Occupy Wall Street Movement: An American Spring

[hillary supporter]

People, pundits have been pressing them for a specific goal(s). Theyve moved in that direction today. I dont think Bloomberg will confront them. It would probably be best for him to not and hope the weather will break it up.  Its is getting very interesting.

[JC]

The cleaning will probably be more of an eviction and yes, I think Bloomberg will confront them. 

[hillary supporter]

The AFL-CIO just issued a statement imploring all members to present themselves at the protest ASAP. Im suprised how much momentum the movement is achieving.
hey mubarek mike bloomberg, the people have the right of free assembly! 

[hillary supporter]

The mayor et al has "postponed" the "clean up" (eviction).
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/cleanup-of-zuccotti-park-cancelled/?hp
Good move, Mr Mayor!
Great effort, protestors!

[jandar]

Quick question for those backing the movement.

Would you support a flat tax for everyone with no loopholes?

[buckethead]

http://www.youtube.com/v/ZFZrNSa3b8g

[FayeforCure]

I heard Mayor Bloomberg is going to empty the park for 'cleaning'.  They'll reopen it the next day, but everyone has to agree to follow the rules.  The rules include: no sleeping bags, no tents and no lying down.  Should be interesting...

Yeah, really interesting:

the Mayor of New York and the City’s police department will use taxpayers' money  to forcibly remove American citizens from Zuccotti Park, where they are peacefully assembled now in protest against the corrupt relationship between Wall Street and the government.

The Mayor is taking this action after receiving a letter of complaint from Brookfield Properties, the owners of the park.

The mayor’s girlfriend Diana Taylor is on the Board of Directors of Brookfield Properties.

If the Occupy Wall Street protestors return to the park, they - and presumably all  future visitors to the park - will not be able to do any of the following:

-       Lie down on the ground;

-       Lie down on a bench;

-       Put any covering on the property (note to future picnicners, your picnic blanket will be confiscated) .

If this offends your American sensibilities, please call Brookfield Properties CEO Ric Clark at 212-417-7000 to tell him that you don’t appreciate his company interfering in the Free Speech rights of American citizens.

If Ric is not available, you should call Melissa Coley, VP of Investor Relations at 212-417-7215 or email her at Melissa.coley@brookfield.com.

You can also come to Zuccotti Park tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. to stand with the protesters

Or call your City Council member and tell them to put a stop to the mayor's eviction of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Click here to find the contact information for your council member.

It is  stunning to me that the “free-est” country in the world prevents its citizens from exercising their right to free speech while making damn sure that corporations can exercise theirs.

[Sigma]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203499704576625302455112990.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

What's Occupying Wall Street?
The protestors have a point, if not the right target.

In the matter of Occupy Wall Street, the allegedly anticapitalist movement that's been camped out in lower Manhattan for the past few weeks and has inspired copycat protests from Boston to Los Angeles, we have some sympathy. Really? Well, yeah.

OK, not for the half-naked demonstrators, the ranting anti-Semites, Kanye West or anyone else who has helped make Occupy Wall Street a target for easy ridicule. But to the extent that the mainly young demonstrators have a valid complaint, it's that they are trying to bust their way into an economy where there is one job for every five job-seekers, and where youth unemployment runs north of 18%. That is a cause for frustration, if not outrage.

The question is, outrage at whom? On Wednesday, Occupy Wall Street marched on J.P. Morgan Chase's headquarters, after having protested outside CEO Jamie Dimon's home the previous day. That's odd, seeing that J.P. Morgan didn't take on excessive mortgage risk and didn't need (although it was forced to take) TARP money. The demonstrators also picketed the home of hedge fund mogul John Paulson, who made much of his recent fortune betting against the housing bubble, not helping to inflate it.

As for Wall Street itself, on Tuesday New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli issued a report predicting that the financial industry will likely lose 10,000 jobs by the end of next year. That's on top of the 4,100 jobs lost since April, and the 22,000 since the beginning of 2008. Overall New York-area employment in finance and insurance has declined by 8.9% since late 2006. Even Goldman Sachs is planning layoffs.

So much for the cliche of Wall Street versus Main Street, the greedy 1% versus the hard-done-by 99%. That may be the core conviction of Occupy Wall Street and its fellow-travelers, and it may be a slogan in nearly every Democratic campaign next year, including President Obama's. Whether or not that's smart Democratic politics, the voters will decide.

Still, if anyone in the Occupy Wall Street movement wants an intellectually honest explanation for why they can't find a job, they might start by considering what happens to an economy when the White House decides to make pinatas out of the financial-services industry (roughly 6%, or $828 billion, of U.S. GDP), the energy industry (about 7.5% of GDP, or $1 trillion), and millionaires and billionaires (who paid 20.4% of all federal income taxes in 2009). And don't forget the Administration's rhetorical volleys against individual companies like Anthem Blue Cross, AIG and Bank of America, or against Chrysler's bondholders, or various other alleged malefactors of wealth.

Now move from words to actions. Want a shovel-ready job? The Administration has spent three years sitting on the Keystone XL pipeline project that promises to create 13,000 union jobs and 118,000 "spin-off" jobs. A State Department environmental review says the project poses no threat to the environment, but the Administration's eco-friends are screaming lest it go ahead.

Then there are the jobs the Administration and its allies in Congress are actively killing. In June, American Electric Power announced it would have to shutter five coal-fired power plants, at a cost of 600 jobs, in order to comply with new EPA rules. Those same rules may soon force the utility to shutter another 25 plants. Bank of America's decision last month to lay off 30,000 employees is a direct consequence of various Congressional edicts limiting how much the bank can charge merchants or how it can handle delinquent borrowers.

These visible crags of the Obama jobs iceberg are nothing next to the damage done below the waterline by the D.C. regulations factory, which last year added 81,405 pages of new rules to the Federal Register, bringing the total cost to the U.S. economy of regulatory compliance to an estimated $1.7 trillion a year.

Less easy to quantify, but no less harmful, are the long-term uncertainties employers face in trying to price in the costs of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, the potential expiration next year of the Bush tax cuts, the possible millionaire surcharge, the value of the dollar and so on. No wonder businesses are so reluctant to hire: When you don't know how steep the trail ahead of you is, it's usually better to travel light.

This probably won't do much to persuade the Occupiers of Wall Street that their cause would be better served in Washington, D.C., where a sister sit-in this week seems to have fizzled. Then again, most of America's jobless also won't recognize their values or interests in the warmed-over anticapitalism being served up in lower Manhattan. Three years into the current Administration, most Americans are getting wise to the source of their economic woes. It's a couple hundred miles south of Wall Street.

[hillary supporter]

Sigma,
If you didnt already know, w
hile the Journal is a great newspaper, the editors are (notoriously) ultra conservative. The Op Ed piece holds up to that conclusion. The journal editoral is the same garbage weve been hearing since 2010. I skip the editors page and concentrate on the excellent reporting, myself.

Quick question for those backing the movement.

Would you support a flat tax for everyone with no loopholes?

absolutely not

No. Ive personally experienced its damage in Croatia.

[Sigma]

Thanks HS!  Love your avatar!  Kinda balances the editorials of the New York Times then doesn't it?  I thought it was a pretty good read this morning.  I do think the OWS should place a bit more emphasis on Washington.

[FayeforCure]

It's not just an issue of the federal reserve bank............

Ron Paul's message to shut down the wars really resonates with me. But on the home front this is what keeps driving our economic collapse............the burst of the real estate bubble:

The national foreclosure rate, as of August 2011, was one in every 570 properties, according to RealtyTrac. But in cities like Las Vegas and Bakersfield, the foreclosure rate is one in every 115 and one in every 159, respectively.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/the-10-cities-with-the-worst-credit_n_1009536.html

These homeowners need to be bailed out.

[FayeforCure]

How Occupy Wall Street has evolved

For all the individual reasons that draw people to Occupy Wall Street, a similar undercurrent ties the protesters together. They're upset about inequities in their country. (my comment: inequities that are caused by government of the 1%, by the 1%, and for the 1%, which will never change without Public financing of campaigns)

They're angry. They want their voices to be heard.

Wow, look at this: Most Americans, 54 percent, approve of the protestors. That’s twice the portion that approve of the Tea Party.

Today, Time magazine released a poll showing that most Americans, 54 percent, approve of the protestors. That’s twice the portion that approve of the Tea Party.

As the movement builds, we are bound to hear more of the criticisms: These kids don’t have a full platform. Some of them are dirty, disorderly, disrespectful.

All true, but so what? The point is that these protestors realize, as do most people, that the American dream is threatened by an economic system that saves all it’s rewards for a tiny elite.

Here’s a great interactive graphic that tells the story.

http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/pages/interactive#/?start=1917&end=1918


It allows you to pick any period during the last century, and examine what portion of the economic gains went to the top 10 percent, and what portion went to the rest.

What is shows is no surprise. Between 1988 and 2008, the most recent 20 year period examined, all the gains went to the top 10 percent, and most of them went to the top 1 percent. The bottom 90 percent lost ground. In the years since then, median income has dropped even faster, according to a study by two former Census Bureau economists.

Play with the interactive graphic a bit, and you can see that it was not always like this in America. In the decades after World War II, the gains were larger, and they were more broadly shared.

To find a period like the last few decades, go back to the years just before the Great Depression. It’s almost identical to our period, which is not exactly encouraging.

We can debate what should be done. A more fair tax system that asks high earners to pay more is an obvious place to start, but won’t change the basic dynamic. We’ll need to search deeper, looking at issues like education and job training, trade policy, infrastructure spending, and rules on union organization.

The protestors don’t have all the answers. But they have raised the big question. And it’s about time.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_tom_moran/2011/10/occupy_wall_street_protesters.html

[FayeforCure]

Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:13 PM EDT

Occupy Wall Street Support Among Americans Trumps Tea Party: Polls

By Ashley Portero




Americans support the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement by a two-to-one margin, while considerably less view the Tea Party in a positive light, according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

The results were based off phone interviews with 1,000 adults over a four-day period in early October. The respondents were questioned on a slew of issues, such as their opinion of President Barack Obama, the Democratic and Republican Party's, and the candidates running for the 2012 Republican nomination.

One section of the poll discusses the Occupy Wall Street protests, described as "sit-ins and rallies in New York City and other major cities around the country with people protesting about the influence Wall Street and corporations have on government." In response to whether they supported or opposed the protests, 37 percent of respondents said they did, while 18 percent said they tended to oppose them.

Meanwhile, only 28 percent said they viewed the Tea Party positively, while 41 percent said they opposed the group. Based on the numbers, the Occupy Wall Street protests have a net favorability of plus 19 percent while the Tea Party has a net favorability of minus 13 percent.

Many Moderates, Even Some Conservatives Support OWS

Thirty-six of the respondents told the pollsters they consider themselves to be a moderate, while 22 percent said they were somewhat conservative, 15 percent said very conservative, and 14 percent said somewhat liberal. Only 9 percent of the respondents said they would categorize themselves as "very liberal."

Multiple polls have indicated more Americans support rather than revile the Occupy Wall Street movement. A Time Magazine poll conducted during the same period found that 54 percent of respondents said they were very to somewhat favorable of the protesters, while 23 percent said they felt somewhat to very unfavorably about them. Twenty-three percent said they did not know enough about the movement to have an opinion.

Meanwhile, only 27 percent said they had a favorable opinion of the Tea Party.

An impressive 86 percent of respondents told Time they believe Wall Street and its lobbyists have too much influence in Washington, and 79 percent said the income gap between the rich and poor in the U.S. has grown too large.

However, no matter how they feel about the protests, a majority of respondents do not expect them to end with lasting change. Fifty-six percent of respondents said the protests will have little to no impact on the U.S. political system.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/230781/20111013/occupy-wall-street-support-polls-show-americans-support-occupy-wall-street.htm

[FayeforCure]

Even my 19 year old daughter keeps asking...........but what is the solution that OWS offers. I tell her.......it's not up to them to come up with the solution though it's obvious that we need to get monied interests out of ruling politics.

The point of the OWS movement is to start a moral discussion about what we want for America's people. It is not actually a political discussion, except for acknowledging that monied interests have caused our government to be ineffective at creating the kind of moral landscape/infrastructure that we expect of America and for the American people. This also explains why support for the OWS movement really does cut across political lines, unlike the bulk of "Tea Party" support:

Occupy Wall Street should be a moral, not political, movement


By Roland Martin, CNN Contributor

updated 10:59 PM EST, Fri October 14, 2011








STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Roland Martin: Saying protesters are in lockstep with Democrats is intellectual dishonesty
Candidates of both political parties should peaking to their desires, Martin says
Martin: The civil rights movement wasn't about electing candidates; neither is this one

Editor's note: Roland S. Martin is a syndicated columnist and author of "The First: President Barack Obama's Road to the White House." He is a commentator for TV One cable network and host/managing editor of its Sunday morning news show, "Washington Watch with Roland Martin."

(CNN) -- Whenever there is an uprising among the people of this country in the form of protests and organized dissent, especially with a presidential election 13 months away, the discussion inevitably shifts to what it will mean for one of the nation's two political parties.

No matter how hard they've tried to suggest that they aren't partisan, the tea party is nothing more than a sub-group of the Republican Party. If there were a healthy number of tea party Democrats, then that would be true. But there isn't, so it's nonsensical to waste time not calling the tea party Republicans exactly what they are: tea party Republicans. From Day One the movement aligned itself with the GOP, and that is true today.





Roland Martin

Yet the attempt by Fox News, conservative radio show hosts and the GOP presidential candidates to associate Occupy Wall Street protesters with the image of far-left radical hippies being in lockstep with the Democratic Party is wrong, shameful and pure intellectual dishonesty.

Being concerned about the nation's well-being, and the depths to which the big-monied interests are driving the nation's policies is not a partisan question; it is a moral one.

GOP presidential candidate wants to cheapen the discussion by suggesting Occupy Wall Street protesters hate capitalism. I sense they despise a nation that has come to be one in which Fortune 500 companies and big banks run ads talking about how great America is, but work hard to destroy America by shipping jobs overseas and engaging in shameful business practices that require the taxpayer to bail them out.

It's really simple, and insanely stupid, to examine the real anger of Occupy Wall Street as a bunch of young folks with nothing to do. If we recall March 2009 when the AIG bonuses came to light, every corner of this nation was angry with what we heard. Political ideology didn't matter. It was seen as a matter of right and wrong.

That's why the various leaders of Occupy Wall Street, no matter how local and decentralized, must look at their effort as not being a galvanizing force to put one party into office. Instead, it should be about candidates of both political parties, as well as independents, speaking to their needs and desires.

This tea party vs. Occupy Wall Street construct is a ridiculous one. From a media perspective, it's a cheap and easy narrative that, in the end, doesn't tell the full story.

As someone who is more enamored with studying the intricacies of the civil rights movement rather than memorizing key speeches of its leaders, what was clear from Day One was that it wasn't about getting a Democrat or Republican elected. It was always about ensuring full freedom and equality for African-Americans who were denied their rights as citizens.

At different points, Republicans and Democrats were allies of the civil rights movement, while at the same time some Republicans and Democrats were virulent opponents. It wasn't about party for civil rights leaders; it was about principle.

And that is exactly where we sit today. As I listen to the Occupy Wall Street protesters and watch as their protest spread across the country, similar to the lunch counter sit-ins that spread like wildfire across the South in 1960, the goals and ideals sound eerily familiar. While in the 1960s it was about race, the civil rights battlefront today is about class. It is about the widening gap between the rich and poor, and how the middle class is being pushed down to the poor, rather than being helped upward.

This struggle is the moral dilemma the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. frequently discussed. If folks would stop focusing on the last part of his "I Have A Dream" speech and read all of what he said at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963, they would understand that.

So what if Russell Simmons, Kayne West and other celebrities have millions and are showing support for Occupy Wall Street? When Harry Belafonte, Dick Gregory, Sidney Poitier, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, Charlton Heston, Mahalia Jackson and other celebrities attended the 1963 March, no one said how dare those individuals with big bank accounts stood in solidarity with those with no bank accounts. When it comes to fairness, your values matter more than your tax bracket.

If labor unions and politicians want to stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, that is a good thing. If individuals who work on or used to work on Wall Street want to show their support for the need to systemic changes to this system, more power to them. If self-identified Democrats and Republicans want to show their moral outrage, praise God.

Moral movements aren't supposed to be poisoned by politics. When they do, that's when their legitimacy is lost. If politicians want to use their voices in support, they should. But at no time should Occupy Wall Street be about getting one party elected to local, county, state and national office.

The time has come for men and women of conscience in this nation to stand up. It's vital that we elected individuals, regardless of party, who choose not to be an incestuous relationship with the rich in this country who are only about fattening their bottom lines while ignoring the plight of others.

As Dr. King said: "An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/14/opinion/martin-occupy-politics/

[Jumpinjack]

It doesn't matter what people say in polls.  What matters is that they go to the polls and vote and the tea party people do.