'Occupy' types

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

That Guy, hooskins - well said.

John Lennon's message to the Occupiers:

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right
Ah

ah, ah, ah, ah, ah...

You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right
all right, all right, all right
all right, all right, all right

[NC_Skins]

[mlmpetert]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

Instead of the cops and mayors worrying about occupiers, how about they start changing some laws in their state to reflect much of their problems. If the Fed won't regulate banks, the states sure as hell can if you do business in their state.

Im dont believe cops or mayors have any authority to start changing some laws in their states….. Although I think one of the major duties a police chief or mayor does have is to worry about "occupiers", or any type of civil unrest at the municipality level.

But i think the bigger issue in your statement is who or what are the protestors protesting. If its that that Fed wont regulate banks, shouldnt the protestors be protesting the Fed not Wall Street? Perhaps it should be Occupy Pennsylvania Avenue or Capitol Street?

[mlmpetert]

Originally Posted by That Guy

I think the biggest problem is there's no real agenda... it's cool to be pissed off, but if you don't have any specific demands, what exactly are you wasting your time for?

and i mean, do you guys know what a hachet job is? back when the temperance movement was trying to ban alcohol, women would literally mob up and go into bars and warehouses and destroy them... break every mirror, smash every bottle, hack open every keg. and they kept doing it until they started getting their way.

protests since WWI have generally been almost completely violence free (maybe MLK's example helped?), but back in the days of Main Street and pre-prohibition america, it was an entirely different story.

The protesters that got their way had a focused goal - better working conditions, the right to vote, equality under law, etc etc

The OWS have support in that a LOT of americans are unhappy with the country, the government, corporate influence and backscratching (bailouts et al), but there's no endgame or proposed solution, so it's pointless. And i'm not sure the movement's been set up so that it can be lead either.

Very well said

[Lotus]

Personally I have disagreements with some posters on both sides of this issue.

I know several people who are involved in the Occupy movement. They are intelligent non-hippie people with good jobs and they are not violent. Therefore they defy the stereotypes which are so common in this thread. Instead, they are educated and good-hearted Americans manifesting the same frustration with the rapaciousness of the unregulated rich which drove some of the policies of Teddy Roosevelt. And they are expressing this frustration in an authentic American way. So if you are one of those people in this thread who stereotype Occupy protesters as shiftless and/or violent hippies, you are not understanding the movement in a clear way.

All that said, That Guy and Hooskins are correct. While I admire the utopian ideals of the Occupy movement, their utopianism has prevented them from enunciating discrete, specific goals and discrete, specific paths for realizing those goals. This lack of direction, it seems to me, keeps the Occupy movement as it currently exists from achieving any real change.

Because the frustration which drives the movement will not evaporate even if their movement achieves nothing, the social energy of the movement will not disappear. Instead it will transform into something new with the same themes. In the years to come I think we will see similar social movements which are more focused and directed and thus more productive. American history has shown that you can't keep a populist spirit down too long. If we do not understand this, and instead we stereotype embodiments of this spirit as hippie thugs, we will be unable to cope with the inevitable progression of history.

[MTK]

Well said as usual Lotus.

[over the mountain]

yeah gesus lotus . . very well thought out and written. something an op ed in wash po strives to be.

[NC_Skins]

Why 'occupy'? It's personal - CNN.com

In the meantime, corporate profits are at an all-time high, but corporations are paying lower taxes than ever before. Some aren't paying any at all. This week, we see banks tacking on extra fees -- which, contrary to what they argue, would lead them to 13% more in profits than they were making before the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act went into effect. At the same time, CEOs, while also making record amounts of money (the average CEO makes $11 million a year while the average person makes $40,000), have laid off millions of Americans while sending our jobs overseas. These are not nameless, faceless Americans. They are our neighbors, our friends and even our families. It is personal.

Republicans continue to protect this twisted system. And to add insult to injury, Republican legislators and the GOP presidential candidates want to eliminate the protections the middle class gained from the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed by Democrats and signed by Obama.

On job creators? Who are they? The majority of job creation comes from our small businesses, none of which are raking in the salaries of the top 1% of wealthy Americans. So asking the top 1% of wealthy Americans to pay their fair share and pay at least as high a tax rate as their workers is not class warfare or an attack on "job creators" or socialism. It is in fact the American way. And America agrees.

[over the mountain]

Originally Posted by mlmpetert

And probably most disturbing of all the Occupy Baltimore leaders (watch out OTM!) are handing out pamphlets that discourage rape victims from reporting rapes to the police .... wow.

Occupy Baltimore group discourages reporting rape, health advocates say - Baltimore Sun

from my experiences of driving by they are a real mild group just holding up a few signs, not blocking traffic, i havent heard an insesant drums but i only drive by there a few times a week. pretty much non-existent on weekdays. the time we heard this rap guy blarring his sentiments on racism and dropping the N word was the only thing that has rubbed me the wrong way, just not necessary for a family area of the city. i mean it was blarring, words were very clear. your not in some private venue bar or club where people knowingly go to hear that nonsense.

otherwise, i dont think anyone is really noticing or caring in the city.

edit - what i meant to say is, the area they have is so small and right in a high traffic area for cars, peds and cops that there is lil to no chance on hell of a rape happening. that memo was just stupid and pointless

[JoeRedskin]

Lotus - Unsurprisingly, I agree with you on all points. If I have intimated anything different it was simply my knee-jerk reaction to some other knee jerk reactions and I admit not particularly productive.

My initial observations (way back when) in this thread were simply that, unlike the Tea Party, the OWS'ers are not an effective populist movement at this time. BUT, as saden1 said and you have much more fully analyzed, this is just the start - so it is likely too early to judge in that regard. Perhaps in three years, the political landscape has been radically changed by someone or some group building off the tensions being brought to the fore by the OWS'ers.

For me, I absolutely agree with the OWS'ers that the Market is broken and needs to be fixed but, as I said initially, the devil is in the details and standing in the park doesn't provide the answers.

[hooskins]

Lotus you are way too serious. Jk, very well stated and can't disagree with you.

Glad we are reaching a point of agreement from both sides. Here is a pretty ironic story related to OWS and one of it's issues. I think both "sides" will find it funny.

Occupy Wall Street kitchen slowdown targets squatters - NYPOST.com

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

Why 'occupy'? It's personal - CNN.com

I know this will never change your mind/views, but it's as hypocritical as the day is long for you to lecture us (particularly conservatives) about how you "don't care about D vs. R, Red vs. Blue", etc. and we're all so stupid we don't know the "Man" is pitting us against each other while he keeps us down.

....Yet many of your posts lean far left and you post an article from a Democratic strategist who was a comms director at the DNC and a senior advisor to Hillary that bashes the GOP in several spots and glosses over the fact that campaign contributions made by major corporations split almost evenly between D & R pols. It completely blames the GOP for the current state of affairs, which couldn't be further from the truth since the Ds have controlled Congress for quite sometime.

It's conservatives who want a restructuring of our tax system to take out loopholes that would make high end earners "pay their fair share" rather than get hit with a high % on paper that they "loophole" their way out of down to single digits in many cases.

It's conservatives who want to lower or remove corporate taxes to get jobs back home to the U.S. to raise the income of folks across all tax brackets. It's conservatives who want to reign in spending & entitlement programs which will bankrupt the country and leave little to nothing for future generations....across all tax brackets.

Instead of the OWS clowns (Lotus I get that there are smart, respectable folks who identify with OWS, but those folks aren't sleeping in parks, urinating wherever, and aren't co-op'ed by ACORN, SEIU, CAIR and whatever other group wants some airtime) sleeping in public places and acting like hippies, how about they identify the corporations with high dollar CEOs & board members then publicize how much they make vs. the company performance. Let the American people who buy the products or have the stock in their 401Ks make the decsion to keep subsidizing their bad behavior or not. We have an election coming up, how about they define a list of laws, regulations, policies they believe will begin to close the disparity between CEO and secretary, get that out in front of the American people and let them make the choice in Nov.

This article you posted is more of the same D bashing R that you've stated before is missing the point. This "pay their fair share", raise the tax rate on high earners nonsense just puts more money in the hands of the politicans that have created this mess and solves nothing.

Edit: all that being said, the picture was pretty damn funny.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

Instead of the cops and mayors worrying about occupiers, how about they start changing some laws in their state to reflect much of their problems. If the Fed won't regulate banks, the states sure as hell can if you do business in their state.

Mayors run cities not states.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

That's the problem. American's have sit back and let their country be taken right from them without a single care. You should be angry too. You should be sick and tired of the bullshit your government is giving you. Then again, maybe you are benefiting from them and don't give a shit because it hasn't affected you yet. Yet being key word. America's biggest downfall has been and will continue to be apathy.

**** those jobless bums!!


Oakland Police Critically Injure Iraq War Vet During Occupy March

**** this war veteran! ****ing piece of shit bum exercising his right to free speech!! GET A JOB YOU HIPPIE!!


The fact that many of you sit up here and just stereotype these people and act like you know why they are there is beyond me. It's sad most of you sit back and listen to the bullshit the media pumps and believe it. Just look at FOX to get a good view on how very much they've slanted this "occupy" movement. It's amazing thing to watch. Turning Americans against their own kind all the while they sit back and laugh because you are again blinded by the crooks in Washington.

I'd like to see a police force try to take on thousand and thousands of people.

There is no evidence the cops injured that man. The stuff the cops used do not normally cause those types of injuries. Now the rocks thrown by the protestors could cause those injuries. No one knows at this point so thats poor attempt by the writer to pin that on the police.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

Instead of the cops and mayors worrying about occupiers, how about they start changing some laws in their state to reflect much of their problems. If the Fed won't regulate banks, the states sure as hell can if you do business in their state.

Since you agree so much with the Occupy movement, why don't you get more involved and give the movement what it most lacks: concrete direction?