In A People’s History of the United States (read online), published in 2003, Howard Zinn wrote a chapter called “The Coming Revolt of the Guards.”

That essay could be, should be, the rallying cry of the Occupation.

The wealth disparity is glaring, and it has grave social consequences:

One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth.

The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another: small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and unskilled. These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country.

It’s true. One percent of the people own more than a third of America’s wealth; the next nine percent richest own another 39%; and the remaining 28% of wealth is owned by the bottom 90% of the population. Charts and data.

The middle 9%, those in the 90-99% percentile in wealth, are the people Zinn calls the “guards of the system.”

In a highly developed society, the Establishment cannot survive without the obedience and loyalty of millions of people who are given small rewards to keep the system going: the soldiers and police, teachers and ministers, administrators and social workers, technicians and production workers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, transport and communications workers, garbage men and firemen.

These people–the employed, the somewhat privileged–are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.

It’s the middle class, the professionals and homeowners, who are giving steam to the movement. The highly trained individuals who have been laid off, these are the people out on the streets.  They feel expendable, and realize how far from the 1% they really are.

The Occupation was inevitable, but globalization and the Internet has hastened its arrival.

The new conditions of technology, economics, and war, in the atomic age, make it less and less possible for the guards of the system-the intellectuals, the home owners, the taxpayers, the skilled workers, the professionals, the servants of government–to remain immune from the violence (physical and psychic) inflicted on the black, the poor, the criminal, the enemy overseas. The internationalization of the economy, the movement of refugees and illegal immigrants across borders, both make it more difficult for the people of the industrial countries to be oblivious to hunger and disease in the poor countries of the world.

We should have seen this coming.  The discontentment in America has been spreading upwards.

There is evidence of growing dissatisfaction among the guards. We have known for some time that the poor and ignored were the nonvoters, alienated from a political system they felt didn’t care about them, and about which they could do little. Now alienation has spread upward into families above the poverty line. These are white workers, neither rich nor poor, but angry over economic insecurity, unhappy with their work, worried about their neighborhoods, hostile to government… thus open to solutions from any direction, right or left.

This is why the Occupation matters. It’s why politicians should pay attention–the 99% are looking for solutions from anyone, not just the Democrats.

The system, in its irrationality, has been driven by profit to build steel skyscrapers for insurance companies while the cities decay, to spend billions for weapons of destruction and virtually nothing for children’s playgrounds, to give huge incomes to men who make dangerous or useless things, and very little to artists, musicians, writers, actors. Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes.

The threat of unemployment, always inside the homes of the poor, has spread to white-collar workers, professionals. A college education is no longer a guarantee against joblessness’, and a system that cannot offer a future to the young coming out of school is in deep trouble. If it happens only to the children of the poor, the problem is manageable; there are the jails. If it happens to the children of the middle class, things may get out of hand. The poor are accustomed to being squeezed and always short of money, but in recent years the middle classes, too, have begun to feel the press of high prices, high taxes.

Is now the time for radical change? Is that why the protesters aren’t behind a specific piece of legislation, but rather is advocating a wholesale change in national priorities and attitudes?

With the Establishment’s inability either to solve severe economic problems at home or to manufacture abroad a safety valve for domestic discontent, Americans might be ready to demand not just more tinkering, more reform laws, another reshuffling of the same deck, another New Deal, but radical change. Let us be Utopian for a moment so that when we get realistic again it is not that “realism” so useful to the Establishment in its discouragement of action, that “realism” anchored to a certain kind of history empty of surprise.

This part gave me goosebumps for how aptly it describes what is going on around the country, and for reminding me what the protesters really want. (Map of cities under occupation.)

But when such a movement took hold in hundreds of thousands of places all over the country it would be impossible to suppress, because the very guards the system depends on to crush such a movement would be among the rebels. It would be a new kind of revolution, the only kind that could happen, I believe, in a country like the United States….

There is a chance that such a movement could succeed in doing what the system itself has never done-bring about great change with little violence. This is possible because the more of the 99 percent that begin to see themselves as sharing needs, the more the guards and the prisoners see their common interest, the more the Establishment becomes isolated, ineffectual. The elite’s weapons, money, control of information would be useless in the face of a determined population.

And finally, here’s the call to action to me, as a part of the bourgeois class:

We readers and writers of books have been, for the most part, among the guards. If we understand that, and act on it, not only will life be more satisfying, right off, but our grandchildren, or our great grandchildren, might possibly see a different and marvelous world.

Full Tilt’s new “Rush Poker” feature is how online poker is meant to be played.  My reaction to it is:

zomg!!

In a nutshell, there is no waiting time in Rush Poker.  As soon as you fold, you will be seated with a new set of 8 other players and dealt a hand.  When you sit down, you’re playing in a pool of hundreds of players that get reshuffled on every deal.

How this affects strategy

1. Everyone’s super tight now.

When there’s no boredom, and the next hand is just 1 second away, there’s no reason to play trash or mediocre hands.  There’s no need for fancy play or overanalysis to keep your boredom at bay (and destroy your EV).

2. Fundamental poker is winning poker.

• Fold everything.
• If you’re compelled to play — like you’re dealt a pocket pair or AK — be bold. Make pot sized bets. Forget tweaking the exact amount to bet*, just hit the “pot size” button.

3. Stealing the blinds is profitable.

Having said all that in point #2, I’m now encouraging you to steal the blinds. If you’re on the button, cutoff or CO+1, and no one has limped or raised, make the standard raise.  There’s a good chance the blinds will fold.

4. Showdowns mean big money.

So if everyone is folding all the time, then only premium hands are being played.  That means that if a hand has two or more callers, you can expect it to be a big pot.  Big pots.

There’s a good chance of a dramatic showdown.

• AA vs KK
• Sets vs Two Pair

How this affects poker in general

Fish now have more fun while losing more money faster.

This feature is going to absolutely revolutionize online poker.

You ain’t seen nothing yet in terms of online poker revenues. Everyone’s going to make more money because (a) more hands are being played per hour and (b) the usability increase makes people (especially fish) more likely to play and play more hands.

The good players are going to get richer, faster.  Playing two tables, I can do 500 hands in an hour.  That used to be three full days at the office when only live poker was available.

The pros are going to absolutely kill it.

The amateurs are going to be a lot more entertained.  If I can play 15 minutes and be dealt 60 hands (that’s equivalent to 1 hour normal speed online or 2 hours at a live table), I’m more likely to play. A lot more likely to play.  10 minutes here*, 3 hours there. It adds up. Poker fiends like me are going to spend more money. (Whether the amount spent will be worth the entertainment value is up to each person.)

* When’s the Android app coming? I figure Apple won’t allow gambling on the iPhone but Android is all open and stuff, right?

Full Tilt is going to make ridiculous amounts of money this year.  Think of all the rake! This feature lets people play more hands per hour and more fun to play those hands. A gold rush of rake.

Just watch Poker Stars and the rest scramble to catch up. I would be shocked if online poker revenues didn’t grow 20x in the next 5 years. That’s without the U.S. legalizing online poker. With U.S. regulation* — phew. I wouldn’t be surprised at 100x industry revenues.

* So much taxable revenue. Congress needs to get its head out of its ass regarding online poker regulation.

I totally bought into Gmail’s pitch of “never delete another email”. I’ve been archiving (not deleting) happily for the last year or so. Now I’m running out of space. 2 Gb is not *that* much especially when you take attachments into consideration.

There is an unpublished hotkey for delete: # (That would be shift+3.)

Cool. Now I delete messages that I never want to see again.

via Lifehacker

11 years after its release and 7 years after I notice it, I’ve finally matched up a title for my “favorite” song.

I love Stone Temple Pilots’ Trippin’ on a hole in a paper heart.

And now I know what it’s called. Sweet!