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[Miggytronz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uZmPWcLQ1Mk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hYIC0eZYEtI

 

[empty vessel]

You are very wrong. The difference between the wealthy and the rest of society we see today has been completely organic. It is the essence of the system we live in. It's pure mathematics. The rich get richer. I, being in the 1% will only get richer relative to you as time marches on. I'm not trying to. I'm not manipulating the system to make it so. I just can't help it.

Politics has nothing to do with the wealth difference we see today. In fact, without government, without regulation, without democracy the difference between the top and the bottom would be even bigger.

We will have to agree to disagree. You claim you make over 1.5 million dollars every year. I am sure that you are highly motivated to rationalize the value you add to society. Those of us who aren't naive enough to believe that a business executive's purely administrative contribution to the creation of wealth is worth 300 or 400 times that of the rest of the 99% of the people who actually create wealth through their physical labor or mental expertise will have to do as you suggest and utilize government, regulation, and democracy to reduce the artificial differences between the entitled top 1% (whose egos if you are any indication are severely over-inflated) and the rest of us.

The ability to exploit the immense advantages that concentrated economic power confers to those who wield it is not a skill that inherently contributes to society's well being. It is merely the exercise of raw power. That the relative handful of people in whose hands American wealth is concentrated can use those advantages to accumulate still more wealth does not establish equity any more than we would say that one nation's advanced weaponry makes it "fair" that they conquer a nation that is defenseless in comparison.

(You might want to note, too, that you depend upon government more than anybody else. Without it, you would not be able to lay claim to any property except by brute force. And you're kind of outnumbered on that front.)

 

[remnant]

http://erratasec.blogspot.com/2011/10/independent-reporting-of.html#more

Has probably the best write-up about Occupy Wall St so far by someone who is looking at it objectively as a whole. It also has a viewpoint of someone who was at the brooklyn bridge when shit went down. Very interesting in a journalist level and observant level of human nature. Anyway It's a long post so i just posted some things I found interesting.

The protest started as a chaotic event put together haphazardly via Twitter and the Internet, with no actual leader. How, then, were they able to organize a garbage detail? The answer is self-organization. Protestors have developed a General Assembly of all the people that gives authority to the “Central Committee,” made up from the hard-core protesters who are sleeping in the park night after night. The Central Committee has many subcommittees, like the “Media Team” responsible for recording the proceedings or the “Arts and Culture Committee”, responsible for making signs and running the drum circle, and the "Sanitation Committee" team keeping the park clean. They have organized the park into specific areas, dedicated to different tasks.


Let’s follow this thread even further. The protesters aren’t allowed to have a bullhorn or loudspeaker. How, then, can a person address the General Assembly, in the middle of a bustling city, reaching the hundreds of protesters spread throughout the park? The answer is the “People’s Microphone”. A speaker speaks in short phrases. Those nearby then repeat the phrases, shouting so that those in back can hear. The People’s Mic is powerfully emotional, driving home the point of solidarity. Although, it’s occasionally ironic when a speaker says things like “we are all individuals” or “we must think for ourselves”.

More than just the amplifying the voice, there is a system for selecting speakers. There is a "Stack" of speakers expressing desire to speak, with their position on the stack dynamically adjusted so that all points of view get equal time, or so that shy women get pushed ahead in the stack to counterbalance loud males.

As time has gone on, established liberal/progressive organizations have lent their support to the occupiers. The crude hand-made signs from the first couple weeks are giving way to slick printed placards. The question is, as time goes on, will the movement be lead by the hard-core who slept night after night on the cold hard ground and who have worked to create their own organization, or will it cede control to established political operatives? As we saw with the Tea Party, a grass roots effort was quickly hijacked by skilled politicos.

There are many other aspects of this that go unreported. One I find especially important is the loving nature of the protest. If you look at photographs in the news, you see the typical angry protester. This is the sort of action shot newsrooms prefer, i.e., showing the emotion of the scene.

But the protest isn’t angry. Quite the opposite, it is loving and accepting. If you go up to protesters with the opposite political view and debate them, they will express their undying love for you and ask for you to join them to increase the diversity of viewpoints. I did this myself, and watched this happen to others, including cops. This attitude pervades everything they do, and is frequently reinforced by the hard-core occupiers.


This is the opposite of what happened during the protests against the Iraq war, the protests against the last Republican convention in New York or the violent protests during every G8 summit. Not only is this different than most other protests, it is the similar to the hyper-tolerant “Burning Man” festival that takes place in the Nevada desert every summer. Whether it’s Burning Man or Occupy Wall Street, there is a cultural shift somewhere here. Now I feel compelled to go to Burning Man next year, just to track this thread down.

I disagree with this sentiment. While I'm sure many people there are kind, i don't believe for a second that this movement will be welcoming to opposing viewpoints in the future. it's easy to lean left or right and be accepting when you stand alone. However when unions or chamber of commerce you no longer need the small government guy or the moderate guy.

Journalists ignored the mainstream of the Tea Party and instead focused on the fringe. Instead of showing the hundreds of signs calling for smaller government, reporters instead focused on the one sign showing Obama as Hitler. In the end, this reporting became self-fulfilling. The Republican fringe disaffected with the establishment were convinced by this reporting, believing that they, too, should join the Tea Party, thus derailing it.

This is a particular danger to the Occupation movement. They still haven’t defined themselves, and risk letting the press define the movement for them. They started out with the idea that occupying Wall Street for weeks would be a good way to get their message out, but they are still trying to come to consensus on what, precisely, their message is. The press (and critics) claim they need a messageand that they need a concrete list of demands, but I’m not sure that’s true. This is something else, something new, something that doesn’t need to be defined by the old.

In particular, there is the problem with the “filter bubble”. While the Internet can expand a person’s universe, it gives people the power to shrink it. People create a “filter bubble” around themselves, using tools of the Internet to pass only those things they agree with. For example, Google watches what people search for, profiling them, and sorts the results for that individual. They see their own small universe reflected back, rather than the big universe.

That’s why, despite appearing nightly in the news, the occupiers feel the press is ignoring them. This protest has become the most important thing in the world -- among the people in their filter bubble and those in their social network. It becomes difficult for them to imagine that this isn’t the most interesting thing to everyone else as well. They apparently don’t comprehend that the “news” just reflects what the organizations think their audience wants to hear. If the public doesn’t seem to care, neither does the press.

There is much more to this filter bubble. An obvious problem is that people filter out opposing political views. But they also filter out intellectual arguments that otherwise agree with them. They’ve filtered their view of the world so that political arguments are black-and-white, rather than grey. In their filtered view, politics is about propaganda and rhetoric, rather than debate.


I interviewed the hard-core protesters, those sleeping in the park overnight. I found only propaganda. They could repeat word-perfect the propaganda about the execution of Troy Davis case, but none of the details from the Wikipedia entry on the case. They could repeat the propaganda of Al Gore on Global Warming, but none of the science from the UN IPCC that declares the scientific consensus on the issue. They could repeat the economics of Michael Moore, but not that of Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate, writer of the popular liberal/progressive blog “Conscience of a Liberal” at the New York Times and author of a college textbook giving an introduction to economics. For example, the protesters say “the rich get richer but the poor get poorer,” whereas Krugman says “the rich get richer but the poor go nowhere”. This is due to a profound disagreement about a basic economic concept and the economic data.

This is something i have noticed among many young people, not just these protesters in general. People have filtered out not just news, but viewpoints and history to feed their own biases. Hence we get arguments that act as if prosperity and dystopia swing solely on a tax rate. It's a very strange thing that makes me wonder about the overall intelligence level of many movements like this. Hell you see it on GAF all the time. People posting charts and graphs over and over again,as if somehow that is a real argument.

It's fine on an individual level one can ignore but on a massive scale? Just as with the TP I wonder if people worry about unintended consequences, especially when people cry for drastic change. Rant over.

I’m concerned by the lack of scholarship because of the history of populism. The occupiers were inspired by the Arab Spring, where the people took their countries back from powerful dictators. But they forget that those dictators similarly took power at the head of populist movements that removed their predecessors and that they ruled “in the name of people”. Colonel Gaddafi didn't promote himself to General because that was presumptuous, he was just a man of the people.

I found the occupiers had the same totalitarian attitude, though they don’t see it as totalitarian. Yes, their loving acceptance of those who disagree with them is astonishing, but it’s totalitarian. It asks that people give up their individuality to the state the occupiers are creating. Rather than free speech, the protest has a sort of "managed speech" to make sure everyone has equal time. There is also the flip side, that not to join the movement or to disagree with the protesters means that you are working against the interest of the people.

Magicstop

Back to reporting. I see it as a struggle between the “story” and some sort of “narrative”. Take, for instance, the most reported event of the protest, the arrest of 700 protesters as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. However you treat the story, you have to struggle with the “narrative” that “police oppress protesters”. Here’s what happened. The occupation is of the park in Wall Street. Last Saturday they marched from there intending to go to the park right on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge, then back again. The march was planned ahead of time. The protest leaders talked to the police about it. The police told them to stay off the roadway to avoid blocking traffic, and instead use the pedestrian walkway one level above the roadway. The protest leaders widely communicated this to other protesters.


But at the same time, some protesters were hoping for a confrontation with the police, because mass arrests would get them on the news (I overheard two protesters discussing this). Others were passing out pamphlets on what to do when arrested and urging people to write the phone number of the National Lawyers Guild on their arm. Some of those arrested were among the Central Committee, who would have been the most likely to have known they should not have been on the roadway.

When the protest happened, many protesters followed the correct path above the roadway, but many others incorrectly chose the roadway. After about 700 had taken to the roadway, the police closed off both ends of the bridge, preventing them from escaping and arrested them all. Eventually the errant protesters were given summons for causing a public disturbance. Protesters accuse the police of causing the problem by letting protesters out onto the roadway in the first place rather than informing them to take the pedestrian way. They also point out that shutting down the bridge for hours caused much more of a public disturbance than letting the protesters pass for 15 minutes. Regardless of any agents provocateurs on both sides, though, it’s a good bet that the bulk of the 700 who got arrested were just sheep, going along with the crowd.

But what is not mentioned is the fact that the protesters are overwhelmingly college students, or recent graduates who still haven’t found jobs. They aren’t just any college students, but the stereotypical sort that you might expect to be involved in campus activism, such as graduate students in “Gender Studies.” I found nobody with engineering or science degrees, but many from arts and acting colleges. After talking with one guy for a while about unemployment and his difficult in finding a job after college, I found out that he was a “poet.” I’m not sure he understood that employers aren’t looking to hire poets. The only person I met that had a political science degree was one of the police officers “keeping the peace.”


The protesters are also predominantly white with blacks underrepresented. On the flip side, blacks are over-represented in the police force. The protesters often compare themselves to the Civil Rights Movement, but the photographs of the recent arrests often show black policemen arresting white protesters. I don’t know if this is a vindication of the Civil Rights Movement or if there is still more work to go, to get the blacks better ensconced in middle-class American to send their kids off to college with that combination of privilege and entitlement that turns them into protesters.

The makeup of the protesters also led to amusement among the cops, stationed in pairs on all four sides of the park. For some, their normal beat is in the poor areas of New York City. The police, who daily see the struggle of the real poor, had little use for protesters complaining about jobs while they carried around expensive MacBook computers paid for by their parents.

I see a different narrative. The love and acceptance of dissenting views is huge. The intimacy of the occupation over night is amazing. The excitement from the live stream and Twitter feed is infectious. The populism hinting at totalitarianism is frightening. The occasional irony is amusing. More citations are needed.

I think there is something interesting going on here. It’s not just another protest. I think it’s a more enduring addition to our culture. A decade from now, when the U.S. invades France over a cheese dispute, protesters will “occupy” the streets using the same principles being developed now.

 

[Stinkles]

Great. We'll up to our eyeballs in jobs any minute now. You should visit successful business owners in your area and ask them how many jobs all the taxes and regulations they have to deal with are helping them hire new people. You can see the job creation first hand!

This is a uniquely American viewpoint that ignores the fact that successful corporations all over the world pay higher taxes and abide by more regulations than American companies. If you think American companies are so shit that they can't succeed without being floated by Congress and enabled in their graft and uncompetitive shite, then you should take a closer look at what you think American uniqueness comprises.

Toyota fucking DONGED on American companies through two decades of Japanese recession and far stricter regulations, better healthcare for it's Japanese workers, better products and more fucking taxes.

The same weak-minded shite comes out whenever you talk about universal healthcare, and you conveniently ignore the fact that it works great everywhere else in the world, but that somehow America is too different for it to succeed here.

 

[Enosh]

Lacking empathy for fellow human-beings is one of the diagnostic signs for determining a sociopath. Your ability to discredit human value and human suffering because of man-made, arbitrary lines in the sand (i.e. borders) is pretty terrible. I hope that changes.

sociopaths don't care about the well being of anyone
I do care about the well being of my fellow citizens, my country and since we are a part of it, the EU
so your diagnosis is quite wrong

 

[cooljeanius]

It's still going on. Everyday the crowd gets bigger. I think they are doing it today and tomorrow. They have a permit to rally until Sunday.

Yeah, they're putting on a big march for it today at 4: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=132318243535125
I have a club meeting that overlaps with it, so I might only be able to show up to part of it. Were you thinking of going to it?

 

[HerbertFish]

Has the official list of demands been published yet?

 

[Dice]

I find this... well... incredibly stupid.

If you're going to protest, you need specific demands that can be met as a condition on which you stop.

Damn hippies hipsters...

 

[empty vessel]

I find this... well... incredibly stupid.

If you're going to protest, you need specific demands that can be met as a condition on which you stop.

Damn hippies hipsters...

I don't think so. In fact, this isn't so much a protest as it is a movement. Protests are discrete events. Movements are entities of organized people that persist over time. Movements may and often do engage in protests but are not protests themselves. This movement, long overdue, has just been born. We'll see where it goes.

 

[DarkKyo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uZmPWcLQ1Mk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hYIC0eZYEtI

That George Carlin clip is amazing. It's so fucking true.

 

[bounchfx]

This is something i have noticed among many young people, not just these protesters in general. People have filtered out not just news, but viewpoints and history to feed their own biases.

This is a great quote, but the thing is, it's not just young people. It's everyone. and it's a huge problem-causer. Misinterpretations, Miscommunication, Ignorance, all leads to more shit. It's very unfortunate.

 

[Karma Kramer]

I don't think so. In fact, this isn't so much a protest as it is a movement. Protests are discrete events. Movements are entities of organized people that persist over time. Movements may and often do engage in protests but are not protests themselves. This movement, long overdue, has just been born. We'll see where it goes.

Exactly...

I find it humorous you posted that article remnant, that criticizes individuals in the movement for not being familiar with Krugman's economic views, when he posted a very supportive editorial on OWS today.

 

[theBishop]

It's not system distortions -- it's the information age. When work was more physical, the productivity gap between the best and worst workers might be 2-5 times in output. But in the information age, where one person can do amazingly productive activities (setting up Facebook, creating a scoring algorithm that can be licensed to service millions of transactions, etc.), the gap can be considerably higher.

Intelligence and brilliance are more rewarding today. That's a strong contributor to the income gap. Large-company CEOs make daily decisions that influence thousands of jobs, millions of customers, and billions in revenue. A factory worker might build a few chairs. This is reality in the information age.

I don't completely agree with your analysis here, but even accepted at face value, you make a strong argument that the nature of society has to change. It's untenable to have a society where the only workers that can afford to live comfortably need a high level of education (and by extension significant debt). Either we need to find a way to raise the baseline education level (Marx makes strong arguments that this is impossible), or we need to find a different way to distribute wealth.

 

[Hasphat'sAnts]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uZmPWcLQ1Mk

What the fuck is this guy talking about?

Gold has no inherent value either, and all the gold we've discovered since the dawn of time IS STILL FUCKING HERE.

 

[RSTEIN]

We will have to agree to disagree. You claim you make over 1.5 million dollars every year.

First, let's get on the same page. First page of google results:

The upper class is most commonly defined as the top 1% with household incomes commonly exceeding $250,000 annually.

In order to make it into the top 1 per cent of earners, or the top 237,000 people, a Canadian would have to earn $181,000.

Top 1%: $380,354

top 1 percent have adjust gross income over $380,354

I don't make $1.5 million (not sure where you're getting that). I do exceed all those metrics above.

99% of the people who actually create wealth through their physical labor or mental expertise will have to do as you suggest and utilize government, regulation, and democracy to reduce the artificial differences between the entitled top 1% (whose egos if you are any indication are severely over-inflated) and the rest of us.

Yeah, go for it. Do whatever you need to do in order to get what you perceive to be yours for whatever justification you have. Again, it's a free country.

I don't know why you think I'm arrogant. In fact, I'm the opposite. I've likened myself to a lottery winner, a benefit of chance and circumstance. I was born at the right time and right place and for whatever reason society has rewarded me for the skills that I have. You use a lot of big words so you're probably a lot smarter than I am. I'm just a regular guy trying to support his family. And, by the way, I worked in a factory once upon a time.

You might want tone it down. Every chance you get you seem to enjoy pointing out that I need to do more reading, or that I'm ignorant, or whatever. Why can't we just converse without the personal attacks by you?

You might want to note, too, that you depend upon government more than anybody else.

Actually, more than most. My wife is a social worker. Paid by the Canadian government!

 

[Karma Kramer]

Though I disagree with some things RSTEIN has said, he is not a troll or an asshole looking to piss anyone off. So please keep it civil everyone. Even with the trolls. They feed off the anger. Not healthy for debate.

 

[remnant]

Exactly...

I find it humorous you posted that article remnant, that criticizes individuals in the movement for not being familiar with Krugman's economic views, when he posted a very supportive editorial on OWS today.

That's not what the blog said. He was saying the protesters dissuaded themselves from looking at the nuance of various arguments becuase of the filter bubble, hence doing things like quoting Michael Moore who misquoted Krugman.

How many people have read the work that got him a Nobel.

 

[richiek]

The Daily Show takes shots at the Wall Street protesters.

http://gothamist.com/2011/10/07/daily_show_occupy_wall_street_prote.php

I have to wonder, how many Port-o-potties are there in Zuchotti Park?

 

[Karma Kramer]

That's not what the blog said. He was saying the protesters dissuaded themselves from looking at the nuance of various arguments becuase of the filter bubble, hence doing things like quoting Michael Moore who misquoted Krugman.

How many people have read the work that got him a Nobel.

Fair enough, but as someone said above, I would say the vast majority of voters are uninformed. Which is more a reflection of our media and journalism... also our education, than it is of this specific movement. Krugman said:

There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear, but we may, at long last, be seeing the rise of a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people.

So at a basic level, Krugman agrees with the movement. The specifics will need to come later as things become more organized. Puddles and I started our website idea before this OccupyMovement started, and we now feel it is a essential tool to solving mis-information and allowing movements to celebrate and spread facts.

 

[Karma Kramer]

The Daily Show takes shots at the Wall Street protesters.

http://gothamist.com/2011/10/07/daily_show_occupy_wall_street_prote.php

I have to wonder, how many Port-o-potties are there in Zuchotti Park?

Public Restrooms would be something NYC should look into because when I lived there everyone I knew would go into shops to use restrooms, probably without buying anything. When you gotta go you gotta go.

 

[empty vessel]

First, let's get on the same page. First page of google results:

These are household data.

* One caveat to note about the numbers in these charts is that the top fifth data include the top 1% data (because the top 1% is part of the top 20%). So almost all of the "gains" of the top 20% are actually just reflecting the gains of the top 1%. Most of the top 20% has also lost ground. It would be more informative if instead of the top 1% and the top 20% it showed the top 1% and the next 19%. Alas, it doesn't.

These trends are not natural. They are the result of changes in government policy that have been designed (by those with influence) to shift wealth.

 

[Chichikov]

First, let's get on the same page. First page of google results:

I don't make $1.5 million (not sure where you're getting that). I do exceed all those metrics above.

That wikipedia info is wrong.
IIRC the top 1% household income in this country is around 1.3 mil a year.
I will look for links later.

Edit: beaten.

 

[remnant]

Fair enough, but as someone said above, I would say the vast majority of voters are uninformed. Which is more a reflection of our media and journalism... also our education, than it is of this specific movement. Krugman said:



So at a basic level, Krugman agrees with the movement. The specifics will need to come later as things become more organized. Puddles and I started our website idea before this OccupyMovement started, and we now feel it is a essential tool to solving mis-information and allowing movements to celebrate and spread facts.

Nor I or the blog author said otherwise. Everyone knows Krugman would be for this.

I don't buy the "education" argument. I watch the same news/read the same papers as everyone else and I have read Krugman despite disagreeing with him. This is an observation of the filter bubble in work and having a significant, if not the largest effect on one's personal views.

 

[theBishop]

That wikipedia info is wrong.
IIRC the top 1% household income in this country is around 1.3 mil a year.
I will look for links later.

Edit: beaten.

It should be noted that even within the "top 1%", there's a huge gap between the lower 0.5% and the top half. The bottom half is living very comfortably for sure, but it's not the kind of wealth that gets passed on for generations and these people still have to scale back significantly during retirement.

 

[RSTEIN]

Though I disagree with some things RSTEIN has said, he is not a troll or an asshole looking to piss anyone off. So please keep it civil everyone. Even with the trolls. They feed off the anger. Not healthy for debate.

Well, thanks. I'm certainly not trolling. I'm applauding those that are fighting for what they believe in. I'm a left leaning guy. I just voted for the NDP party (for those not familiar with Canadian politics, the NDP is the most left leaning party we have).

I just think a lot of the anger is misplaced. Our economic system is inherently unstable. It is a non-linear chaotic system (I study it for a living). It features wild turbulence, just like we saw in the last meltdown. So in reality the people that have been displaced are more the victims of randomness (economic fluctuations that have been occurring since 1800) and the victims of a society undergoing a transition from an agrarian/manufacturing-based economy to an information/financial-based economy. It is these two overwhelming forces--the turbulence inherent in our system and the trends of our system--that are leading to the anger.

The problem is that these forces don't have faces or labels. They're not bankers or politicians. In reality, there is no ruling elite working behind the scenes to coordinate the economy in a way that benefits them the most. In fact, such a system would be self-defeating. I guess people need to have an enemy to make life easier.

The other issue is that wealthy people are supposed to get more wealthy. Their wealth is supposed to grow disproportionately. They have excess income which can be reinvested. This begins the wealth accumulation. The wealth creates wealth. They will always be richer than us. The top 0.01% will always grow faster than the top 0.02%. The top 0.02% will always grow their wealth faster than the top 1%. Again, people are trying to label this math as greed or corruption.

So protesting is great. Let your voices be heard. But where is the superior plan? Where is the plan that fixes these so-called problems? I have seen no such plan.

Edit: I guess I'm not in the 1%.

 

[empty vessel]

In reality, there is no ruling elite working behind the scenes to coordinate the economy in a way that benefits them the most.

I'm sorry, but this defies what is plain to observation. What, exactly, do you think this is?

http://www.uschamber.com/

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations. ...

As the voice of business, the Chamber’s core purpose is to fight for free enterprise before Congress, the White House, regulatory agencies, the courts, the court of public opinion, and governments around the world.

What do you think this is?

http://www.alec.org/

* Note, the website appears to be down. From Google cache:

With more than 2,000 members, ALEC is the nation's largest, non-partisan, individual public-private membership association of state legislators.

Why do you think corporations spend billions of dollars on lobbyists and public relations campaigns (often creating and using pretend grass-roots organizations with no real members) related to public policy, even though public policy in a democracy is supposed to be the domain of the citizen and not the government-created corporation?

It's really bizarre that you seem oblivious to the political organization of corporate interests that have dominated Washington DC the last three decades.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Has this been covered?

Organizer admits to paying ‘Occupy DC’ protesters [VIDEO]

A liberal organizer told the Daily Caller on Thursday afternoon that he paid some Hispanics to attend “Occupy DC” protests happening in the nation’s capital.

TheDC attended the protest event, an expansion of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that began in New York City. Some aspects of the protest, it turned out, are more Astroturf than grassroots.

One group of about ten Hispanic protesters marched behind a Caucasian individual from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting rent control in Washington, D.C.

Asked why they were there, some Hispanic protesters holding up English protest signs could not articulate what their signs said.

Interviewed in Spanish, the protesters told conflicting stories about how their group was organized. Some said it was organized at their church, and that they were there as volunteers. Others, however, referred to the man from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition — the only Caucasian in the group — as their “boss.”

TheDC asked that organizer whether he was paying the group to attend the protest, and he conceded that some protesters “aren’t” volunteers.

“Some of them are volunteers. Some of them aren’t,” he explained. “I can’t identify them. I’m not going to get into an identification game.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/06/o...ing-occupy-dc-protesters-video/#ixzz1a7qSY0cv

Whoops.

Shit, I'd go protest if someone paid me and I had the free time (I.E. Wasn't at work.)

 

[BobsRevenge]

Well, thanks. I'm certainly not trolling. I'm applauding those that are fighting for what they believe in. I'm a left leaning guy. I just voted for the NDP party (for those not familiar with Canadian politics, the NDP is the most left leaning party we have).

I just think a lot of the anger is misplaced. Our economic system is inherently unstable. It is a non-linear chaotic system (I study it for a living). It features wild turbulence, just like we saw in the last meltdown. So in reality the people that have been displaced are more the victims of randomness (economic fluctuations that have been occurring since 1800) and the victims of a society undergoing a transition from an agrarian/manufacturing-based economy to an information/financial-based economy. It is these two overwhelming forces--the turbulence inherent in our system and the trends of our system--that are leading to the anger.

The problem is that these forces don't have faces or labels. They're not bankers or politicians. In reality, there is no ruling elite working behind the scenes to coordinate the economy in a way that benefits them the most. In fact, such a system would be self-defeating. I guess people need to have an enemy to make life easier.

The other issue is that wealthy people are supposed to get more wealthy. Their wealth is supposed to grow disproportionately. They have excess income which can be reinvested. This begins the wealth accumulation. The wealth creates wealth. They will always be richer than us. The top 0.01% will always grow faster than the top 0.02%. The top 0.02% will always grow their wealth faster than the top 1%. Again, people are trying to label this math as greed or corruption.

So protesting is great. Let your voices be heard. But where is the superior plan? Where is the plan that fixes these so-called problems? I have seen no such plan.

Edit: I guess I'm not in the 1%.

[IM G]http://indiana.laxallstars.com/files/2011/06/okay-face.jpg[/IMG]

What it comes down to is regulations are needed to minimize volatility and efforts are required to to maintain a strong middle class for a healthier economy. That's what it comes down to. Specific proposals should be based on those goals.

 

[Jenga]

dude im hispanic

karma if you pay me i'll totally pimp out the movement

 

[RSTEIN]

I'm sorry, but this defies what is plain to observation. What, exactly do you think this is?

http://www.uschamber.com/



What do you think this is?

http://www.alec.org/

* Note, the website appears to be down. From Google cache:



Why do you think corporations spend billions of dollars on lobbyists and public relations campaigns (often creating and using pretend grass-roots organizations with no real members) related to public policy, even though public policy in a democracy is supposed to be the domain of the citizen and not the government-created corporation?

It's really bizarre that you seem oblivious to the political organization of corporate interests that have dominated Washington DC the last three decades.

They can spend all the money they want to. They can set up any organization that fights for what they believe in. But at the end of the day the voters win. The people win. Why? Because we live in a democracy where the people rule. Where people like you who have a certain set of beliefs can run to the streets and make change happen. You can "Occupy Wall Street."

What corporate movement has actually won? The tobacco companies lost. The asbestos companies lost. The gun companies lost (here in Canada at least). Those pushing the housing bubble lost. McDonalds lost. The polluters have lost. Every time Wall St. runs amok they lose. We are up to our eyeballs with new regulations since the financial crisis.

What specific rights and freedoms of yours have been made void by the "ruling elite?"

 

[Azih]

It should be noted that even within the "top 1%", there's a huge gap between the lower 0.5% and the top half. The bottom half is living very comfortably for sure, but it's not the kind of wealth that gets passed on for generations and these people still have to scale back significantly during retirement.

That's also a reason why everybody except for the super rich 'feel poor'. Everybody compares themselves to the next step up and the gulf between each step is gargantuan. Still though the income distribution in North America is seriously screwed up and is not sustainable.

We are up to our eyeballs with new regulations since the financial crisis.

What specific rights and freedoms of yours have been made void by the "ruling elite?"

The financial industry that created the bubble has not been punished. Their losses got bailed out by taxpayers as they were 'too big to fail'. Also the military industrial complex is ticking along just fine on the back of taxpayers and the oil companies are raking it in.

The right and freedom to an affordable education and affordable health has been lost as 1) the ruling elite use their influence to reduce their taxes which means there is less money for services and 2) as services like health and education move to the private sector market forces raise the price to what the ruling elite are willing to pay which makes it far less affordable to everybody else.

Fuck man, they say in 18 years it's going to cost 100K to send a kid to University in Canada. That's straight up class warfare.

 

[Marleyman]

But at the end of the day the voters win. The people win. Why? Because we live in a democracy where the people rule. Where people like you who have a certain set of beliefs can run to the streets and make change happen. You can "Occupy Wall Street."

Lobbyists rule. The people vote and the people voted in are snatched up by the system, bought and paid for. Run to the streets and "make change happen"?!?

 

[Dude Abides]

I find this... well... incredibly stupid.

If you're going to protest, you need specific demands that can be met as a condition on which you stop.

Damn hippies hipsters...

You're confusing protest with hostage-taking.

 

[demon]

They can spend all the money they want to. They can set up any organization that fights for what they believe in. But at the end of the day the voters win. The people win. Why? Because we live in a democracy where the people rule. Where people like you who have a certain set of beliefs can run to the streets and make change happen. You can "Occupy Wall Street."

What corporate movement has actually won? The tobacco companies lost. The asbestos companies lost. The gun companies lost (here in Canada at least). Those pushing the housing bubble lost. McDonalds lost. The polluters have lost. Every time Wall St. runs amok they lose. We are up to our eyeballs with new regulations since the financial crisis.

What specific rights and freedoms of yours have been made void by the "ruling elite?"

I read a statistic recently, can't remember the exact number, but it was something like 90-some percent of all elections are won by the candidate who raised the most money. We have the best government money can buy!

Also you're either ignorant or a troll if you think corporate lobbying has never accomplished anything to their benefit.

 

[HAL_Laboratory]

Download

 

[Jenga]

Download

ah i see, the goal of this movement is to end the federal government

well i want to reform so i dont support it

unless someone has got some sweet hispanic protesting $$$ for me

 

[theBishop]

That's also a reason why everybody except for the super rich 'feel poor'. Everybody compares themselves to the next step up and the gulf between each step is gargantuan. Still though the income distribution in North America is seriously screwed up and is not sustainable.

I think we need to change the conception of "working class". Maybe "Wage-earner" is more accurate. The crucial divide is between citizens who sell their labor time, and the Capitalist who buys it.

Not that every Capitalist is in the top 0.5% (far from it), but that social relation represents a fundamental antagonism in society. The interests of labor and the interests of capital cannot be reconciled.

 

[unomas]

Just wanted to say that Carlin video is as true as true gets.

 

[theBishop]

Just wanted to say that Carlin video is as true as true gets.

"Next they're coming for your Social Security"

There's a difference from left and right.

 

[Nerevar]

Well, thanks. I'm certainly not trolling. I'm applauding those that are fighting for what they believe in. I'm a left leaning guy. I just voted for the NDP party (for those not familiar with Canadian politics, the NDP is the most left leaning party we have).

I just think a lot of the anger is misplaced. Our economic system is inherently unstable. It is a non-linear chaotic system (I study it for a living). It features wild turbulence, just like we saw in the last meltdown. So in reality the people that have been displaced are more the victims of randomness (economic fluctuations that have been occurring since 1800) and the victims of a society undergoing a transition from an agrarian/manufacturing-based economy to an information/financial-based economy. It is these two overwhelming forces--the turbulence inherent in our system and the trends of our system--that are leading to the anger.

The problem is that these forces don't have faces or labels. They're not bankers or politicians. In reality, there is no ruling elite working behind the scenes to coordinate the economy in a way that benefits them the most. In fact, such a system would be self-defeating. I guess people need to have an enemy to make life easier.

The other issue is that wealthy people are supposed to get more wealthy. Their wealth is supposed to grow disproportionately. They have excess income which can be reinvested. This begins the wealth accumulation. The wealth creates wealth. They will always be richer than us. The top 0.01% will always grow faster than the top 0.02%. The top 0.02% will always grow their wealth faster than the top 1%. Again, people are trying to label this math as greed or corruption.

So protesting is great. Let your voices be heard. But where is the superior plan? Where is the plan that fixes these so-called problems? I have seen no such plan.

Edit: I guess I'm not in the 1%.

http://indiana.laxallstars.com/files/2011/06/okay-face.jpg

While you're right on a lot of what you say, I completely disagree with this. There is nothing written in stone that this with excess surplus wealth should naturally be able to grow their wealth at a faster rate. In fact I would bet you most Americans would argue that a well-balanced society should see wealth grow at a linear rate for all wage groups.

 

[planar1280]

eh end the fed? is this a libertarian movement? I can't get behind that. I thought this was purely about income

 

[RSTEIN]

I read a statistic recently, can't remember the exact number, but it was something like 90-some percent of all elections are won by the candidate who raised the most money. We have the best government money can buy!

Also you're either ignorant or a troll if you think corporate lobbying has never accomplished anything to their benefit.

I did not say that lobbying has never accomplished anything. They've accomplished a lot over history. I said that in the end, people win. In the end justice wins. Often this can be a long time. Perhaps even beyond our lifetimes. But in the end, they lose.

The grand sum of citizen movements outweighs the grand sum of corporate movements.

While you're right on a lot of what you say, I completely disagree with this. There is nothing written in stone that this with excess surplus wealth should naturally be able to grow their wealth at a faster rate. In fact I would bet you most Americans would argue that a well-balanced society should see wealth grow at a linear rate for all wage groups.

Well, it is kind of written in stone because our system is designed to make this happen. Capitalism would not function if people with excess wealth could not deploy it into savings or new projects. The consequence of this is that the excess wealth grows exponentially. On the other hand, people with no excess income--and thus no incremental annual change in wealth--remain stagnant.

 

[commedieu]

The opposition to the protesters makes me slightly sad. I am blind sided by people claiming "LOL, its not going to do anything!" And that they can't use modern technology to protest? I think its just the cynical internet elitist, you know, the guys negative about everything. But hell its picked up by the media as well. Its an unfortunate state of affairs. There is clearly a reason this wasn't newsworthy for almost a month for CNN/Fox yet was covered worldwide.

The protesters going out there, and doing something, make me severely happy. Keep it the fuck up guys! I'll join you.

 

[HAL_Laboratory]

ah i see, the goal of this movement is to end the federal government

No, not at all.

 

[Slavik81]

ah i see, the goal of this movement is to end the federal government

well i want to reform so i dont support it

unless someone has got some sweet hispanic protesting $$$ for me

Generally, when people talk about 'the Fed', they mean the Federal Reserve.

 

[AndyD]

While you're right on a lot of what you say, I completely disagree with this. There is nothing written in stone that this with excess surplus wealth should naturally be able to grow their wealth at a faster rate. In fact I would bet you most Americans would argue that a well-balanced society should see wealth grow at a linear rate for all wage groups.

Yep. Taxes should actually keep that in check. Higher taxes on the wealthy and lower on the lower income groups should make sure that growth is proportional as much as possible.

eh end the fed? is this a libertarian movement? I can't get behind that. I thought this was purely about income

Maybe end the federal reserve?

 

[Jenga]

Generally, when people talk about 'the Fed', they mean the Federal Reserve.

why end it?

 

[planar1280]

Yep. Taxes should actually keep that in check. Higher taxes on the wealthy and lower on the lower income groups should make sure that growth is proportional as much as possible.



Maybe end the federal reserve?

still. I thought this was about corporations, rich people and income. not change government.

 

[HAL_Laboratory]

still. I thought this was about corporations, rich people and income. not change government.

There's a vid in the post man, just check it out.

 

[empty vessel]

They can spend all the money they want to. They can set up any organization that fights for what they believe in. But at the end of the day the voters win. The people win. Why? Because we live in a democracy where the people rule. Where people like you who have a certain set of beliefs can run to the streets and make change happen. You can "Occupy Wall Street."

Putting limits on corporate influence over government is and should be core to this movement. After Citizens United, it is no longer accurate to say that we live in a democracy where the people rule. Citizens United placed corporations on equal footing with the people, even though corporations are created by government and endowed with government power. It prohibits citizens from placing limitations on how corporations behave. In short, there are now aspects of government power over which the people have no control. The US, therefore, is no longer a democracy based on popular sovereignty. That is why we have to reclaim it.

What corporate movement has actually won? The tobacco companies lost. The asbestos companies lost. The gun companies lost (here in Canada at least). Those pushing the housing bubble lost. McDonalds lost. The polluters have lost. Every time Wall St. runs amok they lose. We are up to our eyeballs with new regulations since the financial crisis.

I'm sorry, but I have to repeat that you are woefully ignorant. I do not mean that pejoratively, only to convey that you literally lack knowledge and information. That is why I have repeatedly suggested that you study this. Start here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1416588698/?tag=neogaf0e-20

What specific rights and freedoms of yours have been made void by the "ruling elite?"

The right to democratic governance, for one.

And, if you're Canadian, can I ask why you presume to share your opinion so stridently regarding the US's current political and economic state? You clearly don't know what you're talking about, which is fine, of course, especially given that you aren't American and don't live in the US, but why do you insist on saying so much when you plainly know so little about this country?