Much to the chagrin of the pundits, politicians, and media, the Occupy Wall Street movement accurately reflects the feelings of the people of the US.

CNN carries the news of a study about to be published: 40-year low in America’s view of Wall Street

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The public has been down on big Wall Street banks and financial institutions for some time now. The General Social Survey, administered by the National Opinion Research Council, has asked Americans about their confidence in banks and financial institutions since 1973. Between March of 2006 and March of 2010, the percent of Americans with a great deal of confidence in banks and financial institutions plummeted 19 percentage points, from 30 percent to an all-time low of 11 percent. According to a similar trend from Harris Interactive, the percent of Americans with a great deal of confidence in the people running Wall Street had already reached an all-time low of just 4 percent by February of 2009. These figures are not just a reflection of Americans’ dissatisfaction with the size of their bank accounts — they also reflect the increasing belief that Wall Street is playing a game that only the bankers can win.
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The majority of Americans have figured out for themselves that the game is rigged, in spite of all of the propaganda being pushed by the corporate media and front groups.

This corresponds to my own experience with people who have lived their entire lives in places like the Soviet Union, where propaganda is almost all they receive from cradle to grave. People make up their own minds and become sophisticated in filtering real information from what they are told. People tend to test claims against their own experiences, i.e. reality, and reject what doesn’t fit within that reality.

Froggy and the Pond

Ribbit?

[Editor: The temperature is back up, so the cats are looking for shade. Froggy decided that the edge of the pond is a pretty good place.

Friday Ark

Position: 30.7N 52.6W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: East-Northeast [075°] near 16 mph [26 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 70 mph [110 kph].
Wind Gusts: 85 mph [140 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 105 Miles [165 km].
Minimum central pressure: 989 mb.

Currently about 725 miles [1170 km] East of Bermuda.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]