all politicians cr…[Read more]

The country we actually live in contradicts your entire position.  If we lived in the America of the textbooks you read in high school, then sure, you would be 100% right.  But we live in a more scurilous version.  We only have the illusion of choice at this point.  Look at congress, it is all millionaires and mostly white and are easily bou…[Read more]

It was a ‘simplistic’ comment but it was based on the notion that the civil rights movement achieved a legal victory, not an economic one. For the bottom two-thirds of African-Americans, you can argue (from an economic standpoint) that life is worse today than it was when Martin Luther King marched in Selma in 1965. King understood that racial…[Read more]

Just be mindful of what you are fighting for! Do we really want socialism as the answer here?

    Democratic Socialism actually sounds pretty good to me.  I would yield to MLK’s vision of society over Bill Gates & Steve Jobs any day.  Free market capitalism has proven to be inhumane time and time again.

        We have a country where Bill…

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He isn’t too blind to see it, he either disagrees or isn’t looking.  He is one of the 99% even if he doesn’t know it or believe it.  I am fighting for him too.
There are within the movement, many camps and not all of them are centered around jobs, though they all are focused on some inequality and/or injustice.  Want to really get a grip on it…[Read more]

Exactly.
These inequities are what drive the OWS protests. People don’t want handouts. It’s not a class uprising and we don’t want civil war — we want just the opposite. We want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It’s amazing that some people think that that’s asking a lot.

Chris Hedges gets it.  He is the most coherent and inspiring voice of the movement, and I find great inspiration in his words.
As far as your questions, I honestly have no idea and am not really qualified to say.  I do know that settling for a seat at the table is paramount to giving up.  I don’t want a seat at the table, I want a new table.  I b…[Read more]

The scary thing is that the consensus of the OWS people seems to be that the government (politicians) should step in and take over these private institutions of which they are responsible for corrupting.

 
Where did you gleam this insight?  I am part of OWS and I think electoral politics is a farce.  I have no faith in the system as curr…[Read more]

This is a perfect economic summary of what fuels the growing body that is the Occupy movement, thanks.
The power elite have desperately tried to tar the movement with a series of calumnies, branding protesters as hippies, anti-Semites, drug addicts, leftists, anarchists and communists. They have so far been unable to blunt the fundamental truth…[Read more]

I love this stuff, thanks for this!

“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism,” ML King said, “but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.”

Did you expect an essay as a response?  I could go into more depth, however that isn’t required to make my point.  Do you need statistics to reinforce my “platitudes”, because I am capable of reciting them for you.Truth is, I am not that smart.  I have fed the beast for a majority of my life, and I am full of regret as a result.  I have sup…[Read more]

First of all that is impossible, and second, mockery is not flattering, nor does it contribute to the debate.

It is quite simple.

• To stop the disemboweling every last social service program funded by the taxpayers, from education to Social Security
• To stop letting the sick die.
• To stop letting the poor go hungry.
• To stop letting families be tossed in the street.
• To stop letting the unemployed rot.
• To stop children in the inner city or rural wastelands…

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Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith. They sleep on concrete every night. Their clothes are soiled. They have eaten more bagels and peanut butter than they ever thought…[Read more]

What kind of nation is it that spends far more to kill enemy combatants and Afghan and Iraqi civilians than it does to help its own citizens who live below the poverty line? What kind of nation is it that permits corporations to hold sick children hostage while their parents frantically bankrupt themselves to save their sons and daughters? What…

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Knowledge is never wasted, even if you don’t utilize it with your current employer.  While I have never been asked to make a website for my firm, I have used that to make one for my wife’s small business, and a band.