Wall Street Protests
#4 Guest_Whistler's Momma_*
Posted 06 October 2011 - 10:02 PM
#5
Posted 07 October 2011 - 03:49 AM
#7
Posted 07 October 2011 - 06:33 AM
#8
Posted 07 October 2011 - 07:09 AM
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul said Wednesday that the Occupy Wall Street protests were a “legitimate effort,” but he wasn’t exactly sure what they are outraged about.
“I can’t speak for the people out there because I don’t know who they are or exactly what they are demonstrating against,” Paul told the Nation Press Club. “I can argue the case for their right to express their outright frustration with what is going on. Some are liberals and some are conservatives and some are libertarians and some are strict constitutionalists. And if you read carefully over what I’ve written over the past 10 or 15 years, I talk a lot about this, that eventually we will go bankrupt.”
“As far as the federal government involved in the practice of civil disobedience in the various states, it’s really up to the states to deal with it. I think that civil disobedience, if everybody knows exactly what they are doing, is a legitimate effort. It’s been done in this country for many grievances. Some people end up going to jail for this. But to speak for a special group and say, ‘Yeah, I like what they are doing or they are not doing,’ but what I want to do is try to sort it out and tell people why they are struggling and that this was a predictable event.”
#9
Posted 07 October 2011 - 07:26 AM
On the other hand, I do agree that they lack a cohesive message. And the Truther crowd is never worth defending.
Everyone i know of who is going has a job and isn't a truther. Agree that the message isn't cohesive and it's so far being driven by frustration and a need to do something.
#10
Posted 07 October 2011 - 09:54 AM
#11 Guest_Whistler's Momma_*
Posted 07 October 2011 - 09:56 AM
#12
Posted 07 October 2011 - 10:11 AM
Freedom, going to a phish concert and wearing certain attire does not a hippie make. If someone is there bcause they're laid off, why do they necessarily and logically need to vent their frustration at wall street? It's safe to assume that this is a pro-Obama crowd based on the union support and speakers attending such as Michael Moore - again not conservative/libertarian material debunking the whole rawstory article. Wall Street donated more to Obama in 2008 than any candidate in history and who bailed them out? It's misguided at best and outright dangerous mob at its worst.
I have a job and have plenty to vent about Wall Street.
1.) Our jobs, as a way of helping us save for retirement, take money and give it to Wall Street. We are then encouraged to do the same, perhaps with our employer matching our contribution up to a certain level. This is the extent to which most people probably deal with Wall Street. But then, when someone fucks up big time as happened leading up to the Fall 2008 fiasco, it hurts those people in a very bad way...by attacking their savings for retirement (i.e. it hurts what many would say is them having been responsible). Very rarely do they have the option of simply taking the cash equivalent of what their employer invests and putting it into something else, such as a simple guaranteed interest savings account, CD, or bond.
2.) Corporations are beholden to the stockholders. Most stockholders who have a lot of stock are wealthy. Meaning corporations are beholden to the wealthy. They put the consumers of their products below the profit margin. The profit margin, as it goes up, helps stockholders. The ways they increase those profits (e.g. firing employees, cutting benefits, outsourcing, using cheaper materials, making a shittier product that breaks down, etc.) hurt consumers, employees, and the economy at large.
3.) You have a beef with these supposed hippies who contribute nothing. Stockholders contribute nothing. I know. I have stock. If it goes up, I can sell if for a profit despite my having done nothing whatsoever. Add to that the fact that we don't count capital gains as ordinary income, and you have a special class of people who don't do a damn thing, make more money than average, and pay fewer taxes than average. They contribute less, pay less, and make more. That is, by your own words, the very definition of rewarding those who have done nothing right.
Additionally, I'm well aware of the problems the Democratic Party has with being damn near as corporatist as the GOP. I think the two party system and its root causes are some of the biggest problems with our democracy. We have two, capitalistic, corporatist parties, one of which tends moderately toward labor and the other toward owners/management/stockholders. But they're still both parties of big business and go out of their ways to keep other parties from effectively competing against them.
#13
Posted 07 October 2011 - 10:15 AM
ETA: Randell, you're assuming that everyone at the demonstrations are staying their 24/7 but I'm guessing most of people are cycling in and out as their schedules permit. .
Yes, this is obviously correct. So anyone else laughing at the irony of people having time on their tax-payer funded jobs to post multi-paragraph rants on a Friday morning? Or is it just me?
#15
Posted 07 October 2011 - 10:21 AM
ETA: Randell, you're assuming that everyone at the demonstrations are staying their 24/7 but I'm guessing most of people are cycling in and out as their schedules permit. .
Yes, this is obviously correct. So anyone else laughing at the irony of people having time on their tax-payer funded jobs to post multi-paragraph rants on a Friday morning? Or is it just me?
I get a day off every once in a while too. It's a four day weekend for columbus day. Isn't that one of the desires of this movement. People not profits or some shit like that.
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