Peter Frase

This was a wild week for Occupy protests around the country---more than ever, I hate being so far away from everything that's happening. Congrats to everyone in New York, Oakland, and everywhere else. If you're around New York City and you're trying to figure out where Occupy Wall Street goes from here, you'll want to check out the next [*Jacobin* magazine event](http://jacobinmag.com/blog/2011/11/event-nyc-1128-ows-whats-phase-two/), which is happening at Columbia University on Monday, November 28th. Frances Fox Piven, Dorian Warren, Nikhil Saval, Mike Hirsch and Liza Featherstone will be there, and I'm sure it will be a great discussion. And I'm cautiously optimistic that none of our panelists will get fired for participating this time.

What else is new:

- I really wish this new pro-OWS single wasn't by [Third Eye Blind](http://youtu.be/0gf45vXByCg). Now my non-sectarian, solidaristic leftist side is at war with my snotty, elitist music hipster side. And no, I couldn't bring myself to actually listen to it.

- The robots are coming: soon farmworkers may be replaced by [charming little robots](http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/11/mobile-farm-robots/).

- The nationwide drop in crime is linked to [falling cocaine prices](http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2011/11/cocaine-plummeting-price-nationwide-drop-violent-crime/474/). I grew up during the "Murderapolis" era of violence and high crack prices in Minneapolis, so this rings true to me. And it's a truly damning indictment of the War on Drugs, which was meant to *raise* drug prices: not only has the War been a failure, but if it had succeeded it would have been an even bigger disaster.

- This [article](https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/16696-FACT-CHECK-SCADA-Systems-Are-Online-Now.html) about the network security vulnerabilities of airplanes, power plants, and transportation systems is terrifying.

- If you're a leftist and a nerd (and if you're not at least one of those things, why would you be reading this?), then this is the one link you must clink: science fiction author David Brin [demolishes](http://davidbrin.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/move-over-frank-miller-or-why-the-occupy-wall-street-kids-are-better-than-spartans/) the mendacious, fascist politics of graphic novelist Frank Miller. And if that doesn't sate your appetite for Miller-bashing, move on to [Gary Brecher's](http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=8516&IBLOCK_ID=35) contribution on the topic. In addition to enjoying the polemic, I learned a lot about ancient Greek history from these posts.

- This is awesome: ["Angry over spying, Muslims say: 'Don't call NYPD'"](http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16026/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=XdURQgia). Under the circumstances, "stop snitching" strikes me as exactly the right attitude. Christians might want to [adopt the same position](http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/11/18/372320/new-york-churches-shelter-occupy-protesters-now-monitored-by-new-york-police/).

- This is so marvellously bonkers: Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen [interviews Stalin](http://www.youtube.com/user/nvrousalis#p/u/23/yZmZp9kift0), as portrayed by Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen.

- This [socialist defense of consumerism](http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/unfinishedbusiness/blog/2011/11/16/liberte-egalite-alterite-towards-a-consumerist-critique-of-capitalism-and-a-socialist-defence-of-consumer-culture/) is on the right track. Socialism should be epicurean, not ascetic.

- This Chinese [alternative to the Nobel prize](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinas-alternative-nobel-prize-to-be-awarded-to-putin-6262758.html) is just trolling the real Nobel committee's Obama pick by giving it to Putin, right? Also: "The first award went to the former Taiwanese vice-president, Lien Chan, though Mr Lien did not show up to claim it at a somewhat surreal ceremony. The award and a prize of 100,000 yuan (£9,500) were instead given to a young girl, whom organisers refused to identify."

- This episode of Matt Taibbi's [Supreme Court of Assholedom](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/supreme-court-of-assholedom-the-people-vs-steve-jobs-20111116) isn't as funny as some of the earlier installments, but it turns out to be the most serious reckoning I've seen with the issue of Steve Jobs idolatry.

- Bloods and Crips [come together](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/occupy-atlanta-bloods-and_n_1080477.html) at Occupy Atlanta. That's basically an irrelevant bit of human interest trivia, but it gives me an excuse to post this memento of [peace treaty](http://www.gangresearch.net/GangResearch/Policy/cripsbloodsplan.html)-era LA gangsta rap.

- I've been a bit ambivalent about a lot of the Evgeny Morozov stuff I've read, but [this is exactly right](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2011/11/salman_rushdie_and_facebook_s_pseudonym_policy_.html). He comes out strongly in favor of the right to be anonymous online, which I've also [written about](http://www.peterfrase.com/2010/03/in-defense-of-anonymity/).

- Do you want to see Bill Gates in a 1995 promo where he goes inside the video game *Doom* and kills demons with a shotgun? Of course you do:

- This Rock Paper Shotgun [review of *Modern Warfare 3*](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/11/18/wot-i-think-modern-warfare-3-single-player) is what video game criticism should be like. In something I linked last week, Adorno said that "Because people have to work so hard, there is a sense in which they spend their spare time obsessively repeating the rituals of the efforts that have been demanded of them." And now John Walker at RPS says:
> It fascinates me that this is the successful formula, the secret behind being the biggest FPS series of all time. It turns out people don’t want to be that hero at the forefront, making glorious decisions and bravely leading the way. They want to be the nobody who can only ever do what he’s told, and that’s on the rare occasions when he’s actually able to control himself. This game has the word “follow” on screen almost as often as it doesn’t. It floats above the head of whomever it is you’re with, ensuring you know your place, which is never to be in front, never to pick the direction, never to make a tactical decision. You follow. It says so.

- The National Review gives us [an interview](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/271937/liberal-reads-great-conservative-works-carl-t-bogus?pg=2) with a liberal who informs us that "Conservatives have big appetites for ideology; liberals don’t. There are, of course, taxonomies of conservative schools of thought. People on the right classify themselves as libertarians, neoconservatives, social conservatives, traditional conservatives, and the like, and spill oceans of ink defining, debating, and further subdividing these schools of thought. There is no parallel taxonomy on the left." Dude, *what*? I don't think you actually know what "the left" is.

- Obvious argument is obvious: it's hard to convince people that people get rich by working hard when [people don't actually get rich by working hard](http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2011/11/discipline-hard-work-and-obscene-wealth.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+espeak+%28EconoSpeak%29).

- Economists have done a lot of real-world damage with their bad theoretical models, so I'm glad to see that us sociologists are getting a chance to [ruin everything](http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2011/11/16/blame-the-sociologists/) for a change.