Scheduled for release to the Kindle and in analog dead tree form in April — the 17th, not the 1st surprisingly — is The Occupy Handbook, complied by Janet Byrne and published by the Hachette Book Group, the second largest publisher in the world, according to Wikipedia.
The book’s Amazon description claims:
Analyzing the movement’s deep-seated origins in questions that the country has sought too long to ignore, some of the greatest economic minds and most incisive cultural commentators – from Paul Krugman, Robin Wells, Michael Lewis, Robert Reich, Amy Goodman, Barbara Ehrenreich, Gillian Tett, Scott Turow, Bethany McLean, Brandon Adams, and Tyler Cowen to prominent labor leaders and young, cutting-edge economists and financial writers whose work is not yet widely known – capture the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon in all its ragged glory, giving readers an on-the-scene feel for the movement as it unfolds while exploring the heady growth of the protests, considering the lasting changes wrought, and recommending reform. A guide to the occupation, THE OCCUPY HANDBOOK is a talked-about source for understanding why 1% of the people in America take almost a quarter of the nation’s income and the long-term effects of a protest movement that even the objects of its attack can find little fault with.
Since it’s likely still in pre-production, for completion’s sake, here are some helpful suggestions to flesh-out the book:
- Which police cars have the smoothest surface to excrete against.
- What not to say to the media when you’re interviewed after an altercation with the police.
- Why David Duke totally digs OWS.
- The camp rapist: misunderstood soul?
- How to be the first protest dedicated to preserving the status quo.
- How my $90,000 in student loans for a degree in deconstructionist lesbian poetry led me to spend 93 days sleeping in a tent in downtown New York.
- #Occupymobiusloop: How to run up your student debt even more studying #OWS.
- Occupy Your Backyard! It’s not just for ten year olds playing GI Joe anymore.
- How to win friends and influence people by terrorizing minimum wage bank tellers.
- Those who attempt to appease you are simply showing weakness — attack! — whether it’s 1939 or 2011.
- Radical Chic: look sharp — look Soviet!
- Left-wing anti-Semitism: the hot new trend for the 21st century.
- The Bible: Like the Constitution, it’s over 100 years old and outdated. Best to discard by throwing it at your enemies.
- Churches too are part of the 1 percent. Steal with impunity.
- JFK was a plutocratic One Percenter. Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country can do for you!
- If we’re so hip, how come the people supporting us are so damn old?
- Why is a prominent spokesman for General Electric supporting OWS?
- If we’re so radical and dangerous, why do establishment media sources like the New York Times, a major publishing house, and Time magazine think we’re so cool?
I’m sure there are numerous other topics that could help make this title the best it can be, so feel free to add yours in the comments. Or maybe just occupy the Hachette Book Group’s New York offices, since they’re giving such protests their blessing by going all in with them.
(Headline suggested by the eminent Abbot H. Hoffman.)
That’s a GREAT idea. I can just imagine the editorial meetings at Hachette. “You know that failed movement from last year — the one that everyone is already sick of hearing about? Let’s devote a book to it!” The timing is superb.
My prediction: This book will Occupy Remainder Bins in bookstores across the country.
We still have bookstores across the country?
“•How my $90,000 in student loans for a degree in deconstructionist lesbian poetry led me to spend 93 days sleeping in a tent in downtown New York.”
Or how I dropped $90,000 on a major that nobody on earth really cares about once I actually want to enter the work force. But, hey, no matter. I can still stay on my parent’s insurance policy until I’m 26, I can still live at home, I can still have all the electronic equipment and toys that THEY bought for me, and I don’t even have to think about getting married or having any kids AT ALL because adult responsibilities is Sooooooo 20th century.
The above pretty much describes a lot of kids today. With offspring like this, I can see why Obama thinks he can get re-elected. Because, if you stick with Obama, you can eventually have the Federal Government supporting you after your folks finally DO kick you out of the house. From the “Nanny Home” to the “Nanny State.” Americans will never have to grow up. What’s not to love? Oh, nothing, except for that $16 trillion dollar (and rapidly growing) debt. Pity these kids don’t realize they are they ones that are going to get stuck with the bill for all of this.
How to be a proud member of the 99% (and still not part with a dime of your trust fund)!
Hachette set the rules; they stole from Michael Yon. Remember “Shock Magazine”?:
http://www.ideagrove.com/blog/2006/06/media-orchard-interviews-michael-yon.html
True, but there are better reasons to steal this book. First, as Ed noted, as a tribute to Abbie Hoffman, and second, because to the most dedicated Occupiers, private property = theft. What better way to make this point clear?
Iowahawk left me hanging. How well did the OppressionStopper work? Will detailed instructions be included in the upcoming handbook, or was a patent granted?
https://twitter.com/#%21/iowahawkblog/status/133591139218497536
From the Hachette Site:
“Janet Byrne is an editor who has worked with Nobel Prize-winning economists, Pulitzer Prize-winning writers, and leading political figures, financial journalists, academics, and best-selling authors. She is the author of A Genius for Living: The Life of Frieda Lawrence, a New York Times Notable Book, has served as a researcher for and as a contributor to numerous books, and has written for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.”
Nobel-Prize economists = Krugmann, PulitzerPrize-winning = Friedman.
So. You have a NTY staff flunky of one percenters “Carbon Footprint” Krugmann and “Mansions” Friedman writing about Occupy and how evil coprorations (like Hachette) and the idle rich (like Pinch’s clan) are.
And publishing for Hachette (Hachette keep 75% of an ebook sale) instead of independently (author keeps 70% of an ebook sale). Not to mention cutting down trees to print books and using up precious Gaia’s petrochemical bodily fluids to ship the slabs to bookstores.
(I wonder if an #Occupooper personally pants-down christens each delivery truck’s door as it rolls out of the loading warehouse.)
Curious how the one percenters all seem to line up WITH #OWS instead of AGAINST them. At least, all the left’s one percenters. Hmmmm…
I used to compile instances of #Occupy child abuse, and there is certainly plenty of that:
http://tinyurl.com/6tjfvtj
I bought and read the original. I’m grown up now, so if this one comes to a bookstore near me, I’ll definitely steal it – and throw it in the first trash can I see outside the bookstore.
If we’re so educated, how come we can’t spell or seem to express ourselves without resorting to heretofore private bodily functions?
Why the hell should we steal the book when we probably are unable to read it?
Is Occupy Wall Street a bust because politicians supported by Wall Street, like Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer, support it? Can you ask me that question a little more slowly please?
Where’s Abby Hoffman? Dead, but the ideas live on, like zombies. Revolution For The Hell Of It! In fact, wasn’t Steal This Book one of his book titles? Circa 1972? Maybe there will be a reprint of One Dimensional Man, with a new forward by Angela Davis just for this revolutionary moment; besides, she could probably use the residuals. Even for Marxists, money talks and bullshit walks.
Long line at Barnes & Noble? Occupy your time with a little public masturbation!
…capture the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon in all its ragged glory, giving readers an on-the-scene feel for the movement as it unfolds
Another on-the-scene feel for The Flea Party
“why 1% of the people in America take almost a quarter of the nation’s income”
A beautiful example of the economic ignorance of the Left. As if “the nation” starts each year with a fixed pile of money, and those darn 1%ers are just taking too much of it! The concept of the creation of wealth is completely alien to them – or at least exist in an ideological blind spot.
/rant on
Please, PLEASE stop using that worn-out phrase “dead tree books.” It’s a cliche, it’s tiresome, and it tells the world your brain is running on automatic.
Besides, something like 90% of the world’s paper comes from trees planted & harvested for paper production.
And besides besides, it’s PC to talk about “dead tree books.” Next we’ll be talking about dead-chick omelets and dead-animal belts.
/rant off
Thanks for your thoughts. But I’ll continue to say “dead tree books.”
My topic idea:
What successful family and business leaders can learn from the spoiled, lazy, unemployed adult children in their basements.
Oh, geez, now I’ve gotten started, I can’t stop.
- An Occupier’s Ethical Primer: Many subtle moral and ethical dilemmas are discussed, such as “The Decision to Buy or Steal” – when someone steals YOUR your iPad, and you NEED a replacement, do you buy or steal one from some other tent? And “Capitalism and your dealer.” Can exceptions can be made for certain forms of consumerism?
- It’s Depends! This secton teaches hundreds of clever ways of dealing with bodily waste. As the chapter heading implies wearing Depends is a nifty solution for #1, and even an emergency fallback for #2! Secrets of where to put it, where to hide it. Basics that every Occupier needs to know.
- Headache? Can’t Sleep? These secret techniques show you how to learn to love the sound of mindless drumming.
- Occupiers are individiuals! We don’t need to follow anyone. This chapter will explain how to deal with jokes comparing us to the Life of Brian.
- Occupy or Notccupy? The Rudimentary secrets of disguise. In this chapter you learn helpful tips to disguise yourself temporarily, for those times when you need to check back into the evil corporate world for a few minutes. Example: a restaurant manager is giving you grief for sneaking in to use the bathrooms, so cross him up. Keep a sport coat and tie in your tent, and wear it.
- A Self Esteem Crisis in Occupy; This chapter deals with a dirty little secret in the park, the homeless. Many of the older homeless squatters are former radicals and hippies. They not only steal our food, and tarnish our reputation by mingling among us with their dirty clothes and powerful stench. They also make mean and cutting remarks, calling us wimps, wannabes, newbies, and unfairly comparing 2011 to 1968. We’ve developed 100 one-liner quips which will put these smug old bastards in their places. When they try to make you feel insignificant, just tell them “Yeah, well we aren’t praising Charlie Manson” or “two words: Altamont Speedway.” Memorize them all, and have them ready. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the quips, or why they’re so powerful. The oldsters will know. And they’ll STFU.
American Pie: The true meaning of the lyrics to Don Mcclean’s “American Pie” were hotly debated for decades and the topic dropped from view, forgotten and lost to history. Then the true meaning was finally discovered by social scientists in 1997. They decided to delay publishing their findings until the next period of active citizen protests. So, although a bit dated, this serious academic study of the controversial song still has many lessons to teach the Occupier, today.
A chapter on how to reconcile the Occupy Movements “useful idiot” stance of blindly supporting the Obama Administration even as the Wall Street bailouts continue in the form of ZIRP and trillions of dollars of currency swaps to keep Europe’s banks solvent (and protect our own TBTF’s Eurozone exposure from reducing bonuses) would be useful.
Not to mention the “backdoor” bailouts of Solindra (CEO was a big campain contributor) and GM (union workers).
While were at it, ask the investors in MF Global, who lost over $1.2 Billion when Corzine (another big campain bundler) used them as a stoploss on sovereign debt deals gone wrong how thats working for them?
He’s still a free man BTW,, how much to you want to bet he walks away scot free?
Having said that fascist regimes always throw there “useful idiot” supporters into the woodchipper when the time comes for more “change”. If I was a member of OWS I would watch my back, the knife blow will be arriving soon, count on it..