Jay-Z knocks Occupy Wall Street

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PBalfredo said:
I think these protesters have the right idea.

No turn on red!
No turn on red!
No turn on red!
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That's the first legitimate stance I've seen from the Tea Party on anything.

Also, LOL at "zero taxes" as they stand on a public sidewalk, which they most likely drove on a public road to get to, and with their safety and right to assemble guaranteed by publicly funded police officers.
 
ccbfan said:
So you're saying the majority of doctors are not hard working or honest?
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Not to mention all the farmers, small business owners, entrepreneurs, engineers, musicians, artists, etc who've had success in their careers are all lazy too.

Keru_Shiri said:
I'm not saying that OWS didn't mishandle their message, but don't pretend for a bit that media outlets didn't make it an uphill battle from the start.
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Bullshit. For once, the media actually gave them airtime and put them in the spotlight. It was up to the Occupiers to make good use of that spotlight, and they did nothing with it.
 
.GqueB. said:
Jay-Z-Occupy-All-Streets--007.jpg
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For some reason it makes me think of:

diddy.jpg
 
Keru_Shiri said:
I'm not saying that OWS didn't mishandle their message, but don't pretend for a bit that media outlets didn't make it an uphill battle from the start.
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I don't even think that's fair. The Tea Party didn't just fall into good graces - they worked for their support and actually had enough organization to warrant an investment. I don't agree with what the majority of what the Tea Party puts out, but they became what they are by being a hell of a lot more organized and easier to support than OWS.
maquiladora said:
Jay-Z earned $38 million this year alone.

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eeel45jjgd/3-shawn-jay-z-carter-38-million-2/#gallerycontent
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Good for him.

But what's the point of bringing up his earnings repeatedly in a thread like this? Does it make his statement any less valid?
 
CharlieDigital said:
It would be a "political party" in the same vein of the "Tea Party" and how they've co-opted the Republicans.

So far, no liberal group has been able to co-opt the Democratic party, which has moved further towards the center.
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Well your post above where you said you agreed substantively with OWS essentially recited Democratic staples. What's the point of moving the party left if it already stands for what OWS stands for in your view?

I think the larger problem is nobody can really identify what the problem is or how to solve it. This goes for OWS's critics just as much as OWS. In this very thread we have vague ranting about "the banks" and "fraud" and "bringing people to justice" but nobody has cited a single instance of actual fraud, nobody has provided a single name of someone who should be in jail, and you even have one guy who thinks that just a few people, or maybe just one person, was responsible for approving all the bad loans.
 
Keru_Shiri said:
I'm not saying that OWS didn't mishandle their message, but don't pretend for a bit that media outlets didn't make it an uphill battle from the start.
Click to expand...
Bullshit. For once, the media actually gave them airtime and put them in the spotlight. It was up to the Occupiers to make good use of that spotlight, and they did nothing with it.

In Vancouver, when they had a press gathering, the Occupiers said that they didn't recognize the authority of the city, police and fire department. They were given every opportunity to make their voice heard. The mayor and city were more than accommodating, but they just acted like a bunch of spoiled brats. The media didn't need to make them look bad, they did it all on their own.

They just kept getting worse and worse every day and losing more support. They pulled stupid stunts like blocking a major city intersection, raiding and protesting a nearby bank. They started off with a lot of public support, but they had no clue how to use it, and swindled it by making insane demands and trying to look all tough and extreme.

Basically, the dialogue went like this:

City: Okay, we understand your gripe and we're sympathetic with it. Tell us what you want to discuss and we'll listen.
Occupiers: FUCK YOU. STOP TRYING TO BEAT US DOWN MAN. WE WON'T STAND FOR THIS BULLSHIT OPPRESSION.

Pretty sure most Vancouver-GAFfers here will agree with this assessment.
 
SpectreFire said:
Bullshit. For once, the media actually gave them airtime and put them in the spotlight. It was up to the Occupiers to make good use of that spotlight, and they did nothing with it.
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You really think Fox News was going to give OWS a fair shake? Even setting them aside, almost from day 1 Occupiers were shown as aimless vagabonds without a coherent message. You are right though, Occupiers didn't do enough with what airtime they were given, but I refuse to believe the lens placed above them was objective.

DY_nasty said:
I don't even think that's fair. The Tea Party didn't just fall into good graces - they worked for their support and actually had enough organization to warrant an investment. I don't agree with what the majority of what the Tea Party puts out, but they became what they are by being a hell of a lot more organized and easier to support than OWS.
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They did indeed have better organization. I'm not arguing that one bit.
 
Keru_Shiri said:
You really think Fox News was going to give OWS a fair shake? Even setting them aside, almost from day 1 Occupiers were shown as aimless vagabonds without a coherent message. You are right though, Occupiers didn't do enough with what airtime they were given, but I refuse to believe the lens placed above them was objective.
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FOX News is just one news outlet, and you will never get anything bias and fair out of them, so I would hardly include them in this discussion. And you know what? Day 1, Occupiers WERE aimless vagabonds without a coherent message.

And they still are to this day.

Media is never objective, regardless if its mainstream or independent. They're all created with some form of bias or another, but it wasn't just the media lenses that made them look back. OWS kept stumbling over themselves. They were literally their biggest enemy. A lot of people were willing to pay attention to them. But OWS squandered all of the good will they had. They simply didn't know when to stop. They just kept going and going, past the point where what they were doing, stopped being good, and started to be bad and annoying.
 
Mammoth Jones said:
I don't think most people are saying that. Most people are just pointing out the message of that particular movement was simply scattered and not focused.
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As soon as I heard how much emphasis they were putting on letting everybody know their manifesto was an ever changing "living document" I knew they were doomed.

From day one, everybody knew what the Tea Party wanted: low/no taxes, no Obamacare. Clear, concise, actionable. As relevant to the movement today as it was in the beginning. OWS came out of the gate basically saying "check back later and we'll let you know what we want for sure, once we figure it all out."

But hey, they "changed the dialogue" for like a month, right? Huge win there.
 
Jay z is dumb.
Anyways, there is a lot of reasons ows didn't make a big splash like its suppose too. Not having a central "point" is one of them. Media outlets only focusing on the crazy people is another. Old generation not giving a fuck because they still believe one day they will become millionaires is another. Politicians ignoring the movement is the biggest one.
 
SpectreFire said:
FOX News is just one news outlet, and you will never get anything bias and fair out of them, so I would hardly include them in this discussion. And you know what? Day 1, Occupiers WERE aimless vagabonds without a coherent message.

And they still are to this day.

Media is never objective, regardless if its mainstream or independent. They're all created with some form of bias or another, but it wasn't just the media lenses that made them look back. OWS kept stumbling over themselves. They were literally their biggest enemy. A lot of people were willing to pay attention to them. But OWS squandered all of the good will they had. They simply didn't know when to stop. They just kept going and going, past the point where what they were doing, stopped being good, and started to be bad and annoying.
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I honestly get the feeling we agree more than we realize. I've stated already that OWS did little to control their image. You get that many people protesting, there's bound to be hooligans, giving something for the media to zoom in on. And with no management or leadership, the hooligans became the dominant face of OWS.

EDIT: Ironically enough, I have to get back to work so I likely won't be able to respond promptly.
 
RangersFan said:
why do people keep bringing up how much he makes or how much he's worth?

oh I get it, successful people don't deserve nice things...
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No one begrudges that kind of success

It's another thing when people making that kind of money complain about their 15% tax rate, while someone struggling to feed a family and pay a mortgage is paying double that.
 
dave is ok said:
No one begrudges that kind of success

It's another thing when people making that kind of money complain about their 15% tax rate, while someone struggling to feed a family and pay a mortgage is paying double that.
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but what

i dont even

where was that said?
 
some sort of passionate leader needs to rise up with clear intentions/goals/organization.

and peaceful respectable protesting all the way.
 
WanderingWind said:
Keep in mind that part of this "entrepreneurship" that he's touting began with selling crack on street corners to kids.

Not to knock the hustle, but most of the people protesting probably were interested in jobs that didn't carry with it a penalty that involved lengthy jail time.
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Yeah. Jay Z is just an entrepreneur who didn't do anything illegal to get where he is today.
 
SoulPlaya said:
Jay-Z is rich and has lost touch with what people go through.

It's what greed usually does.
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That may be entirely true, but it doesn't make his statement wrong at all.

OWS was a mess from top to bottom. And their biggest accomplishment was kinda-sorta getting the wealth gap talked about some of the time.
 
SpectreFire said:
Bullshit. For once, the media actually gave them airtime and put them in the spotlight. It was up to the Occupiers to make good use of that spotlight, and they did nothing with it.

In Vancouver, when they had a press gathering, the Occupiers said that they didn't recognize the authority of the city, police and fire department. They were given every opportunity to make their voice heard. The mayor and city were more than accommodating, but they just acted like a bunch of spoiled brats. The media didn't need to make them look bad, they did it all on their own.

They just kept getting worse and worse every day and losing more support. They pulled stupid stunts like blocking a major city intersection, raiding and protesting a nearby bank. They started off with a lot of public support, but they had no clue how to use it, and swindled it by making insane demands and trying to look all tough and extreme.

Basically, the dialogue went like this:

City: Okay, we understand your gripe and we're sympathetic with it. Tell us what you want to discuss and we'll listen.
Occupiers: FUCK YOU. STOP TRYING TO BEAT US DOWN MAN. WE WON'T STAND FOR THIS BULLSHIT OPPRESSION.

Pretty sure most Vancouver-GAFfers here will agree with this assessment.
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Agreed with all points here. From what I saw, they were depicted pretty positively in the media. They got a lot of air time. The most negative response was here on GAF honestly.
 
I probably qualify as a smelly pinko commie hippie or whatever, but I can't say that I disagree with the man.

Occupy Wall Street always seemed to me more like an art project for bringing the issues of economic inequality and corruption to prominence. In that it was successful.

Beyond that it never seemed to me like it was going to amount to much because it didn't seem very educated on the issues, didn't seem to have any idea on how to resolve the problems it was trying to highlight, and never seemed to have a clear message.
 
SpectreFire said:
Bullshit. For once, the media actually gave them airtime and put them in the spotlight. It was up to the Occupiers to make good use of that spotlight, and they did nothing with it.
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This is simply not true, though. I'm not picking on you, but this general sentiment. It's a complete god damn re-write of history. The fact is, ANYONE can tell you what OWS stands/stood for. They could a year ago and they can today.
But there was a WHOLE bunch of people – either morons or propagandists – who constantly said, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS IS ABOUT".

It was about income inequality and holding the banks responsible for the financial collapse. There was a range of spinter issues related to those, but to act like that's uncommon in a protest movement is to deny reality. Go look at all the Tea Party protests. Same exact disorganization . You had people whining about taxes being too high, climate change conspiracies, RINOs, Obama's citizenship... the list of typical conservative complaints and issues goes on. It's laughable to say the Tea Party had a tightly conveyed message. Ultimately the "narrative" set in that the Tea Party was about lower taxes, just as it did that OWS was about income inequality. The difference is that people STILL pretend they don't know what OWS wanted.

Sure, in the beginning it was admittedly a very chaotic message, but after it finally started getting attention after a few weeks (and they WERE out there for about 3 weeks before they finally got some face time) they got their act together.

As far as not "succeeding", this is a BS line, too. This election is about income inequality and the gap between the wealthy and everybody else. If it weren't for OWS, we'd STILL be talking about deficits, austerity and the national debt like they were the most pressing issues facing America today. Because that's ALL we talked about PRIOR to OWS.

I DO agree that the biggest mistake OWS made was refusing to get involved electorally. That was just monumentally stupid. The reason the Tea Party was able to make SO MUCH traction though is because they were literally a part of the system. The Tea Party was about walking up an escalator going up, while OWS was about walking down that same escalator, if you will.

Bear in mind too that you're basically asking OWS to undo 30 years or income inequality and Reganomics in an election cycle. That's absolute madness. It took us 30+ years to get to this point and realistically it'll take us almost as long as get back.

But the whole notion that OWS has no message is – I'm sorry – revisionist horseshit.
 
is it possible for a group of protesters or a movement as big as occupy was to even be focused? or to "focus its message"? that kinda implies that "it" is actually one thing, not a shitload of people.. i dunno. i just woke up people cut me some slack.
 
What the fuck is going on in this thread. The article is about a paragraph long and it seems like 90% of you didn't take the time to read it, and went straight to knocking him for being successful.

Literally all he said was that he feels like the Occupy movement was unfocused, and ended up being anti-business instead of anti-corruption. If you followed the news at all you'd know that whatever the initial idea of the protest was, it became obscured by the novelty of having a fuckton of people camping out on Wall Street instead of actually pushing an organized political agenda. He wasn't advocating against public assembly, he is advocating against the kind of mob mentality that brings unneeded controversy against the movement.

Whatever you think about the movement itself, he has a point. If we could get this kind of support in a legitimate political movement, it would do far more then vandalizing public property and creating a giant public money sink by requiring that much police resources.


coldvein said:
is it possible for a group of protesters or a movement as big as occupy was to even be focused? or to "focus its message"? that kinda implies that "it" is actually one thing, not a shitload of people.. i dunno. i just woke up people cut me some slack.
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Yes, but when this:
DktRz.jpg
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is your campaign poster it's easy to see how people would start coming up with whatever sounds catchy, and then you just end up with a Tea Party-esque flashmob.
 
coldvein said:
is it possible for a group of protesters or a movement as big as occupy was to even be focused? or to "focus its message"? that kinda implies that "it" is actually one thing, not a shitload of people.. i dunno. i just woke up people cut me some slack.
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Civil Rights movement seemed to do alright.
 
Occupy is largely irrelevant today, and nearly completely disappeared while the Tea Party remains. I liked them for awhile to a degree, but they got nastier and more bitter as time passed to a point where most Americans stopped paying attention to them.
 
The ether still burns slow. But after stealing Young Chris' whisper flow, stepping on the back of dozens of Roc members and affiliates to get to where he is now, I'm not surprised. Jay's entire story is him being part of the so-called 1%. Screwing over people to get on top.

He's still the second GOAT though, behind Nas.
 
SoulPlaya said:
I'm so sick of the word entrepreneur.
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Every woman married to a rich guy on twitter calls herself an entrepreneur to make it seem like they arent gold diggers. I guess coming out with a perfume fragrance makes someone an entrepreneur. It's such a meaningless buzzword.
 
OWS didn't do anything but tell people that a lot of us out there are unemployed and angry. OWS needed a leader since all successful movements need them, but especially a spokesperson who can effectively disseminate and control their message...just like corporations and politicians do with their layers of firefighting staff on call 24/7. Jay-Z is filthy rich and, like most multi-multi-millionaries and above, they really don't deserve all of their ludicrous amounts of wealth in the face of so much inequity. He can say what he wants, but he's one of those few sitting atop massive wealth and influence that could help things instead of just criticize.
 
Wasn't a big fan of the brick throwing, traffic blocking, holding people hostage, and just the general vandalism of the occupy movement.

I'm not sure how blocking 99%ers from crossing a bridge is going to show those 1%ers what's up.
 
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