Metro Jacksonville

Mass Discontent spreading throughout th US at various OccupyWallStreet events including NY and LA:

Hundreds of people protesting Wall Street abuses were penned in and arrested by police Saturday, two weeks into an ongoing demonstration that has become known on Twitter as #OccupyWallStreet.

Centered at Zuccotti Park since September 17, the gathering that began as a call to arms from anti-consumerist magazine AdBusters has shown no sign of a slowdown.

The movement aims to "express a feeling of mass injustice," according to the group’s declaration for the occupation of New York City released Friday. The injustices include the foreclosure crisis, work place discrimination and student loan debt, among a list of others.

As HuffPost reported recently, the movement is less about specific policy demands and more about an expression of opposition to ever yawning economic inequality driven by Wall Street and its allies in Washington.

Calling themselves an American revolution, the protesters say they plan to stay in the park indefinitely.

Greg Basta, an official with New York Communities for Change, said that the organizers were encouraged by police on Saturday to march on the street area of the Brooklyn Bridge, instead of the walkway, then subsequently arrested them for marching in traffic. Two lead organizers, Jonathan Westin and Pete Nagy, were penned in by police. Westin managed to exit the police pen, but Nagy is missing and presumed detained by police, Basta told HuffPost.

"Police say some demonstrators spilled onto the roadway Saturday night after being told to stay on the pedestrian pathway," the Associated Press reported.

Similar demonstrations started Saturday in Washington and Los Angeles.

Shon Botado, a protester staffing a first aid station in New York, told The Huffington Post on Friday that he’s not leaving “until change is made to the financial structure.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/30/occupy-wall-street-protests-new-york_n_989221.html

Too whacky. Too leftist. Too Marxist.

Our current economic system is not capitalism, rather corporatism and cronyism, moving towards fascism. In a capitalist system, The failed model of Goldman Sachs along with the other corrupt Primary Dealers would have disappeared. Those who "invested" (speculated) in that model would have taken a trip to the barber.

As it stands, Wall Street is definitely culpable, with DC complicit, but the cries against capitalism coming from a substantial portion of this crowd are ill founded, much the same as the cries against socialism coming from the tea party.

buckethead, things are not capitalism vs socialism as corporate media wants to make it out.

So please don't dismiss this anti-corporatism movement as "socialism," marxism or other derogatory terms.

When I lived in Europe I belonged to a right-wing party in the Netherlands. I am a strong believer in capitalism as are the majority of people in Europe.

Oh sure there are always fringe groups that join in with every protest on the left just like there are dogmatic religious people among the tea-partiers.

In the case of the tea-party you might be right about them being anti-social, even anti-socialist except they have no real idea what socialism actually is.

If you ask the tea-partiers, they will point to Sweden, when Sweden is actually strongly capitalist.

The difference between capitalism in Europe and capitalism in the US is that Capitalism in europe and else-where around the world has a strong element of a social conscience, whereas capitalism is the US is pure and unadulterated corporatism in its most extreme form ie corporately financed campaigns for our government representatives rather than "people/publicly" financed campaigns as is uniformly the case in European countries.

Now granted I would no longer be a right-winger in Europe as there has been a severe right-wing shift in politics in Europe too.......But then again I had already abandoned the VVD and joined D66 before leaving the Netherlands. Never ever did I join the "socialist" Party van de Arbeid, nor would I ever do that if I ever returned.

So to summarize........this movement isn't anti-capitalist at all.............rather they are against un-fettered capitalism where there are no protections for the people and corporatism reigns supreme.

So here is an abc report on the group OccupyWallStreet and what they stand for:

Oct 1, 2011 11:17am




‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protests Spread Across the Country


ABC News’ Olivia Katrandjian reports:

The Occupy Wall Street movement, growing to more than 1,500 people in its second week, called for a march in lower Manhattan today at 3 p.m. to “show that it is time that the 99% are heard.”

“We are unions, students, teachers, veterans, first responders, families, the unemployed and underemployed. We are all races, sexes and creeds. We are the majority. We are the 99 percent. And we will no longer be silent,” read a post on the Occupy Wall Street website.

The  protests started on Sept. 17. On Friday, about 1,500 demonstrators took their protest to the New York Police Department headquarters.


An elderly group leads a march up Broadway towards Police Headquarters, Friday, Sept. 30, 2011, in New York. (Louis Lanzano/AP Photo)

The demonstrators, who are speaking out against corporate greed and social inequality, say they have been unnecessarily roughed up by police.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg addressed the demonstrations on the WOR 710 radio show Friday, according to multiple media reports.

“The protesters are protesting against people who make $40,000 to $50,000 a year who are struggling to make ends meet. That’s the bottom line,” Bloomberg said.

(My comment: the protesters are those that make $40,000 to $50,000 that find themselves increasingly squeezed by lack of jobs, lack of healthcare, lack of retirement)

When asked how the NYPD would handle protests, Bloomberg said that while people have the right to protest, others also have the right “to walk down the street unmolested.”

The protests have spread across the country, with events popping up in Boston, Chicago and dozens of other cities across the country in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.

In Albuquerque, N.M., there were more than 500 protestors, and demonstrators in Spokane, Wash., set up a tent city before police enforced a no-camping rule.

A march and rally was held in Boston Friday called “Take Back Boston” run by the Right to the City alliance, a national organization that “seeks to create regional and national impacts in the fields of housing, human rights, urban land, community development, civic engagement, criminal justice, environmental justice, and more,” according to its website.

Police estimated about 3,000 people attended the events Friday.

“We are targeting Wall Street, in particular the big banks and corporations,” Rachel Laforest, the executive director of the Right to the City Alliance told ABC News. “The goal is to create a national narrative and have it be known how the states are taking state revenues that are being funneled to banks and corporations and then you layer on top of that the fact that they’re not obligated to pay their fair share of taxes, and so that’s billions and billions of dollars that could be put toward job creation and creating solutions to the housing crisis.”

Today’s events in Boston will continue with a “Take Back the Block” festival. At least 1,500 have registered for the festival.

Along with New York and Boston, an Occupy Chicago movement has emerged, with nearly 100 people gathering in front of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank. The protests have been peaceful and no arrests have been reported.

Occupy Los Angeles protests which have also been small in numbers, has called for a march today at 10 a.m. from Pershing Square downtown to City Hall.


http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-protests-spread-across-the-country-bloomberg-calls-them-misguided/

I know there are reasonable people joining in, but i cannot join in solidarity with folks spreading the messages below.

(http://ph.cdn.photos.upi.com/sv/emb/UPI-89641317369600/eaa18f07fc774140ac3885c30e0e2d19/Occupy-Wall-Street-gets-union-support.jpg)

(http://media.boweryboogie.com/uploads/2011/09/occupy-wall-street_8530_1-560x373.jpg)


(http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQm7M98mKcT-o9MJzKUDkR-e2WFuAhfMbg9yK-YHCyKvMs0LCKQcA)

Quote from: buckethead on October 03, 2011, 08:10:30 AM
I know there are reasonable people joining in, but i cannot join in solidarity with folks spreading the messages below.

(http://ph.cdn.photos.upi.com/sv/emb/UPI-89641317369600/eaa18f07fc774140ac3885c30e0e2d19/Occupy-Wall-Street-gets-union-support.jpg)

(http://media.boweryboogie.com/uploads/2011/09/occupy-wall-street_8530_1-560x373.jpg)


(http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQm7M98mKcT-o9MJzKUDkR-e2WFuAhfMbg9yK-YHCyKvMs0LCKQcA)

Well I'm sure that the brain-washed fear of socialism has something to do with our aversion to such messages. I looked on the worker.org website for their definition of socialism:

"Workers World fights for a socialist societyâ€"where the wealth is socially owned and production is planned to satisfy human need."

I do not know of any advanced nations where "the wealth is socially owned," so as a practical matter such a pure socialist society doesn't exist except maybe in Communism which has long been abolished and discredited.

Yet even in our fairly extreme capitalist society we do have wealth that is "socially owned," for example our airports, courthouses and schools etc.

However the second portion of their definition is a very universal concept when it comes to the common good: "production is planned to satisfy human need."

It's the concept of central planning which exists in all capitalist nations at varying degrees.

The workers.org group rejects all capitalism in favor of pure socialism, when the reality is that just about every advanced society has elements of both, and is thus really a hybrid social-capitalist society.

I can agree with workers.org that pure capitalim is highly destructive when the element of a social conscience is missng. The element of a social conscience ( that all people have the right to use our roads etc.) is eroding at a very fast pace in the US. The "we're all in this together" concept of national pride has been replaced by "You're On Your Own" and corporatist rule in the US.

The protestors are rejecting capitalism in its current form in the US ie deregulated Pharma that kills people by the hundreds of thousands, deregulated Oil Industry that destroys our coasts, deregulated banks that rip us off and make us lose our homes, a justice system that only works for those that can afford to pay for expensive lawyers, an insurance system that keeps jacking up their rates while they make mega-profits, a healthcare system where we allow those with cancer to perish without care (unlike what Republicans say where everyone in the US is entitled to care because hospitals cannot sent you away........I have yet to see an ER provide comprehensive and ongoing cancer treatment).

So we definitely can all agree that capitalism in its current form in the US is highly destructive.........very susceptible to devastating cycles.

Here is a really good piece about the world rejection of American type capitalism ( the current type capitalism we have called Brand America, though we were once the envy of the world due to our exceptionally strong middle class):

http://www.international-issues.org/wp/?p=1097

In its conclusion it states:

Ten years after 9/11, the unipolar age of the American hyper-power is over; US-style Capitalism and its professed free-market ideology which has been exposed as a myth is now being challenged by state-Capitalism

I propose a stable (steady state) economy that provides a modicum of financial security for all.

http://steadystate.org/discover/definition/

I am happy to see mass protests, it means despite the threat of arrest, people are still willing to stand up.

Quote from: ChriswUfGator on October 03, 2011, 09:06:40 AM
I am happy to see mass protests, it means despite the threat of arrest, people are still willing to stand up.

Sooooo true!

When was the last time any of us had the courage to join in protest on the streets and risk arrest?

I know the last time I joined any anti-war action was Sept 15th, 2007 in Washington DC.

Here is an interesting write-up  I found today which addresses buckethead's concern and our age-old pitting Americans against Americans,........the divide and conquer approach that corporatists have used against us.

Wall Street Protests: A Right-Left Movement Must Emerge

Posted: 10/2/11 01:53 PM ET

The Wall Street protests represent the most potentially transforming political movement in generations: finally a revolt against the root problem that corrupts and paralyzes U.S. government. And the nascent movement might actually succeed if we stop turning ordinary Americans against each other along the tired and destructive battle lines of left vs. right.


For the past forty years, the expansion of unchecked corporate power has taken over Washington and state capitals. Armies of industry funded lobbyists, PR firms, think tanks, fake "Astroturf" groups and billions in campaign contributions have quietly corrupted a vulnerable system of government and seized control.[/b]

This juggernaut has decimated basic consumer protections and created the biggest gap between rich and poor since the Great Depression.

It created the financial meltdown and the Great Recession. It is why nearly 50 million Americans lack health insurance. It has created a political system that is more like a heroin addict: dependent on billions of dollars that determine who gets elected, which laws get passed, and which don't. Both major political parties are addicted and beholden.


While the protests are proudly decentralized and leaderless, the unifying theme is "revoking corporate personhood" and "campaign finance reform" that would reverse the January 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision that lifted the flood gates to unlimited corporate money in elections.


Some call the protests a progressive response to the Tea Party movement, and play right into the hands of the corporate juggernaut, whose proxies -- along with a compliant media -- have mastered the art of turning ordinary Americans against each other instead of the real problem.


This is a right-left issue if there ever was one, and the potential to build an unstoppable movement is unprecedented. Just last weekend, liberal and Tea Party activists joined together for an unusual conference about the feasibility of a constitutional amendment to check undue corporate power in elections and government.


The right-leaning Daily Caller wrote, "Tea party activists made common cause with anti-corporate liberals this weekend at a venue quite unlike the firebrand populist movement: Harvard Law School. The improbable allies met to discuss the possibility of a new constitutional convention to address what they see as fundamental failures in the American system of government."


Grassroots liberals and conservatives agree on this issue. But many argue that there are too many differences between them to allow a unified movement. To them I say, find common ground or fail. Fixing this problem will require getting the fox to put a lock on the henhouse. That requires the kind of heat Congress felt after Watergate, when they last implemented sweeping reforms. A unified movement is not the same as seeking compromise between sold out Democratic and Republican politicians; it's about finding common ground between real people across the nation who are all suffering.


76% of Republicans and 85% of Democrats opposed the Citizens United decision. A long-running Gallup poll shows that Americans politically self-identify 40% conservative, 35% moderate and just 21% progressive.


Just look at the numbers. The way we win is by rallying around a democracy reform agenda, being thoughtful about how we talk about it, and building the kind of broad-based political movement that cannot be stopped.


What does a democracy reform agenda look like? Concrete answers are notably absent at the Wall Street rallies, so let me suggest this starting point: we must support an omnibus democracy agenda that both reduces the role of money in elections and politics, and enfranchises and protects voters so that our democracy enjoys full participation.


The actual policies that will save our democracy are wonky, and the list is long -- I will save that for a subsequent post. In the meantime, remember: before any lasting structural reform will advance, we must build a diverse movement of millions that cannot be ignored. Americans from the right and left must abandon the polarizing rhetoric from our leaders and our TV screens, and join hands in support of a 21st century democracy reform agenda that reclaims our government from moneyed special interests.


The future of our nation depends on it. The time has come. The beginning of a much larger uprising is at hand. The journey begins at the Occupy Wall Street website or Rootstrikers.org.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/occupy-wall-street-protests_b_991163.html

Quote from: ChriswUfGator on October 03, 2011, 09:06:40 AM
I am happy to see mass protests, it means despite the threat of arrest, people are still willing to stand up.

So am I. And it seems the more they arrest, the bigger this thing gets. I mean, they can't arrest everyone. And there's not enough jail cells to hold everyone either.

My fear is that the cops will keep antagonizing the protestors & something will turn ugly, then escalate from there (we've already seen pepper spraying people who weren't doing anything wrong, taking video equipment, slamming people's heads into parked cars, cops leading hundreds down into the path of cars just so they can arrest them, etc). Especially since its going nationwide (even here in Jax): http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197668320306311

It could go lots of different ways. Hopefully not this way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5xRaQnHGA0

Our elected officials really need to get involved, do their jobs & open up real talks & work on real solutions to get us out of this shit-storm we're all in. Even IF you're still lucky enough to have a job, haven't lost your house & aren't swimming in debt from just trying to go to school to get an education (which is basically the only way it can be done now), you should still be involved for a number of different reasons. What's wrong is wrong & this effects everyone. The system is rigged & it needs to change.

I'd occupy downtown.. but no one goes there so there's really no point.

Quote from: RiversideLoki on October 03, 2011, 02:58:52 PM
I'd occupy downtown.. but no one goes there so there's really no point.

Wells Fargo Sun trust (SK)ank of America!

Quote from: ChriswUfGator on October 03, 2011, 09:06:40 AM
I am happy to see mass protests, it means despite the threat of arrest, people are still willing to stand up.

Hell yes!!!!!  God bless them all!!!!!

They have people (mostly 18-24 year olds) doing similar things here and I believe all across the country.  I say...so what?  It's a shame some of the things that go on, but a bunch of dirty granola eaters camping out in a park is not going to do squat.  It's like the legalization of marijuana movement: the most vocal supporters are the biggest stereotypical potheads who outside of their little community have no respect and aren't going to be the people to get their plant legalized.

I believe one of my cousins participated in this event we are referring to.  She just graduated college and does not have a job yet, but she and her hippie boyfriend love to go to music concerts and "chill out" and "expand their mind."  Her parents are pretty conservative and that may have driven her to rebel and become relatively socialist.  I can tell you that most people I graduated with had no problems getting jobs, have had no problems with their student loans (my roommate took on loans and has had no problems with them), are mostly unaware of what happens on Wall St unless they are in a FIRE industry, etc.

Bottom line, a good 70% of the crowds in these "protests" are a) doing nothing but holding up signs, tweeting on their Macs, and camping out, and b) largely not respected by very large segments of society.  I'd say a very large chunk of them are wealthy, over-educated kids who focus too much on politics and fairness and down with the man memes and not enough time making it on their own in the real world.  They are very spoiled.  Should they be listened to at an extent?  Yes.  Is this a sign of the times?  Yes.  Is this a way overblown movement?  Yes.

Quote from: simms3 on October 03, 2011, 05:50:33 PM
They have people (mostly 18-24 year olds) doing similar things here and I believe all across the country.  I say...so what?  It's a shame some of the things that go on, but a bunch of dirty granola eaters camping out in a park is not going to do squat.  It's like the legalization of marijuana movement: the most vocal supporters are the biggest stereotypical potheads who outside of their little community have no respect and aren't going to be the people to get their plant legalized.

I believe one of my cousins participated in this event we are referring to.  She just graduated college and does not have a job yet, but she and her hippie boyfriend love to go to music concerts and "chill out" and "expand their mind."  Her parents are pretty conservative and that may have driven her to rebel and become relatively socialist.  I can tell you that most people I graduated with had no problems getting jobs, have had no problems with their student loans (my roommate took on loans and has had no problems with them), are mostly unaware of what happens on Wall St unless they are in a FIRE industry, etc.

Bottom line, a good 70% of the crowds in these "protests" are a) doing nothing but holding up signs, tweeting on their Macs, and camping out, and b) largely not respected by very large segments of society.  I'd say a very large chunk of them are wealthy, over-educated kids who focus too much on politics and fairness and down with the man memes and not enough time making it on their own in the real world.  They are very spoiled.  Should they be listened to at an extent?  Yes.  Is this a sign of the times?  Yes.  Is this a way overblown movement?  Yes.

Sounds like a 2007 campaign stop by Barack Obama! Those 18 to 24 yr olds elected our president.

Is it they?  Was it the huge black turnout?  Was it the independent voter?  Was it the moderate white Republican who wanted to assuage any white guilt and vote for a half black man?  Do we know if it was the 18-24 year range who got him elected?  If my memory serves me correctly, 2008 did not show any large statistical increase in the college age voter turnout, nor did it show a drastic move to the left (because the few 18-24 year olds who do vote typically do vote left already).

Quote from: simms3 on October 03, 2011, 05:50:33 PM
They have people (mostly 18-24 year olds) doing similar things here and I believe all across the country.  I say...so what?  It's a shame some of the things that go on, but a bunch of dirty granola eaters camping out in a park is not going to do squat.  It's like the legalization of marijuana movement: the most vocal supporters are the biggest stereotypical potheads who outside of their little community have no respect and aren't going to be the people to get their plant legalized.

I believe one of my cousins participated in this event we are referring to.  She just graduated college and does not have a job yet, but she and her hippie boyfriend love to go to music concerts and "chill out" and "expand their mind."  Her parents are pretty conservative and that may have driven her to rebel and become relatively socialist.  I can tell you that most people I graduated with had no problems getting jobs, have had no problems with their student loans (my roommate took on loans and has had no problems with them), are mostly unaware of what happens on Wall St unless they are in a FIRE industry, etc.

Bottom line, a good 70% of the crowds in these "protests" are a) doing nothing but holding up signs, tweeting on their Macs, and camping out, and b) largely not respected by very large segments of society.  I'd say a very large chunk of them are wealthy, over-educated kids who focus too much on politics and fairness and down with the man memes and not enough time making it on their own in the real world.  They are very spoiled.  Should they be listened to at an extent?  Yes.  Is this a sign of the times?  Yes.  Is this a way overblown movement?  Yes.

Are you generalizing & stereotyping? Yes. Are you failing to see the severity of our economic situation? Yes. Are you dismissing people's right to protest about real problems they face while sitting on your ass doing nothing (even though this effects you too)? Yes.

Its pretty easy to talk Simms if you've got a fairly safe job that can actually pay the bills & you've been lucky enough to avoid the system chewing you up & spitting you out in some way over Wall Street shenanigans & other factors that are out of your control. And how long exactly have you & your super-friends (who are all apparently bulletproof) been out of college? Because its a totally different game now my friend. Imagine going through the last 4-6 years, getting out in this climate & there not being a thing available anywhere for you in your field, or even Mickey D's for that matter.

I just hope your position doesn't dissolve away, or get shipped overseas, or that you don't get seriously ill & be socked with insane medical bills that no human being could ever pay off. I'd sure hate the thought of you having to go down there with all of those smelly hippies. ;)

QuoteIts pretty easy to talk Simms if you've got a fairly safe job that can actually pay the bills & you've been lucky enough to avoid the system chewing you up & spitting you out in some way over Wall Street shenanigans & other factors that are out of your control. And how long exactly have you & your super-friends (who are all apparently bulletproof) been out of college? Because its a totally different game now my friend. Imagine going through the last 4-6 years, getting out in this climate & there not being a thing available anywhere for you in your field, or even Mickey D's for that matter

I don't know if you or the people you are generalizing as not having work for 4-6 years are even looking for work. There are jobs out there, all you need to do is go speak with a recruiter, there are lots of jobs out there. Sadly many people give up, live on the government and use the emergency room as their version of free healthcare. Not saying you are, but if we are discussing generalization, many people abuse the system and poo poo the fact that they cannot find "their perfect job", well keep looking, this is the land of opportunity and yours, mine, everyone's is out there and available, you just have to look and ask others to help you look. If I can help you find a job, just ask.

Quote from: mtraininjax on October 03, 2011, 07:01:42 PM

QuoteIts pretty easy to talk Simms if you've got a fairly safe job that can actually pay the bills & you've been lucky enough to avoid the system chewing you up & spitting you out in some way over Wall Street shenanigans & other factors that are out of your control. And how long exactly have you & your super-friends (who are all apparently bulletproof) been out of college? Because its a totally different game now my friend. Imagine going through the last 4-6 years, getting out in this climate & there not being a thing available anywhere for you in your field, or even Mickey D's for that matter

I don't know if you or the people you are generalizing as not having work for 4-6 years are even looking for work. There are jobs out there, all you need to do is go speak with a recruiter, there are lots of jobs out there. Sadly many people give up, live on the government and use the emergency room as their version of free healthcare. Not saying you are, but if we are discussing generalization, many people abuse the system and poo poo the fact that they cannot find "their perfect job", well keep looking, this is the land of opportunity and yours, mine, everyone's is out there and available, you just have to look and ask others to help you look. If I can help you find a job, just ask.

mtraininjax, have you tried the ER recently for cancer treatment? Has anyone you know been successful at receiving cancer teatment in the ER?

The law requires ERs to stabilize you and then send you on your way.

So no immediate threat of death and you are out of the ER tout suite. So where is that Free Healthcare Republicans so like to speak of?

Live on the government? Do you know anyone "living on the government"?

The US safety net is laughable in comparison to the European safety net. If anyone wants to live on the government I'd advise them to move to Europe as there is nothing to be had in the US. In the US they'd rather have you die than receive any social security at all! Plain and simple. Just applying for foodstamps because your minimum wage income isn't a "liveable wage," will make you be treated like a criminal in the US.

It is a very sick society.

But hey we have mtraininjax on our side. Yay!!!!

Let me know how many of the folks on this website you've been able to help...........remember to steer away from those with chronic illnesses as employers will not want them!

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

I'm eagerly awaiting your magnificent results.........

Quote from: peestandingup on October 03, 2011, 06:48:01 PM
Its pretty easy to talk Simms if you've got a fairly safe job that can actually pay the bills & you've been lucky enough to avoid the system chewing you up & spitting you out in some way over Wall Street shenanigans & other factors that are out of your control. And how long exactly have you & your super-friends (who are all apparently bulletproof) been out of college? Because its a totally different game now my friend. Imagine going through the last 4-6 years, getting out in this climate & there not being a thing available anywhere for you in your field, or even Mickey D's for that matter.

I just hope your position doesn't dissolve away, or get shipped overseas, or that you don't get seriously ill & be socked with insane medical bills that no human being could ever pay off. I'd sure hate the thought of you having to go down there with all of those smelly hippies. ;)

I graduated in December.  I spent the majority of my last 12 months in college taking out various people for coffee or lunch, joining professional organizations to network and learn, getting licensed and tested, going to recruitment events, etc etc and making friends with my professors.  I worked my butt off, and it paid off and I got a job.  It is not the highest paying for me, but I learn more each day than I could ever learn anywhere else from the team of 4 that I work with.  There is nobody else in the south doing what we do.  I am merely an intern filling the role of a much more experienced analyst (and believe me when I say I was nil experienced just a few months ago).  In my intern title, I still work upwards of 70 hours a week, and I am still at my desk as I type now.  Now I am getting potential offers from other companies (you can't get a job until you have a job).

How did I land the job that I did with the company that I did with the individual team that I did in a city where the real estate industry is about as blue blooded and tight knitted as it is?  I networked for years like a mother flipper and I still do.  I spent $100 to go to a party this past weekend, thereby nearly bankrupting me, but I met up with some folks who work for this German fund based here, and by the end I was told to email my resume.  If it pans out, I spent $100 and overcame some nerves in order to make a decent salary with benefits and work for one of the most reputable developers in the world.  I don't expect it to pan out (though I always go in with that attitude that it will).

The reason why I don't know anyone who hasn't found a job yet, at least from my college, is because nobody at my college is a political science major or sociology major or studying to be a journalist.  No offense to these majors, but I doubt they are half as difficult to complete and earn as an engineering degree, a pre-med/biology track, or a finance degree, especially at an already notoriously difficult school like Tech.  If you worked that hard to get through Tech in one of those fields, you were either automatically picked up because recruiters and companies know what you had been through, or you continued working out of habit to get that first job (i.e. what I did).  I did not go to school to learn political crap or about human behavior or fairness, etc.  I went first as an engineer, and later as a finance major, and so all I cared about was using my brain and working hard.  In fact I was literally taught how grueling the real world is.  I felt prepared.  I was taught nothing is fair.  I was taught to network.  I was made to speak and join in lively dialogue at b-school events.  The atmosphere attempted to replicate a corporate environment with an option to strike out on one's own should that desire burn at some point, and I think the school did a decent job at both (preparing for corporate world, which is all about stepping on someone's throat or having your own stepped on all the while working on diverse teams, and learning about entrepreneurship).

In my sidelife I still find myself working.  I am working on a couple of side projects with some folks.  I am working to keep my apartment clean and pay the bills and maintain my life.  I get paid very little, yet somehow manage to pay my taxes and fees and utilities (2nd highest water bills in the country up here and very high taxes and fees, and not to mention state income tax).  I still manage to pay my $1600/mo rent (that's relatively cheap for Midtown, where I live, considering one bedrooms in a newer building are starting at $2900).  I still manage to make my appointments and pay my medical bills.  On that note, I have an incurable disease.  I have labs done every couple months and I pay thousands a year for medicine, with insurance.  I don't party often.  I don't go out to eat in all the fancy restaurants I can walk to.  I don't stock my fridge with beer or expensive liquors.  I really have nothing left to save, but I still manage to do that.  I have no debt.  Oh, and on top of that I participate in my company's community service outings, and before work I was already volunteering at a men's home.  That I picked up from my high school, which I am grateful for.

Because of all of this, I am not humble.  I am very prideful.  I am boastful and not ashamed to be (my confidence has worked for me so far).  I have absolutely no chip on my shoulder and I despise more than anything in the world those who do.  My attitude is tough, but it has to be.  I hope that some people reading this realize that anyone can make anything work.  In this economy, as long as you aren't expecting entitlements and as long as you aren't expecting a $70K starting salary (divide that in half and then subtract some and that's where I am), you should be able to maintain a decent, hard-working, prideful existence.  That is why I have little if any respect for these granola munchers camping out doing nothing to get a job.  That is why it is tough for me to see so many people going out to expensive clubs on the weekends when I know they aren't working for what they have.

Not to mention these granola crunchers no nothing of what they speak.  They are all repeating talking points.  My work is tied with Wall St as much as anything can be.  I can go on about that, but bottom line is I am more pissed at this administration and perhaps even the Fed than I am with Wall St (my company is a Wall St type company actually, so there ya go...Morgan Stanley and UBS are also in my building and Merrill Lynch is a block down).

Faye,

I have an incurable chronic illness.  It has not stopped me from anything, nor does my employer even know about it.

The ER is far from free, but if you want to see how nicely the government safety net works in this country, just come up to Atlanta.  You'll see thousands of government employees with no qualifications whatsoever everywhere, driving nice cars (many with rims!), going to clubs, sippin on the bubbly, shopping at Lenox, etc.  This has to be one of the most entitled cities in the country (we are the city with the first projects after all!), and it shows!  I can tell you even with South Atlanta, Fulton County's median household income is $93K!!!  Archer Western gets $300M highway repaving contracts whenever it wants.  The various levels of government occupy 11 million SF downtown alone!  Sometimes I get a parking ticket from not one, not two, but 3 city parking employees who just walk around arrogantly giving tickets (you think parking in DT Jax is bad???).  They all manage to have nice hair weaves and extensions, nice nails, smart phones, etc.  They only got the job because of patronage!

How is all of that funded?  45 mil property tax (down from 74...it is what 16,17 in Jax?), fees like you would not believe, 8% sales tax, 6% state income tax, the list goes on.  It's hard to believe that compared to IL, CA, and NY we aren't even considered a high tax state, but we aren't.

Believe me, come to Atlanta.  Go to NYC.  Go to Chicago.  Go to Albany.  In all of these places you will see TONS of people who rely on the government, either through entitlements and "safety nets" or flat out on the payroll, and you will be JEALOUS of how well they do and what they are able to buy with all of their cash!

Quote from: simms3 on October 03, 2011, 07:54:29 PM

Quote from: peestandingup on October 03, 2011, 06:48:01 PM
Its pretty easy to talk Simms if you've got a fairly safe job that can actually pay the bills & you've been lucky enough to avoid the system chewing you up & spitting you out in some way over Wall Street shenanigans & other factors that are out of your control. And how long exactly have you & your super-friends (who are all apparently bulletproof) been out of college? Because its a totally different game now my friend. Imagine going through the last 4-6 years, getting out in this climate & there not being a thing available anywhere for you in your field, or even Mickey D's for that matter.

I just hope your position doesn't dissolve away, or get shipped overseas, or that you don't get seriously ill & be socked with insane medical bills that no human being could ever pay off. I'd sure hate the thought of you having to go down there with all of those smelly hippies. ;)

I graduated in December.  I spent the majority of my last 12 months in college taking out various people for coffee or lunch, joining professional organizations to network and learn, getting licensed and tested, going to recruitment events, etc etc and making friends with my professors.  I worked my butt off, and it paid off and I got a job.  It is not the highest paying for me, but I learn more each day than I could ever learn anywhere else from the team of 4 that I work with.  There is nobody else in the south doing what we do.  I am merely an intern filling the role of a much more experienced analyst (and believe me when I say I was nil experienced just a few months ago).  In my intern title, I still work upwards of 70 hours a week, and I am still at my desk as I type now.  Now I am getting potential offers from other companies (you can't get a job until you have a job).

How did I land the job that I did with the company that I did with the individual team that I did in a city where the real estate industry is about as blue blooded and tight knitted as it is?  I networked for years like a mother flipper and I still do.  I spent $100 to go to a party this past weekend, thereby nearly bankrupting me, but I met up with some folks who work for this German fund based here, and by the end I was told to email my resume.  If it pans out, I spent $100 and overcame some nerves in order to make a decent salary with benefits and work for one of the most reputable developers in the world.  I don't expect it to pan out (though I always go in with that attitude that it will).

The reason why I don't know anyone who hasn't found a job yet, at least from my college, is because nobody at my college is a political science major or sociology major or studying to be a journalist.  No offense to these majors, but I doubt they are half as difficult to complete and earn as an engineering degree, a pre-med/biology track, or a finance degree, especially at an already notoriously difficult school like Tech.  If you worked that hard to get through Tech in one of those fields, you were either automatically picked up because recruiters and companies know what you had been through, or you continued working out of habit to get that first job (i.e. what I did).  I did not go to school to learn political crap or about human behavior or fairness, etc.  I went first as an engineer, and later as a finance major, and so all I cared about was using my brain and working hard.  In fact I was literally taught how grueling the real world is.  I felt prepared.  I was taught nothing is fair.  I was taught to network.  I was made to speak and join in lively dialogue at b-school events.  The atmosphere attempted to replicate a corporate environment with an option to strike out on one's own should that desire burn at some point, and I think the school did a decent job at both (preparing for corporate world, which is all about stepping on someone's throat or having your own stepped on all the while working on diverse teams, and learning about entrepreneurship).

In my sidelife I still find myself working.  I am working on a couple of side projects with some folks.  I am working to keep my apartment clean and pay the bills and maintain my life.  I get paid very little, yet somehow manage to pay my taxes and fees and utilities (2nd highest water bills in the country up here and very high taxes and fees, and not to mention state income tax).  I still manage to pay my $1600/mo rent (that's relatively cheap for Midtown, where I live, considering one bedrooms in a newer building are starting at $2900).  I still manage to make my appointments and pay my medical bills.  On that note, I have an incurable disease.  I have labs done every couple months and I pay thousands a year for medicine, with insurance.  I don't party often.  I don't go out to eat in all the fancy restaurants I can walk to.  I don't stock my fridge with beer or expensive liquors.  I really have nothing left to save, but I still manage to do that.  I have no debt.  Oh, and on top of that I participate in my company's community service outings, and before work I was already volunteering at a men's home.  That I picked up from my high school, which I am grateful for.

Because of all of this, I am not humble.  I am very prideful.  I am boastful and not ashamed to be (my confidence has worked for me so far).  I have absolutely no chip on my shoulder and I despise more than anything in the world those who do.  My attitude is tough, but it has to be.  I hope that some people reading this realize that anyone can make anything work.  In this economy, as long as you aren't expecting entitlements and as long as you aren't expecting a $70K starting salary (divide that in half and then subtract some and that's where I am), you should be able to maintain a decent, hard-working, prideful existence.  That is why I have little if any respect for these granola munchers camping out doing nothing to get a job.  That is why it is tough for me to see so many people going out to expensive clubs on the weekends when I know they aren't working for what they have.

Not to mention these granola crunchers no nothing of what they speak.  They are all repeating talking points.  My work is tied with Wall St as much as anything can be.  I can go on about that, but bottom line is I am more pissed at this administration and perhaps even the Fed than I am with Wall St (my company is a Wall St type company actually, so there ya go...Morgan Stanley and UBS are also in my building and Merrill Lynch is a block down).

Bravo, bravo........clapping hands.

You worked really hard for it, and made it.

I did the same during the early 80's recesssion going to one job fair after another with a masters degree in tow looking for a financial analyst job. And sure enough after about 9 months I was hired at a whopping $18,000, which I came to find out was 5,000 less than the secretary made.

Years later when I was working at Blue Cross Blue Shield of California I finally quit the corporate world altogether. I just do not believe in a world where we work our ass off as corporate slaves working unpaid overtime.......70+ hours for a stingy salary.

Hey in retrospect I should have become an MD or JD, and as a matter of fact did start medical school at the ripe old age of 32.........just couln't swing being a working single parent of 3 while attending med school.

So true grit is all well and good. I hope you haven't fathered any kids because they would be paying the price for your true grit right now. But the kids are disposible as are people in general in such a cut throat society.

Simms, being an MD or JD could have saved me from the cut throat corporatism out there...........but I noticed another way that the smart immigrants were using.

Ever notice how airports are staffed by immigrants?

I worked in a corporate office at the twin towers in Century City in California, and a co-worker from Ethiopia was also working there. She already had a Bachelors degee but her husband was still going to school and working as a taxi driver. Their goal? Secure government jobs. Sure they paid a little less than the corporate jobs, but they were secure and had upward potential.

Smart, very smart folks.

I ended up teaching Economics at various Florida and Georgia colleges for peanuts.

BTW, I really enjoyed the evening classes I taught at Georgia Perimeter College in Atlanta Georgia :)

There is something special about being an adjunct professor to working adults with their variety of life experiences.

Quote from: simms3 on October 03, 2011, 08:02:23 PM
Faye,

I have an incurable chronic illness.  It has not stopped me from anything, nor does my employer even know about it.

Good for you!

Ever tried to hide that you are a wheelchair user because you became paralyzed from a soccer injury?

Hmmmmm, thought so. Many chronic conditions cannot be hidden,...............even temporary ones like pregnancy prevent you from being hired in cut throat corporatism.

Quote from: simms3 on October 03, 2011, 06:10:35 PM
Is it they?  Was it the huge black turnout?  Was it the independent voter?  Was it the moderate white Republican who wanted to assuage any white guilt and vote for a half black man?  Do we know if it was the 18-24 year range who got him elected?  If my memory serves me correctly, 2008 did not show any large statistical increase in the college age voter turnout, nor did it show a drastic move to the left (because the few 18-24 year olds who do vote typically do vote left already).

Yes it was they. This pewresearch group states such
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1039/post-election-perspectives
Note the support of President Obama was 2-1 among 18- 28 (millennial generation). Unprecedented in recent history. The 2008 turnout followed up the large turnout in 2006 that turned congress over to the (left) democrats. Their return to the center also determined the results of the 2008 elections.
Not that it matters as I'm responding to your implication that this group is not pivotal in national elections. Historically, you have a point  but they set a precedent with Obamas election.

Your link actually repeats nearly everything I said.  It talks about moderates going to Obama.  It talks about the super high black turnout.  It talks about independents going to Obama.  And it does point out that young people voted more Democrat than normal, but it also said that young turnout under the age of 30 was not higher than in years past.

It also pointed out that young voters were swept by Obama, who appealed to them, and that voters in general were disillusioned about Bush over such things like the economy, Katrina, and the two wars, whether all were Bush's doing or not.  Well, it's been 3 years and the economy is no better, even though it would be if we did absolutely nothing to tinker with it.  At this point in time young people are facing a disproportionate level of unemployment, and everyone is facing higher unemployment and a multitude of problems.  The "leader" they elected has done absolutely nothing, has not played the part of a leader, has not provided any positive messages, has not even given any hints of stability in policy, has interrupted countless prime time programs only to waste our time to say something idiotic.  I think young people will fall back on their left leaning ideologies, seeing as half a decade of Democrat Congress/Senate and 3 years of a Democrat administration have not put out any positive results.  Some rich-kid hyper-educated, jobless liberal granola crunching students camping out and tweeting on their macs in city parks does not represent MY generation.  It represents merely a pitiful, small portion of it.

There are plenty of us either working, or working to get a job.  The overall disapproval of the campouts has at least flooded the message boards of my Twitter and my Facebook.

No party is perfect, and I can't stand all the closet Republicans who strike down gay rights as much as I can't stand all the corrupt Democrats who funnel taxpayer money between supporters and liberal groups.  I can say at this point that most people disapprove of Obama, Congress, and the Senate.  Ratings are at all time lows for all groups.  I do think while we have yet to see a truly strong Republican presidential candidate, people are generally more favorable towards conservatives now.  You have the FDA going bonkers over regulation.  You have the Justice Department fining the crap out of 6 oil companies because one non-endangered migratory bird died in ND, yet the Justice Department turns a complete blind eye to all utility companies running wind turbines, which kill hundreds if not thousands of birds, migratory, endangered, and all each year.  At the same time, oil and energy companies are possibly facing some of the highest taxes to ever come down the corporate pike, yet green companies, several of which recent ones have been the subject of scandals, receive tens of billions in subsidies.  You have scandals like the Solyndra incident occurring on a routine basis, all on the Democrat side.  You have the public unions issues in many states and within our federal government.  You have Obama holding up 3 trade pacts with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia, and now finally relenting because he got major concessions for the United Auto Workers.  This administration is picking winners like never before.  People talk about cronyism on Wall St (which until Bush was purely in bed with the Democrats and still largely is).  There has been nothing on the level of cronyism that has been going on between Obama and his unions and other political supporters.

I am now reading about minority parents being arrested for Grand Theft for sending their kids to schools outside of their district.  Is this what we are coming to?  Education declined again this year, and yet even after we have tripled spending per pupil (adjusted for inflation) over the last 30 years, results continue to decline significantly.  All of this and Obama's big plan is to spend more on education to "upgrade" schools?  I'm for spending on education, but it makes me queasy knowing that much of what we spend on education does nothing to help the children and does a lot to pay and empower the teachers' unions, which have held our system hostage for decades now.

I was so excited about being a part of the Democrat party just a year ago.  Now I could not be more upset, thinking 'what have I done?'  I was so disillusioned with the Tea Party a year ago, which is why I switched, but now they really don't piss me off so much.  I am slightly elitist, so I could never call myself a member of the Tea Party, but I can say that I am a capitalist through and through and I don't like the role our government is playing right now.  I believe our government is supposed to facilitate a good environment in which to conduct business, and it is doing the freakin opposite!

Those dumb kids in Zucotti Park can't see that no matter what Wall St does, ultimately the situation in which we find ourselves stems from bad policies in our federal government.  Many of these bad policies are just since the Obama admin.  They are also soooo hypocritical.  Wall St is only one beneficiary of the many failed stimuli that we have paid out.  Also Wall St keeps Main St running, and how that happens is largely regulated by various policies and regulators.  I see no anger directed towards regulators or those in government tasked with overseeing banks.  I basically see no anger from these STUPID idiots towards anyone in government.  They are so disconnected as to be laughably naive.  The $50K a year their parents spent on their college education was one hell of a huge waste.

I could go on and on.  These people bother me.  I'm just so happy that out of the millions of young people, they only number in the low thousands.  They are like a fly that you just have to flick off.

Oh, poor Oil Companies, poor Pharma........they kill hundreds of thousands of people and now they are getting regulated boohoo, poor Wall Street.........don't the folks on Main Street understand that they depend on Wall Street boohoo.

simms says:

QuoteI do think while we have yet to see a truly strong Republican presidential candidate, people are generally more favorable towards conservatives now.

Yeah those Republicans are definitely favored because they protect the Oil industry, big Pharma and Wall Street from the whiners on Main Street.

Yet recent polls show that 59% of Americans hate Republicans in power, vs 50% of Americans hating Democrats in Power!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/30/americans-are-the-angries_n_989719.html

Which brings us back to all of us agreeing that our governmental system doesn't work, with Republicans scoring much lower in approval on Main Street than Democrats.

RE Simms Statistics can be read in any way you want. I, myself, was stunned with Obamas victory of the democratic nomination (hence my moniker). But his presidential victory was, IMO, no fluke. The performance of two historically non significant groups were attributed to his victory, that being African Americans and 18-28yr age group. By numerous pollsters and statisticians. I presented those facts to back my point (and 2008 experience).
Your disillusionment of these times in America are shared by many, including the millennial generation that you are dismissing. The problem is you are convinced that the solution is opposite of what that generation is stating. But the difference is they are taking action straight to the streets. The numbers are getting larger, and the appeal is getting stronger.
If you think otherwise, you will be further dis sappointed next year when the democrats sweep control of both congress and the white house.
There is no truly strong republican candidate as the party is decisively divided. Watch the rest of this year as savvy republicans move to support the presidents legislation. Todays condemnation by Ron Paul of the presidents assassination of the American terrorist effectively destroys his campaign.
Speaking sympathy for the oil companies, condemning green American employed companies, impling democratic party control of Wall street.... your views are far outside the majority of Americans. And that majority is getting larger.
And in true democratic style, greatest good for greatest number, essential for all capitalism, the cards aren't in your favor.

Quote from: simms3 on October 03, 2011, 11:24:33 PM
  I am slightly elitist, so I could never call myself a member of the Tea Party, but I can say that I am a capitalist through and through and I don't like the role our government is playing right now.  I believe our government is supposed to facilitate a good environment in which to conduct business, and it is doing the freakin opposite!

Those dumb kids in Zucotti Park can't see that no matter what Wall St does, ultimately the situation in which we find ourselves stems from bad policies in our federal government.  Many of these bad policies are just since the Obama admin. 

Wow........lets examine the true free enterprise ideas of Adam Smith, who wrote the Bible for Capitalism:

QuoteWhat we call capitalism is, in fact, the American version of mercantilism. Ludwig von Mises, a libertarian economist, summed up its benefits rather nicely: "Capitalism gave the world what it needed, a higher standard of living for a growing population." Measured thusly, the results have been breathtakingly successful, but if the goal is the long-term viability of our economic and political democracy, we are in serious trouble.

Just as Jeffersonian democracy operates best on a small scale, Adam Smith believed his self-correcting free markets were ideal for small businesses in a domestic economy. Integrated in their communities, these businesses would be influenced directly by the needs and demands of consumers, and any dangerous or abusive conduct would rarely affect the broader economy. But Smith treated large, powerful companies very differently. He said big business was led by "an order of men...that generally have an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public", and he referred to powerful corporations (then known as joint stock companies) as "unaccountable sovereigns" that were as dangerous to free markets as tyrannical governments. Unrestrained, they had the power to shape society and governments for their own purposes, and consumers would pay for "all the extraordinary profits" while suffering from "all the extraordinary waste", the inherent fraud and abuse, that accompanies such immense economic power.

Smith stated emphatically that a strong government, acting through democratic and legal institutions, was the only entity capable of challenging such corporate power.

Smith supported necessary government regulations, labor and human rights, public education, and progressive taxation to ease the economic and social inequities he knew would occur in a capitalist system. Without these "liberal" measures, social and political unrest would threaten a nation's stability and his free market economy could not survive.

While Thomas Jefferson applauded Smith's theories, the 'father of American conservatism', Alexander Hamilton, denounced this philosophy as nonsense. Hamilton intended to establish America as a global powerhouse in short order. He was thinking big and didn't have time for Smith's small-scale, go-slow approach. Britain's mercantile system was elitist and abusive, but Hamilton knew it was the engine that drove England's powerful economy. As Secretary of the Treasury, he planned to use that very system to propel America onto the world stage.

Both his plan and its execution were brilliant. Hamilton set out to consolidate power in the new federal government by controlling the money supply, tariffs and trade and by managing the nation's industrial development. Farmers and shopkeepers couldn't provide the revenue he needed, nor could they finance the commercial development and infrastructure necessary for America to play in the big leagues. Hamilton needed big money and powerful partners in the private sector.

To accomplish this, he used the courts and Federalist Congress to institutionalize a powerful federal government and corporatist economy, a practice continued by his successors. The myth that corporations are somehow "persons" and equivalent to the human beings Adam Smith was liberating in his free market utopia is possibly the most successful coup in the history of the world, achieved with the stroke of a judicial pen in 1886.

Despite warnings by prescient Republican presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, the American system has morphed quite predictably into a dog-eat-dog economic Darwinism, and the big canines have rigged the game in their favor.

Flying the capitalist flag, the really big guys have completely corrupted Smith's free market philosophy. They use their concentrated wealth and power to buy off politicians, skate around regulations, abuse their privileges and sometimes, break the laws to win. When their politicians and corporate-sponsored "citizen" groups insist that small government and the market itself are sufficient checks, that further controls are a socialist plot to destroy capitalism, they are counting on our collective naiveté to win the game. They are destroying free enterprise by abusing the very freedoms intrinsic to a market economy.

That so many conservatives, adamant that they are defending true capitalism, would fail to make this distinction, gives credence to the power of the "big lie." They have so internalized this nonsense, that again and again, they are willing to defend transnational behemoths over the well-being of the American economy.

As one (somewhat mysterious) financial trader said in a BBC TV interview last week, a crashing economy is a brilliant opportunity for savvy insiders to make a killing. The economic well-being of a nation or its citizens is not a major factor in the world of transnational commerce. Predicting that the economic crisis will deepen, he summed up his message with a smile -- governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.

For true American patriots who believe in a vibrant free market economy, it is time to recognize we've been sold a bill of goods. The real enemy in the battle for American capitalism is not socialism; it is global corporatism. For true patriots, conservatives and liberals alike, the stakes could not be higher.

My new book, Patriot Acts -- What Americans Must Do to Save the Republic, examines the true nature of our constitutional system, how it has been interpreted and manipulated by conservatives and liberals since 1789, the effect of partisan ideology on this democratic system, including the economy, national security, health care, education and immigration, and how modern politicians betray the founding principles, constitutional system and economic capitalism that all Americans, left and right, profess to defend. Patriot Acts can be preordered on-line and will be released on November 1, 2011.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catherine-crier/capitalists-of-america--u_b_992786.html

Quote from: simms3 on October 03, 2011, 11:24:33 PM

I could go on and on.  These people bother me.  I'm just so happy that out of the millions of young people, they only number in the low thousands.  They are like a fly that you just have to flick off.

I really have to humor you on this since the pundits are taking them very serious........far more serious than the tea-party idiots!! Ignore them at your own peril. This is really hilarious   ;D

QuoteDavid Weidner's Writing on the Wall Archives | Email alerts

Oct. 4, 2011, 12:00 a.m. EDT

Occupy Wall Street is a tea party with brains
Commentary: Protesters seek a political process that doesn’t exclude themNEW YORK (MarketWatch) â€"

The revolution just might be televised after all.

More than two weeks after a band of young people began camping out under the shadow of the New York Stock Exchange, the movement to remake America’s inequitable financial system is growing  

It’s been called the Woodstock of Wall Street, but that’s hardly an apt comparison. The gathering at Max Yasgur’s farm 42 years ago was built on a generation looking for peace, love, some drugs and acid rock. The kids today are looking for real, tangible change of the capitalist sort. They’re organized, lucid and motivated.


Reuters
Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street campaign hold signs aloft as a protest march enters the courtyard near the New York Police Department

Actually, they have more in common with the tea party movement than the hippie dream, with one key difference. They’re smart enough to recognize the nation’s problems aren’t simply about taxes and the deficit.

They want jobs. They want the generation in power to acknowledge them. They want political change. They want responsibility in a culture that abdicates it. They want a decent future of opportunity.

If that isn’t American, then what is?

Another key difference between today’s kids and their hippie forefathers: they’re willing to gut it out.

Not only is Occupy Wall Street showing no signs of dying out, it’s getting stronger. On Sunday, a night of rain dampened the crowd at Zuccotti Park, but then the sun broke through and they were back at it: challenging police, marching and drawing attention to their cause.

They’re wired and ready. They’re using YouTube and blogs. A newspaper, the Occupied Wall Street Journal, began publishing last week. They meet in the evenings in a “general assembly” to discuss tactics.

Moreover there are signs the Left Coast wants to get into the action. On Sunday a group called Refund California announced a series of protests throughout Los Angeles. On Monday, a teach-in took place aimed at bringing awareness to how Wall Street has worsened California’s budget problems.

On Tuesday, Refund California is going to Orange County for a protest. On Wednesday, the group will target the home of a bank executive. And on Thursday a big bank in L.A. will be the next target. Protests in Chicago this weekend showed the message isn’t lost in fly-over country.

Click to Play  Wall Street protest spreads to Chicago Inspired by the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations in New York, some 100 people gathered Sunday outside the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago to protest inequities in the nation's financial system. WSJ's Jack Nicas reports.

This isn’t just some anarchist or lefty agitating. Many of the protesters are furious with the Obama administration’s kow-towing to big finance. They’re critical of Federal Reserve policies. Refund California is aligned with 1,000 faith-based groups.

Protesters are admonished for displaying the U.S. flag incorrectly. These protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful. And despite what you hear, there’s been a lot of goodwill between the police and protesters. They’re sharing coffee and donuts in the morning.

Meanwhile, another group, Occupy Los Angeles, is organizing its own protests. This movement, though small compared to the New York effort, is slowly gathering steam. Back East, Occupy Boston is gaining momentum. Protests in the financial center of Dewey Square took place Monday.

The persistence is paying off. The media is beginning to pay attention. Local papers in New York have been running more Occupy Wall Street stories. All of the major networks are covering the protests now.

Click to Play  House is gone but debt lives on Forty-one states and the District of Columbia permit lenders to sue borrowers for mortgage debt still left after a foreclosure sale. Jessica Silver-Greenberg has details on Lunch Break.

There are many more reporters on the scene and the coverage has moved from the police confrontations to what these thousands of protesters want.

The media seems confused. There were signs about Afghanistan, taxes, Wall Street greed, corporate responsibility and just about every pet cause out there.

But what some decry as a lack of focus is really about them not getting it: it’s about money. It’s about wasting money. It’s about greed for money guiding those in power. It’s about the inequitable distribution of money.

Most of all its about process. In a “general assembly” meeting Saturday, Occupy Wall Street came up with its first official document. It is a powerful summation of grievances, not just of the young, but of many Americans: home foreclosures, workers rights, internet privacy, health care and bailouts. Read the declaration of Occupy Wall Street .

“No true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power,” the declaration states. “We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.”

The protesters urge others to join them in public spaces everywhere.

Occupy Wall Street is a bigger and more important movement than it was two weeks ago. As the nation begins a year in which many of its major political offices could potentially shift hands, there finally seems to be a movement that reflects frustration with system beholden to big financial interests.

Still, there’s much work to do. The movement needs to sharpen its message. It needs visible and well-spoken leadership and people to become active politically. Some have argued that the protesters need more concrete ideas such as financial transaction taxes or Wall Street reforms. Using blanket anti-corporate statements aren’t an actionable method.

But for a generation accused of being lazy, unwilling to work and living with their parents too long, these kids have shown a hell of a lot of mettle so far. The odds are still long, but they’ve succeeded in the first step.

They’ve gotten our attention.
David Weidner covers Wall Street for MarketWatch.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/occupy-wall-street-is-a-tea-party-with-brains-2011-10-04?pagenumber=2

QuoteI graduated in December.  I spent the majority of my last 12 months in college taking out various people for coffee or lunch, joining professional organizations to network and learn, getting licensed and tested, going to recruitment events, etc etc and making friends with my professors.  I worked my butt off, and it paid off and I got a job.  It is not the highest paying for me, but I learn more each day than I could ever learn anywhere else from the team of 4 that I work with.  There is nobody else in the south doing what we do.  I am merely an intern filling the role of a much more experienced analyst (and believe me when I say I was nil experienced just a few months ago).  In my intern title, I still work upwards of 70 hours a week, and I am still at my desk as I type now.  Now I am getting potential offers from other companies (you can't get a job until you have a job).

How did I land the job that I did with the company that I did with the individual team that I did in a city where the real estate industry is about as blue blooded and tight knitted as it is?  I networked for years like a mother flipper and I still do.  I spent $100 to go to a party this past weekend, thereby nearly bankrupting me, but I met up with some folks who work for this German fund based here, and by the end I was told to email my resume.  If it pans out, I spent $100 and overcame some nerves in order to make a decent salary with benefits and work for one of the most reputable developers in the world.  I don't expect it to pan out (though I always go in with that attitude that it will).

The reason why I don't know anyone who hasn't found a job yet, at least from my college, is because nobody at my college is a political science major or sociology major or studying to be a journalist.  No offense to these majors, but I doubt they are half as difficult to complete and earn as an engineering degree, a pre-med/biology track, or a finance degree, especially at an already notoriously difficult school like Tech.  If you worked that hard to get through Tech in one of those fields, you were either automatically picked up because recruiters and companies know what you had been through, or you continued working out of habit to get that first job (i.e. what I did).  I did not go to school to learn political crap or about human behavior or fairness, etc.  I went first as an engineer, and later as a finance major, and so all I cared about was using my brain and working hard.  In fact I was literally taught how grueling the real world is.  I felt prepared.  I was taught nothing is fair.  I was taught to network.  I was made to speak and join in lively dialogue at b-school events.  The atmosphere attempted to replicate a corporate environment with an option to strike out on one's own should that desire burn at some point, and I think the school did a decent job at both (preparing for corporate world, which is all about stepping on someone's throat or having your own stepped on all the while working on diverse teams, and learning about entrepreneurship).

In my sidelife I still find myself working.  I am working on a couple of side projects with some folks.  I am working to keep my apartment clean and pay the bills and maintain my life.  I get paid very little, yet somehow manage to pay my taxes and fees and utilities (2nd highest water bills in the country up here and very high taxes and fees, and not to mention state income tax).  I still manage to pay my $1600/mo rent (that's relatively cheap for Midtown, where I live, considering one bedrooms in a newer building are starting at $2900).  I still manage to make my appointments and pay my medical bills.  On that note, I have an incurable disease.  I have labs done every couple months and I pay thousands a year for medicine, with insurance.  I don't party often.  I don't go out to eat in all the fancy restaurants I can walk to.  I don't stock my fridge with beer or expensive liquors.  I really have nothing left to save, but I still manage to do that.  I have no debt.  Oh, and on top of that I participate in my company's community service outings, and before work I was already volunteering at a men's home.  That I picked up from my high school, which I am grateful for.

Because of all of this, I am not humble.  I am very prideful.  I am boastful and not ashamed to be (my confidence has worked for me so far).  I have absolutely no chip on my shoulder and I despise more than anything in the world those who do.  My attitude is tough, but it has to be.  I hope that some people reading this realize that anyone can make anything work.  In this economy, as long as you aren't expecting entitlements and as long as you aren't expecting a $70K starting salary (divide that in half and then subtract some and that's where I am), you should be able to maintain a decent, hard-working, prideful existence.  That is why I have little if any respect for these granola munchers camping out doing nothing to get a job.  That is why it is tough for me to see so many people going out to expensive clubs on the weekends when I know they aren't working for what they have.

Not to mention these granola crunchers no nothing of what they speak.  They are all repeating talking points.  My work is tied with Wall St as much as anything can be.  I can go on about that, but bottom line is I am more pissed at this administration and perhaps even the Fed than I am with Wall St (my company is a Wall St type company actually, so there ya go...Morgan Stanley and UBS are also in my building and Merrill Lynch is a block down).

What a great story Simms!  I am very impressed... I congratulate you.(probably the kiss of death here... ;))  I especially congratulate you for NOT accepting the myriad of ready made excuses to not find and have a job.  You have found a position and understand that you must work your way up in title and pay.  It has always been that way and always will.  An advanced degree guarantees nothing.  There are many like you and the norm is NOT the folks camping out on Wall St.

I do not begrudge the protesters... I just hope they are cleaning up after themselves...

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 07:15:46 AM

What a great story Simms!  I am very impressed... I congratulate you.(probably the kiss of death here... ;))  I especially congratulate you for NOT accepting the myriad of ready made excuses to not find and have a job.  You have found a position and understand that you must work your way up in title and pay.  It has always been that way and always will.  An advanced degree guarantees nothing.  There are many like you and the norm is NOT the folks camping out on Wall St.

I do not begrudge the protesters... I just hope they are cleaning up after themselves...

BT, thanks for your kind words for somone who really DID succeed against all odds.

But it's almost like holding up Stephen Hawkin's story of success against all odds for other wheelchair users to emulate.

I'm all for motivational stories............but not everyone can be a Conan.  ;D

It reminds me of the reason poor Republicans want to protect the Uber-Rich.........because maybe...........if they just work hard enough..............they will be uber-rich themselves.

Same thing with the ultra-religious.................suffering is a virtue because of the promised rewards in the afterlife.

Once and for all... so I know who the hell you are talking about....

PLEASE define "uber rich".

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 07:42:02 AM
Once and for all... so I know who the hell you are talking about....

PLEASE define "uber rich".

I'm talking about the 1 Percenters who own 42% of our nation's wealth:

(http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/financial-wealth-united-states.png)

The rest of us are lured into servitude with promises that "we can do it too"

We can... they did.

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 07:59:37 AM
We can... they did.

Wow ok........lets look at the numbers over time...........

If that were true.........how come wealth has become ever more concentrated at the top?

You'd think that as more people join the 1 Percenters, there'd actually be a larger group of them rather than an ever smaller group of uber wealthy.

Many people are starting to wake up to this massive scam. The Scam of corporate socialism at the expense of the people.

That carrot you keep holding out for us...........that if we just work hard enough we might join their ranks............is no longer working. We're onto the scam that keeps us all in servitude.

How does the chart change when looking at income vs wealth?

(truly curious, not a rhetorical question)

Quote from: buckethead on October 04, 2011, 08:07:45 AM
How does the chart change when looking at income vs wealth?

(truly curious, not a rhetorical question)

I like your question...........but first I want to ask Republicans on this board if they think these people are just LAZY, when they complain about not being able to get out of their rut.

Why do we all feel so stuck?

We've all been sold a bill of goods, a myth, that's why!

A fake hope...........that if we just worked hard enough..........we can get there too.

"America is distinct in the extent to which inequality is inherited from generation to generation," Bowles says. "The kids of rich parents have a strong tendency to be rich, and the kids of poor parents are very, very likely to be poor. That's one of the things which I think Americans find most shocking. That's a huge discrepancy from what we think of as the land of opportunity."

http://www.youtube.com/v/BLVeKzBxSVg?

Quote from: buckethead on October 04, 2011, 08:07:45 AM
How does the chart change when looking at income vs wealth?

(truly curious, not a rhetorical question)

I want to answer BT's "you can too" attitude and your question simultaneously with a chart from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO):

(http://inequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/average-after-tax-income-by-income-group.png?4c9b33)

So while the middle class perished, or maybe "because the middle class perished," the uber-wealthy got even wealthier in camparison to us regular folks.

The same people who were "uber rich" a century ago are no longer so.  What's great about our country IS the fact that different people can and do become wealthy at different points in time, and yes, their heirs eventually sit on their butt and lose most of it (not always the case, but often).

The middle class IS suffering more than the wealthy and the poor.  This is a recent phenomena of the past few years.  The poor are actually doing just fine, and not doing anything.  The wealthy obviously are also doing just fine.  In fact, with education recent studies have shown that schools in wealthy districts perform well, and schools in poor districts receive all the public funding (of course they don't "do" well no matter how much we throw their way), and schools in the middle class districts do merely ok and get jipped on the funding.  The middle is shrinking pretty rapidly.  That's all true, but that's all new.

Also, I AM a Millennial, and so are ALL my friends.  I bet I'm more connected to them than you, despite my spite for these lazy bums in the park.  They hardly represent the full gamut of my generation.  I know people protesting.  My cousin is one of them!  They are mostly rich kids with some sort of political degree, many of whom went to top colleges and learned about fairness and equality and human behavior instead of how to work with numbers and how to work hard to achieve results, which are never guaranteed mind you.  They are tweeting anti-corporate memes, but hypocritically their Macs were created by a corporation who at one point a month ago was the most valuable corporation on Earth!  The hypocrisy astounds me.  Apple outsources.  Apple has used cheap labor and cheap parts.  Apple produces billionaires.  Apple is everything they are against, yet they don't even realize it!

If the media places "Big" in front of an industry and demonizes that industry at all, you can be sure these kids will go after it at some point, not realizing that like the Obama Admin, the media loves to pick targets to hate and skims over lots of other industries.  I don't hear these kids whining about GM and Chrysler, both of which received tens of billions, catered to the Unions, outsourced like a mother flipper, and became friends with corrupt Democrat politicians in Michigan.  Big Auto as I'm going to call it did everything Wall St has done and more in Michigan, and yet not a peep.  In fact, my 2011 Hyundai Sonata was built in the US using 50% US parts (it was built in the South in Alabama!).  It's probably more a US car than many GMs!  Unions with huge pensions and political allies did not build my car.

Also "Big" Pharma, which keeps me alive, is being literally held hostage by the FDA.  So are medical device companies.  This is something even Democrats and other federal regulatory agencies have publicly noted.  Our FDA is literally killing people right and left, meanwhile the rest of the world is picking up where we left off in pharmaceutical and medical device innovation, and we can't use anything developed in Europe now because of the damn FDA!

As far as jobs are concerned, there are 3 million jobs available at this moment!  This is of course excluding our military, which should always and had always been considered an option.  These kids could use a few years of military to learn about leadership and service.  I know that Continental Oil has TONS of super high paying jobs available in ND!  They just discovered as much oil as Saudi Arabia had at its peak in our own country in and around North Dakota!  Of course even with our government's cry to be oil independent, we wouldn't dare support that industry.  In fact they are all now being fined so heavily for one death of one non-endangered, migratory bird.  Meanwhile the wind industry, which receives billions in federal subsidies a year, is responsible for the deaths of thousands of birds, migratory, endangered, and all.  They get a pass.

Bottom line is these kids are hypocritical idiots in almost every way, and yes - they ARE lazy bums.  They should be ashamed of themselves.  Get a job and keep a job, anything, for a little while, pay your dues and earn your way through society first, and then if you happen to be wronged en masse, and you know exactly who wronged you and how, THEN complain.  Wall St did nothing that was not first regulated or signed off by your favorite politicians.  Most Americans can see at this point that our politicians are the biggest crooks and liers, but these kids have no experience and no gut feel and don't even see the obvious at this point.  They are SHEEP, even with their $200K college degrees!

Quote from: simms3 on October 04, 2011, 08:54:25 AM
Bottom line is these kids are hypocritical idiots in almost every way, and yes - they ARE lazy bums.  They should be ashamed of themselves.  Get a job and keep a job, anything, for a little while, pay your dues and earn your way through society first, and then if you happen to be wronged en masse, and you know exactly who wronged you and how, THEN complain.  Wall St did nothing that was not first regulated or signed off by your favorite politicians.  Most Americans can see at this point that our politicians are the biggest crooks and liers, but these kids have no experience and no gut feel and don't even see the obvious at this point.  They are SHEEP, even with their $200K college degrees!

No, these young folks are well aware of the corporate socialism that the governmental crooks and liers are maintaining.

Why should they do as I did...........believe in the "hard work will get you there" ethos, only to find out it was a crock.

I'm glad they are no longer fooled by the carrot that is more the exception than the rule.

They have watched their parents struggle and get nowhere..........THAT is NOT the future they want for themselves.

You too haven't made it there either yet, and may never get there.............it still remains to be seen.

Certainly working for peanuts many, many hours a week, while laudable isn't exactly "making it"

Besides we can't all be engineers, doctors and lawyers!

That land of opportunity isn't real, if only .0000001 % of people feel they have any chance of "making it," despite their inhumane efforts.

Quote from: simms3 on October 04, 2011, 08:54:25 AM
The same people who were "uber rich" a century ago are no longer so.  What's great about our country IS the fact that different people can and do become wealthy at different points in time, and yes, their heirs eventually sit on their butt and lose most of it (not always the case, but often).

I was looking for charts over time.........to show you how more of more today's wealthy got there..........not through hard work, but through inheritance. The famous rentier society is alive and well...........meaning the wealth stays firmly in the same hands.

So far I can only offer you today's snap shot which might surprise you ( hint: hard work doesn't have that much to do with being uber-wealthy)

By Chris Vellacott

LONDON |
Thu May 26, 2011 11:20am EDT



LONDON (Reuters) â€" Britain’s billionaires are more likely than their U.S. counterparts to have made their own money rather than inherited it, a study has found, challenging popular perceptions of greater social mobility in America.



A survey by French bank Societe Generale and Forbes of super-rich people in 12 countries, many of whom are billionaires, found 80 percent of the British sample entirely “self-made,” as opposed to inherited wealth or a mix of both.



Among the U.S. rich, 68 percent were entirely self-made, the report said. Just a 10th of the British multimillionaires have wealth that was all inherited, compared with 18 percent of American billionaires, the report said.



Only Russians beat the British for the dominance of new money with all those in the survey having made their own millions in the two decades since the dismantling of the Soviet Union’s command economy.



The super rich in China, India and Brazil also appear to be more bound to old money than British elites, at least for now.



Two-thirds of Brazilians and 65 percent of Chinese and Indians have wealth categorized as entirely self-made, as opposed to inherited or a blend of sources, the survey found.



But the report also noted that Brazil, Russia, China and India are seeing the most growth in the super rich population.



“Today, both China and Russia have more than 100 billionaires in their ranks, putting them second and third behind the U.S.,” it said.



In Germany and France only about a third of the samples had wealth classed as purely self-made.



The rich of Britain and the United States were older than their Chinese or Indian counterparts, however. The average age of the sample in Britain and the United States was 65 and 66 respectively, compared to 60 in India, 50 in China and just 49 in Russia.



(Reporting by Chris Vellacott, editing by Paul Casciato)



Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/smallBusinessNews/~3/5qAGHm7xzFU/us-wealth-selfmade-rich-idUSTRE74P2XX20110526

(http://moneytipcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/usabillionaires.jpg)

I agree with Mr Johnson...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/02/bets_robert_johnson_to_obama_stop_attacking_the_wealthy.html

QuoteBET founder Robert Johnson on the "FOX News Sunday" program: "Well, I think the president has to recalibrate his message. You don't get people to like you by attacking them or demeaning their success. You know, I grew up in a family of 10 kids, first one to go to college, and I've earned my success. I've earned my right to fly private if I choose to do so.

"And by attacking me it is not going to convince me that I should take a bigger hit because I happen to be wealthy. You know, it is the old -- I think Ted and Fred and I we both sort of take the old Ethel Merman approach to life. I've tried poor and I tried rich and I like rich better. It doesn't mean that I am a bad guy.

"I didn't go in to business to create a public policy success for either party, Republican or Democrat. I went in business to create jobs and opportunity, create opportunity, create value for myself and my investors. And that's what the president should be praising, not demagoguing us simply because Warren Buffet says he pays more than his secretary. He should pay the secretary more and she will pay more."

Very good find Stephen.  Couldn't agree more.  But lets put it into context shall we?  Reagan wanted to lower rates across the board and simplify the tax code eliminating loopholes. (created BTW by the leadership and approval of both parties)  The elimination of loopholes and decreased tax rates were designed to spur growth. (Which they did)  Mr Obama wants to close loopholes AND increase rates. (spurring growth??)

On a side... the zombie makeup and costumes of the protesters were awesome... :)

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 09:43:12 AM
I agree with Mr Johnson...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/02/bets_robert_johnson_to_obama_stop_attacking_the_wealthy.html

QuoteBET founder Robert Johnson on the "FOX News Sunday" program: "Well, I think the president has to recalibrate his message. You don't get people to like you by attacking them or demeaning their success. You know, I grew up in a family of 10 kids, first one to go to college, and I've earned my success. I've earned my right to fly private if I choose to do so.

"And by attacking me it is not going to convince me that I should take a bigger hit because I happen to be wealthy. You know, it is the old -- I think Ted and Fred and I we both sort of take the old Ethel Merman approach to life. I've tried poor and I tried rich and I like rich better. It doesn't mean that I am a bad guy.

"I didn't go in to business to create a public policy success for either party, Republican or Democrat. I went in business to create jobs and opportunity, create opportunity, create value for myself and my investors. And that's what the president should be praising, not demagoguing us simply because Warren Buffet says he pays more than his secretary. He should pay the secretary more and she will pay more."

LOL how sexist........when did "the secretary" become a female?

And in true "anecdotal fashion" of Republicans, they will find one exception to the rule and hold it out for the rest of us.

In this anecdotal case the success ratio was one in 10 children, when the nation's success ratio is more like one in 100 million people to have the great fortune of becoming part of the uber-rich.

Besides like you said there are different versions of the rich, but increasingly CEOs have become targets as a growing source of income inequality:

Another way that income can be used as a power indicator is by comparing average CEO annual pay to average factory worker pay, something that has been done for many years by Business Week and, later, the Associated Press. The ratio of CEO pay to factory worker pay rose from 42:1 in 1960 to as high as 531:1 in 2000, at the height of the stock market bubble, when CEOs were cashing in big stock options. It was at 411:1 in 2005 and 344:1 in 2007, according to research by United for a Fair Economy. By way of comparison, the same ratio is about 25:1 in Europe. The changes in the American ratio from 1960 to 2007 are displayed, based on data from several hundred of the largest corporations. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html



(http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Figure_8.gif)

How is this justified in this supposed land of equal opportunity?

Quote from: simms3 on October 04, 2011, 08:54:25 AM


Also, I AM a Millennial, and so are ALL my friends.  I bet I'm more connected to them than you, despite my spite for these lazy bums in the park. 

While I'm older than many Millennials parents and have friends that run through all age groups, the fact that I'm a life long artist and former guitarist for a punk rock band that toured Europe with Fishbone ( which has enabled me to meet countless numbers of your generation) makes me confidant to say I'm much more connected to the Millennial generation than your arrogant quote above.
Its my advice, being the old fart you take me for leads me to believe you will only laugh, that you look at the exceptional accomplishments you have and are making and be happy and grateful for them and discard the (self admitted) pride and elitism which is strongly flavored in every word you say.
With that, I'm outta here!

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 04, 2011, 10:09:43 AM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 09:43:12 AM
I agree with Mr Johnson...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/02/bets_robert_johnson_to_obama_stop_attacking_the_wealthy.html

QuoteBET founder Robert Johnson on the "FOX News Sunday" program: "Well, I think the president has to recalibrate his message. You don't get people to like you by attacking them or demeaning their success. You know, I grew up in a family of 10 kids, first one to go to college, and I've earned my success. I've earned my right to fly private if I choose to do so.

"And by attacking me it is not going to convince me that I should take a bigger hit because I happen to be wealthy. You know, it is the old -- I think Ted and Fred and I we both sort of take the old Ethel Merman approach to life. I've tried poor and I tried rich and I like rich better. It doesn't mean that I am a bad guy.

"I didn't go in to business to create a public policy success for either party, Republican or Democrat. I went in business to create jobs and opportunity, create opportunity, create value for myself and my investors. And that's what the president should be praising, not demagoguing us simply because Warren Buffet says he pays more than his secretary. He should pay the secretary more and she will pay more."

LOL how sexist........when did "the secretary" become a female?

And in true "anecdotal fashion" of Republicans, they will find one exception to the rule and hold it out for the rest of us.

In this anecdotal case the success ratio was one in 10 children, when the nation's success ratio is more like one in 100 million people to have the great fortune of becoming part of the uber-rich.

Besides like you said there are different versions of the rich, but increasingly CEOs have become targets as a growing source of income inequality:

(http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Figure_8.gif)

How is this justified in this supposed land of equal opportunity?

lol... probably a racist too huh Faye...  Onward with your class warfare.  It is too bad you cannot see that this anecdotal example should serve as an example of what people in this country CAN DO...

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 10:27:48 AM

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 04, 2011, 10:09:43 AM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 09:43:12 AM
I agree with Mr Johnson...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/02/bets_robert_johnson_to_obama_stop_attacking_the_wealthy.html

QuoteBET founder Robert Johnson on the "FOX News Sunday" program: "Well, I think the president has to recalibrate his message. You don't get people to like you by attacking them or demeaning their success. You know, I grew up in a family of 10 kids, first one to go to college, and I've earned my success. I've earned my right to fly private if I choose to do so.

"And by attacking me it is not going to convince me that I should take a bigger hit because I happen to be wealthy. You know, it is the old -- I think Ted and Fred and I we both sort of take the old Ethel Merman approach to life. I've tried poor and I tried rich and I like rich better. It doesn't mean that I am a bad guy.

"I didn't go in to business to create a public policy success for either party, Republican or Democrat. I went in business to create jobs and opportunity, create opportunity, create value for myself and my investors. And that's what the president should be praising, not demagoguing us simply because Warren Buffet says he pays more than his secretary. He should pay the secretary more and she will pay more."

LOL how sexist........when did "the secretary" become a female?

And in true "anecdotal fashion" of Republicans, they will find one exception to the rule and hold it out for the rest of us.

In this anecdotal case the success ratio was one in 10 children, when the nation's success ratio is more like one in 100 million people to have the great fortune of becoming part of the uber-rich.

Besides like you said there are different versions of the rich, but increasingly CEOs have become targets as a growing source of income inequality:

(http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Figure_8.gif)

How is this justified in this supposed land of equal opportunity?

lol... probably a racist too huh Faye...  Onward with your class warfare.  It is too bad you cannot see that this anecdotal example should serve as an example of what people in this country CAN DO...

Yup, we can also buy a lottery ticket LOL

As an economist I'm looking at the efficient use of time in order to maximize my chances for success  ;)

Remember I already tried it the pre-scribed way, and the young folks are smart enough to see the non-success of their parents...........so they don't need to even bother to try to get on:

(http://humankinetics.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/mouse-wheel-jpg.gif) 

Quote from: stephendare on October 04, 2011, 10:36:36 AM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 10:02:52 AM
Very good find Stephen.  Couldn't agree more.  But lets put it into context shall we?  Reagan wanted to lower rates across the board and simplify the tax code eliminating loopholes. (created BTW by the leadership and approval of both parties)  The elimination of loopholes and decreased tax rates were designed to spur growth. (Which they did)  Mr Obama wants to close loopholes AND increase rates. (spurring growth??)

On a side... the zombie makeup and costumes of the protesters were awesome... :)

So why are you defending the tax loopholes, Bridge Troll?

The wealthy are using a tax loophole that taxes 15% of capital gains vs 32 % for income.  They are paying half their fair share by simply calling their personal profits a capital gain instead of an income.  And yet here you are defending their ridiculously transparent loophole.

You are well aware that I have been in favor of tax code simplification for a looong time.  This includes closing loopholes.  Get rid of all the special favors and loopholes.  Lets get a list of allllllll of em and find out who voted for em... throw the bums out... and simplify the tax code.

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 10:46:07 AM
Lets get a list of allllllll of em and find out who voted for em... throw the bums out... and simplify the tax code.

You can't vote them out. They are entrenched by BIG Money interests. You don't know the stats?

95% of incumbents get re-elected!!

I'm enjoying Simms Stephen Colbert-esque satire.

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 04, 2011, 09:16:08 AM

Quote from: simms3 on October 04, 2011, 08:54:25 AM
Bottom line is these kids are hypocritical idiots in almost every way, and yes - they ARE lazy bums.  They should be ashamed of themselves.  Get a job and keep a job, anything, for a little while, pay your dues and earn your way through society first, and then if you happen to be wronged en masse, and you know exactly who wronged you and how, THEN complain.  Wall St did nothing that was not first regulated or signed off by your favorite politicians.  Most Americans can see at this point that our politicians are the biggest crooks and liers, but these kids have no experience and no gut feel and don't even see the obvious at this point.  They are SHEEP, even with their $200K college degrees!

No, these young folks are well aware of the corporate socialism that the governmental crooks and liers are maintaining.

Why should they do as I did...........believe in the "hard work will get you there" ethos, only to find out it was a crock.

I'm glad they are no longer fooled by the carrot that is more the exception than the rule.

They have watched their parents struggle and get nowhere..........THAT is NOT the future they want for themselves.

You too haven't made it there either yet, and may never get there.............it still remains to be seen.

Certainly working for peanuts many, many hours a week, while laudable isn't exactly "making it"

Besides we can't all be engineers, doctors and lawyers!

That land of opportunity isn't real, if only .0000001 % of people feel they have any chance of "making it," despite their inhumane efforts.

Exactly. No offense to him, he's done a lot & tried very hard, but Simms is still VERY young & has a VERY long way to go. I love that he's fresh outta college (which is still basically a kid. again, no offense) & trying to tell adults (who been through a lot more than he has) how it is. Not everyone has the time (or money) to wine & dine with big wigs making connections all over town all day long to simply get an interview. Some have bigger life responsibilities.

Simms, you seem like a good guy, but come back in 10 years after you've been married, had a kid or two, and had some REAL responsibility. Then you'll have a better understanding of what everyone is talking about. Wait until you get sick, or your kid does, or you have to send them to expensive private school (because the public ones are so shitty nowadays), or you try to start a life with your significant other, buy a modest house & with no warning the markets collapses on top of you. Oh, then your company downsizes & you either get less pay or get laid off altogether.

I know it seems like the world is your oyster right now (we all felt that way at your age more or less), but slow your roll & learn to look at things objectively & through a wider lens. But you've already made up your mind that you know what's up, so I'm not sure we can tell you anything more.

Anyways, can we get back on topic? This isn't a left or right issue. And its not a lazy hippie issue either. CLEARLY there's a problem with our country (we've had ZERO job creation in the last decade compared to the last six decades. not to mention housing, our debt & everything else falling apart). I personally don't give 2 shits who started some kind of movement, as long as it started.

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 04, 2011, 10:55:19 AM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 10:46:07 AM
Lets get a list of allllllll of em and find out who voted for em... throw the bums out... and simplify the tax code.

You can't vote them out. They are entrenched by BIG Money interests. You don't know the stats?

95% of incumbents get re-elected!!

Isn't that the responsibility of the electorate?  Is it "Big Money's" fault that the majority of the people either a) don't vote, or b) aren't educating themselves on the candidates/issues?

Quote from: Doctor_K on October 04, 2011, 12:01:54 PM

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 04, 2011, 10:55:19 AM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 10:46:07 AM
Lets get a list of allllllll of em and find out who voted for em... throw the bums out... and simplify the tax code.

You can't vote them out. They are entrenched by BIG Money interests. You don't know the stats?

95% of incumbents get re-elected!!

Isn't that the responsibility of the electorate?  Is it "Big Money's" fault that the majority of the people either a) don't vote, or b) aren't educating themselves on the candidates/issues?

Not when those candidates are backed by huge mega corporate interests & their campaign dollars flows through them like diarrhea through a buffalo. And don't forget the mainstream media pumping out their favorites over the airwaves 24/7.

The system has it set up to where it LOOKS like we have choices. In reality, we don't. We only have what we're given.

Quote from: peestandingup on October 04, 2011, 12:25:07 PM

Quote from: Doctor_K on October 04, 2011, 12:01:54 PM

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 04, 2011, 10:55:19 AM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 04, 2011, 10:46:07 AM
Lets get a list of allllllll of em and find out who voted for em... throw the bums out... and simplify the tax code.

You can't vote them out. They are entrenched by BIG Money interests. You don't know the stats?

95% of incumbents get re-elected!!

Isn't that the responsibility of the electorate?  Is it "Big Money's" fault that the majority of the people either a) don't vote, or b) aren't educating themselves on the candidates/issues?

Not when those candidates are backed by huge mega corporate interests & their campaign dollars flows through them like diarrhea through a buffalo. And don't forget the mainstream media pumping out their favorites over the airwaves 24/7.

The system has it set up to where it LOOKS like we have choices. In reality, we don't. We only have what we're given.

Horse hockey.  In fact, the more I hear/see a candidate's ad, the less likely I am to vote for him/her due to overkill.  It works both ways, and I still have a choice.

So, apparently the Occupy Jacksonville thing is supposed to happen saturday. I'm all for it and I know I've been negative about the whole thing. But isn't there a better time to protest? I mean, Zombie Walk is Saturday. And really the only other people downtown are people going to Chamblin's and MOCA. Not exactly their target democraphic, eh?

Quote from: RiversideLoki on October 04, 2011, 12:57:35 PM
So, apparently the Occupy Jacksonville thing is supposed to happen saturday. I'm all for it and I know I've been negative about the whole thing. But isn't there a better time to protest? I mean, Zombie Walk is Saturday. And really the only other people downtown are people going to Chamblin's and MOCA. Not exactly their target democraphic, eh?

If its anything like the others, that's just the launch of it & it'll be everyday after that. "Occupy".

You overestimate the will and drive of the citizens of Jacksonville. Or maybe I'm underestimating. I hope I'm underestimating.

Quotehttp://occupyjax.forumotion.com/t28-formal-press-release#59

Formal Press Release
by Evey Today at 10:59 am

.Here is what I propose be our formal press release:

Hundreds from across Florida will assemble in downtown Jacksonville to hold the first Jacksonville General Assembly in response to the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City. As a leaderless organization, Occupy Jacksonville seeks to establish a permanent presence in the First Coast area.

At Hemming Plaza, 135 Monroe Street West, crowds will gather at noon to discuss issues, peacefully protest corporate greed and political corruption, and march Saturday, October 8th at 2:00 p.m. The People of Occupy Jacksonville are not governed by any one individual or group, but instead use the General Assembly forumâ€"established by Spaniards earlier in the year and imitated by the Occupy Wall Street protestorsâ€"to create a symposium through which general consensus can develop. The first Jacksonville General Assembly will act as a “Town Hall” forum for debate, dialogue and dissent amongst Floridians who identify the modern economic climate as a key component to national and global unrest.

With 1% of the population overseeing nearly 40% of the nation’s assets, and with economic decisions in Washington D.C. and on Wall Street hindering progress in every sector across the nation, many are in agreement that something needs to change. However, politicians in both major parties continue to side with financially prosperous individuals and corporations at the expense of the other 99% of the population. Those include people of all political, religious, socioeconomic, racial and educational backgrounds. The Jacksonville General Assembly, in solidarity with the New York General Assembly and others across the nation, seeks to address these issues by hearing from all perspectives indiscriminately and forming a united response agreed upon by the entire collective.

Occupy Jacksonville wants to stress its nonviolent approach to societal conversation. Though many individuals will come together from their diverse traditions to protest and march in solidarity, the Jacksonville General Assembly will act as the cornerstone upon which the needs of the 99% will be cautiously built. The collective as a whole is its own spokesperson; no individual opinion represents the consensus of the Jacksonville General Assembly.

All are welcome. None will be turned away. Nonviolence is paramount

Quote from: RiversideLoki on October 04, 2011, 01:17:52 PM
You overestimate the will and drive of the citizens of Jacksonville. Or maybe I'm underestimating. I hope I'm underestimating.

You could be right. It would be sad if it wasn't a true occupation & they just met for one day & that was it.

I'd like to think a city of this size wouldn't do that, but you never know. Hell, in my home state of Kentucky they've been at it since last week in Lexington every single day (Louisville's started today & has a pretty big crowd). Lex has got probably a quarter of the population that we have here. But like you said, this is Jax.

Quote from: peestandingup on October 04, 2011, 01:33:38 PM

Quote from: RiversideLoki on October 04, 2011, 01:17:52 PM
You overestimate the will and drive of the citizens of Jacksonville. Or maybe I'm underestimating. I hope I'm underestimating.

You could be right. It would be sad if it wasn't a true occupation & they just met for one day & that was it.

I'd like to think a city of this size wouldn't do that, but you never know. Hell, in my home state of Kentucky they've been at it since last week in Lexington every single day (Louisville's started today & has a pretty big crowd). Lex has got probably a quarter of the population that we have here. But like you said, this is Jax.

Well, I think I couldn't have said it better than this quote (even though it was said in 2010). It sums things up exactly the way I feel it, and the reality is that it's quite simple and applies to most (99%) of us:

QuoteRobert L. BorosageCampaign for America's Future :


Alan Simpson is entertaining but clueless. Most Americans have already “sacrificed,” working longer hours for less, with declining wages and growing insecurity. Meanwhile 40% of all income gains over the last generation went to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. We suffer the most people in poverty since the Census Bureau began keeping records.

So Simpson, comfortably cushioned by his Senate pension and personal fortune, begins by cutting Social Security benefits, raising retirement age, and forcing retirees to pick up more costs of health care. Why not a surcharge on the wealthy, a financial transaction tax, at least start by sending the bill for the mess to those who caused it and who benefited from a multi-billion taxpayer bailout.

Most Americans haven’t shared the benefits of growth and didn’t pocket the benefits of the hyper-speculation that blew up the deficits and debt, or get rescued by taxpayers for their folly. Why in the devil should they share in the sacrifice?

http://www.politico.com/arena/archive/dadt-not-dead-yet.html

I think that awareness is spreading...............I used to lament that I sounded just like any other older generation person saying that things were better in the past..............and that the young folks had gradually become accustomed to being ripped off by their banks and just disd't know any better............and that that's why there was such apathy among the young.

I am pleasantly surprised to see the smartness with which OccupyWallStreet is approaching the insideous problem that has grown over the past 3 decades!

As has been said before:

QuoteSo far, the Occupy Wall Street movement has found success with what it has self-consciously learned from the Arab Spring. OWS leaders have put technology to work in the cause of direct action, leaderless organisation and the creative expression of persistent critiques.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/ana-marie-cox-blog/2011/oct/04/occupy-wall-street-protesters

from the bondage of the corporatists that rule America and have sucked the life blood out of the middle class, destroying what used to be the cornerstone of America:


Lawrence Lessig.

Roy L. Furman Professor of Law, Harvard Law School.



GET UPDATES FROM Lawrence Lessig

#OccupyWallSt, Then #OccupyKSt, Then #OccupyMainSt

Posted: 10/5/11 05:48 AM ET

It is way too early, and perhaps even a bit crazy, to see an American Spring in the growing protests on Wall Street. Yet. But there is no doubt that if there is one place in America that these protests should begin, it is there, and it is now.

Writers by the dozen have lamented the influence that Wall Street exercised over Washington throughout the 1990s, leading up to the great collapse of 2008. A multi-billion dollar lobbying campaign, tied to hundreds of millions in campaign contributions, got Washington to erase its regulations and withdraw its regulators. One statistic summarizes it all: in 1980, close to 100 percent of the financial instruments traded in the market were subject to New Deal exchange-based regulations; by 2008, 90 percent were exempted from those regulations, effectively free of any regulatory oversight.

But there is nothing at all surprising in that story. The spirit of the times was deregulation. The ideology of Democrats and Republicans alike was regulatory retreat. No one should be surprised, however much we should lament, that politicians did what the zeitgeist said: go home -- especially when they were given first class tickets for the ride.

What is surprising -- indeed, terrifying, given what it says about this democracy -- is what happened after the collapse. That even after the worst financial crises in 80 years, and even after the lions share of responsibility for that crisis had been linked to finance laissez faire, and even after the dean of finance laissez faire, the great Alan Greenspan, expressly confessed that it was wrong, and that he "made a mistake," nothing changed. A president elected with the spirit of Louis Brandeis ("[We have to stop] Wall Street from taking enormous risks with 'other people's money'"), who promised to "take up that fight" "to change the way Washington works," ("for far too long, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, Washington has allowed Wall Street to use lobbyists and campaign contributions to rig the system and get its way, no matter what it costs ordinary Americans"), and who was handed a crisis (read: opportunity) and a supermajority in Congress to make real change, did nothing about this root to our financial collapse. The "financial reform bill" is the reason the English language invented the scare quote: As every financial analyst not dependent upon the corruption that is Wall Street has screamed since the bill was passed, financial reform changed nothing. We are more at risk of a major financial collapse today than we were a decade ago. And the absolutely obscene bonuses of an industry that pays twice its pretax profits in salaries are even more secure today.

How could this possibly be? Never in the history of this nation have the agents of financial collapse so effectively avoided a regulatory response to that collapse. How is it that now they have not only avoided reform, but have effectively cemented their Ponzi scheme into the core of American law?

The protesters #occupy(ing)WallSt are looking for answers to that question. They should look no further than the dollar bills that they are taping to their mouths. The root to this pathology is not hard to see. The cure is not hard to imagine. The difficult task -- and at times, it seems, impossibly difficult task -- is to imagine how that cure might be brought about.

The arrest of hundreds of tired and unwashed kids, denied the freedom of a bullhorn, and the right to protest on public streets, may well be the first real green-shoots of this, the American spring. And if nurtured right, it could well begin real change.

In my book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It-- published today by Twelve, I spend hundreds of pages trying to make clear what should be obvious to every single protester shivering in a Wall Street doorway. But the whole point of the book could be captured in the single quote that I stole from Thoreau right at a start: "there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil, to one who is striking at the root."

These protesters should see that they are that one striking at the root. They should understand that our system has been corrupted by money -- even if the Supreme Court refuses to call it "corruption," and even if political scientists are unsure about whether their regressions can show it. And they should recognize that until this root is hacked, the weeds of this corruption will continue to destroy this democracy, and this nation.

Now conservatives are eager to insist that our framers didn't give us a "democracy." They gave us, they say, "a Republic." And so they did. A Republic -- by which the framers meant, as Federalist 10 makes clear, a "representative democracy." By which the framers expected, as Federalist 52 makes clear, a Congress "dependent upon the People alone."

But ours is not a Congress "dependent upon the People alone" -- or even mainly. It has instead allowed a different dependency to grow within its midst: a dependency upon the Funders of its campaigns. And so great is that different and conflicting dependency that even the worst financial crisis in three generations can't break their obsession with the fix. Neither party dares to cross Wall Street, since both parties know they could not win control of Congress or the White House without Wall Street's money. So they feed the addiction, and ignore the real work that they should be doing.

#OccupyWallSt needs to teach America this lesson. It needs to speak to the wide range of citizens who believe it. You don't have to be a Marxist to rally against the corruption that is our Congress. You don't have to be Dr. Pangloss to believe that people who don't share common ends might nonetheless have a common enemy.

This corruption is our common enemy. So let this protest first #OccupyWallSt, and then #OccupyKSt. And then let the anger and outrage that it has made clear lead many more Americans to #OccupyMainSt, and reclaim this republic.

For if done right, this movement just may have that potential. What the protesters are saying is true: Wall Street's money has corrupted this democracy. What they are demanding is right: An end to that corruption. And as Flickr feeds and tweets awaken a slumbering giant, the People, the justice in this, yet another American revolution, could well become overwhelming, and finally have an effect.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-lessig/occupywallst-then-occupyk_b_995547.html

What Occupy Wall Street Wants

Posted: 10/5/11 01:23 PM ET

There has been a whole lot of talk about how the thousands of brave protestors occupying Wall St. have no clear demand. Funny, since this is just one more installment of a global movement for democracy that has taken over the entire planet -- you'd think the press would have caught on by now.

Almost a year ago, a revolution began in Tunisia and sparked a domino of uprisings across the Middle East. Their call was simple: end the dictatorship, usher in accountable government. Through occupation and all out war, countries in the Middle East attempted to topple leaders who clung to power despite representing the interests of the richest and most powerful to the detriment of the public good.

Months later, Europe exploded. Sit-ins in Spain and ongoing rallies in Greece protested economic policies that rewarded the richest 1% while punishing the other 99%. Then London and the surrounding areas erupted into riots: an expression of outrage at rising housing and food costs. Israelis established a massive tent city in Jerusalem protesting the same rise in the cost of living, and the government's stubborn refusal to pass laws that promote the common good and support the survival of the other 99%. Now, the United States and Canada have joined the fray.

Each and every demand in the occupy Wall St. protests and their kin relate to accountability. It is the latest in a global realization that our governments are held hostage by the rich and powerful, our laws and safeguards protect those rich and powerful rather than protecting the rest of us, and our leaders have no motivation to change the status quo.

Democracy is a word we throw around a lot, but it's not one that is very well understood. It's not enough to cast a ballot every four years. Democracy is a system of accountable governance   -- a pledge that leaders will represent the interests of those they govern, will protect the weakest in society, and will steward collective resources (like our water and air) to ensure a sustainable future for all of us. It relies on a free press to help inform citizens of governmental action. It relies on freedom of assembly and movement to allow citizens to communicate directly with their representatives.

It is this pure notion of democracy that each and every protestor, from Tahrir Square to Wall St. is after.

So, it's not enough to study Occupy Wall St. as an American anomaly with a surprising lack of cohesion and a fascinating list of diverse demands. It can't be splintered off or explained away. This is the next phase of a global push for real democracy. And, given the poor state of democracy in the United States, it's no surprise cities are exploding with outrage, citizens are on the street, and a national movement has captured the imagination of the nation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-rubysachs/what-occupy-wall-street-w_b_996412.html

Beautifully said!!!!!!!!!!!!!

October 6th, 2011

04:00 PM ET
Are the protests spreading across the U.S. the sign of an 'American Spring'?


FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

Today is the 20th day of protests down on Wall Street ... and the movement is picking up steam all across the country.

The demonstrators are critical of the growing economic gap in the United States. They say they take their inspiration from the "Arab Spring" protests that overthrew governments and dictators and continue to cause massive chaos across the Middle East and North Africa.

But in the beginning, barely anyone even noticed. There were a few hundred people with signs, peacefully walking around Manhattan's Financial District, talking about corporate greed and inequality.

And when they were finally noticed, they weren't taken seriously. Reporters made fun of them, saying they didn't even know what they protesting about.

Well, now the unions are joining in and supporting them, and the crowds are suddenly starting to look like this. There were thousands of protesters in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday. There have been hundreds of arrests.

And it's not just New York. Protesters are beginning to take to the streets nationwide, including in Los Angeles; Boston; San Francisco; Denver; Chicago; Seattle; Spokane, Washington; Philadelphia; Houston; Dallas; Tampa; St. Louis; Savannah, Georgia; Hartford, Connecticut; and Washington.

This isn't a joke, and the media would be well advised to take them seriously. Their grievances are real, their numbers are growing, and the rest of us would be well advised to pay attention.

So far, these protests have been peaceful, for the most part. So far. But the more they spread and grow, the bigger a problem it becomes for Washington.

Our federal government should take note. Protests over economic conditions and government cutbacks have turned violent elsewhere in the world. People will only take so much.

Here’s my question to you: Are the protests spreading across the U.S. the sign of an "American Spring"?


http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/06/are-the-protests-spreading-across-the-u-s-the-sign-of-an-american-spring-2/

This is for BT who wanted more specifics on the OCCUPYWALLSTREET Action:

http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-please-help-editadd-so-th/

LIST OF PROPOSED "DEMANDS FOR CONGRESS"
1.
CONGRESS PASS HR 1489 ("RETURN TO PRUDENT BANKING ACT" http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-1489 ). THIS REINSTATES MANY PROVISIONS OF THE GLASS-STEAGALL ACT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glassâ€"Steagall_Act --- Wiki entry summary: The repeal of provisions of the Glassâ€"Steagall Act of 1933 by the Grammâ€"Leachâ€"Bliley Act in 1999 effectively removed the separation that previously existed between investment banking which issued securities and commercial banks which accepted deposits. The deregulation also removed conflict of interest prohibitions between investment bankers serving as officers of commercial banks. Most economists believe this repeal directly contributed to the severity of the Financial crisis of 2007â€"2011 by allowing Wall Street investment banking firms to gamble with their depositors' money that was held in commercial banks owned or created by the investment firms. Here's detail on repeal in 1999 and how it happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glassâ€"Steagall_Act#Repeal .


2.
USE CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORITY AND OVERSIGHT TO ENSURE APPROPRIATE FEDERAL AGENCIES FULLY INVESTIGATE AND PROSECUTE THE WALL STREET CRIMINALS who clearly broke the law and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis in the following notable cases: (insert list of the most clear cut criminal actions). There is a pretty broad consensus that there is a clear group of people who got away with millions / billions illegally and haven't been brought to justice. Boy would this be long overdue and cathartic for millions of Americans. It would also be a shot across the bow for the financial industry. If you watch the solidly researched and awared winning documentary film "Inside Job" that was narrated by Matt Damon (pretty brave Matt!) and do other research, it wouldn't take long to develop the list.

3.
CONGRESS ENACT LEGISLATION TO PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY BY REVERSING THE EFFECTS OF THE CITIZENS UNITED SUPREME COURT DECISION which essentially said corporations can spend as much as they want on elections. The result is that corporations can pretty much buy elections. Corporations should be highly limited in ability to contribute to political campaigns no matter what the election and no matter what the form of media. This legislation should also RE-ESTABLISH THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES IN THE U.S. SO THAT POLITICAL CANDIDATES ARE GIVEN EQUAL TIME FOR FREE AT REASONABLE INTERVALS IN DAILY PROGRAMMING DURING CAMPAIGN SEASON. The same should extend to other media.

4.
CONGRESS PASS THE BUFFETT RULE ON FAIR TAXATION SO THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE & CLOSE CORPORATE TAX LOOP HOLES AND ENACT A PROHIBITION ON HIDING FUNDS OFF SHORE. No more GE paying zero or negative taxes. Pass the Buffet Rule on fair taxation so the rich pay their fair share. (If we have a really had a good negotiating position and have the place surrounded, we could actually dial up taxes on millionaires, billionaires and corporations even higher...back to what they once were in the 50's and 60's.

5.
CONGRESS COMPLETELY REVAMP THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION and staff it at all levels with proven professionals who get the job done protecting the integrity of the marketplace so citizens and investors are both protected. This agency needs a large staff and needs to be well-funded. It's currently has a joke of a budget and is run by Wall St. insiders who often leave for high ticket cushy jobs with the corporations they were just regulating. Hmmm.

6.
CONGRESS PASS SPECIFIC AND EFFECTIVE LAWS LIMITING THE INFLUENCE OF LOBBYISTS AND ELIMINATING THE PRACTICE OF LOBBYISTS WRITING LEGISLATION THAT ENDS UP ON THE FLOOR OF CONGRESS.

7.
CONGRESS PASSING "Revolving Door Legislation" LEGISLATION ELIMINATING THE ABILITY OF FORMER GOVERNMENT REGULATORS GOING TO WORK FOR CORPORATIONS THAT THEY ONCE REGULATED. So, you don't get to work at the FDA for five years playing softball with Pfizer and then go to work for Pfizer making $195,000 a year. While they're at it, Congress should pass specific and effective laws to enforce strict judicial standards of conduct in matters concerning conflicts of interest. So long as judges are culled from the ranks of corporate attorneys the 1% will retain control.

8.
ELIMINATE "PERSONHOOD" LEGAL STATUS FOR CORPORATIONS. The film "The Corporation" has a great section on how corporations won "personhood status". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SuUzmqBewg . Fast-forward to 2:20. It'll blow your mind. The 14th amendment was supposed to give equal rights to African Americans. It said you "can't deprive a person of life, liberty or property without due process of law". Corporation lawyers wanted corporations to have more power so they basically said "corporations are people." Amazingly, between 1890 and 1910 there were 307 cases brought before the court under the 14th amendment. 288 of these brought by corporations and only 19 by African Americans. 600,000 people were killed to get rights for people and then judges applied those rights to capital and property while stripping them from people. It's time to set this straight.


NOTE 1: This is from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from the Birmingham Jail":

"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood."

"The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation."

Thank you Faye...

Regarding point 1:  You mean the law passed by the Senate 90-8, and by the House 362-57. The legislation was signed into law by President Clinton on November 12, 1999.

Point 2: 

QuotePROSECUTE THE WALL STREET CRIMINALS who clearly broke the law and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis in the following notable cases: (insert list of the most clear cut criminal actions). There is a pretty broad consensus that there is a clear group of people who got away with millions / billions illegally and haven't been brought to justice.

The President said yesterday that no laws were broken...  More importantly... WHO are these "clear cut group" of shadowy criminals?

Point 3: 

QuoteCONGRESS ENACT LEGISLATION TO PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY BY REVERSING THE EFFECTS OF THE CITIZENS UNITED SUPREME COURT DECISION

Really?  I am all for using the process of attempting to amend the Constitution.

Point 4:  Corporate tax rates are some of the highest in the world.  I support closing loopholes... even those created and supported by democrats.

Point 5: OK... I guess.

Point 6:  You sound like a lobbyist yourself.  So groups of people should not be allowed to propose bills to Congress??  Really??

Point 7:  Really??  THAT would be an interesting piece of legislation... Barring people from working in a private company.

Point 8:  Glad you brought that up... It is silly that corporations are persons... yet... unborn humans are not.  We should fix both of those with one swing of the axe.

Thanks again Faye... I appreciate this... um... er... clarification. :)

BridgeTroll, Ive been reading throughout the thread and it seems as if you have yet to get a satisfactory answer to your question. The paradox of dealing with corporations is that the entity is liable for prosecution,and no one else, not to insult you, I'm sure you realize this. The corporations are immune from criminal prosecution,only civil prosecution. And then, in a civil court setting, only when damages can be assessed in $$$$ terms. Hence, in the meltdown of 2008, its impossible to hold a party responsible in $$$$ terms for the unprecedented damage done.And then, who was "damaged"? Who receives any awards?
Added to the fact that without corporations themselves (no pun intended) our modern world just wouldn't exist.
This being said, corporations dont have "morals", in which the huge number of Americans today are just understanding so as they see how those financial corps utilize that so they can very effectively and legally remove families from their homes, kick up credit rates to customers to pay off debt, etc. As unmoral as it is, its very legal. And those people are protesting against such by centering around they only place these corporations can be seen as the shadowy criminals (paradox... only people can be criminals... one who is punished in a criminal court) that the huge number see them as, Wall Street.

Quote from: hillary supporter on October 07, 2011, 10:26:53 AM
BridgeTroll, Ive been reading throughout the thread and it seems as if you have yet to get a satisfactory answer to your question. The paradox of dealing with corporations is that the entity is liable for prosecution,and no one else, not to insult you, I'm sure you realize this. The corporations are immune from criminal prosecution,only civil prosecution. And then, in a civil court setting, only when damages can be assessed in $$$$ terms. Hence, in the meltdown of 2008, its impossible to hold a party responsible in $$$$ terms for the unprecedented damage done.And then, who was "damaged"? Who receives any awards?
Added to the fact that without corporations themselves (no pun intended) our modern world just wouldn't exist.
This being said, corporations dont have "morals", in which the huge number of Americans today are just understanding so as they see how those financial corps utilize that so they can very effectively and legally remove families from their homes, kick up credit rates to customers to pay off debt, etc. As unmoral as it is, its very legal. And those people are protesting against such by centering around they only place these corporations can be seen as the shadowy criminals (paradox... only people can be criminals... one who is punished in a criminal court) that the huge number see them as, Wall Street.

Thank you HS.  As you assumed... I do understand what you described... and you certainly did it better than I could have.  That said...  Point 2 seems rather silly.  Don't you agree?

QuotePROSECUTE THE WALL STREET CRIMINALS who clearly broke the law and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis in the following notable cases: (insert list of the most clear cut criminal actions). There is a pretty broad consensus that there is a clear group of people who got away with millions / billions illegally and haven't been brought to justice.

Faye also uses the term "corporatists" as if they are individuals... someone to be prosecuted.  Just asking who these people are.

I also object to Faye and others rhetoric implying that these perceived problems are somehow republican when in fact both parties have enjoyed creating the system we now have.

points 3 - 8 come under the heading of... "watch out what you wish for... you just might get it"...

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 07, 2011, 10:45:25 AM

I also object to Faye and others rhetoric implying that these perceived problems are somehow republican when in fact both parties have enjoyed creating the system we now have.

BT, how many times have I not said that Republicans are all about "protecting" the corporatists as in "profits over people," and theDems roll over and play dead............thus making them the great enablers generally speaking.

Maybe the following piece will convince you that despite Republicans being clear about their Pro-Corporatist protecting policies as the integral part of their ideology, Dems including Obama have participated in much of the same policies despite spouting Pro-People rhetoric.

Friday, October 07, 2011

Paul Krugman: Confronting the Malefactors


"How can you not applaud the protesters for finally taking a stand?":

Confronting the Malefactors, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NYTimes: 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. ... Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.

What can we say about the protests? First things first: The protesters’ indictment of Wall Street as a destructive force, economically and politically, is completely right.

A weary cynicism, a belief that justice will never get served, has taken over much of our political debate... In the process, it has been easy to forget just how outrageous the story of our economic woes really is. So, in case you’ve forgotten, it was a play in three acts.

In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. In the second act, the bubbles burst â€" but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers’ sins. And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support â€" and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts â€" behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis.

Given this history, how can you not applaud the protesters for finally taking a stand? ... It would probably be helpful if protesters could agree on at least a few main policy changes they would like to see enacted. ... Rich Yeselson, a veteran organizer and historian of social movements, has suggested that debt relief for working Americans become a central plank of the protests. I’ll second that, because such relief, in addition to serving economic justice, could do a lot to help the economy recover. I’d suggest that protesters also demand infrastructure investment â€" not more tax cuts â€" to help create jobs. Neither proposal is going to become law in the current political climate, but the whole point of the protests is to change that political climate.

And there are real political opportunities here. ... Democrats are being given what amounts to a second chance. The Obama administration squandered a lot of potential good will early on by adopting banker-friendly policies that failed to deliver economic recovery even as bankers repaid the favor by turning on the president. Now, however, Mr. Obama’s party has a chance for a do-over. All it has to do is take these protests as seriously as they deserve to be taken.

And if the protests goad some politicians into doing what they should have been doing all along, Occupy Wall Street will have been a smashing success.

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 07, 2011, 10:45:25 AM
Faye also uses the term "corporatists" as if they are individuals... someone to be prosecuted.  Just asking who these people are.

If only they could be prosecuted, sigh.........but much of what they do is actually legal due to lawmakers allowing it to be legal.

I cannot describe it any better than the following piece, and BTW BT I think you bring up a good point.............what and who are the corporatists..............since we've all become very familiar with those "welfare queens" in the past, it is incumbent upon us to fully realize what and who the corporatists are, since they pose a present and current danger to the well-being of our nation:


Posted: September 16, 2009 01:08 PM

Corporatists vs. Capitalists



Read More:Capitalism, Capitalism: a Love Story, Capitalists, Conservatives, Corporations, Corporatists, Democrats, Health Care Industry, Health Care Reform, Mainstream Media, Max Baucus, Media, Public Option, Republicans, Politics News


When I heard the word "corporatist" a couple of years ago, I laughed. I thought what a funny, made up, liberal word. I fancy myself a die-hard capitalist, so it seemed vaguely anti-business, so I was put off by it.

Well, as it turns out, it's a great word. It perfectly describes a great majority of our politicians and the infrastructure set up to support the current corporations in the country. It is not just inaccurate to call these people and these corporations capitalists; it is in fact the exact opposite of what they are.

Capitalists believe in choice, free markets and competition. Corporatists believe in the opposite. They don't want any competition at all. They want to eliminate the competition using their power, their entrenched position and usually the politicians they've purchased. They want to capture the system and use it only for their benefit.

I don't blame them. They're trying to make a buck. And it's a hell of a lot easier making money when you don't have competition or truly free markets or consumer choice. All of these corporations would absolutely love it if they were the only choice a consumer had.

Blaming the corporations for this is a little silly. It's like blaming a man for breathing or a scorpion for stinging. That's what they do. In fact, they are legally bound to make their best effort at not just crushing the competition, but eliminating it. Lack of competition will lead to making more money (presumably for their shareholders; though realistically it winds up being for their executives these days).

As the saying goes, "Don't hate the player, hate the game." We have to understand how this system works and then account for the abuses that are likely to arise out of it. I don't hate the scorpion for stinging but I also wouldn't put a bunch of them in my bed. And I wouldn't take kindly to someone else putting them there, either.

Politicians are very cheap to buy (and senators from smaller states are even easier to buy - great bang for your buck). So, obviously corporations are going to look to buy them so they can pass laws to kill off their competition. If you don't understand this, you're being at least a little bit dense.

You should lose significant credibility as a journalist if you're naïve enough to believe that corporations would not do this out of the goodness of their hearts. Come on, can anyone really believe that? Yet, in today's media atmosphere, saying politicians are in the back pocket of the corporate lobbyists who raise the most money for them is seen as an unacceptable comment. Anyone who challenges the system is portrayed as an outsider, fringe element who must be treated with scorn and shunned. We are told in earnest tones we must trust the corporations and not question the motives of the politicians.

The sensible approach would be to recognize the problem and figure out a way to avoid it the best we can. Money always finds a way in, but we can at least be cognizant of the issue and try to combat it as much as possible. We must do this as citizens who care about our democracy, but we must also do it as capitalists.

I believe in the capitalist system. I think it makes sense and it is attuned to human nature. People do not work to the best of their ability and take only as much as they need. They work as little as humanly possible and take as much as humanly possible. Capitalism helps to funnel these natural impulses in a positive, hopefully productive manner.

But in order to have capitalism we must have choice. If consumers do not have different companies to choose from, if the markets aren't truly free and there is no real competition, then you kill capitalism. Corporations are a natural byproduct of capitalism, but as soon as they are born they want to destroy their parent. Corporations are the Oedipus of the capitalist system.

In order for capitalism to work, they must not be allowed to succeed. We must guard capitalism jealously.

So, it is of the utmost importance that we watch politicians with a very wary eye. Campaign contributions are a tiny expense to a large corporation. And the politicians treasure them too much. It is an easy sale. So, beware of politicians receiving gifts.

The perfect example of this is the health care reform debate going on now. And perhaps there is no better example of a politician who works for his corporate overlords than Max Baucus, who has received nearly three million dollars from the health care industry.

I don't blame the health care companies. I would do the same thing in their position. In fact, it is their fiduciary responsibility to buy an important (and cheap) senator like Max Baucus (he's cheap because he comes from the small state of Montana, where it is far less expensive to buy ads and crush your political competition with money they cannot possibly match).

If the health care companies can eliminate their competition, they'll make a lot more money. That is why there is so little competition among corporations in so many parts of the country now and why they are desperate to avoid the public option. ( we have an oligopolistic system where prices are upwardly rigged)

They'd have to be stupid and negligent not to buy Max Baucus. He is the head of the Finance Committee and in charge of writing the most touted and awaited version of the health care bill.

I don't blame them, I blame us. How stupid and negligent are we to let that guy write this bill? The media should be treating Baucus and many of the other senators (who all get millions from the health care industry) with enormous skepticism. Instead, they are treating them as if they are honest actors who would never be affected by all that money.

They treat their concerns as if they are legitimate issues. The Republicans and the corporatist Democrats pretend to be fiscal conservatives who care about the budget when they are trying to kill the most important cost constraint in the whole bill - the public option. If you're a budget hawk, that's the last thing you'd kill, not the first. That's what keeps our costs down.

You see, these politicians betrayed their real motives in this debate. They made it crystal clear that they are not, in fact, conservatives or moderates or centrists or even capitalists. They are corporatists. They look out for the interests of the corporations that pay them above all else. Capitalists believe in competition. They believe it lowers costs and gives consumers better choices.

So, I would ask the media to please stop calling these politicians conservatives or even capitalists. And could you please look out for the rather obvious fact that they might not be working for us but for the people who pay them?

Of course, the media outlets might be able to better recognize this if large corporations didn't also own them. But that probably wouldn't affect their judgment either, would it?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/corporatists-vs-capitalis_b_288718.html

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 07, 2011, 10:45:25 AM

Quote from: hillary supporter on October 07, 2011, 10:26:53 AM
BridgeTroll, Ive been reading throughout the thread and it seems as if you have yet to get a satisfactory answer to your question. The paradox of dealing with corporations is that the entity is liable for prosecution,and no one else, not to insult you, I'm sure you realize this. The corporations are immune from criminal prosecution,only civil prosecution. And then, in a civil court setting, only when damages can be assessed in $$$$ terms. Hence, in the meltdown of 2008, its impossible to hold a party responsible in $$$$ terms for the unprecedented damage done.And then, who was "damaged"? Who receives any awards?
Added to the fact that without corporations themselves (no pun intended) our modern world just wouldn't exist.
This being said, corporations dint have "morals", in which the huge number of Americans today are just understanding so as they see how those financial corps utilize that so they can very effectively and legally remove families from their homes, kick up credit rates to customers to pay off debt, etc. As unmoral as it is, its very legal. And those people are protesting against such by centering around they only place these corporations can be seen as the shadowy criminals (paradox... only people can be criminals... one who is punished in a criminal court) that the huge number see them as, Wall Street.

Thank you HS.  As you assumed... I do understand what you described... and you certainly did it better than I could have.  That said...  Point 2 seems rather silly.  Don't you agree?

QuotePROSECUTE THE WALL STREET CRIMINALS who clearly broke the law and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis in the following notable cases: (insert list of the most clear cut criminal actions). There is a pretty broad consensus that there is a clear group of people who got away with millions / billions illegally and haven't been brought to justice.

Faye also uses the term "corporatist" as if they are individuals... someone to be prosecuted.  Just asking who these people are.

I also object to Faye and others rhetoric implying that these perceived problems are somehow republican when in fact both parties have enjoyed creating the system we now have.

points 3 - 8 come under the heading of... "watch out what you wish for... you just might get it"...

Yes, #2 seems not possible, and not legal. If it could be done, it would have been done a long time ago. This really is the essence of Occupy WallStreet. Since its impossible to prosecute corporations as criminals (in criminal court) combined with who is the damaged parties and how would one "award America for damages", when no laws were broken, the protesters are essentially mounting a symbolic gesture against "the financial sector" which, as close as one can figure, exists on Wall Street.
I support this point of theirs vigorously, and will do the only thing i can do by being at the protest here downtown. Now, that's just me, my personal feelings. If one chooses not to, they can. I believe many who choose not to still share with me the resentment towards those corporations and, just as important, the paradox which presents such a feeling of helplessness. I feel that, for those that feel such an act is foolish (since there is really nothing concrete to accomplish) let us note that the circumstances in Europe, which when combined has a larger economy than ours, are turning for the worst. All the major financial corps are involved in this. I'm hoping that an undeniably strong showing today will make the Congress deal much more harsher, ( or should i say much less naive?) terms when they knock on DCs door. Which they will.
 

So... is it all corporations?  Or just a few?  Someone used Apple as an example earlier... would Steve Jobs be considered a corporatist?

No. its not all corporations. As i said before without corporations, the world today wouldn't exist. Even (modern) socialist countries today have corporations. Its abilities to handle risk as allowed humanity to move forward in an astronomical manner ever since its inception after the civil war.
While i accept its "drawbacks" i. e. Noam Chomsky's defining that "if a corporation was indeed a human being, as it has all the Rights, it would be in a hospital as a sociopath", again, the accomplishments far outrank its negatives. Chomsky himself must accept the fact that he receives a salary from none other than M.I.T. one of the biggest benefactors of US defence contracts. Hence the paradox that precedes us today.

http://www.youtube.com/v/MbykzqJ6ens

Watch Video here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/44823732#44823732

(http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z276/fayeforcure/occupywallstreetall.jpg)

>> we got the employment report for september this morning. it was better than the experts expected. employers added 103,000 workers to their payrolls, though that number included verizon workers that went back to their jobs after a strike. unemployment rate stayed steady. 9.1%. but that's part of the battle cry of the protest movement occupy wall street which has spread far beyond new york city. our report from nbc's chris jansing.

>> reporter:  the demonstrations have lasted so long and expanded so widely that even with a few funny outfits, they are hard to ignore.

>> occupy wall street.

>> reporter:  occupy wall street, a protest against economic and social inequality has spawned organized marches in 45 states. in just the last 24 hours-- protests from houston to washington, d.c. hundreds took over a los angeles intersection. 4,000 marched in portland. and in tampa, raucus demonstrators descended on the banking district.

>> we are the 99%.

>> reporter:  the protesters, not always who you would expect.

>> i had a $100,000 a year salary job.

>> reporter:  buddy bolton lost his job a year ago. frustration brought him to lower manhattan.

>> i think it's our arab spring. it's our opportunity as citizens to let the government know the system is in need of repair.

>> reporter:  occupy wall street is drawing historical comparisons.

>> the first stage of any movement is a lot of people showing how unhappy they are at the situation. civil rights movement, the anti-war movements. if it lasts long enough and is organized well, it could become a mass movement.

>> reporter:  money could help. supporters have dropped thousands of dollars into buckets on the street. 11 days ago, occupy wall street got tax exempt status and quickly raised at least $50,000, most of it online.

>> it's compelling to see how quickly things have grown and taken off. what it means is that the burden of responsibility is now on us.

>> reporter:  experts say leaders need to emerge with a plan to use that cash and harness all that energy before rage can turn to revolution. and here in new york tonight, there are hundreds of protesters. some have been here all 21 days. while there are skeptics, the organizers here say they are not going away. brian?

>> chris jansing in lower manhattan

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#44823732

Thanks for gathering the informative material FayeforCure.  I am overjoyed with the emerging movement.  Whereas the beginning was awkward, the end will be clear.  There may be hesitations, sidetracked energies, and appearances of failure, but the truth of the absurdities and abuses on the eighty percent is so formidable that a clear picture will finally emerge for all to see; and the pressure of need, of justice, and propriety will force the changes our population deserves and demands.

Many ....  the protesters, the bloggers, the columnists, the posters, are working a large painting, each welding the brush according to ability and inclination; but as colors and details are refined, as truth emerges, as the walls of secrecy are destroyed, and as the painting approaches completion, only the totally blind will avoid seeing the beauty of it.     

Quote from: ronchamblin on October 08, 2011, 08:33:28 AM
Many ....  the protesters, the bloggers, the columnists, the posters, are working a large painting, each welding the brush according to ability and inclination; but as colors and details are refined, as truth emerges, as the walls of secrecy are destroyed, and as the painting approaches completion, only the totally blind will avoid seeing the beauty of it.     

Wow - you really are gifted with words.  And, you are 100% correct.  Thanks for your insightfulness, Ron.  I love reading your posts.

This whole scenario was predicted way way back...remember Al Gore?...Huge tax breaks for the top controlers sparked massive greed as predicted and this is what we have...just another example of how the republicans and thier ideas rules and regulations have fucked up the country...everyone's screaming at Obama yet this damage was set and done years before he came into the picture...we are all fucked...if we think that the wealthy bankers that run this country are going to give up anything...we are all fools...

Quote from: Garden guy on October 08, 2011, 05:56:29 PM
This whole scenario was predicted way way back...remember Al Gore?...Huge tax breaks for the top controlers sparked massive greed as predicted and this is what we have...just another example of how the republicans and thier ideas rules and regulations have fucked up the country...everyone's screaming at Obama yet this damage was set and done years before he came into the picture...we are all fucked...if we think that the wealthy bankers that run this country are going to give up anything...we are all fools...

The biggest contributors to Obama is Wall Street............he is very much complicit in Bankster friendly weak oversight policies that perpetuate the ripping off of the 99 percenters.

But look at what the people are saying on Wall Street TODAY:

(http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/318663_2060765831076_1002585600_32132170_762591985_n.jpg)

Brings tears to the eyes of all those who believe in restoring Government by the People, of the People and for the People

rather than our current Government by the Corporations, of the Corporations and for the Corporations.

The time of on-line petitions is over!!!

Posted: 1:38 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011


Hundreds turn out for Occupy Jacksonville protest

(http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/img/photos/2011/10/09/Occupy_Wall_Street_t670.jpg)

WJXT 

Jacksonville, FL â€"


They protested on Wall Street and Washington, D.C. and on Saturday afternoon, it was Jacksonville’s turn.



Hundreds turned out for a march through Downtown Jacksonville and a rally in Hemming Plaza as part of the growing Occupy Wall Street protests.



They came with a wide range of arguments. Some yelled that this was about saving humanity, another told the media this was about health care, education, helping the unemployed and making the American Dream assessable to all. While others waved signs criticizing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for referring to them as a mob.



Though the occupy movement may be the umbrella for many of these causes, it’s mostly believed to be primarily about corporate greed and the corrupting relationship it has with government. Several stood up at the rally to share their remarks about helping the bottom 99% who President Obama says will be aided by his plans to address the nation’s deficit.



There were no reported problems from the protest that went on for hours, despite the rain. Though, Councilman Don Redman did show up at the protest and reportedly had some disagreements with those at the rally. He also inquired with Jacksonville Police if the group had a permit to rally. According to the group’s Twitter page, Redman said they had to leave, and they responded: “We pay your salary. You should leave.”



Officers did arrive to make sure the streets were safe for the crowd to cross during the rally, and some of the protestors were heard saying, “Thank you!” as they passed the police. The march route took them past the Wells Fargo building, one of the corporations Occupy Wall Street is targeting.

http://www.wokv.com/news/news/local/hundreds-turn-out-occupy-jacksonville-protest/nD8q9/

Quote from: ronchamblin on October 08, 2011, 08:33:28 AM
Thanks for gathering the informative material FayeforCure.  I am overjoyed with the emerging movement.  Whereas the beginning was awkward, the end will be clear.  There may be hesitations, sidetracked energies, and appearances of failure, but the truth of the absurdities and abuses on the eighty percent is so formidable that a clear picture will finally emerge for all to see; and the pressure of need, of justice, and propriety will force the changes our population deserves and demands.

Many ....  the protesters, the bloggers, the columnists, the posters, are working a large painting, each welding the brush according to ability and inclination; but as colors and details are refined, as truth emerges, as the walls of secrecy are destroyed, and as the painting approaches completion, only the totally blind will avoid seeing the beauty of it.     

Thank you Ron.........very beautifully said!!

Here is how big this is getting in the US: An estimated 1,000 events across the US, and Jax represented one of the first three in FL. Thank you JSO for being so friendly and courteous to the protesters.

Tampa held the very first Occupy event in FL.

Next weekend there will be at least 10-15 Occupy events in FL.

QuoteLast Updated: 9:43 p.m.


Occupy Jacksonville began at Hamming Plaza in at about noon today (Saturday, Oct. 8th), despite at times heavy rain. Several people from Palm Coast and Flagler County joined the protest. Between 200 and 300 people gathered at the Plaza at the height of the protest, though more fanned in and out over the course of the afternoon. The event was one of more than 900 so far organized across the country as the original Occupy Wall Street movement ripples outward from Manhattan. Another Occupy Jacksonville protest may be in the works for next Saturday.




Palm Coast resident Geraldine Hochman-Klarenberg and her husband David organized a small group from Flagler Countyâ€"10 people, including Hochman-Klarenberg’s two young childrenâ€"and got to the protest about 1 p.m. “It was really great, really mellow, everybody was there for the same cause,” Hochman-Klarenberg said. Police at first was nowhere, and when deputies appeared, she said, “they actually helped us, they stopped the traffic for us, and everybody wasâ€"thank you officers, they gave us smiles.”

Speakers and messages varied at Hemming Plaza. As in the original and ongoing Occupy Wall Street movement in Manhattan, there were no set leaders or set agendas, but rather shows of solidarity with a general message against inequities, disenfranchisement, incumbency and the often repeated variations on what is turning into one of the movement’s battle cries: “We are the 99 percent.”

The signs tell a story, as they did in Jacksonville. One sign spoke of a young woman’s father who’d held three jobs, had lost them, leaving the woman unable to pay for college. Signs told of unaffordable mortgages, unaffordable health bills, non-existent work. It may be true that an overall, precise message hasn’t yet cohered, Hochman-Klarenberg said, but the themes are clear. “We’re angry, We’re angry, and something needs to change. Bloody hell, that’s why we have politicians,” she said.

And something is broken. What’s broken: “The way things are being valued, the way hard work is being valued, the way ordinary Americans are being valuedâ€"it just seems to be upside down. If you have the money, you get the power. I don’t think that’s the way the United States was founded when they started off.”


The protests, while multiplying exponentially, are themselves turning into a subset of a larger conversation taking place online, through interlinked Facebook and other social media pages. (Ron's point!) Participants not necessarily able to join protests are taking part online and redefining the notion of protest inasmuch as social media have redefined communications and the Arab Spring-like mobilization of large segments of the populationâ€"in this case, large segments of America’s younger adults. “I work 2 jobs nearly every day,” goes one posting. “I live paycheck to paycheck and I am currently falling more and more into debt. I fear for losing my car/home and means to survive. I’m 22 years old.”

“Got my bachelor’s,” goes another. “Got low-paying job. Business went under. Defaulted on 70K student loan debt. I make less than 20K a year. 2 jobs. Not enough to pay debt. No dental/health. 6 cavities. Used car. No savings. No $ in bank. We are the 99%. occupywallstreet.org.”

By most accounts from various sources, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office was somewhere between cooperative with and supportive of the protesters. “JSO was exceptional today! My hat is off to them! They realize that they are the 99% as well,” Geno Burch wrote on one protest-related Facebook page.

http://flaglerlive.com/29261/occupy-jacksonville

Some sensible ideas:

The financial crisis and the jobs crisis have demonstrated to the American people that we now have a government that is of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent and for the 1 percent, as Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz eloquently articulated. The rest of the 99 percent are, more or less, on their own. We now have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major, advanced country on Earth. The top 1 percent earn more income than the bottom 50 percent, and the richest 400 Americans own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.

Now that Occupy Wall Street is shining a spotlight on Wall Street greed and the enormous inequalities that exist in America, the question then becomes, how do we change the political, economic and financial system to work for all Americans, not just the top 1 percent?

Here are several proposals that I am working on:

1) If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. Today, the six largest financial institutions have assets equal to more than 60 percent of GDP. The four largest banks in this country issue two thirds of all credit cards, half of all mortgages, and hold nearly 40 percent of all bank deposits. Incredibly, after we bailed out these big banks because they were "too big to fail," three out of the four largest are now even bigger than they were before the financial crisis began. It is time to take a page from Teddy Roosevelt and break up these behemoths so that their failure will no longer lead to economic catastrophe and to create competition in our financial system.

2) Put a cap on credit card interest rates to end usury. Today, more than a quarter of all credit card holders in this country are paying interest rates above 20 percent and as high as 59 percent. When credit card companies charge 25- or 30-percent interest rates they are not engaged in the business of "making credit available" to their customers. They are involved in extortion and loan-sharking. Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase should not be permitted to charge consumers 25- to 30-percent interest on their credit cards, especially while these banks received over $4 trillion in loans from the Federal Reserve.

3) The Federal Reserve needs to provide small businesses in America with the same low-interest loans it gave to foreign banks. During the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve provided hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign banks and corporations including the Arab Banking Corporation, Toyota, Mitsubishi, the Korea Development Bank, and the state-owned Bank of Bavaria. At a time when small businesses can't get the lending they need, it is time for the Fed to create millions of American jobs by providing low-interest loans directly to small businesses.

4) Stop Wall Street oil speculators from artificially increasing gasoline and heating oil prices. Right now, the American people are being gouged at the gas pump by speculators on Wall Street who are buying and selling billions of barrels of oil in the energy futures market with no intention of using a drop for any purpose other than to make a quick buck. Delta Airlines, Exxon Mobil, the American Trucking Association, and other energy experts have estimated that excessive oil speculation is driving up oil prices by as much as 40 percent. We have got to end excessive oil speculation and bring needed relief to American consumers.

5) Demand that Wall Street invest in the job-creating productive economy, instead of gambling on worthless derivatives. The American people have got to make it crystal clear to Wall Street that the era of excessive speculation is over. The "heads, bankers win; tails, everyone else loses" financial system must end. Most important, we need to create a new Wall Street that exists not to reward CEOs and investors for the bets they make on exotic financial instruments nobody understands. Rather, we need a Wall Street that provides financial services to small businesses and manufacturers to create decent-paying jobs and grow the economy by productive means. Think of all of the productive short- and long-term investments that could be made in our country right now if Wall Street used the money it has received from the federal government wisely. Instead of casino-style speculation, Wall Street could invest in high-speed trains; fuel-efficient cars; wind turbines and other alternative energy sources; affordable housing; affordable prescription drugs that save people's lives; and other things that America desperately needs. That is what we have got to demand from Wall Street.

6) Establish a Wall Street speculation fee on credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures. Both the economic crisis and the deficit crisis are a direct result of the greed and recklessness on Wall Street. Establishing a speculation fee would reduce gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy, and significantly reduce the deficit without harming average Americans. There are a number of precedents for this. The U.S had a similar Wall Street speculation fee from 1914 to 1966. The Revenue Act of 1914 levied a 0.2-percent tax on all sales or transfers of stock. In 1932, Congress more than doubled that tax to help finance the government during the Great Depression. And today, England has a financial transaction tax of 0.25 percent, a penny on every $4 invested.

Making these reforms will not be easy. After all, Wall Street is clearly the most powerful lobbying force on Capitol Hill. From 1998 through 2008, the financial sector spent over $5 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to deregulate Wall Street. More recently, they spent hundreds of millions more to make the Dodd-Frank bill as weak as possible, and after its passage, hundreds of millions more to roll back or diluter the stronger provisions in that legislation.

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are shining a light on one of the most serious problems facing the United States -- the greed and power of Wall Street. Now is the time for the American people to demand that the president and Congress follow that light -- and act. The future of our economy is at stake.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/wall-street-protests_b_1000642.html

I really shouldn't do this but can't resist. "how is john mica responsible for this"

Quote from: civil42806 on October 09, 2011, 12:28:08 PM
I really shouldn't do this but can't resist. "how is john mica responsible for this"

I don't think our homeboy John Mica was mentioned here........so what prompted your question?

Jacksonville goes NATIONAL!!!!

Never mind Tampa, Ft Meyers or other FL cities that held OccupyWallStreet rallies over the weekend.............Jacksonville gets top billing in OccupyWallStreet NATIONAL reporting   ;D

Proud, soooooo proud of THE PEOPLE in Jacksonville:

October 10, 2011 8:24 AM PrintText
Occupy Wall St.'s drumbeat grows louder

Occupy Wall Street protests
Feingold on protests: "I'm excited about it" 
"Occupy Wall Street" protests continue to grow 
Political impact of "Occupy Wall Street" 
"Occupy Wall Street" protests spread across U.S. 
Cain: Wall Street protest a "coordinated distraction" 
Complete Coverage »
.
(CBS News)  Last Updated 9:39 a.m. ET

The drumbeat of the Occupy Wall Street protest is growing louder and wider.

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/10/10/WS_DC_tAP111009049938_620x350.jpg


"Wall Street got bailed out, and we all got sold out!"


From the streets of New York ... to the nation's capital ... to the South (Mobile, Ala., Jacksonville, Fla.) and West (Portland, Ore.), Americans are frustrated and making their voices heard.


"Wealthy individuals who own giant corporations have bought off our Congress and bought off our government and, you know, the people no longer have a voice anymore," one protester told CBS News.


The marchers come from all walks of life - young and old, male and female, hoping their lawmakers are listening.


"I think the message is obvious," said Jesse Lagreca, 38. "The wealthiest one percent is taking advantage of working class people. They've been selling us faulty financial products, they've been taking huge bonuses while depending on society to bail them out."


CBSMoneywatch's Jill Schlesinger points out that, according to economists at Northeastern University, corporate profits represented 88 percent of the growth in real national income between the 2Q of 2009 and 4Q of 2010, during the same period aggregate wages and salaries accounted for just over 1 percent.

"The money that companies have earned during the recovery has mostly stayed within corporate America," writes Schlesinger, "and has not trickled down into higher wages, nor has it created enough jobs to put some of the 14 million unemployed Americans back to work."


Moneywatch: Shrinking Incomes Fuel Protester Anger


"Ninety-nine percent of the people need to be prospering, not just the top one percent," said Michael Mulgrew, president of New York City's United Federation of Teachers.


"Every community knows they're hurting, what's going on is wrong, and it's time to stop this and make a difference, and do things that allow all people to prosper."


On "The Early Show" Monday, Former Senator Russell Feingold, D-Wis., said of the protests spreading across the country, "I'm not just pleased about it, I'm excited about it."


He reflected on the pro-labor demonstrations in Wisconsin earlier this year that were sparked by the governor's fight to take away collective bargaining rights from public sector workers in his state. "We did it here, and I think this is going to happen all over the country," Feingold said, "because people have been kicked when they are down, over and over again. You can only kick people so long before they react.


"This is time now for accountability, and this is a good way to show people how strongly we feel. The working people of this country have been treated very brutally and it has to change."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/10/earlyshow/main20118005.shtml

Rally! Rally!

I'm going to show those fat cats, who are feeding off my labor. I'm going to quit my job so productivity falls and no money flows to those leaches at the top. I'm going to stop buying anything produced by corporations who overpay those bottom feeders who have titles such as CEO.

NO MORE MONEY to those who are buying OUR government with OUR money for THEIR OWN benefit.

Focusing on OccupyWallStreet's Demands is misguided:

Why Occupy Wall Street isn't about a list of demands

By Julianne Pepitone @CNNMoneyTech October 12, 2011: 9:27 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A lot of lip service has been paid to the idea that Occupy Wall Street lacks focus. The critics ask: What's the goal of these protests? Everyone wants something different.

Which is exactly the point.

See video: http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2011/09/17/n_wall_st_closed_protest.cnnmoney/


It's easy to trivialize Occupy Wall Street -- even as it inspires similar protests around the country -- by saying the movement lacks an end game. The group is trying to crowdsource its list of goals, which all but guarantees that no major ones will be set.

A demand list of sorts has appeared on the official Occupy Wall Street page, serving as an ever-changing document on which people can comment with their own suggestions. It has also served as fodder for critics like Fox News, which posted a version of the list and suggested that readers "try not to laugh."

But no list has been endorsed by the "general assembly" at Occupy Wall Street, says press team member Mark Bray, who added that "making a list of three or four demands would have ended the conversation before it started."

Occupy Wall Street has already achieved what it set out to do.

Like the "Arab Spring" uprisings that inspired its tactics, the word-of-mouth demonstration has tapped into a collective anger. Some protesters are upset about taxation; for others, the big issue is the high unemployment rate. Or corporate greed. Or the distribution of wealth.

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.

"The guys in Washington are supposed to be helping me, but they don't get it with their mansions and their millions," says an unemployed nurse at the protest on Wednesday, who declined to give her name. "They don't understand my situation and they don't want to hear me. Well, now they'll have to hear all of us."

Lawmakers including President Obama have weighed in on Occupy Wall Street, with many sympathetic to the emotion behind the protests. Large labor unions, including the AFL-CIO and SEIU, have joined in. Media outlets are at the scene in droves. Even a corporate board has shown support: Ben & Jerry's directors released a statement "to express our deepest admiration."

The mere fact that the protest is still going strong after 25 days is means it has met one of its goals: Organizers said from the start that they hoped to sustain their demonstration for two months. Occupy Wall Street's real goal has always been simple: Draw focus to the concerns -- and anger -- many Americans have about the country's growing economic gap, plant the seed of an organized voice, and let the protest evolve naturally.





As part of that evolution, solidarity protests have popped up in Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Denver and Chicago, among other cities.

"We don't want New York to form its own political agenda and drive the conversation in other cities," Bray says. "I would be unhappy if people in LA or Chicago were waiting on us to do something. That would be politics as usual."

That's why Occupy Wall Street isn't focused on a demand list, Bray says.

"To tell everyone that we have the solution to their specific problems, that would be what the political parties are already doing," Bray says. "That isn't working. And that's the whole point."

Bray and other coordinators say their goal is still to continue the occupation for two months, and then wrap up it up. With the turnout growing each week, that target seems in easy reach.

What happens in mid-November, when the 60-day mark hits?

That's up to the crowd. Occupy Wall Street is a symbolic protest, but with the economy still sputtering and the wealth gap growing, it's a potent symbol.


First Published: October 12, 2011: 6:01 AM ET

http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/12/technology/occupy_wall_street_demands/

QuoteWhat Radicalism?
Mises Daily: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 by Jeffrey A. Tucker

ArticleCommentsAlso by Jeffrey A. Tucker.AA

"The slogan on the streets should really be 'Up with the Man!'"The protesters of the "occupy" movement imagine themselves to be in the spirit of history's great radicals â€" speaking truth to power and all that. As many have said, the movement seems blind to the real source of power in society, else they would be protesting government bureaucracies and the Federal Reserve.

Actually, however, it is even worse than that. The protest movement is not just blind to the actual driving force behind impoverishment and injustice. The main ethos of the movement is actively supportive of government and the powerful interests that back the status quo, so much so that this movement doesn't even deserve the name radical.

My exhibit is an opinion piece on the far-left site Alternet.org, a venue that often runs excellent critiques of American foreign policy. But when it comes to economic issues, it offers up the predictable goofiness that has afflicted the leftist mind for at least a century.

In "5 Conservative Economic Myths Occupy Wall Street Is Helping to Bust," author Dave Johnson gives us a peek into the economic worldview at the heart of this movement. Far from fighting power, it is supporting power. Instead of dissing the suits, it is tailoring them. The slogan on the streets should really be "Up with the Man!"

The supposed myths Johnson lists are:

1.Business does everything better than government.
2.Rich people are "job creators."
3.Government and taxes take money out of the economy.
4.Regulations kill jobs.
5.Protectionism hurts the economy.

Yes, these are the supposed myths. I might have phrased some differently but the bottom line is that every one of them is absolutely true. So of course it is enormously amusing to watch the author explain to us what is so obviously false about all these points. In the course of his explanation, he begins to sound like a public-service ad put out by a government bureaucracy.

So we learn from him that

the taxes that government collects are invested in the "public structures" that create the prosperity and lifestyle we enjoy â€" or at least did before taxes were cut. Tax revenue builds the infrastructure of transportation, courts, schools, universities, research facilities and other institutions that enable our businesses to grow and prosper and the consumer protection, safety inspection, water and sewer, health, parks and arts that help us live and enjoy our lives.

"Far from fighting power, it is supporting power. Instead of dissing the suits, it is tailoring them."So says the commissar! Up with the mandarins! Those courts and regulations are so wonderful, aren't they? And yet, isn't it rather strange that this little litany doesn't include anything about the police that are being unleashed on the protesters? The police are making all the rest of these supposed "services" possible. The larger and more expansive the state, the more police it needs to enforce its edicts. By praising all of this and urging its expansion, the protesters are urging an expansion of the police state â€" and yet they seem completely oblivious to this reality.

Now, what about free enterprise? Here is how the writer characterizes the market economy that took humankind from caves to condominiums, from smoke signals to cell phones, from chasing wild animals to ordering from a fast-food window:

[Under competition] businesses are forced to cut every corner, cheapen every product, cut out every service, lay people off, cut people's wages while adding hours, gut benefits … and probably go under anyway because when every business does the same 99 percent of us can't afford to buy or do things anymore.

Leave aside the ridiculous claim that only 1 percent of the public can afford to buy things. Has he never been to Walmart (oh I'm sure he is against that too)? It is indeed true that business cuts jobs and benefits when profit margins are squeezed. Not so when businesses are succeeding. So does this writer favor higher and higher profits so that businesses don't cut back? Of course not. That would be regarded as evil too. So how about bailouts when companies are failing so that they don't have to cut employees and hours? Nope: bailouts are precisely what the protesters are against. Or how about a policy that permits businesses to waste vast resources doing whatever they want? No, that would be contrary to the environmentalist ethic of doing without. There's just no pleasing these people.

What about the idea that production follows investment and this is rooted in savings? The writer completely rejects this:

Anyone with a real business will tell you that people coming in the door and buying things is what creates jobs. In a real economy, people wanting to buy things â€" demand â€" is what causes businesses to form and people to be hired.

It hasn't occurred to this guy that there is no shortage of want in the world. The demand for stuff is infinite. The struggle inherent in the economic way of doing things comes with supplying what is demanded. The writer might respond that people need money to buy stuff. So we are back again to the old canard that printing infinite paper tickets is the path to salvation. We already have that system and it is called the Federal Reserve. Once again, this line of thinking ends up on the side of powerful elites.

Here he is on free trade, in which the whole human race cooperates toward mutual benefit while ignoring the nation-state (sweet liberty!):

What has happened is countries sell to us but do not buy equally from us, causing huge trade deficits that have drained our economy and our jobs and our wages.

"So we are back again to the old canard that printing infinite paper tickets is the path to salvation."This is precisely the claim made by every corporate mercantilist from the late Middle Ages to the present day. They want government protection against foreign goods so that they can charge more to consumers at home. They care nothing for the well-being of anyone else but themselves. They use nationalist rhetoric ("us"?) to whip up a frenzy to back their own corporate private privileges.

And so the "radical Left" says the exact same thing? This is not a challenge to the system; it is the system.

As for government regulations, check out this mind bender:

A business wants to make a profit, and will only care how regulations affect that goal. It makes sense for government to set up regulations because the rest of us are concerned about the larger world of the rest of us, and therefore understand more clearly how the actions of a business will affect the rest of us.

The implied assumptions: government acts on our behalf; government is all knowing about what is needed and what is not; businesses never favor regulations as a means of outcompeting upstarts; in a market, businesses can profit even without serving the public.

None of this is true. Government acts on behalf of itself and the interest groups it represents. Government is not omniscient and is, actually, the dumbest institution in society because it does nothing but take by force and reward its friends.

As for controlling business, there is probably no regulation on the books that wasn't pushed by some fat cat somewhere as a means of clobbering the competition through legal channels. In contrast, in a market economy, there is only one path to profitability: service to others.

These are all truths that libertarians know. For example, the historical documentation is legion on the relationship between more regulation and the lobbying by top players in the corporate pecking order. What's striking is how completely oblivious this writer is to certain basic facts about reality. It's like a kind of insanity where up is down, right is left, and white is black.

However, when it comes to war and foreign policy, suddenly sanity arrives again:

Spending on wars, the "Defense" department (military), intelligence, nuclear weapons, veterans, and related budget items (including interest on money borrowed for past military spending) is a significant portion of the budget, and people instinctively feel that the country is not getting back services that match what they are putting in.

It's all true, but note the nature of his regret. He opposes the warfare state because he thinks that he discredits the government's system of extract-and-spend. He fears that all this squandering money on bombs is making it more difficult to realize the domestic agenda of all-around government planning, spending, and socialism.

Whether backing more spending, more inflation, more regulation, or more protection, it is precisely as Anthony Gregory says: "the true members of the ruling class have nothing to fear from these protests, which on balance strengthen the power elite."

These people are radicals only in the sense that the youth of the Red Guard in Mao's China and the Nazi youth movement in Vienna in the early 1930s were radical: they are only urging the regime to be truer to itself and stop compromising with its enemies. In this sense, these street protests are not benign; they might be a foreshadowing of dark times ahead.

What is desperately needed is a movement of true radicals who do actually speak truth to power, not one that serves as echo chamber for the myths that the powerful have been trying to sell us for hundreds of years.

http://www.youtube.com/v/N8o3peQq79Q?

Excellent:

Quote5 Conservative Economic Myths Occupy Wall Street Is Helping to Bust," author Dave Johnson gives us a peek into the economic worldview at the heart of this movement.
The supposed myths Johnson lists are:

1.Business does everything better than government.
2.Rich people are "job creators."
3.Government and taxes take money out of the economy.
4.Regulations kill jobs.
5.Protectionism hurts the economy.

The rebuttal in the article is such a distortion, that I will only spend time on one example of such gross distortion.

QuoteWhat about the idea that production follows investment and this is rooted in savings? The writer completely rejects this:

Anyone with a real business will tell you that people coming in the door and buying things is what creates jobs. In a real economy, people wanting to buy things â€" demand â€" is what causes businesses to form and people to be hired.

It hasn't occurred to this guy that there is no shortage of want in the world. The demand for stuff is infinite. The struggle inherent in the economic way of doing things comes with supplying what is demanded.

The deliberate distortion is to equate the economic term of DEMAND, with the lay term of "want."

The economic term of Demand relates to: the ability of the consumer to purchase goods and services.

The lay term of "want" is infinitely great, but the economic term of consumer demand is being squeezed by stagnant incomes. Increasing production ( ie SUPPLY in supply-side economic thinking), doesn't help in such situations when consumers are unable to buy. (So Johnson is right: It is Demand that drives economic growth.)

Hence all the vacant houses. Too many were built (supply)..........and though the "want" may be there, the "economic demand" is not keeping up with supply..........our inventory of unsold homes keeps increasing.

The entire rebuttal article is filled with these types of deliberate false equivalencies that for the uninformed lay person may sound plausible ( especially if they spent the last 3 decades being brain-washed by faux news, so they are easily confused).

Lets turn off the corporate owned media, and start listening to our neighbors who are suffering the real indignities of rampant, out of control greed that is brought on by cut-throat corporatism.

So I was wrong that the young generation slowly grew accustomed to the hardship which was "papered over" by distractions such as i-phones and reality shows. Instead, our young generation are very much aware that they have been sold a bill of goods, by the con-porations. The fact that hard work doesn't pay in America is very real to them..........they have seen too many people work their asses off and get nowhere!

I would say I agree with most of that.  Kudos to the people who drafted that statement well done.

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...

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.

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

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!  ;)

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!

Quick question for those backing the movement.

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

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

Quote from: Ajax on October 13, 2011, 04:47:22 PM
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:

Quotethe 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.

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

QuoteWhat'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.

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.

Quote from: stephendare on October 14, 2011, 09:34:55 AM

Quote from: jandar on October 14, 2011, 09:19:21 AM
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.

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.

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:

QuoteThe 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.

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 12, 2011, 09:56:01 AM
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.

QuoteToday, 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

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

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:

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


By Roland Martin, CNN Contributor

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

(http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/111013103505-kohn-occupy-wall-street-story-top.jpg)






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/

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.

(http://zennie62blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/occupy-hot-219x300.jpg)

What more can I say about the American dream turned nightmare in the US, and how long it took us to wake up?

Too many people falsely believed they had freedom, and were better than their neighbors.

Quote from: Jumpinjack on October 15, 2011, 09:13:28 AM
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.

I will never again believe in the American electoral process untill we get rid of the excessive control by monied interests, ie corporations.

The Tea Party is completely controled by monied interests. They are just another (faux populist) front group for the Republican Party.

As many as 200,000 people have already signed up to demand a constitutional amendment to Get Public Financing of campaigns:

http://www.getmoneyout.com/

Once that happens, I will start to believe in our electoral process again.

Business Schools Should Join 'Occupy Wall/Bay Street'

Keywords: business schools Business Sustainability OccupyWallSt Culture and Leadership in Business

Posted October 15, 2011 with 10 reads

The Occupy Wall Street protests have ballooned into one of the most powerful grassroots social movements since the Great Depression and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. Once perceived by the elite to be a trivial display of immature angst by a bunch of hippies, the mainstream media has had no choice but to cover the protests to the chagrin of their corporate owners.



For this protest, as Caplan and Grzyb explained, is of “the larger, ugly truths about modern capitalism” and as business professor Michael Porter explains, reflects the perception that corporations are “prospering at the expense of the broader community”. There is no doubt in my mind that Finance Minister Flaherty and Bank of Governor Mark Carney are misguided in their attribution of the protests to the financial crisis. This was only the catalyst for a greater march against the inequities of the existing capitalist system.



As a consequence, a rather polarized dynamic has played out between the right and left sides of the spectrum with the right relegating protesters to a bunch of “left wing nut bars” (Kevin O’Leary) or “a collection of ne’er doers” (Murdoch’s WSJ) and the left asserting that we live in a society of “government of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” (J. Stiglitz) and that “we the people have found our voice” (Professor Cornell West).




So where are business schools in all of this? Naturally, business is expected to side with the right, defending their powerful position in society by putting forth rhetoric that touts the societal benefits of free markets such as job creation, access to cheap goods and services, and (perhaps taken to the extreme) individual freedom. Yet, I would argue, perhaps paradoxically, that business schools should be an active voice in the protests not as a mouthpiece for the right but as a stark supporter of the need for change. Here are three reasons why:





1. First, the last decade has proven unequivocally that Adam Smith’s original supposition that the pursuit of commercial interests leads to optimal gains for society is misguided at best. An unprecedented number of circumstances have emerged where the pursuit of corporate interest has left society worse off. 



Smith’s ingenuity fit a time when business represented a relatively small actor in society shadowing the power of the church and the state. Since then, we’ve seen business become the dominant societal actor with the power to not only ignore broader societal interests but to circumvent those interests.



As I’ve written before, why be passive players responding to regulatory constraints or market demands when businesses can wield their growing power to influence regulation and what the market demands. To that end, many executives have essentially taken business school fundamentals to the extreme by deliberately shaping those environments to their liking with no regard for society. 



Wall Street’s active suppression of government regulation of derivatives and their relentless effort to defer risk to the public is one such example. So business schools, in my view, are obligated to occupy wall/bay street to voice the need for change in the fundamentals of the business discipline.




2. Second, I think it’s important to make sure that we don’t paint all businesses with the same brush. There are a growing number of companies, large and small, that define their purpose and operations on precisely what these protesters stand for: equality, human rights, and environmental sustainability. They adopt triple bottom line businesses with the purpose to co-create value along social, environmental, and economic systems not as isolated endeavors but as an integrated value proposition to society. 



Businesses like Grameen Bank, Interface, Patagonia, Better Place, and SEKEM represent the hope for business in a sustainable society. They are challenging the practices of those companies in the previous paragraph and redefining the purpose of business in society. Business schools should be marching to demonstrate their commitment to understanding these sorts of businesses and to build theories and frameworks that educate future managers to replicate this role.





3. Finally, any academic at a university is held to an obligation to engage in activity that advances new knowledge to contribute to the welfare of broader society. If we’ve reached a stage in history where our business school teachings and research are partly responsible for the negative impacts on society, then is it not our duty to lead the charge in understanding what needs to change? 



One approach, which I presume is the most common response, is to distance ourselves from the protest thereby further fueling the polarization of society. Another is to be part of the conversation so that we are truly doing our job as academics and understanding how the private sector can better respond to the needs of society. This takes a combination of courage and humility because it suggests that what we’ve taken for granted in the classroom and in our management journals might need radical change.

http://sustainablebusinessforum.com/mikevalente/54536/why-business-schools-should-join-occupy-wallbay-street

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 15, 2011, 09:15:00 AM
[
What more can I say about the American dream turned nightmare in the US, and how long it took us to wake up?

Too many people falsely believed they had freedom, and were better than their neighbors.

One thing more you can say.... we ve gone global.... the message that you stated above is getting clearer!
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WALL_STREET_PROTESTS_WORLD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-15-10-46-07

Quote from: hillary supporter on October 15, 2011, 11:48:40 AM

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 15, 2011, 09:15:00 AM
[
What more can I say about the American dream turned nightmare in the US, and how long it took us to wake up?

Too many people falsely believed they had freedom, and were better than their neighbors.

One thing more you can say.... we ve gone global.... the message that you stated above is getting clearer!
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WALL_STREET_PROTESTS_WORLD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-15-10-46-07

Thank you Hillary Supporter, for adding that important piece.

It also reminds me of a quote by george Carlin, who was way ahead of his time. He said:

"They call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it."

This notion of the American Dream had also been held out as an example to the rest of the world to follow, ......as a benefit to copying American style capitalism.........EVERYbody all over the world is now waking up from a bad dream or also called a nightmare. They have discovered their power in social networking, for their voices to finally be heard, instead of being powerless in the face of ever increasing economic abuse.

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 09, 2011, 12:17:37 PM
Some sensible ideas:


6) Establish a Wall Street speculation fee on credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures. Both the economic crisis and the deficit crisis are a direct result of the greed and recklessness on Wall Street. Establishing a speculation fee would reduce gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy, and significantly reduce the deficit without harming average Americans. There are a number of precedents for this. The U.S had a similar Wall Street speculation fee from 1914 to 1966. The Revenue Act of 1914 levied a 0.2-percent tax on all sales or transfers of stock. In 1932, Congress more than doubled that tax to help finance the government during the Great Depression. And today, England has a financial transaction tax of 0.25 percent, a penny on every $4 invested.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/wall-street-protests_b_1000642.html

The only thing wrong with item #6 is that there is no productive economy to invest in left in this country. It all moved to China.

I'll bet a majority of Tea Party folks support the Occupy Wall Streeters.  They all dislike government bailouts in general.

Quote from: urbanlibertarian on October 15, 2011, 03:45:35 PM
I'll bet a majority of Tea Party folks support the Occupy Wall Streeters.  They all dislike government bailouts in general.

So true. And none of us trust government in its current form to solve our problems............as Occupy Orlando says:

"We acknowledge that we have yet to offer a comprehensive plan to fix this mess. We think that is the duty of our elected officials, advised by economic experts who do not have ulterior motives"

Read more: http://www.wesh.com/news/29494399/detail.html#ixzz1asjLJi4T

It reminds me of an effort made in 2008, of bringing minority parties together on common ground:

QuoteEach of the three candidates presented the views of their parties -- ranging from left to right on the political spectrum, and each brought different pieces of information.

and

QuoteWith Paul were three of the four third party/independent candidates -- Constitution Party Chuck Baldwin, a Baptist minister; Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney, a former Congresswoman from Georgia; and Independent Ralph Nader -- united in agreement and support of a four-point platform on foreign policy, privacy, the national debt, and the Federal Reserve.

Quoteagreement of the candidates on the four-points represented a "beginning of a realignment of American politics." He said the issues raised indicated a "crisis in constitutional government" -- and that the U.S. Constitution has been degraded, violated, nullified, and twisted out of any semblance of its real meaning.

Not all third-party candidates took the opportunity of Paul's invitation to attend the press club. Noticeably absent was Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr -- a former CIA agent, who morphed into a Drug War prosecutor before winning a seat in Congress in 1994. He was voted out in 2003.

QuoteIn his remarks Paul quoted historian Carroll Quigley, author of "Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time" (and Bill Clinton's mentor), who wrote: The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, on, perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ?throw the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.

"That is a profound statement," said Paul. "It tells us what's going on and why things don't change."

http://www.newswithviews.com/BreakingNews/breaking158.htm

Interesting Editorial discourse re The New Yorker - October 17,2011 "Talk of the Town";Hendrick Hertzberg

Could not attend today's events(makin' a livin) but working on my sign:

S. DARE FOR MAYOR

and do not forget......two sides to each sign available..........
the back side of mine......Hmmmmmm........Beltway???
no worries.......I am up to the Beltway Job.......
starting with BLANDING Blvd. SO BLAND.  And if really Free.....and brave,a reference to a Clay County Official Record Book/Page....

Hint for sign makers:
Make the base leg (perhaps conveniently in travel pack sections) about eight feet (or more) so that one not need hold up without support for appropriate long periods of display time.

Eclectic.Diverse.

onward.......!!!

(http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s320x320/304149_271230106244675_162657530435267_928772_800573747_n.jpg)


(http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/310682_2065559550916_1002585600_32136321_1482810987_n.jpg)

And it's one, two, three what are we fighting for........?

No words needed here.

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 16, 2011, 09:35:31 AM
(http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s320x320/304149_271230106244675_162657530435267_928772_800573747_n.jpg)


(http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/310682_2065559550916_1002585600_32136321_1482810987_n.jpg)

And it's one, two, three what are we fighting for........?

No words needed here.

+1

You can't say that NO Wall Street bankers have gone to jail.  This guy...

(http://reason.com/assets/mc/tcavanaugh/rajaratnam.jpg)

...just got 11 years.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/14/rajaratnam-and-no-one-has-gone (http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/14/rajaratnam-and-no-one-has-gone)

Quote from: urbanlibertarian on October 16, 2011, 10:06:44 AM
You can't say that NO Wall Street bankers have gone to jail.  This guy...

(http://reason.com/assets/mc/tcavanaugh/rajaratnam.jpg)

...just got 11 years.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/14/rajaratnam-and-no-one-has-gone (http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/14/rajaratnam-and-no-one-has-gone)

Likewise the cartoon picture depicts 5 demonstrators arrested, where the real number is over 1,000.

The US is tough on "street crime," as long as it isn't Wall Street.

Today is the GLOBAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY with OCCUPY WALL STREET
Just take a look at the amazing wave of events happening nationwide:

(http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/300123_303322456348381_100000118875273_1399442_1685609704_n.jpg)

Let's help strengthen this movement and keep it growing.

(http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s320x320/296040_286244954737086_196601040368145_1137440_1437763039_n.jpg)


United States
Alabama
Occupy Auburn

Occupy Birmingham

Occupy Huntsville

Occupy Mobile

Occupy Tuscaloosa

Occupy Alaska
Occupy Alaska

Occupy Anchorage

Arizona
Occupy Arizona

Occupy Flagstaff

Occupy Phoenix

Occupy Prescott

Occupy Sedona

Occupy Tempe

Occupy Tucson

Occupy Yuma

Arkansas
Occupy Arkansas

Occupy Fayetteville

Occupy Little Rock

Occupy Little Rock

California
Occupy Arcata

Occupy Bakersfield

Occupy Berkeley

Occupy Central Valley

Occupy Chico

Occupy Coachella Valley

Occupy Costa Mesa

Occupy Davis

Occupy Eureka

Occupy Fresno

Occupy Humboldt (website)

Occupy Irvine

Occupy Lompoc

Occupy Long Beach

Occupy Los Angeles and website

Occupy Marin (San Rafael)

Occupy Mendicino

Occupy Merced

Occupy Modesto

Occupy Monterey

Occupy Napa

Occupy Oakland

Occupy Orange County

Occupy Redding

Occupy Riverside

Occupy Sacramento and Occupy Sacramento and website

Occupy Salinas

Occupy Santa Barbara

Occupy Santa Cruz and Occupy Santa Cruz

Occupy San Diego

Occupy San Francisco

Occupy San Jose

Occupy San Luis Obispo

Occupy Santa Rosa

Occupy Santa Rosa

Occupy Stockton

Occupy Temecula

Occupy Ukiah and website

Occupy Venice and website

Occupy Ventura

Occupy Victorville

Occupy Visalia

Occupy Yucca

Colorado
Occupy Alamosa

Occupy Aspen

Occupy Canon City

Occupy Boulder

Occupy Colorado Springs

Occupy Denver

Occupy Fort Collins

Occupy Grand Junction

Occupy Greeley and website

Occupy Pueblo and Occupy Pueblo (website)

Connecticut
Occupy Connecticut

Occupy Hartford and Occupy Hartford

Occupy New Haven

Occupy New London

DC
Occupy DC

Occupy K Street

Delaware
Occupy Delmarva

Florida
Occupy Bradenton

Occupy Cocoa

Occupy Daytona Beach

Occupy Florida

Occupy Ft. Lauderdale

Occupy Fort Myers

Occupy Gainsville

Occupy Jacksonville

Occupy Lake Worth

Occupy Miami

Occupy Ocala

Occupy Orlando

Occupy Palm Beach

Occupy Pensacola

Occupy St. Augustine

Occupy St. Petersburg and Occupy West Florida

Occupy Sarasota

Occupy South Florida

Occupy Tampa

Occupy Tallahassee

Georgia
Occupy Athens

Occupy Atlanta and Occupy Atlanta

Occupy Augusta and website

Occupy Columbus

Occupy Macon

Occupy North Georgia

Occupy Savannah

Occupy Valdosta

Hawaii
Occupy Hawaii

Occupy Hilo

Occupy Honolulu

Occupy Kona

Occupy Maui and website

Occupy Oahu

Occupy Waikiki

Idaho
Occupy Boise

Occupy Coeur d'Alene

Occupy Idaho Falls

Occupy Moscow

Occupy Pocatello

Occupy Salmon (website)

Occupy Sandpoint

Illinois
Occupy Carbondale

Occupy Champaign-Urbana and (website)

Occupy Chicago and website

Occupy Normal

Occupy Peoria (website)

Occupy Rockford and website

Occupy Springfield

Indiana
Occupy Bloomington

Occupy Columbus

Occupy Elkhart

Occupy Evansville

Occupy Fort Wayne

Occupy Indianapolis

Occupy Kokomo

Occupy LaFayette

Occupy Portage

Occupy Smalltown Indiana

Occupy South Bend

Occupy Valparaiso

Iowa
Occupy Ames

Occupy Cedar Rapids

Occupy Cedar Valley

Occupy Des Moines

Occupy Dubuque

Occupy Iowa

Occupy Iowa City

Occupy Mason City

Occupy Quad Cities and website

Kansas
Occupy Lawrence

Occupy Manhattan

Occupy Topeka

Occupy Witchita and Occupy Witchita

Kentucky
Occupy Ashland

Occupy Berea

Occupy Bowling Green

Occupy Kentucky

Occupy Lexington

Occupy Louisville

Louisiana
Occupy Baton Rouge

Occupy Lake Charles

Occupy New Orleans

Occupy Shreveport

Maine
Occupy Augusta

Occupy Bangor

Occupy Maine

Occupy South Portland

Maryland
Occupy Baltimore

Occupy Hagerstown

Massachusetts
Occupy Amherst (website)

Occupy Berkshires

Occupy Boston

Occupy Northhampton

Occupy Springfield

Occupy Worcester

Michigan
Occupy Ann Arbor

Occupy Detroit

Occupy Flint (link to ongoing event)

Occupy Grand Rapids

Occupy Kalamazoo

Occupy Lansing

Occupy Michigan

Occupy Muskegon

Occupy Saginaw

Occupy Southeast Michigan

Occupy Traverse City

Occupy the UP and website (Marquette)

Minnesota
Occupy Duluth and Occupy Twin Ports

Occupy Minneapolis

Occupy Minnesota and website

Occupy Rochester

Mississippi
Occupy Biloxi

Occupy Jackson

Missouri
Occupy Columbia

Occupy Joplin and website

Occupy Kansas City

Occupy St. Louis, also website

Occupy Springfield

Montana
Occupy Billings

Occupy Butte

Occupy Helena

Occupy Kalispell

Occupy Missoula

Occupy Montana

Nebraska
Occupy Lincoln

Occupy Nebraska

Occupy Omaha

Nevada
Occupy Carson City

Occupy Las Vegas and website

Occupy Reno

Occupy Tahoe

New Hampshire
Occupy Manchester

Occupy New Hampshire

New Jersey
Occupy Kearney

Occupy Newton

Occupy New Jersey

Occupy Trenton

New Mexico
Occupy Albuquerque and Occupy Albuquerque

Occupy Carlsbad

Occupy Las Cruces

Occupy New Mexico

Occupy Roswell

Occupy Santa Fe

Occupy Taos

New York
Occupy Albany

Occupy Binghamton

Occupy Buffalo

Occupy Cortland

Occupy Glens Falls

Occupy Ithaca

Occupy Long Island

Occupy New Paltz

Occupy Otsego

Occupy Plattsburgh

Occupy Poughkeepsie

Occupy Rochester

Occupy Saratoga Springs

Occupy Saranac Lake

Occupy Syracuse

Occupy Wall Street, also New York City main website

Occupy Utica

North Carolina
Occupy Ashville

Occupy Boone

Occupy Chapel Hill

Occupy Charlotte, Occupy Charlotte and non Facebook

Occupy Durham

Occupy Fayetteville

Occupy Greensboro

Occupy Raleigh

Occupy Wilmington

Occupy Winston Salem

North Dakota
Occupy Fargo

Occupy North Dakota

Ohio
Occupy Akron

Occupy Athens

Occupy Cincinnati

Occupy Cleveland, Occupy Cleveland, and website website

Occupy Columbus

Occupy Dayton

Occupy Kent

Occupy Toledo

Occupy Youngstown

Oklahoma
Occupy Bartlesville

Occupy Norman

Occupy OKC and website

Occupy Stillwater

Occupy Tahlequah

Occupy Tulsa

Oregon
Occupy Ashland and Occupy Ashland

Occupy Astoria

Occupy Bend

Occupy Corvallis

Occupy Cottage Grove

Occupy Eugene

Occupy Portland, Occupy Portland and website

Occupy Port Orford: occupyportorford@gmail.com

Occupy Roseburg

Occupy Seaside Oregon

Occupy Salem and website

Pennsylvania
Occupy Allentown

Occupy Bethlehem / Leigh Valley

Occupy Erie and website

Occupy Harrisburg

Occupy Indiana County

Occupy Lancaster

Occupy Philadelphia and website

Occupy Pittsburgh

Occupy Scranton

Occupy State College

Occupy Stroudsburg

Occupy Williamsport

Occupy York

Puerto Rico
Occupy Puerto Rico

Rhode Island
Occupy Providence

South Carolina
Occupy Charleston

Occupy Columbia

Occupy Florence

Occupy Greenville

South Dakota
Occupy Rapid City

Occupy Sioux Falls

Occupy South Dakota

Tennessee
Occupy Chattanooga

Occupy Clarksville

Occupy Johnson City

Occupy Knoxville

Occupy Memphis and (website)

Occupy Nashville and website

Occupy Tennessee

Texas
Occupy Amarillo

Occupy Austin and website

Occupy Brownsville

Occupy Corpus Christi

Occupy Dallas and website

Occupy Denton

Occupy El Paso

Occupy Fort Worth

Occupy Galveston

Occupy Houston and website

Occupy Lubbock

Occupy Marfa

Occupy McAllen

Occupy San Antonio

Occupy Texarkana

Utah
Occupy SLC, Occupy Salt Lake City, also website

Vermont
Occupy Vermont and website

Occupy Burlington

Occupy Montpelier

Occupy Rutland

Virginia
Occupy Blacksburg

Occupy Charlottesville

Occupy Harrisonburg

Occupy Norfolk

Occupy Richmond

Occupy Roanoke

Washington
Occupy Bainbridge Island

Occupy Bellingham

Occupy Bremerton

Occupy Colville

Occupy Ellensburg

Occupy Olympia

Occupy Port Angeles

Occupy Seattle and website

Occupy Spokane

Occupy Tacoma

Occupy Tri-Cities (Richland)

Occupy Vancouver

Occupy Wenatchee

Occupy Yakima and website

West Virginia
Occupy Charleston

Occupy Huntington

Occupy Morgantown

Occupy West Virginia

Wisconsin
Occupy Appleton

Occupy Green Bay

Occupy La Crosse

Occupy Madison

Occupy Milwaukee

Wyoming
Occupy Casper

Occupy Cheyenne

Occupy Jackson Hole


Canada
Occupy Canada
Alberta
Occupy Calgary

Occupy Edmonton

Occupy Lethbridge

British Columbia
Occupy Cranbrook

Occupy Kelowna

Occupy Nelson

Occupy Vancouver and website

Occupy Victoria

Manitoba
Occupy Winnipeg

New Brunswick
Occupy New Brunswick

Newfoundland
Occupy Nwfoundland

Nova Scotia
Occupy Halifax

Occupy Nova Scotia

Ontario
Occupy Kingston

Occupy Ottawa

Occupy Toronto

Prince Edward Island
Occupy Prince Edward Island

Quebec
Occupy Montreal

Occupy Quebec

Saskatchewan
Occupy Regina

Occupy Saskatoon

I will be Downtown Chicago for 5 days later this week. If they are still going strong I contribute some pizzas and poster board.

Quote from: JeffreyS on October 16, 2011, 10:21:14 PM
I will be Downtown Chicago for 5 days later this week. If they are still going strong I contribute some pizzas and poster board.

SWEET!

Can't believe the protest crowd in Madrid this weekend:

(http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lt4pzy5YZH1qarvdbo1_500.jpg)

And what about Times Square in New York:

(http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/10/16/1318721248245/Demonstrators-affiliated--001.jpg)

Awe, so cute!

Occupy Hawaii:

(http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s320x320/317417_169251059829605_161343323953712_354023_703928341_n.jpg)

We aren't going away - love the mom pic too - thanks for posting it

I love and support the occupy movement. But really, isn't OccupyJax a bit lacking in teeth? I mean.. our occupy movement is like "Occupy Hemming Plaza for a few hours on the weekends, and by occupy we mean sorta visit then go back to our suburbs."

Even Tampa has a better occupy movement than us.

Quote from: RiversideLoki on October 17, 2011, 07:28:21 PM
I love and support the occupy movement. But really, isn't OccupyJax a bit lacking in teeth? I mean.. our occupy movement is like "Occupy Hemming Plaza for a few hours on the weekends, and by occupy we mean sorta visit then go back to our suburbs."

Even Tampa has a better occupy movement than us.

Our movement is great. We are and will gain support moving ahead!

The occupiers mean well but they were outnumbered and scared of by those dastardly homeless people.

Quote from: Ralph W on October 17, 2011, 09:51:30 PM
The occupiers mean well but they were outnumbered and scared of by those dastardly homeless people.

Actually... this saturday they were moved to the pocket park on Main St after a group of religious folks moved in and started playing gospel music.  It was a nice sunny day so I decided to go to Hemming to check out the scene.  I walked around a bit... picked up a few flyers... I think I heard two actual protest chants when the TV crew showed up.  And then... the gospel music began.  The clash of cultures was... well... hilarious.  The cops moved in sensing possible trouble... and convinced the protestors that the gospel folks had just as much right to the park as they did.  After a brief discussion the protestors picked up their signs and marched off to Main St... the vagrants resumed their places... the gospel folks danced and sang... and I retired to Octoberfest at European St.  All in all it was an interesting afternoon...

No Worries BT.......Occupyjax isn't going to be at Hemming Park anymore:



Time


Saturday, October 22 · 11:00am - 5:00pm




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





Location


Riverside Park

753 Park Street




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





Created By


Occupy Jacksonville




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More Info


11:00-12:00pm Gather, Make Signs

12:00-1:00pm Rally (Everyone has the opportunity to join the Stack and speak for two minutes)

1:00-2:00pm Teach-in (Experts will lecture on key areas related to the movement)

2:00-3:00pm General Assembly (Business Meeting/Work Group Presentation of Motions)

3:00pm March to First Guaranty Bank across from the Riverside Arts Market and then disperse and show patronage to all the small local businesses (Remember - we must NOT disturb the Arts Market, but instead encourage it. They are the 99%!).

Some Working Groups may choose to meet up back in the park at 4pm.

Quote from: Non-RedNeck Westsider on October 04, 2011, 01:25:28 PM

Quotehttp://occupyjax.forumotion.com/t28-formal-press-release#59

Formal Press Release
by Evey Today at 10:59 am

.Here is what I propose be our formal press release:

Hundreds from across Florida will assemble in downtown Jacksonville to hold the first Jacksonville General Assembly in response to the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City. As a leaderless organization, Occupy Jacksonville seeks to establish a permanent presence in the First Coast area.

At Hemming Plaza, 135 Monroe Street West, crowds will gather at noon to discuss issues, peacefully protest corporate greed and political corruption, and march Saturday, October 8th at 2:00 p.m. The People of Occupy Jacksonville are not governed by any one individual or group, but instead use the General Assembly forumâ€"established by Spaniards earlier in the year and imitated by the Occupy Wall Street protestorsâ€"to create a symposium through which general consensus can develop. The first Jacksonville General Assembly will act as a “Town Hall” forum for debate, dialogue and dissent amongst Floridians who identify the modern economic climate as a key component to national and global unrest.

With 1% of the population overseeing nearly 40% of the nation’s assets, and with economic decisions in Washington D.C. and on Wall Street hindering progress in every sector across the nation, many are in agreement that something needs to change. However, politicians in both major parties continue to side with financially prosperous individuals and corporations at the expense of the other 99% of the population. Those include people of all political, religious, socioeconomic, racial and educational backgrounds. The Jacksonville General Assembly, in solidarity with the New York General Assembly and others across the nation, seeks to address these issues by hearing from all perspectives indiscriminately and forming a united response agreed upon by the entire collective.

Occupy Jacksonville wants to stress its nonviolent approach to societal conversation. Though many individuals will come together from their diverse traditions to protest and march in solidarity, the Jacksonville General Assembly will act as the cornerstone upon which the needs of the 99% will be cautiously built. The collective as a whole is its own spokesperson; no individual opinion represents the consensus of the Jacksonville General Assembly.

All are welcome. None will be turned away. Nonviolence is paramount

Wow, powerful statement about the police response in NY (the original thread that started this conversation)........."there is no honor in confronting unarmed civilians in riot gear............this is not a war zone!"

If you want to go hurt people.........go to Iraq

QuoteUnited States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY went toe to toe with the New York Police Department. An activist in the Occupy Wall Street movement, Thomas voiced his opinions of the NYPD police brutality that had and has been plaguing the #OWS movement.

Thomas is a 24-year-old Marine Veteran (2 tours in Iraq), he currently plays amateur football and is in college.

Thomas comes from a long line of people who sacrifice for their country: Mother, Army Veteran (Iraq), Step father, Army, active duty (Afghanistan), Grand father, Air Force veteran (Vietnam), Great Grand Father Navy veteran (World War II).

http://www.youtube.com/v/WmEHcOc0Sys?

That was absolutely inspiring, Faye. Thanks for sharing.

God Bless our troops.

Quote from: buckethead on October 20, 2011, 08:50:56 AM
That was absolutely inspiring, Faye. Thanks for sharing.

God Bless our troops.

Thank you for that wonderful comment. Something else that you probably haven't heard through the corporate  media is that the NY Police Department was instantly taken to court by the Transport Workers Union of Greater New York after NY Police arrested those 700 protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge.
They are also saying: This is not a war zone!

Total over-kill at tax payers' expense:

(http://i.huffpost.com/gen/367108/thumbs/r-NYPD-large570.jpg)

Transit Workers Union Files Restraining Order To Prevent NYPD From Using Drivers

First Posted: 10/4/11 10:47 AM ET Updated: 10/4/11 12:49 PM ET



The New York City Transit Workers Union filed a restraining order Monday to prevent the NYPD from forcing city bus drivers to transport arrested demonstrators in MTA vehicles, NY1 reports.

On Saturday, 744 people, protesting as part of the ongoing Occupy Wall Street movement, were penned and arrested as they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge. The NYPD, strapped for a way to take so many prisoners to city precincts, commandeered five MTA buses and their drivers.

The Transit Workers Union Local 100's executive committee, which oversees the 38,000-member organization of city subway and bus workers, had voted unanimously only a few days earlier to support the protesters.

According to The New York Daily News, Union President John Samuelsen called ordering bus drivers to drive prisoners "a blatant act of political retaliation."

"This was a peaceful protest until the police came along,” Samuelsen told The New York Post, adding that cops are technically allowed to commandeer bus drivers in case of an emergency but scoffed at the notion that Saturday’s events were even close to crossing that threshold.

“This is not 9/11. There was no state of emergency whatsoever. They have no right to press our bus operators into performing emergency services,” he said. “We’re down with these protesters!”

Police officials have yet to comment on the injunction filed by the TWU.




Mayor Bloomberg insists the NYPD acted appropriately Saturday, despite some protesters' claims that the NYPD tricked them into getting arrested.  

The TWU is scheduled to join the protesters this Wednesday, October 5, for a large rally to express explicit support.

Another union, SEIU 32BJ, which represents city doormen, security guards and maintenance workers, is using its Oct. 12 rally to express solidarity with the Zuccotti Park protesters.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/04/occupywallstreet-transit-_n_994000.html

Quote

QuoteOctober 20, 2011 12:00 A.M.
Railing Against Reality
What are the root causes of the multifaceted unrest in the Western world?

Last week, protests broke out again in Europe, from Rome to London. The month-long Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York have spread. The current unrest follows this summer’s riots in London and flash-mob incidents in U.S. cities. In 2009 and 2010, tea parties turned out hundreds of thousands in protests against the Obama administration’s policies and eventually gave him the largest midterm rebuke since 1938.

All of these protests, of course, are vastly different â€" or are they really?

Ostensibly, the Wall Street protests rail against a small elite who makes a lot of money by lending, investing, and speculating â€" although the protesters don’t seem to worry much about the mega-salaries of actors, professional athletes, or sympathetic multimillionaires such as Al Gore, George Soros, and John Kerry. American flash mobbers and London hoods thought it was okay to take things that were not theirs, since they have less than others. The tea partiers were simply tired of paying more taxes for big-government programs that they thought only made things worse.

In the current left and right anger â€" somewhat analogous to the upheavals of 1848 or the 1930s â€" the common denominator is frustration that Western upward mobility of some 60 years seems to be coming to an end. In response, millions want someone or something to be held accountable â€" whether Wall Street insiders, or wasteful and corrupt governments, or the affluent, who have more than others.

Unfortunately, political leaders â€" unwilling to risk their careers by irking the people â€" have offered few explanations for the root causes of all the various unrest. Instead, they assure us that Social Security is solvent, or that pensions and wages can remain sacrosanct, or that billionaires and millionaires are alone culpable. Sometimes they exploit race and class divisions in lieu of explaining 21st-century realities.

So here goes an explanation for the multifaceted unrest. For the last six decades, constant technological breakthroughs and growing government subsidies have given a billion and a half Westerners lifestyles undreamed of over the last 2,500 years. In 1930, no one imagined that a few pills could cure life-threatening strep throat. In 1960, no one planned on retiring at 55. In 1980, no one dreamed that millions could have instant access to civilization’s collective knowledge in a few seconds through a free Google search.

Yet, the better life got in the West for ever more people, the more apprehensive they became, as their appetites for even more grew even faster. Remember, none of these worldwide protests are over the denial of food, shelter, clean water, or basic medicine.

None of these protesters discuss the effects of 2 billion Chinese, Indian, Korean, and Japanese workers’ entering and mastering the globalized capitalist system, and making things more cheaply and sometimes better than their Western counterparts.

None of these protesters ever stop to ponder the costs â€" and ultimately the effect on their own lifestyles â€" of skyrocketing energy costs. Since 1970 there has been a historic, multitrillion-dollar transfer of capital from the West to the Middle East, South America, Africa, and Russia through the importation of high-cost oil and gas.

None seem to grasp the significance of the fact that, meanwhile, hundreds of millions of Westerners were living longer and better, retiring earlier, and demanding ever more expensive government pensions and health care.

Something had to give.

And now it has. Federal and state budgets are near bankrupt. Countries like Greece and Italy face insolvency. The U.S. government resorts to printing money to service or expand entitlements. Near-zero interest rates, declining home prices, and huge losses in mutual funds and retirement accounts have crippled the middle classes.

Bigger government, marvelous new inventions, and creative new investment strategies are not going to restore the once-taken-for-granted good life. Until “green” means competitive renewable energy rather than a con for crony capitalists, we are going to have to create and save capital by producing more of our own gas and oil, and relying more on nuclear power and coal.

Westerners will have to work a bit longer and more efficiently, with a bit less redistributive government support. And they must confess that venture capitalists, hedge funds, and big deficit-spending governments are no substitute for producing themselves the real stuff of life that millions now take for granted â€" whether gas, food, cars, or consumer goods.

Otherwise, a smaller, older, and whinier West will just keep blaming others as their good life slips away. So it’s past time to stop borrowing to import energy and most of the things we use but have given up producing â€" and get back to competing in the real world.

Quote from: Sigma on October 21, 2011, 10:28:33 AM

QuoteOctober 20, 2011 12:00 A.M.
Railing Against Reality
What are the root causes of the multifaceted unrest in the Western world?
------------------------
A smaller, older, and whinier West will just keep blaming others as their good life slips away.

Funny to see that the Occupy Wall Street movement is not limited to the West..........

Why is that?

Because unregulated capitalism as tried all over the world has concentrated income and wealth with fewer and fewer people, leaving the rest of us behind.

And you say "get used to it"


(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Gini_Coefficient_World_CIA_Report_2009.png/800px-Gini_Coefficient_World_CIA_Report_2009.png)


Seems like Canada, Europe and Australia are still in good shape relative to the US in providing their people with a good lifestyle in terms of a better income distribution.

The US meantime has joined the ranks of many African countries and Argentina, Venezuela, Equador and China with very unequal income distribution.

Even India and Egypt has a better income distribution than the US!!! Imagine that!

QuoteThis is a list of countries or dependencies by income inequality metrics, including Gini coefficients, according to the United Nations (UN) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality (where everyone has the same income) and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality (where one person has all the income, and everyone else has zero income). Income distribution can vary greatly from wealth distribution in a country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

And you feel a further slide in income inequality for the 99percenters in the US is A-OK, because they had it too good?!?!

Too good compared to Europe? Or too good compared to India?

People all over the world are speaking up against income inequality in a world where there is enough to go around in a sustainable way.

There is enough money to go around in the US..........it's just immensely concentrated among a few....... even companies that are making record profits are just sitting on $2 trillion dollars!

QuoteCapitalism â€" laissez-faire capitalism â€" is the ideal economic system. It is the embodiment of individual freedom and the pursuit of material self-interest. Its result is the progressive rise in the material well-being of all, manifested in lengthening life spans and ever-improving standards of living.

The economic stagnation and decline, the problems of mass unemployment and growing poverty experienced in the United States in recent years, are the result of violations of individual freedom and the pursuit of material self-interest. The government has enmeshed the economic system in a growing web of paralyzing rules and regulations that prohibit the production of goods and services that people want, while compelling the production of goods and services they don't want, and making the production of virtually everything more and more expensive than it needs to be. For example, prohibitions on the production of atomic power, oil, coal, and natural gas, make the cost of energy higher and in the face of less energy available for use in production, require the performance of more human labor to produce any given quantity of goods. This results in fewer goods being available to remunerate the performance of any given quantity of labor.

Uncontrolled government spending and its accompanying budget deficits and borrowing, along with the income, estate, and capital gains taxes, all levied on funds that otherwise would have been heavily saved and invested, drain capital from the economic system. They thus serve to prevent the increase in both the supply of goods and the demand for labor that more capital in the hands of business would have made possible. They have now gone far enough to have begun actually to reduce the supply of capital in the economic system in comparison with the past.

"It turns out that virtually all of the problems the Occupy Wall Street protesters complain about are the result of the enactment of policies that they support and in which they fervently believe."Capital accumulation is also impaired, and can ultimately be turned into capital decumulation, through the effects of additional government regulation in raising the costs of production and thus reducing its efficiency. This applies to practically all of the regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Food and Drug Administration, and the various other government agencies. The effect of their regulations is that for any given amount of labor performed in the economic system, there is less product than would otherwise be produced.

Now anything that serves to reduce the ability to produce in general serves also to reduce the ability to produce capital goods in particular. Because of such government interference, any given amount of labor and capital goods devoted to the production of capital goods results in a smaller output of capital goods, just as any given quantity of labor and capital goods devoted to the production of consumers' goods results in a smaller output of consumers' goods. At a minimum, the reduced supply of capital goods produced serves to reduce the rate of economic progress. A reduction in the supply of capital goods produced great enough to prevent the addition of any increment to the previously existing supply of capital goods, and thus to put an end to capital accumulation, brings economic progress to a complete halt. A still greater reduction, one that renders the supply of capital goods produced less than the supply being used up in production, constitutes capital decumulation and thus a decline in the economic system's ability to produce. As indicated, the United States already appears to be at this point.

The problem of capital decumulation has been greatly compounded as the result of massive credit expansion induced by the Federal Reserve System and its policy of easy money and artificially low interest rates. This policy led first to a great stock-market bubble and then a vast housing bubble, as large quantities of newly created money poured into the stock market and later the housing market. Between these two bubbles, trillions of dollars of capital were lost. In both instances, vast overconsumption occurred as people raced to buy such things as new automobiles, major appliances, vacations, and all kinds of luxury goods that they would not have believed they could afford in the absence of the effects of credit expansion, often incurring substantial debt in the process.

In the one case, it was the artificial rise in stock prices that misled people into believing that they could afford these things. In the other, it was the artificial rise in home prices that produced this result. The seeming wealth vanished with the fall in stock prices and then again, later, with the fall in housing prices. In the housing bubble, moreover, millions of homes were constructed for people who could not afford to pay for them. All of this represented a huge loss of capital and thus of the ability of business to produce and to employ labor. It is this loss of capital that is responsible for our present problem of mass unemployment.

Despite this loss of capital, unemployment could be eliminated. But given the loss of capital, what would be required to accomplish this is a fall in wage rates. This fall, however, is made virtually illegal as the result of the existence of minimum-wage laws and pro-union legislation. These laws prevent employers from offering the lower wage rates at which the unemployed would be reemployed.

Thus, however ironic it may be, it turns out that virtually all of the problems the Occupy Wall Street protesters complain about are the result of the enactment of policies that they support and in which they fervently believe. It is their mentality, the Marxism that permeates it, and the government policies that are the result, that are responsible for what they complain about. The protesters are, in effect, in the position of being unwitting flagellants. They are beating themselves left and right and as balm for their wounds they demand more whips and chains. They do not see this, because they have not learned to make the connection that in violating the freedom of businessmen and capitalists and seizing and consuming their wealth, i.e., using weapons of pain and suffering against this small hated group, they are destroying the basis of their own well-being.

However much the protesters might deserve to suffer as the result of the injury caused by the enactment of their very own ideas, it would be far better, if they woke up to the modern world and came to understand the actual nature of capitalism, and then directed their ire at the targets that deserve it. In that case, they might make some real contribution to economic well-being, including their own.George Reisman, Ph.D., is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics and the author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics

Rest of article:  http://mises.org/daily/5773/In-Praise-of-the-Capitalist-1-Percent

These Liberals taught us how to deal with the likes of the East India Trading Company and a self righteous ruling class.

(http://www.priestsforlife.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/foundingfathers1.jpg)

Finally some Americans are heeding their lessons and trying to defend Western Liberal Democracy.

Quote from: JeffreyS on October 22, 2011, 10:44:47 AM
These Liberals taught us how to deal with the likes of the East India Trading Company and a self righteous ruling class.

(http://www.priestsforlife.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/foundingfathers1.jpg)

Finally some Americans are heeding their lessons and trying to defend Western Liberal Democracy.

I would be interested in what you think those lessons were?

That individuals matter.

Seriously, that people are the most important part of the equation.  The government should be of, for and by the people not corporations. Corporations should be seen as tools for people'.   Corporation's success should not be the end goal people's success should. Well regulated capitalism is the best system so far to float the most boats.

My question was serious as well.  I also believe that government should be of, for and by the people.  Those that make $250,000 or more per year are people as well. 

I have not criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement.  They have every right to express their opinions, whatever they may be and however wide ranging they might be.  I see many of the same problems they see, although I may differ in what I see as the solutions.  Challenging authority often results in positive change.

I was curious as to how you believe that the founding fathers would have viewed what the OWS folks see as the problems.  I would disagree that they would agree with the idea of a "well regulated democracy".  I think they would have been much more creative than we have been in ensuring that multi-national corporations do not take away the liberty of the people economically or any other way.

Speaking of revolt... Is that the endgame here?

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 22, 2011, 06:27:09 PM
Speaking of revolt... Is that the endgame here?

No, we want a rising tide that lifts all boats..........not just the boats yachts of the 1percenters.

Quote from: stephendare on October 22, 2011, 05:41:50 PM
NotNow, if you follow the historical clues that Jeffrey has already mentioned, you will find out exactly how the Founding Fathers viewed the 'problems' that the OWS movement cares about.

They revolted, partially for the same reasons.  Look up the history of the South Sea Company.

Could you list the "same reasons" that you speak of?  I'm not clear as to what causes or problems the early US and the OWS movement have in common.  I am also unclear as to what your reference to the South Sea Company is.  Exactly what about the South Sea Company are your referring to?

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 22, 2011, 06:50:25 PM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 22, 2011, 06:27:09 PM
Speaking of revolt... Is that the endgame here?

No, we want a rising tide that lifts all boats..........not just the boats yachts of the 1percenters.

Of course, we all want that, the question is how can such a thing be promoted? 

Simple.

Conservative principles grasped by the Left.

The Right scorched by the Republican Party/ "GeorgeW"   

......a void to Occupy.

Huh?

Quote from: stephendare on October 22, 2011, 11:34:26 PM

Quote from: NotNow on October 22, 2011, 10:28:05 PM

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 22, 2011, 06:50:25 PM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on October 22, 2011, 06:27:09 PM
Speaking of revolt... Is that the endgame here?

No, we want a rising tide that lifts all boats..........not just the boats yachts of the 1percenters.

Of course, we all want that, the question is how can such a thing be promoted?

well obviously according to you.  by fuc#*ing the poor and returning to the Articles of Confederation.  Right?

Could we keep the conversation civil and adult? 

Quote from: NotNow on October 22, 2011, 03:53:54 PM
My question was serious as well.  I also believe that government should be of, for and by the people.  Those that make $250,000 or more per year are people as well. 

I have not criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement.  They have every right to express their opinions, whatever they may be and however wide ranging they might be.  I see many of the same problems they see, although I may differ in what I see as the solutions.  Challenging authority often results in positive change.

I was curious as to how you believe that the founding fathers would have viewed what the OWS folks see as the problems.  I would disagree that they would agree with the idea of a "well regulated democracy".  I think they would have been much more creative than we have been in ensuring that multi-national corporations do not take away the liberty of the people economically or any other way.

I think they would view corporations as having too much influence and our governments promotion of corporate profits as not having the bang for the buck for our citizens.

Quote from: JeffreyS on October 23, 2011, 12:33:53 AM

Quote from: NotNow on October 22, 2011, 03:53:54 PM
My question was serious as well.  I also believe that government should be of, for and by the people.  Those that make $250,000 or more per year are people as well. 

I have not criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement.  They have every right to express their opinions, whatever they may be and however wide ranging they might be.  I see many of the same problems they see, although I may differ in what I see as the solutions.  Challenging authority often results in positive change.

I was curious as to how you believe that the founding fathers would have viewed what the OWS folks see as the problems.  I would disagree that they would agree with the idea of a "well regulated democracy".  I think they would have been much more creative than we have been in ensuring that multi-national corporations do not take away the liberty of the people economically or any other way.

I think they would view corporations as having too much influence and our governments promotion of corporate profits as not having the bang for the buck for our citizens.

I think they would be shocked at what our government has allowed corporations to morph into, and I agree that they would be very disappointed in the lack of integrity displayed by our government officials (kind of the same thing, in the end).  I also believe that they would be shaking their heads over what we have allowed the banking system to become. 

But the answer does not lie in an even larger and more powerful Federal government, in fact just the opposite.  A return to decentralized power as envisioned by the founding fathers, with common sense state laws would go far in reducing the power of multinationals and their political money.

Quote from: NotNow on October 23, 2011, 01:39:36 AM
But the answer does not lie in an even larger and more powerful Federal government, in fact just the opposite.  A return to decentralized power as envisioned by the founding fathers, with common sense state laws would go far in reducing the power of multinationals and their political money.

+1  And the same goes from the state to the local.  Less control from the state on education matters and more local control.  To bring the power to the people, we need to have greater ability to influence who our policy makers are.  The best way for that to happen is at the local level.  Will I ever meet our governer or cabinet members?  Not likely.  Without too much effort, I have already met our local leaders and am engaged in regular conversation with them about what we can do to improve Jacksonville.

The stronger our local governments are, the stronger our state will be.  And up the line.  Reform should always start with strengthening the foundation level.

Quote from: NotNow on October 23, 2011, 01:39:36 AM

Quote from: JeffreyS on October 23, 2011, 12:33:53 AM

I think they would view corporations as having too much influence and our governments promotion of corporate profits as not having the bang for the buck for our citizens.

I think they would be shocked at what our government has allowed corporations to morph into, and I agree that they would be very disappointed in the lack of integrity displayed by our government officials (kind of the same thing, in the end).  I also believe that they would be shaking their heads over what we have allowed the banking system to become. 

But the answer does not lie in an even larger and more powerful Federal government, in fact just the opposite.  A return to decentralized power as envisioned by the founding fathers, with common sense state laws would go far in reducing the power of multinationals and their political money.

The answer to our national defense, never was a decentralized power..........likewise it would be foolish to decentralize reigning in out of control corporations ( think Rick Scott's cozy ties to his own company).

Listen........the founding fathers were right about identifying some of the dangers that the US faced at the time........and that the US would be facing in the furure, but they were in no position to be prescient enough to lay out solutions to what is happening now.

The only corporation with the kind of brute power that today's corporations have was the East India Company:

QuoteThe prosperity that the officers of the company enjoyed allowed them to return to Britain and establish sprawling estates and businesses, and to obtain political power. The Company developed a lobby in the English parliament. Under pressure from ambitious tradesmen and former associates of the Company (pejoratively termed Interlopers by the Company), who wanted to establish private trading firms in India, a deregulating act was passed in 1694. This allowed any English firm to trade with India, unless specifically prohibited by act of parliament, thereby annulling the charter that had been in force for almost 100 years.
By an act that was passed in 1698, a new "parallel" East India Company (officially titled the English Company Trading to the East Indies) was floated under a state-backed indemnity of £2 million. The powerful stockholders of the old company quickly subscribed a sum of £315,000 in the new concern, and dominated the new body. The two companies wrestled with each other for some time, both in England and in India, for a dominant share of the trade. It quickly became evident that, in practice, the original Company faced scarcely any measurable competition. The companies merged in 1708, by a tripartite indenture involving both companies and the state. Under this arrangement, the merged company lent to the Treasury a sum of £3,200,000, in return for exclusive privileges for the next three years, after which the situation was to be reviewed. The amalgamated company became the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies.[17]

In the following decades there was a constant see-saw battle between the Company lobby and the Parliament.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

Sounds pretty familiar now doesn't it?
Where are the people in this equation?

The founding fathers were very explicit about having government of the people, by the people and for the people.

This decentralize everything......local control, while sounding like power is closer to the people, really waters down the power of government over "large bodies" like corporations. Already countries are struggling to maintain power over multi-national corporations as they can easily shift their finances and questionable operations overseas.

To dilute such a huge problem, by advocating "local control" is delusional.

But on a positive note........I think there is major common ground on identifying the major problem that faces the US............the abject power of corporations at the expense of the people, and a government that is bought and paid for by these corporations and thus unable to do anything about it.

We just differ on possible solutions. And thruthfully, without publicly financed campaigns, we will always have corporate owned government that CANNOT by definition do anything to curb brute corporate power.

Quote from: NotNow on October 23, 2011, 01:39:36 AM

Quote from: JeffreyS on October 23, 2011, 12:33:53 AM

Quote from: NotNow on October 22, 2011, 03:53:54 PM
My question was serious as well.  I also believe that government should be of, for and by the people.  Those that make $250,000 or more per year are people as well. 

I have not criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement.  They have every right to express their opinions, whatever they may be and however wide ranging they might be.  I see many of the same problems they see, although I may differ in what I see as the solutions.  Challenging authority often results in positive change.

I was curious as to how you believe that the founding fathers would have viewed what the OWS folks see as the problems.  I would disagree that they would agree with the idea of a "well regulated democracy".  I think they would have been much more creative than we have been in ensuring that multi-national corporations do not take away the liberty of the people economically or any other way.

I think they would view corporations as having too much influence and our governments promotion of corporate profits as not having the bang for the buck for our citizens.

I think they would be shocked at what our government has allowed corporations to morph into, and I agree that they would be very disappointed in the lack of integrity displayed by our government officials (kind of the same thing, in the end).  I also believe that they would be shaking their heads over what we have allowed the banking system to become. 

But the answer does not lie in an even larger and more powerful Federal government, in fact just the opposite.  A return to decentralized power as envisioned by the founding fathers, with common sense state laws would go far in reducing the power of multinationals and their political money.

I am not sure  it constitutes a large expansion of government to have real campaign finance reform and strong banking/ wall street regulations.  I find myself less trusting of local government.

I Have serious doubts as to whether expanding the scope and authority of our current government could offer citizens anything more than expanding the status qou.

More patriotactism, more fractionalbanksterism and moving ever closer to slavery for the masses.

We need reform and even revolution and we will likely need it again in the future. Power does corrupt.

I FEAR my government.



Wait a minute... No I don't. I am the 99 percent.  I said it. Sue me for copyright infringement.

They are my brothers, siters, mother and father, sons and daughters and my allies. I watched from the sidelines as the tea party was usurped by the statists quo because they appeared to be a mixed bag with no real direction. Now they are fighting to further entrench republicans, whether they realize it or not.

OWS has similar problems. From anarchists to marxists are joining in. A bitter pill to swallow. Nevertheless, the majority are reasonable  and responsible people (just like Not Now) who agree with me on the perils of patriotactism and fractional banksterism.

Quote from: buckethead on October 23, 2011, 09:37:56 AM
I Have serious doubts as to whether expanding the scope and authority of our current government could offer citizens anything more than expanding the status qou.

More patriotactism, more fractionalbanksterism and moving ever closer to slavery for the masses.

We need reform and even revolution and we will likely need it again in the future. Power does corrupt.

So true...........just like we needed a separation of Church and State at a time when Churches wielded immense power, so too do we need a separation of Corportists and State.

There has been too much Conflict of interest, and we need to restore government of the people, by the people and for the people.

The scope of OWS is widening, whereas Tea Party appeal shrank among Americans:

QuoteLatinos Provide Key Support To Occupy Wall Street





First Posted: 10/20/11 07:31 AM ET Updated: 10/20/11 09:33 AM ET



NEW YORK -- As Occupy Wall Street has grown rapidly in the past month, with the number of supporters swelling from hundreds to thousands and like-minded protests cropping up in most major U.S. cities, Latinos have become an ever more important part of the burgeoning movement.

"As days go by and with the growth of the movement to other cities, the presence of minorities at Occupy Wall Street has gone up," Fernando Lopez, editor-in-chief of Poder360 magazine, said in Spanish. "If the movement goes on, this presence will be even larger."

And some Latinos aren't just participating, they're trying to convinces others to join the protest as well.

"We saw that the number of Spanish-speakers has been increasing," said Guillem Alvarez, a young student originally from Spain, told HuffPost LatinoVoices in Spanish. "Some of us decided to create a group to carry out certain tasks like translating the newspaper and the website into Spanish, or going to neighborhoods with a Latino majority to explain to them what is happening,"

Some sympathetic observers, including Luis Barrios, an Episcopalian minister and professor of criminal justice at John Jay College, say there weren't many Latinos participating at the beginning of Occupy Wall Street.

"This is a movement that -- we have to recognize it -- started among white, middle-class youth, but it has since opened up, because the crisis is affecting us all," Barrios said in Spanish.

But others contest that view. Roberto Lovato, co-founder of Presente.org, an online organization that advocates for Latinos, said that contrary to what others may contend, "Latinos have been present since the beginning of Occupy Wall Street." The Spanish language version of the newspaper Occupy Wall Street Journal and signs in Spanish around Zuccotti park -- such as one that said "Ya basta Wall Street," or 'enough with Wall Street' -- Lovato added, show the strong participation of the Hispanic community.

Julio Cesar Malone, a veteran journalist and columnist for Spanish-language media in New York, said he thinks some Latinos who identify with the movement may not have the time or energy to actively take part.

"What time does a Latino have to go protest on Wall Street?" he asked in Spanish. "Our people are working two jobs to survive. Many work 16 hours, and have to commute for four more -- that’s 20 hours; they’re drained."

But Malone said he remained hopeful the Latino presence at Occupy Wall Street will continue to grow, saying that "in time, the movement will continue to grow and the participation of Hispanics and blacks will come. I have no doubt about that."

And many commentators said that whether or not Latinos were a vocal presence in the movement's beginning, many of the ideas Occupy Wall Street protesters have focused on resonate with Latinos. Some said that they expected both the movement and Latino participation to grow.

"The unjust distribution of wealth leaves us, Hispanics and blacks, lower than at the bottom. Today, the whites are on the bottom and we are a few floors below that. We are in the basement," Malone said.

"As opposed to typical demonstrations where people go out to the streets, confront the police, throw stones and then go back home, this one is different. The participants have decided to stay put and question the essence of the system," Malone said.

"What is interesting," Malone added, "is that it’s a horizontal movement like the one that brought down Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. There is no visible leader; the people of Occupy Wall Street are united around an idea: We are going to distribute the resources better, because it can’t go on like this."

Other Latino commentators emphasized that Occupy Wall Street was important precisely because of the movement's inclusive nature.

"What we need to do is to find common ground," Barrios said. "Whether white, black, Latino, documented or undocumented, the common denominator here is that the dominant upper class is exploiting us. That is why we have to change these conditions."

Alvarez, the student from Spain, said, "This isn’t about Americans, nor about people who subscribe to a concrete political ideology. This is about individuals that have seen themselves affected by the system. The important thing is to be here, to come and fight."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/latinos-occupy-wall-street_n_1011283.html

Quote from: FayeforCure on October 23, 2011, 07:54:58 AM

Quote from: NotNow on October 23, 2011, 01:39:36 AM

Quote from: JeffreyS on October 23, 2011, 12:33:53 AM

I think they would view corporations as having too much influence and our governments promotion of corporate profits as not having the bang for the buck for our citizens.

I think they would be shocked at what our government has allowed corporations to morph into, and I agree that they would be very disappointed in the lack of integrity displayed by our government officials (kind of the same thing, in the end).  I also believe that they would be shaking their heads over what we have allowed the banking system to become. 

But the answer does not lie in an even larger and more powerful Federal government, in fact just the opposite.  A return to decentralized power as envisioned by the founding fathers, with common sense state laws would go far in reducing the power of multinationals and their political money.

The answer to our national defense, never was a decentralized power..........likewise it would be foolish to decentralize reigning in out of control corporations ( think Rick Scott's cozy ties to his own company).

Listen........the founding fathers were right about identifying some of the dangers that the US faced at the time........and that the US would be facing in the furure, but they were in no position to be prescient enough to lay out solutions to what is happening now.

The only corporation with the kind of brute power that today's corporations have was the East India Company:

QuoteThe prosperity that the officers of the company enjoyed allowed them to return to Britain and establish sprawling estates and businesses, and to obtain political power. The Company developed a lobby in the English parliament. Under pressure from ambitious tradesmen and former associates of the Company (pejoratively termed Interlopers by the Company), who wanted to establish private trading firms in India, a deregulating act was passed in 1694. This allowed any English firm to trade with India, unless specifically prohibited by act of parliament, thereby annulling the charter that had been in force for almost 100 years.
By an act that was passed in 1698, a new "parallel" East India Company (officially titled the English Company Trading to the East Indies) was floated under a state-backed indemnity of £2 million. The powerful stockholders of the old company quickly subscribed a sum of £315,000 in the new concern, and dominated the new body. The two companies wrestled with each other for some time, both in England and in India, for a dominant share of the trade. It quickly became evident that, in practice, the original Company faced scarcely any measurable competition. The companies merged in 1708, by a tripartite indenture involving both companies and the state. Under this arrangement, the merged company lent to the Treasury a sum of £3,200,000, in return for exclusive privileges for the next three years, after which the situation was to be reviewed. The amalgamated company became the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies.[17]

In the following decades there was a constant see-saw battle between the Company lobby and the Parliament.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

Sounds pretty familiar now doesn't it?
Where are the people in this equation?

The founding fathers were very explicit about having government of the people, by the people and for the people.

This decentralize everything......local control, while sounding like power is closer to the people, really waters down the power of government over "large bodies" like corporations. Already countries are struggling to maintain power over multi-national corporations as they can easily shift their finances and questionable operations overseas.

To dilute such a huge problem, by advocating "local control" is delusional.

But on a positive note........I think there is major common ground on identifying the major problem that faces the US............the abject power of corporations at the expense of the people, and a government that is bought and paid for by these corporations and thus unable to do anything about it.

We just differ on possible solutions. And thruthfully, without publicly financed campaigns, we will always have corporate owned government that CANNOT by definition do anything to curb brute corporate power.

I do agree that the undo influence of money upon our elected leaders is a real problem.  Of course, you can't legislate honesty and integrity.  The band-aids appear to be "restricting donations" and such when the real problem seems to be that our elected officials lack the integrity and honesty required to resist whatever bribe (legal or not) they are offered to ignore their duty to the public.  We need to elect honest and moral people.  This is an argument for more local control.  We can monitor our local officials without the filter of media and spin doctors.  We see how they live and how they act. 

Corporations were closely controlled by the states for the first one hundred years of our country.  Once again, the US Supreme Court has usurped the power of the states to control those organizations that do business in their jurisdictions so that now states have no recourse against those that operate against the public interest.  Returning the power to the states to revoke the right to do business in their jurisdiction to the states.  Return control of banking to the states where it belongs, so that banks must operate within their charter on a state by state basis.  And when they operate against the interests of the public, those charters would and should be revoked by individual states.  These actions would remove the well of bribery that Washington D.C. has become.  There is a reason that the founding fathers limited the power of the federal government.  The fed should not have the power to just print fiat money, which is a hidden tax on ALL of us.

We do agree on some of the problems.  I hope to convince you that just doing the same thing that we have done for seventy five years (growing the federal government) is NOT the answer.

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/occupy-atlanta-campers-remain-1209058.html

Long story short:

Occupy Atlanta hosts 2-day hip hop show in park, costs city $100K in extra policing on Saturday alone, nearly escalates "beyond peaceful".

A generator was brought in.  Police tried to remove it, but people stood on top to block that from happening.  If it had caugth fire, the City would be liable for damage and injury.

Central Atlanta Progress, the CID group for downtown, is unhappy with the protesters as they have hurt small businesses in the area (that's off record - what I have heard from the owner of a local pizza place...IRONIC right?), created excessive noise, damage to the lawn, and set an uncomfortable precedent of undermining the city's authority.

Long story short, as with so many things in this city, the movement has turned HOOD, and is now uncomfortable.  The mayor (who is black) is trying to shut it down, but he is in an awkward position because if he does Atlanta will be seen as a closed city and will get a bad rep.  The Brown kids have largely moved on and the thug elements have taken over, so our Occupy might be a little different from others at this point, but the world won't see that or sympathize with shutting it down.

The traffic police at my building in Buckhead have been at the park for the past week, so drivers are temporarily happy to make illegal left hand turns into my garage, but that is just how resource using this movement is.

Here is how idiotic the group is:

1) They protested BofA instead of the Fed.
2) They renamed the park after a convicted and executed cop killer.
3) They tried to storm Emory hospital Midtown because they thought it was in a conspiracy with the city to close an illegal homeless shelter that has repeatedly caused problems and broken laws for a decade.
4) They blocked John Lewis from speaking.
5) They are hurting small businesses.
6) They are costing the taxpayers a hefty sum.
7) They have hosted a 2-day hip-hop concert!

I HATE this group of people.  Luckily I have no friends who are participating or agreeing with this movement (even my most liberal friends are too intelligent to associate with such idiocy).  As someone said recently, the group is a cross section of Model UN, Lord of the Flies, and a Phish concert (except in Atlanta it's more like a Gucci Mane concert now).  These are the same people who host squatter's rights sit ins and oppose gentrification, which is itself the utmost form of stupidity.  (don't we all agree on here that gentrification helps the poor, the urban pioneer, and the city?)

I just have to shake my head at the distractionary and incessant mocking of the 99 percent while missing the entire BIG picture.

From an economic world view......it has been the 1% that destabilized our economies, and this is how they did it:

QuoteThis is as good a one-sentence take on the evolution of the 1% over the past 30 years as you’re likely to see:

If you believe â€" whatever your political take on it â€" that:

in the early 1980s the U.S. shifted from a tradition-driven economy where the working rich managed their firms for plodding stability (and were paid with a fixed and comfortable salary) and the idle rich invested in Treasuries, to..........

a shareholder-value-driven economy where the working rich managed their firms for quarterly earnings target (and were paid with options and incentive comp) and the idle rich invested in hedge funds,

then that would explain the rise in volatility: the rich went from being basically creditors on the economy to being shareholders.

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/10/27/how-to-blog-dealbreaker-edition/

simms3, the 99 percent isn't the destabilizing problem of our economy..........it is the 1% in power that has caused this mess: the burst of an artificial economy dominated by the financial sector, and the resultant high unemployment and lack of opportunity.

Too bad there still are people so easily distracted from the wrong-doings of the 1%, that they contribute/enable this sick system by finger-pointing to any and all scape-goats among the 99%. One of the most famous scape goats used in the history of politics was the so-called "welfare queens", which suppossedly caused so much mayham on the economy.........that, if we fixed that situation, all would be well.

See how distracting that was? THAT wasn't the real problem. The real problem is explained in the quote.

Too complicated?

Mainstream media has made an effort to portray OWS protestors as lacking specific demands. This is laughable when a protestor is carrying a sign reading "Restore the Glass-Steagall Act." I have never seen a more specific demand at a protest. And "How about a Maximum wage?" might seem frivolous, but it's advocating legal caps on executive pay.

The protesters know quite well what they want. It just happens to be a long list, with the solutions not always immediately apparent.

Controlled anger is a sign that the people are serious. A street-smart cop can tell you that a pale angry face is potentially a lot more dangerous than a flushed angry face. The flushed face may be looking to lash out in some general violent way, but the pale face is edging towards intent -- specific intent.

Mainstream media is having fun photographing dancing and music at the protests, but if you look over the sea of faces, relatively few are there for fun. They have fun to break the monotony, but it's not a party. Even the protesters' smiles tend to be ironic, as media try to get them to show excitement.

The temper of the times seems similar outside the protests themselves. Two weeks ago I posted a Huffington Post article which mentioned "There is a huge sense across America that the rich are increasing their cruelty far beyond the point necessary to live lives of obscene privilege."

Before posting I asked several readers if I was going overboard with the word "cruelty." All said "No." The reaction was so uniform I became curious, and showed the article to over 20 people. Every one said "cruelty" was the right word -- and every face had the same expression: a cold hard anger. It was faintly eerie. These are minds that have come to their own conclusions; they can no longer be cozened with false statistics about how unemployment is falling, or not rising, or "rising more slowly." They do not buy stories about the dangers of a "double-dip recession," because they know that on Main Street the first dip is still going strong.

Loss of patience by the masses means the force of change has been unchained; there is no longer the weight of mass disapproval damping down the protests.

When the power elite see the masses slip away from them, they know they are down to their own resources: police and army. In America the masses are now slipping away from the one-percenters towards the 99-percenters, and about the only mindless supporters of anything mainstream are Tea Partiers.

To see anything like this loss of middle-class support in America you have to look back to old videos from the 1968 Democratic Party election convention in Chicago, and watch middle-class people hurling lamps and ashtrays from apartment buildings and hotels down on the attacking police as they fought it out with rioting hippies.

In a similar but more peaceful vein, residents around Zuccotti Park are now helping the protesters by letting them use bathrooms and warm up. Across America polls are reaching as high as 43% approval for OWS. Since most of the public only heard of the protests a month ago, approval can be expected to climb. Meanwhile the tide of Americans moving their money from big banks to credit unions is surging at unexpected speed.

Basically, the middle-class and the upper-middle class are withdrawing support from the Establishment, which leaves OWS free to roll onwards with no opposition (other than armed force).

Revolutions come in different shapes and sizes: some violent, some peaceful; some economic, others social; some front page news, others unseen until the new day has dawned. What they have in common is the very word "revolution" -- a turn of the wheel, with the cart moving forwards.

This puts them in sharp contrast to rebellions, which are inherently conservative. Rebellions shout "quit pushing us!" and demand a return to previous benefits and rights. Their demands are inevitably more specific than those of revolutionaries, since rebels want the exact things they used to have, whether it is a freedom from daily floggings or a return to lower gas prices.

In the Occupy Wall Street movement there are demands for a return to financial controls, and a return to reasonable executive salaries -- but these are the tip of the iceberg. The protesters are under no illusion that the factory whistle will blow and call them back to work, or that the rich will stop the financial floggings on their own initiative.

In fact they know there is no return to the American dream world of the 1950s and early 1960s. They don't believe that a few tepid anti-lobbying laws will clean up Capitol Hill's corrupt relationship with big banking, or that the Fortune 500 will start hiring Americans again.

So we will see specific demands for the new rather than a return to the old: clearer-than-ever separation of commercial and investment banking, genuine restrictions on lobbying, stronger consumer protections, and possibly legislated pay caps on executive salaries.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicholas-carroll/occupy-wall-street-and-th_3_b_1083243.html

Faye,

That is the kind of opinion that drives middle America away from your cause.  Like some other posters here, you seem to believe all of the fringe crap that is printed on Huffington and other far left sites.  OWS has some legitimate concerns, but the fringe far left element is turning off most of America on a daily basis. 

Constant demonization of the Tea Party and the Republican Party only show partisanship and a lack of factual information on your part.  It is an old, tired tactic that frankly doesn't work in the modern age of free information.

Well, I suppose we can just wait a few months and see how things work out, can't we? 

     Thanks Faye.  Interesting blog.  I am so pleased at the continued protests, and the attempts at defining the current OWS phenomenon.  It seems that as the weeks pass, more individuals offer support for the ideas of the OWS.  But attempting to discover the truths of the overall scenario is difficult, as so many individuals, including those in the media, are at times either obscuring truths, or offering lies.

I am inserting a post I did on MJ over a month ago, as it seems still valid:

"Thanks for gathering the informative material FayeforCure.  I am overjoyed with the emerging movement.  Whereas the beginning was awkward, the end will be clear.  There may be hesitations, sidetracked energies, and appearances of failure, but the truth of the absurdities and abuses on the eighty percent is so formidable that a clear picture will finally emerge for all to see; and the pressure of need, of justice, and propriety will force the changes our population deserves and demands.

Many ....  the protesters, the bloggers, the columnists, the posters, are working a large painting, each welding the brush according to ability and inclination; but as colors and details are refined, as truth emerges, as the walls of secrecy are destroyed, and as the painting approaches completion, only the totally blind will avoid seeing the beauty of it."          

   The fact that the protests are worldwide might seem unusual, but it only shows that many of us humans, no matter our home country are prone, without concern for those destroyed by our efforts, to aggressively seek wealth and power â€" and to do so relentlessly, without end, even if wealth is achieved that can only be described as obscene; and all this, as we see our fellow citizens suffering to gain enough food to eat, and shelter from the rain.

     Recent months have caused more individuals to realize that our government, our corporations, and our financial institutions, including wall street, have been infected.  The disease has been suspected for decades.  The individuals infected show signs of extreme wealth and power.  The disease seems to be restricted to a small minority, perhaps to one percent of the population.  Analysis so far points to the high probability that the disease is caused by the unusual combinations of two viruses; one is called greed, the other is called by the rather long name of “indifference to the destruction and suffering caused by the individual’s actions during the quest for wealth and power”. 

     These infected individuals in government, finance, and the corporate world, are in positions wherein they can function in secret, and together.  They are in positions to use their specialized knowledge to leverage all things to their benefit, or to their friend’s benefit, and this, in secret.  Therefore, if they are infected with the disease, if they are inclined to greed, and to the accumulaton of obscene levels of wealth, they are in the perfect position from which they can exercise that greed. 

     The hidden scenario is much like the attorney who says he performed ten hours on a project, but actually only worked two hours.  He charges you ten hours.  You pay.  Or it’s like the auto mechanic who troubleshoots your auto and finds the problem and fixes it is fifteen minutes.  You return in six hours to pick up your auto.  He says it took him three hours to do whatever, and you pay him for three hours.  It’s like the rare book dealer who, because of his position of having knowledge, can avoid sharing fairly any assets brought into his store by a customer desiring to sell books.

     It’s called trust.  It’s called abuse of that trust.  It’s called corruption.  It’s called greed.  It seems that certain of our citizens cannot possess the idea of being reasonable in their quest for financial stability and security.  Our culture has produced a population having too many individuals who seem to strive for extreme wealth, far above what is needed for a comfortable living.  And when these individuals are in a position allowing them the vehicles or methods to exert this almost insane desire for wealth, they frequently do so brutally, tenaciously, and without regard for those whom they destroy or push to poverty by the very actions they perform as they strive to take their net worth from twenty million to twenty billion. 

     And these recently discovered wall street type individuals who have behaved as above, contributing in a huge way to the destabilization of our economy, have not only avoided prosecution, some have been given huge bonuses, while the average worker has been pushed further into poverty.  This very fact points to a shameful collusion between government and wall street.  I dream of guillotines in action. 

     And some people wonder about the reason for the OWS movement.  Only the ignorant, the stupid, or the very comfortable and uncaring cannot see the reason for the protests.  So….. to all protesters………… I am with you.  You are doing the dirty work, in the cold, on the ground, in the wind, and in the face of the comfortable establishment.  I salute you, as you are worthy of respect and admiration.  Your work will be remembered and rewarded as we all look back to when you were the ones in the field. You were the infantry.  You were the soldier.       
     

Quote from: ronchamblin on November 13, 2011, 03:26:17 AM
     Thanks Faye.  Interesting blog.  I am so pleased at the continued protests, and the attempts at defining the current OWS phenomenon.  It seems that as the weeks pass, more individuals offer support for the ideas of the OWS.  But attempting to discover the truths of the overall scenario is difficult, as so many individuals, including those in the media, are at times either obscuring truths, or offering lies.

I am inserting a post I did on MJ over a month ago, as it seems still valid:

"Thanks for gathering the informative material FayeforCure.  I am overjoyed with the emerging movement.  Whereas the beginning was awkward, the end will be clear.  There may be hesitations, sidetracked energies, and appearances of failure, but the truth of the absurdities and abuses on the eighty percent is so formidable that a clear picture will finally emerge for all to see; and the pressure of need, of justice, and propriety will force the changes our population deserves and demands.

Many ....  the protesters, the bloggers, the columnists, the posters, are working a large painting, each welding the brush according to ability and inclination; but as colors and details are refined, as truth emerges, as the walls of secrecy are destroyed, and as the painting approaches completion, only the totally blind will avoid seeing the beauty of it."          

   The fact that the protests are worldwide might seem unusual, but it only shows that many of us humans, no matter our home country are prone, without concern for those destroyed by our efforts, to aggressively seek wealth and power â€" and to do so relentlessly, without end, even if wealth is achieved that can only be described as obscene; and all this, as we see our fellow citizens suffering to gain enough food to eat, and shelter from the rain.

     Recent months have caused more individuals to realize that our government, our corporations, and our financial institutions, including wall street, have been infected.  The disease has been suspected for decades.  The individuals infected show signs of extreme wealth and power.  The disease seems to be restricted to a small minority, perhaps to one percent of the population.  Analysis so far points to the high probability that the disease is caused by the unusual combinations of two viruses; one is called greed, the other is called by the rather long name of “indifference to the destruction and suffering caused by the individual’s actions during the quest for wealth and power”. 

     These infected individuals in government, finance, and the corporate world, are in positions wherein they can function in secret, and together.  They are in positions to use their specialized knowledge to leverage all things to their benefit, or to their friend’s benefit, and this, in secret.  Therefore, if they are infected with the disease, if they are inclined to greed, and to the accumulaton of obscene levels of wealth, they are in the perfect position from which they can exercise that greed. 

     The hidden scenario is much like the attorney who says he performed ten hours on a project, but actually only worked two hours.  He charges you ten hours.  You pay.  Or it’s like the auto mechanic who troubleshoots your auto and finds the problem and fixes it is fifteen minutes.  You return in six hours to pick up your auto.  He says it took him three hours to do whatever, and you pay him for three hours.  It’s like the rare book dealer who, because of his position of having knowledge, can avoid sharing fairly any assets brought into his store by a customer desiring to sell books.

     It’s called trust.  It’s called abuse of that trust.  It’s called corruption.  It’s called greed.  It seems that certain of our citizens cannot possess the idea of being reasonable in their quest for financial stability and security.  Our culture has produced a population having too many individuals who seem to strive for extreme wealth, far above what is needed for a comfortable living.  And when these individuals are in a position allowing them the vehicles or methods to exert this almost insane desire for wealth, they frequently do so brutally, tenaciously, and without regard for those whom they destroy or push to poverty by the very actions they perform as they strive to take their net worth from twenty million to twenty billion. 

     And these recently discovered wall street type individuals who have behaved as above, contributing in a huge way to the destabilization of our economy, have not only avoided prosecution, some have been given huge bonuses, while the average worker has been pushed further into poverty.  This very fact points to a shameful collusion between government and wall street.  I dream of guillotines in action. 

     And some people wonder about the reason for the OWS movement.  Only the ignorant, the stupid, or the very comfortable and uncaring cannot see the reason for the protests.  So….. to all protesters………… I am with you.  You are doing the dirty work, in the cold, on the ground, in the wind, and in the face of the comfortable establishment.  I salute you, as you are worthy of respect and admiration.  Your work will be remembered and rewarded as we all look back to when you were the ones in the field. You were the infantry.  You were the soldier.       
   

Ron, you can say it so much better than I can!

All I can do is aggregate info. and defend my beliefs in support of OWS.

Here is a bit on the branding of OWS:

QuoteSaturday, Nov 12, 2011 12:00 PM 12:25:01 EST
The branding of Occupy Wall Street

The director of the first Occupy TV ads talks to Salon about the battle over the protest movement's brand VIDEO
By Justin Elliott .

Topics:Occupy Wall Street, Advertising
Last week, the first Occupy Wall Street TV ad began airing on channels including Fox News and ESPN:

http://www.youtube.com/v/GVQPo62x3UI?

The airtime was paid for through a crowd-sourced funding service, which has raised about $13,000 so far. The ad was created by freelance director David Sauvage, who shot footage on location in Zuccotti Park during the early weeks of the protest. The spot even ran during the O’Reilly Factor on some cable providers one night last week, according to Sauvage.

The ad was not endorsed by the general assembly at Zuccotti Park, the official governing body for Occupy Wall Street in New York; rather, like much of the work around Occupy, it was created as an affinity project by a supporter of the movement.

Sauvage’s bread and butter is corporate commercial work; ironically, his most recent project before the Occupy Wall Street ad was a commercial for the Wall Street Journal.

I sat down with Sauvage to talk about the creation of the ad and the continuing battle over the branding of the Occupy movement. His second and third Occupy ads are below. He is also planning a corporate spoof ad in partnership with some activists involved in Occupy Wall Street.

You typically work with corporate clients. How did you approach the Occupy Wall Street ads differently given that there was no client in the traditional sense?

I approached it the way I would approach ideally any spot. I tried to figure what was at the heart of what is going on. I tried to figure out what they wanted; I looked at Occupy Wall Street as my client, which was interesting because there is no one person who speaks for it. I wanted to make something that was both true to them but that was also palatable to a wide audience. Those were the two constraints I was operating under.

How did those two constraints shape the ads you produced?

In terms of being true to Occupy Wall Street, it was important for me to capture the diversity of views at Zuccotti Park. The movement has been constantly criticized for not knowing what it wants. I think that that criticism is a reaction to an actual strength of the movement: People want different things, and that’s something to celebrate, rather than criticize. I thought it would be a big mistake to say in the ad, “This is what Occupy Wall Street is about.” Because no matter what message I came up with, it would have alienated a third or two-thirds of the people there. It was a matter of having the balls to say, “I can do something that speaks for the movement,” and the humility to say, “I’m going to embrace the diversity of views that makes up the movement.”

In terms of making an ad that’s palatable, that’s casting and editing. I specifically picked people out who I felt audiences could easily relate to. People with tattoos on their faces or really shaggy hair, I tended to leave out; people who looked more presentable I tended to put it. If they looked “threatening” or “hippyish” â€" from the perspective of an ignoramus, I mean â€" then it was doubly important for me to make sure they were crystal clear in their thinking, so that we could undermine the stereotypes. I wanted the audience to think, “Oh, that is somebody I know.” I wanted to prevent the audience from being able to “other” the protesters.

How did the actual production in the park work?

I had each of the people I talked to say what they wanted many times over into the camera, and I had them do variations on it. It was very much directed. I never put words in their mouth, but I definitely worked with them so they presented what they wanted in as powerful a way as possible. I had multiple takes of many more people that I ended up not using. I interviewed probably 30 people, and eight made it into the final spot; those eight had probably five takes each.

When you were creating these ads, were you aware of the alternate right-wing narrative of the park as a place populated by freaks and freeloaders?

Yes, it was very much in my mind. There are very unfriendly media outlets doing their damnedest to highlight the most unpleasant parts of what’s going on, or to invent those things. And that didn’t gel with my experience down there, so I was very much seeking to counter that narrative. More importantly, I just wanted to get at what I felt was fundamentally true about the movement â€" and that in itself would counter the narrative most effectively. A lot of people have pitched me the idea of doing an ad that would show what Bill O’Reilly says about the protesters and then show actual protesters. I think that’s a little too conceptual for my taste. I don’t try to make points in my best work, I try to hit people in the gut.

Talk about how the Occupy Poetry and Occupy Streets ads came about:



I was at Occupy D.C. and brought my crew with me, and I saw this guy radiating a certain kind of charisma. He turned out to be a poet. So I filmed him doing his Occupy poem; the cinematographer Eric Branco did an incredible job of framing him just right.

The Streets piece was filmed on the morning after the city had been planning to evict the protesters from Zuccotti Park. At the last minute the city decided not to evict; it was, of course, enormously dumb of Bloomberg to wait until the last second to tell 500 of the most militant occupiers that they had won. The occupiers took to the streets and the NYPD sent mopeds straight into the crowd. The ad shows one of those scenes where the mopeds just mercilessly charge into a throng of people. The protesters stood their ground and flashed peace signs. I thought it was both aggressive and inspiring on the side of the protesters. This is not like the poet piece or the “I want” piece; it’s not sweet or loving.

In fact, in the LoudSauce campaign that we’ve launched to raise money to buy airtime, we’ve gotten a lot of pushback on the Streets piece. Some people have said they don’t want to put their money behind that ad because they think it’s not going to present the movement in the best way. Myself, I’m torn. I do think there’s something to be said for telling those people who are never going to agree with the message of Occupy Wall Street that we’re not budging. To show resolve in itself is a powerful message..

Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustinMore Justin Elliott

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/12/the_branding_of_occupy_wall_street/singleton/