417 replies to this topic

[Mr. Roboto]

Thoughts?

[artcinco]

The left's Tea Party has arrived.

[Timothy]

Burn the motherfucker down!!!

[PERM BANNED]

Do you think it's morally wrong to punish someone who has done nothing wrong? Then why do you support the notion that it is morally right to reward someone who has done nothing right? All the negative aspects about joiners and lack of focus and solidarity people attacked the tea party for are just if not more applicable to the wall street crowd. A bunch of nut jobs who contribute nothing and live on the fringe. The front page of yahoo.com today had an article on this phenomena and the parade of people. And of course, as always it's the 9/11 truther types leading the charge. An occupy Wall street cut out of metal sign being carried with pictures of Bush throwing a paper plane into the towers. The unions are smart about it though. They know they're on the ropes, so why not take advantage of a bunch of joiners to get them to do the groundwork for them and capitalize on the hostility. Look at the photos and you see hippies and outcasts wearing Guy Fawkes masks and desecrated American flags. These people aren't willing to work and sweat to better their situation. They just want to bitch and threaten riots and call it democracy. Say what you will about the tea party, but at least they had a unified idea and that was to get Obama out of office. These Wall Street types can't even forumlate cohrenet ideas, let alone an organized, unified message.

[TAP]

With the press first ignoring and now very laughably and fakely demonizing it, likely it's a good thing. Now that it's expanding, I'm sure Dem politicians will be falling over themselves to jump on the bandwagon.

[freedom78]

You're overreaching to suggest that being a "hippie" or whatnot means you "contribute nothing". Hell, I've been to a couple of Phish shows, wear Birkenstocks, and avoid putting on long pants (weather permitting) until November...does this make me a hippie who doesn't contribute? We know nothing of these people to assume such things. Furthermore, if they truly aren't contributing, there's a 50/50 chance that it's because they got fired/laid off as a part of this economic downturn. I find it hard to criticize those whom the system uses as its economic punching bag. On the other hand, I do agree that they lack a cohesive message. And the Truther crowd is never worth defending.

[TAP]

http://www.rawstory....itimate-effort/

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.”

[TAP]

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.

[PERM BANNED]

A lack of a message and objective with people amassing driven solely by despair, frustration and anger is a mob. It's not democracy and it's not anything like the protests in the middle east or even Wisconsin. Those places had firm objectives. These people in NYV are more akin to the rioters in London than any of the aforementioned groups they're trying to associate themself with. I have an issue with taking serious a crowd of Mao/Che shirt wearing socialists who can't articulate why they're angry, just that they have an opporuntiy to link and up and pat themself on the back for doing something they're calling important. You either fall into two categories here. If you're not from NYC, you're either unemployed or worked a job so unimportant, you could just abandon it and hangou in a crowded park. I'm going off the images and stories the media is reporting, so if you say it's a different picture there, I'll have to take your word for it Tap. But this is a group of people who have alluded to violence already and have no end state. You say they're driven by the need to do something. What is that something? I think the rawstory article is crap, and uses selective wording. But even if it's spot on, it's still garbage. Libertarians and strict constitutionalists aren't going to be siding with progressives on how they view wall street and their demands for more regulation and redistribution of wealth. 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. These people are calling them the 99% who represent America. Well 90% of America has a job and 99.9999999999999999% of Americans are to preoccupied with their own lives that they can't drive to Manhattan and hang out and beat on drums beliving they're doing something. There is nothing intellectucal about this group. It's raw emotion and passion, and a lot of it is misguided. If you look at the groups involved in this and the signs they're holding, it's just not some unemployed auto makers from Detroit asking to being the jobs home. It's your typical far left WTO protestors who think captialism is the downfall of the world. There values aren't representative of the majority of Americans, hell not even a decent slice, let alone 99%. What's most wrong is they want to be portrayed as heroes, brave souls and martyrs fighting for justice. But not one of them can agree on what that justice is, and short of being arrrsted, not one of them can name anything they've done to better the situation. They come from the same stalk of protestors that thought by sitting in the street at some college in middle america, they could impact the government's decisions regarding the wars in the ME. They were dilusional then, and they're dilusional now.

[freedom78]

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.

[TAP]

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?

[PERM BANNED]

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.