Occupy
 

It's been forever since anything new came up in here. I'm kind of terrified to make a thread, but I'm curious to see what everyone here thinks of this new Occupy Wall St. movement.

It seems the response is kind of polarized on the whole thing.

I'm curious to see if maybe we could talk about it here, since there's nothing better going on in the Palace. I doubt the responses will be too varied on Gamingforce, but you never know.

What do you think of the movement? Dirty hippies pooping in NYC, Boston, Chicago, etc? Would you go to one of the protests? Do you think the kids should shut up and deal with their decisions already?

I'm pretty ambivalent about it. I feel like on the one hand there are legitimate grievances to be aired, and protest has been effective in the past? It also balances out the tea party kind of nicely, except that I'm not sure the media coverage has been the same. I think it highlights the various hypocrisies all of us bring to political discourse in general. I guess ultimately, I don't really believe it'll go anywhere. Elections aren't until next year, and who has the attention span to continue to care for that long? I also don't know how the demographic of the protesters breaks down and I feel like that's important to the legitimacy of the movement. Is it really all just kids who are upset that basket-weaving won't pay off their debts like they thought it would? Or is it the guys that lost their blue-collar jobs and have legit tried to get re-hired for a year and a half and now benefits are running out and they have three kids and no idea how to provide?

Also, Menino had a point. It's all well and good to be all :mad: at Wall St. But punishing everyone else, most of who are also just trying to get by, is not cool. So I guess they need to target better.

Man, I keep seeing this talking point being dragged out and I straight up don't get it. Who is being "punished" by a bunch of down-on-their-luck folks camping out somewhere? Geez, did their crushing poverty and hopelessness fucking inconvenience somebody?

Wasn't it some goon in New York complaining that people "scraping by on $50,000 a year" were the ones really being hurt by the occupation? These people are so divorced from the reality of common people that they have no idea how to even appear sympathetic outside their own little subculture.

Also, why are kids who tried to get an education automatically less sympathetic? Would it somehow be a BETTER sign for the future of the nation if a generation of young people could not find some way to be productive? Oh, it's JUST THE YOUTH that are hopeless. Well that's okay then.

As one of the only people with a job near Detroit, I volunteered to cosplay as one of those smarmy asshole banker fucks, so we'd have somebody to occupy against.

But no seriously, the only way anything is gonna change is if the people with problems stop being invisible. So eat the rich, &c.

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add'l

I think that it's fair to point out that the blue-collar jobs that those guys above have lost, it's not just they're not getting them back, but nobody is. So if you're a kid, and you're not rich enough or lucky enough to go to the American Institute of Basket-Weaving, what are you going to do?

I think it's one of those things that will pass. I know it's a pretty big thing in the US, it's like the media's new celebrity gossip. Sure, it's making a lot of noise now, and is still making noise after Steve Jobs' death. But I think in a few wekks it'll all quiet down. I also don't see that much coverage on international media, it's pretty big in Reddit though. And being in Asia, much of the news we have now are of the floods and typhoons and the countries affected by it. Some of the people I know haven't even heard of "Occupy".

It's not just "kids trying to get an education." It's the whole follow your dream mentality, which feeds a sense of entitlement in turn supported by heavy collegiate marketing that has kids making bad investments and getting screwed. It's sympathetic, but tangentially related? Related to a lesser degree than people who lost houses and jobs and so forth?

Re: being inconvenienced, some guy who's trying to get to his job and has to suffer through 3 hours of a traffic jam because protesters shut down a bridge has very little to do with investment bankers ruining the economy. Also re: crushing poverty, that was why I asked the question about the demographics. It matters a lot who's actually doing the protesting.

But yes, I totally concede that when the protesters are all impoverished and everyone who is negatively impacted by the protests are complicit in or directly responsible for everything going to shit then sure, behind them 100%.

So, literally, you're ok with protestors provided all of them are already starving and they don't actually bring any attention to themselves. Hypothetically, where should these protests be held such that they will only inconvenience multimillionaires specifically?

Actually I would argue that if certain people actually paid their taxes then state and fed governments might actually have enough money to do upkeep on road infrastructure and um theoretically build new roads and relieve traffic congestion which has increased as a problem nationwide over the course of decades regardless of the presence or absence of filthy hippie rabblerousers?

Painting these people as entitled or "basket-weavers" is the worst kind of shameful victim-blaming. People with law degrees can't find work. Is law school suddenly one of the frou-frou joke educational paths along with comparative lit and art history now? There are, in pure numbers, far more unemployed people than there are job openings. No amount of WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PLUMBER will make that go away. There are literally millions of people who are chronically unemployed because a job in which they might theoretically be placed does not exist. People seem not to be aware of this. No potential series of Correctly Made Decisions would have employed these people; there are, straight up, not enough seats for all these butts.

Meanwhile many of the available seats that do exist remain empty because hiring departments are staffed with risk-averse cockfucks even when the economy isn't circling the drain.

Yeah, started my original post with ambivalence for a reason. Trying to illustrate that it's not so easy to take an all or nothing approach to this. Essentially yeah, if the world were extremely simple, then making a moral judgment on this shit would be easy. It isn't.

Law degrees are actually a good example of the victimization of prospective students by aggressive recruitment. Look at proliferation of law schools in recent years, graduating ever increasing numbers of JD's at an exorbitant profit margin. I feel really bad for those kids. I feel like that is an entirely different kind of exploitation than what is being protested.

Yes, there are kids who feel entitled to have everything they ever dreamed while working whatever job is going to fulfill their souls. I'm not saying they're representative of these protesters. I was asking. There were competing narratives re: privileged white kids vs. actually disenfranchised people.

All I'm saying regarding the situation that happened in Boston was that I'm not prepared to say that everyone with a job who is trying to continue working is complicit in this ruination of the economy, and yet people in just that situation are being negatively impacted by the protests. The only other example which springs to mind is sit-ins in the civil rights movement, but in that case, everyone who was impacted WAS complicit in racial segregation. Maybe other protests, say, anti-war for Vietnam were equally a pain in the ass for everyone whether or not they were involved. Don't know. I'm working from the perspective that the dude who keeps his head down and just tries to do his job doesn't deserve the hassle for being lucky.

The venn diagram of young folks who are poor and young folks who use college as Adolescence 2: Electric Boogaloo actually has very little overlap :-/

I would argue that people "scraping by" on $50,000 a year are absolutely complicit in the machine that has sold off entire industries and left 15% of the citizens of the richest country in the world in absolute destitution.

My issue with it is that it is woefully scattered in what it's trying to accomplish. I love the idea, I love the approach, I dislike the narrative being everywhere. "Occupy for a while and eventually we might distill our message down to something maybe, but until then we're anti-big farm, anti-government, pro-government, pro-feeding the world, anti-science doing things to feed the world etc..."

They don't have a real mission outside of "we're unhappy." Which is all well and good, but please come up with a mission statement before you expect me to stand behind you.

I mean I don't really understand what's so absolutist about "maybe we should have jobs" or at least "maybe we shouldn't treat poverty as a sin"

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alternately: are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

What I'm seeing more than anything is that the lack of a clear message simply underscores how many grievances are actually being put out in the open in one fell swoop. The main point seems to be about the wealth disparity, but the manners in which this is affecting people isn't as simple as one single issue. As such it can't really be boiled down to a clear-cut message.

The biggest victory that has been achieved so far is the amount of attention the protests have been getting, which precisely serves to get people to focus on something besides the mainstream media's regurgitating of politicians' and bigwig types' diversionary tactics. Though it took a while before people started paying attention, it's happening now, and the people who have benefited from the mess the US (and by extension many parts of the world) is in are actually beginning to pay attention. The best thing that could happen is that this movement doesn't go away until some major changes take place, and judging by the amount of effort that is going into making sure everyone is as comfortable as they can be, that might just end up being the case.

It would be nice, sure, if Paulites, hemp experts, and nuclear chicken littles weren't trying to co-opt this thing for themselves but that's kind of their deal. You can no more drive them away than you can get rid of Lyndon LaRouche, and buying into the media narrative that the whole thing is scatterbrained and totally aimless just because the usual suspects are present is silly. Yes, it's somewhat chaotic and headless, but this is by design. Nobody's in charge of this thing (officially, anyway) so how is anybody supposed to issue Official Demands?

By all means, why not hang out until they hash out something concrete? They have nothing better to do; that's the essence of their malaise. They've got plenty of time to work it through. The Big Tent is a strength.

Honestly, I'm not hearing much positive from any media outlet, and this includes my beloved NPR (although they're a little less hateful about it than the mainstream media).

The way I heard about everything was via Facebook, blogs, and people talking about it. At first, I was like a lot of you and I was all "well this is kind of stupid."

But then I saw union pilots occupying alongside with the kids. And then nurses joined up, too. Sure, they're union, and the union has it's own (often greedy) agenda, but it's interesting to see more than "just unemployed kids without a message" show up and protest. Say whatever you want, but these trained professionals who actually had experience out there are standing alongside the youth.

I think the message is pretty clear. "The other 99%" hits it home for me.

I wanted to go to our local protests, but I won't go alone, and after asking Chris about it, I'm pretty sure we won't go. I'm curious at the very least. I want to see just what kind of people are down there and how they're conveying a very important message.

I really don't have much of an opinion about the occupy events, except when it comes to this. You see, Wall St isn't the only place this is happening. There are Occupy events happening all over the US, including in Portland, where I live. There are two problems with this:

1) Portland is already a pretty liberal 'mom and pop' 'no corporations' kinda town. There's some big companies here, but they're all community friendly (NIKE donates a lot). We also have a ton of credit unions here and the big banks are actually quite outnumbered.

2) I have no problem with protests in and of themselves, until they block traffic for people who are just trying to get by and live their lives. This is why I quoted Pang, because the people who get punished are the ones who are just going about day to day life. I'm fine if the protesters want to block the parking structure for the people they're protesting, but in Portland, they decided to block off Main St, preventing traffic from getting through at all. Kudos to Portland Police for not taking action until they got word from City Hall about it, but still.

Ideologically, I am totally in support of the major tenets of the Occupy movement.

Personally though, I have no reasonable way to lend my support for these people. I have a job, I've never been unemployed for more than a few months since getting out of high school, I am in no threat of losing my job or being without one long term, I work for a Fortune 500 company that operates in two of the fields (retail pharmacy and prescription insurance) that take advantage of the 99%, I don't have a degree and thus no outstanding student loans, and the main reason I don't have a better paying job is because the one I have doesn't pay very well, but that's mostly my fault.

I haven't done "all the right things" as they say and I'm no more than a 27-year-old who is tired of politics-as-usual and corporate America feeding those politics. I realize that being there to show solidarity is really all the protesters would want, and that my grievances are sufficient for me to be involved, but I can't really consider myself a member of their ranks. And maybe that's my problem.

You're seriously going to use NIKE as an example of "one of the good ones"? Yeah, they donate. Most corporations throw donations at things a few times a year at the expense of .00000001% of their profits for the express reason that people then buy into the notion that they're a good corporation. Then they go back to paying some kid in China 3 cents an hour.

Look, I'm sorry that people that don't consider themselves villains are being inconvenienced, but as Lurker pointed out we're all effectively complicit in the way things have gone up to this point. I'm sorry if some people end up being late to work a few times, but it's necessary to present an inconvenience if you want people to pay attention. Fenced-in free speech zones in the park aren't going to cut it.

I agree. Which is why I said I wouldn't be lending my specific support, not that I thought they should fuck off back to the commune.

Nike has provided a ton of jobs and has given a ton of donations and community service to the Portland area. They're one of the biggest helpers of the community out here. They're also one of the few who have listened to people's complaints about horrible work environments for overseas workers in their shops and tend to provide better environments for said workers than other companies.

It isn't just 'some' people who are inconvenienced by this. Main street is a major hub road for the downtown area. The protesters putting up barricades prevents people who are just scraping by from getting to their jobs. The very people the protesters are fighting for are getting screwed by it. Not only that, but it forces our mass transit system, a system these protesters rely on quite heavily, to reroute, cause delays, etc.

Once again, they don't have to remain in a fenced in area, but blocking a major artery in a downtown metro area that, to be quite honest, is almost on par with what they're fighting for in the first place seems pretty silly. On top of that, out of all the occupy groups, Portland has one of the highest concentration of people. Most Occupy groups are ~1000 people. We're ranging about ~5-6k. Thats crazy for a town that is more set towards what the protesters want than nearly any other town in the country.

On one hand, I am for it because I agree that the government is a puppet for the companies that pay them in lobby machinations. It all comes down to "follow the money" and everything wrong started with Reagan busting up the airline control tower unions in 1983 or so. Since then, the continued minimization of union power, the increase in fat-cat donations to party lines and the hand-shaking going on between corporation and elected officials has been way out of hand. My political history is a little sketchy but didn't Roosevelt dismiss all elected officials in the House for exactly this issue we're dealing with today?

On the other hand, I'm worried because self-serving agenda assholes like Michael Moore are walking into the crowd and attempting to sway them toward his private war-mongering instead of actually doing something *people* want.

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The above link came from a great blog by ZeroHedge, which everyone should read - http://www.zerohedge.com/news/mike-k...-useful-idiots

Wait what?!

While the powers of the presidency grew tremendously under Roosevelt, and continued growing from then to the present day, I'm pretty sure they haven't gotten to the tyrannical level represented by the ability to dismiss the House.

Are there asians attending the protests? I'm thinking their parents will be like "Occupy Wallstreet? Why not occupy your homework!"

http://i.imgur.com/zP3T5.jpg

Like I said, my memory is a little sketchy but Roosevelt was known as the trust-buster and part of that mantra was from cleaning out Washington by dismissing people in office who were corrupt or taking bribes from corporations.

(Again, its not even 8 in the morning and my memory of Progressive Party history is nil. When I get home, I'll check the one book I have on Teddy to see what the fuck I half-remember.)

I don`t know but some thing like this would`not be possible in ??????? [Moscow] due to friendly police forces

I can tell you now that this whole movement thing has received exactly zero news coverage over here so I don't really know what it is people are protesting about. I followed Sass's link but nowhere there does it actually state what their issue is.

I'm guessing though it's one of these "Big businesses are greedy and taking all the money and not paying enough tax and now we're all poor" deals? Kinda ironic to see that in the most capitalist country on the planet. Free healthcare not looking so silly now is it?

There's people over here banging on about how terrible it is that companies are registered in tax havens and not paying their full rate of corporation tax and unemployment is getting a bit silly here too but it'll stop being an issue once job prospects get so bad that all the Eastern Europeans leave for home, enough people can't afford to buy or rent a house so living costs fall and we kick all the lazy people off benefits so the government have cash to spend on infrastructure.

Essentially countries are going through a massive settling and adjustment and eventually market forces will balance things out. We have the advantage of being able to up sticks and move to another country pretty easily so things'll calm down in Europe long before they do in the US but eventually things will sort themselves up.

I'm surprised more Americans don't realise this, you guys pretty much invented the concept of a market-led economy.

I think a number of people are upset at the large-scale government bailouts given to large banks and companies, yet many people don't feel they're seeing any benefit from how their tax dollars were spent.

That's not true. One of the defining images of this whole thing first showed up in the Daily Mail.

Shin, I know you're doing pretty well for yourself but this in itself does not make "The Market" a benevolent nature spirit that fixes all problems. You're being significantly more naive about economics than Radez, which is more impressive than I can really convey in words.

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The middle class in the States has been waiting about 30 years for "The Market" to kick in and make everything magical sunshine again. It's a stubborn little thing, that Market.

I'm not nearly biggoted enough to read the Hate Mail so I must have missed that. :)

I'm not being naive, Pang, I'm being deliberately obtuse (Borderline trolling really). The problem with relying on natural market correction is that there are no truly free markets, even the most laisez faire government will step in eventually to try to help. If the government hadn't stepped in to bail out our banks over here, then some would have gone bust, people would have lost their savings and jobs and been unable to keep up the repayments on the mortgages on their second homes. The remaining banks would have repossesed a load of them then sold them on. The glut of available housing would have bottomed out house prices, the income from the sales would have propped up the banks and hey presto, corrected market.

Of course in the mean time there would have been abject poverty across the country, a huge drop in wage rates, civil unrest and it would have been generally shit for ages before we emerged utopian the other side. No government is going to do that though, except a mentalist dictatorship and that's not a form of government known for standing back and letting people get on with it.

The difficulty states have and the whole reason why theoretical economics is largely pointless in these situations is that political systems the world over rely on keeping the populace happy in the short term. Sure the long game is the best idea on paper but you can't explain that to the electorate unless they all have economics degrees. There's also the fact that you can't run a government on a purely economic basis. Social security requires government intervention, the market will never support people who for whatever reason are unable to be economically active because the only people with a demand for that are the people who need help because they have no money.

My suggestion that the Austrian school of economics would fix everything is of course a naive one because in the real world, you can't just leave people to die of starvation in the street without becoming an oppresive police state.

I know a bit about economics really, I just choose to ignore it.

I just came in here to scoff and hope that you were being ironic.

A friend dragged me into participating in the whole thing tonight in my city. The grievances do seem to be centralized on Wallstreet, the government's bailouts of banks, and by extension the general corruption of Washington who are thought to be bought lock stock and barrel by the gigantic corporations (Example: A custom United States flag was shown that replaced all the stars with name brand logos), there were also during a call-and-response part where everyone was suggesting ideas a general anger at a great number of other topics, such as general Anti-War sentiments, a lone 9/11 conspiracy sign "Google Building 7", and of course the obscenely low taxes that corporations actually end up paying (A sign I saw: "I paid more Taxes than G.E. last year") and just... you know, a "I'm Sick of this shit" mentality that everyone seemed to be suffering as a collective whole.

Now one thing that I did like was that, at least today, everyone was very peaceful and respectful, even to the Police who showed up later (Although 20+ officers is a little excessive) that were mentioned in the marching "We are the 99%, Police are the 99%", with peace signs shown at the Police as a gesture of no-harm-intended. For the most part they seemed content to sit back. Of course I wasn't there too late in the evening so I don't know if things heated up.

While I'm still a bit skeptical and cynical that this movement will go anywhere, In seeing so many diverse Americans showing up for this-- some in wheelchairs, some well-off looking, some very hippie, some hipster looking, a few punk-anarchists, etc., I was inspired to show up again in the future and help out in some small way if I can.

Note: I have a job, but its low-paying, I live in a house but its due to living with my extended family. I don't have a credit card but I have student loans and a degree which hasn't gotten me anywhere I wanted to go. I'm about half and half on good and bad ends in my life, so perhaps that's a bit why I'm teetering on the edge of this. Go ahead and mock me if you like, I am not saying this movement is perfect by any stretch, but I empathize with many of the reasons this whole thing has started and well, I need to do something: I'm nowhere near rich enough to buy a lobbyist in congress, nor can I go into these corporations and fix their finances (nor would I want to: I'm no accountant), so this is the best I can do at this point in my life, as far as I know.

On a tangentially related note, I'll be closing my BoA account soon and moving to a credit union most likely, for a number of reasons including but not limited to these protests developing so uh, that's one small thing.

Anyway, I need to sleep, good night and peace to you all.

I have been itching to go down and join the many down in Zucotti Park. Unfortunately with my school and my work schedule it has been impossible to protest. I have walked by Zucotti park many times and am always amazed by the crowd that is still there camping out and occupying the spot. I only hope that this movement doesn't lose any steam and continues through the elections next year.

Also, I happen to be in the same spot as most of the people protesting. Having been stuck in the same level on the corporate ladder without any promotions in sight, coupled by a tough job market with an extremely unfair job market where people get better positions just by "knowing someone" as opposed to being functionally capable to perform the job well (We have a woman here at the office who drinks heavily and continues her party in her office. A few officemates have seen her come in trashed beyond relief, not to mention the constant sniffles makes one assume she has a chronic and consistant cold, or loves cocaine. She got the job cause she's a friend of many of the senior partners. Oh the sexual favor(s) she might have done.)

I apologize for the bit of the rant at the end, the workday started, kinda wish I was at Zucotti Park

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Eric Cantor was supposed to speak at my school on Friday and canceled at the last minute because the school opened up 300 seats to the public. "Occupy Philly" had planned to march to campus and protest his appearance. So he cancels, and the protesters show up anyway. Then they go inside and basically block the entrance of an academic building and start shouting "ERIC CANTOR WE'RE INSIDE, ERIC CANTOR YOU CAN'T HIDE" knowing that he's not there, along with "SHAME, SHAME, SHAME" to the students and a bunch of other random chants.

Then some guys in one frat started chanting "Get a job!" and held up a sign that said "Get in our tax bracket"

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Cue outrage. Honestly, I don't really care about the Occupy movement at all, but I felt like I was getting dumber watching the protest.

Controversial speaker is set to speak. Organize protests against speaker. Show up even after the speaker has canceled. Protest against the university students who have no clue wtf is going on. Get upset when they don't respond nicely? Grow up. Comments online are like "Sorry that we inconvenience you. We're only fighting for freedom" or "Don't be upset with the protesters, we're just so upset with inequality and want to be heard!" which is fine, but that doesn't mean I can't think you're an idiot when you go about it in an abrasive and incoherent manner.

Going about the protesting in a dumb way is no way to gain support obviously, and this video shows that this situation is a whole load of dumb and ridiculous. But taunting a mob and then causing shit is no different than this:

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This is part of the real problem too. "Shit, I might have to answer uncomfortable questions. Time to bail the fuck out."

Coulter has done this too of course, along with morons on both sides of the political divide. But canceling and running away because you're scared shitless shows a complete lack of trust in your convictions and it's a whole load of horsefuck. If you're gonna spout stupid shit, at least stand up and spout it. Cain at least has that on these guys.

I like the "Get a job" chant coupled with the person's sign that says, "I'd prefer not to."

I think we can put this down to the intense stupidity that immediately affects any human who enters the physical confines of a "business school".

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And let's face it nobody gets an MBA because they want to do something useful for the world, I'm okay with these students being protested if nobody else is handy

Wonder if those guys were inconvenienced on their way in to work?

sorry radez much love tho

Like cholesterol, inequality cuts both ways
Irvine Index

>Wall Streets Face when protestors

http://i.imgur.com/NHnY2.gif

Well, apparently the powers that be have had enough of this movement.

Just looking at front page news today I saw that at least three Occupy camps have either been evicted or will be shortly. New York's Zucotti park was cleared by police during the night, the Occupy Toronto camp woke up to eviction notices being handed out and posted on tents, and the Occupy London camp is likely to be served one soon from what I've read.

I don't know how much interest remains for this here, but I thought I'd post it anyway in the interest of furthering discussion.

Well, what did you expect? In the entire history of civilization, protest marches have not done a single thing. Unfortunately, you need something like the Watts Riots or people fighting police dogs because they have no other choice to get stuff moving.

In the US though the authorities can just turn up with the police and move people on. Over here if they try to evict the campers outside St Pauls there will probably be a months long legal battle before anyone even thinks of going anywhere.

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http://www.paregien.net/Articles/Lup...1963-08-28.jpg

I guess the question that is on my mind is does this signal a death knell of sorts for the movement?

I'm not convinced that it is, simply because it's pretty clear that a lot of the people in the movement are pretty adamant about adapting to whatever the situation becomes. On the other hand, if police are going to hound them wherever they go and not let them set up camp anywhere, I don't see how people will have any other choice but to leave.

No, but shit like this does.

Well, shit like that and all the crime and disease Occupy camps attract.

It all depends on how committed the protesters are. At this point, the public at large has grown tired of hippies camping out in their public places, and I don't think they've made a huge long-term impact. They've gotten people talking about financial reform, but if they go away now, I doubt lawmakers are going to feel pressured to make changes. As much as I hate to agree with LeHah, it's going to take some violence to stir up public outrage. Not from the protesters, but if more and more videos of police attacking peaceful (or at least not agressive) protesters, then maybe that will spur some real change.

Maybe if the Occupy folks had a single (or at most, two or three) CLEAR goals (I no longer know what exactly the Occupy movement stands for), or didn't have retarded ways of expressing those goals (talking about the redistribution of wealth in those exact terms is fucking stupid, sorry), then maybe this would all have an effect. I think it's dumb that the police are allowed to evict protesters, given, y'know, the Constitution and all, but still. The movement is horribly watered down and without any sort of central leadership. I mean, to extend the point Shin made: would the Civil Rights movement have done as well as it did without the charismatic, well-spoken, and honestly beautiful human being that was Dr. King?

The point is that it DOESN'T have clear goals, though. They've accomplished a lot, in making discussion on many of these topics actually occurring both in American (and international) households and to some extent politically. The movement is about being discontent with the entire fucking system. Not some arbitrary list.

Having a list that says DEMAND ONE: WE DEMAND FREE BREAKFAST BURRITOS FOR LIFE would make it easier for the media to shit on this list and mock it. Part of Occupy's strength is how difficult it is to pigeonhole the whole damn thing.

The outliers and fagboats shitting up both sides of the front lines (asshole cops and twatrocket protesters damaging property) are unfortunately setting the tone of this thing and causing too much of a bullshit focus. On the whole, this movement isn't negative in the least.

See, the problem with appointing a quote-unquote "leader" is that then the leader becomes a target. It's all fine to lionize Dr. King but let's not forget that some asshole shot him precisely because he was an identifiable leader of a movement threatening to upset the status quo. That's the part of the whole CIVIL RIGHTS GLORIOUS SUCCESS STORY everybody kind of mumbles over.

Am I suggesting that whatever random leader you decide to designate (really, just pick whoever) is going to have an "unfortunate accident"? No, but I think we're all smart enough to understand how much easier it is to destroy one man's reputation than the reputations of thousands.

(And, of course, when you designate someone the "leader" of a group you get to dismiss everyone else's agency since they're all just followers now don't you know.)

At this point I just have to assume some of you motherfuckers are either willfully ignorant or just straight-up deaf.

Here, look. The way modern government is in bed with corporate capital is straight-up awful. Ok? Is this a succinct enough sound bite for you? If it helps, imagine a picture of that and there's a cat in the picture and the cat is going "DO NOT WANT". That is, in essence, their function. To complain. This is not a picturesque process but it is necessary because if no one talks about it then it doesn't fucking change.

Evicting people from parks isn't the "death knell" of jack shit. Oh no we'll have to go and be loud and cantankerous somewhere else! Surely you have slain the dragon this time, brave officers.

V 2011 and people are still scared of "communists" and "anarchists". srsly wut

Well, that's just stupid. If the movement doesn't have any clear goals and just exists as an unorganized mass to complain, all it's doing is inviting groups with goals and organization (like various strains of Communists and anarchists, who are currently aligned in their desire to destroy capitalism) to co-opt it for their own purposes.

If you don't want the Communist or anarchist agenda to become, de facto, the Occupy movement's agenda, Occupy needs to put forward one of its own. Just complaining isn't going to do anything, and letting the Black Bloc and the Reds be the face of the movement isn't going to make the general public more sympathetic.

It would also help to stop all the assaults and rapes. Seriously, that shit ain't cool.

I think its fair to say that Occupy is rather post-modern in its construction.
That is to say that it is similar to Queer, in that its definition is the refusal of definition.
Such a movement cannot be co-opted by those with a structuralist agenda, as it is necessarily hostile to bullet points and hierarchical leadership structure.

The Tea Party was easily co-opted into partisan politics specifically because they structured their agenda, and could then be classified, used, and filed away conveniently by the media and in the public consciousness.

Though the movement as a whole may not be so clear-cut, the fact that general assemblies are held very frequently in most of the camps means that at the very least there is a well defined democratic aspect to the movement.

A thoughtful man whom I have deep respect for - but unfortunately he became a better symbol as a martyr than he did when he was alive. Similar to JFK.

The Watts Riots and the Detroit riots had a much more lasting effect on the American public.

That remind me of this fellow -->

http://www.universe-galaxies-stars.com/hitler.jpg

Ratty, queer as a political movement still has clear goals, despite its acceptance of all sorts of subcultures.

And Pang, don't get me wrong. I'm a firm believer in the idea that big corporations get all sorts of stupid bullshit from the government that doesn't make any goddamn sense. I do not want. My problem with occupy is that it's gotten away from being just that. It's turned into a shitstorm of a bitchfest, and what none of these people seem to understand is that bitching and complaining, by itself, doesn't get anything done. It's the start of something, but there needs to be more happening than just bitching.

I mean, I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from getting into a shouting match with my ever more conservative father when politics comes up. He talked about how he can't understand how the Occupy movement is being called a bunch of heroes for civil rights, while the Tea Party has been demonized as a bunch of racist ignorant hicks. I had to leave the room because we were at my grandmother's for her birthday, and I was not about to start fighting with him about how retarded that statement was.

Sometimes I think I make myself sound much more conservative than I actually am on here.

I'm starting to lean towards this position myself, but I can't quite bring myself to say that nothing is being achieved, if only for the fact that, no matter what, the events of the last two months have at least gotten people's attention and that certainly is better than just getting news about politicians creative ways of helping people and the latest in sports-related drama.

What came up a lot in what I've read on the subject since I first read about the evictions yesterday was that it might possibly be the best thing that could have happened to this protest movement since yesterday because the press was starting to pile on about the living conditions in the camps. All this talk of drugs, violence and lack of salubrity was partially becoming the image of the movement to a lot of the common-folk who had started paying attention, and by kicking the protesters out in a dramatic fashion, rather than testing the resolve of the protesters to bear the winter, it has given them a means to regroup in a different way to pursue the ideas that emerged from the process, if in a somewhat different fashion.

I know that in a lot of places the camps are still present, so it may be a bit early to say that the protests won't just keep going the way they were, but at least it makes it possible that something more than bitching and whining will come out of this.

I don't think anyone's disputing that, and I don't think anyone is claiming that bitching in and of itself is accomplishing anything. The point is to make people aware of the problems, to disseminate information, and to make the cause part of the national conversation.

What do you expect them to do instead? By definition these people are largely powerless. That is the essence of their complaint. I suppose if the entire mass of protestors across the country threw their funds together, they might have enough money to get one representative elected.

In fairness, a significant part of the Tea Party has essentially the same complaints as Occupy does (although somewhat different ideas about how to solve them). In a less partisan world they'd be working together. :(

(Yes, a proportion of the Tea Party is a clusterfuck of racist hicks, but then a proportion of Occupy is teenage hippies following the crowd. I don't think it's fair to judge either group by their worst members.)

Unfortunately, the people I've talked to who support or have been to OWS think exactly this - and get very, very angry when I ask them if they've seen any results from standing around and yelling a lot (Not in those words but you get my meaning). They seem to be under the pretense that being Hippies 2.0 is going to get some kind of result when that original movement was a complete failure as well.

I like the reason these people are angry but talk about doing everything the wrong way.

Riot? I mean, I'm into the idea really. Nor looting or people coming to harm. But would *be* something. Its still an option. And I'd much rather see people riot now against a rotting establishment than in 20 years when people are rioting to break into a bread truck because no one can afford food anymore. (Something of a stretch but we'll see.)

So, since Occupy is all about the airing of grievances, does that mean that the 23rd is the movement's high holy day?

Well.

Jeanine Molloff: HR 347 'Trespass Bill' Criminalizes Protest
President Obama Signs “Anti-Protest” Bill H.R. 347

n+1: Concerning the Violent Peace-Police

This thread world have just gotten depressing.

So you can't protest where an elected official is speaking.

So what?

Oh. Even if I didn't catch that, the precedent that this is setting is worrying me either way.

For example, legal loopholes for what is an "elected official", "speaking", location, distance, even getting a permit for protesting is likely.

I should rephrase that, I do not have a whole lot of hope in the legal system when majority of our politicians are being paid to speak.

The elected officials have largely ignored this movement, so being able to get some direct contact would be beneficial. With this law, that's impossible to do without risking prison time.

Well to be honest - this movement isn't anything in the first place.

Yes people are angry and for good reason - but holding signs and screaming a lot isn't action. Its that whole "raising awareness" bullshit - the passive-aggressive "if I inform other people, then THEY can act on it!" mindset - thats the problem. Everyone is talking. No one is acting.

Of course the officials aren't taking this seriously. Anyone with two firing synapses can't.

As to this law, heres what it says - "Don't do protests during elected officials speeches, rallies, etc". Yeah. Okay. That didn't stop Ron Kovic or any of the other people who've acted instead of just talked.

If you are afraid of being arrested for what you believe in, you are chickenshit and what you believe in will not be taken seriously by anyone.

As elected officials, isn't that their job? Don't we vote for them in the hopes that they will pass laws/regulations that prevent unfair actions by some people or encourage actions that are beneficial for everyone?

That's not entirely what that law does, either. It bans protesting from anywhere that's considered a '"National Special Security Risk", not just places where officials are speaking.

It's not that anyone's "afraid" of being arrested for standing up for themselves. It's that such a threat shouldn't exist to begin with. We're supposed to be able to speak and assemble freely, and that law directly contradicts that idea.

eks... Read what LeHah said again. He's the only person that's making sense. Also, yeah, we vote people in in the hopes that they'll do what we would like them to do, but, let's face it: pork in bills wouldn't exist if politicians of all stripes weren't in it for themselves. Politicians suck ass. That's why this bill got turned into law.


So protest the bill. Get your ass arrested. That's the only way for this bill to be shown to be retarded.

TL DR; The people will make demands, the politicians will make empty promises and threats, and nothing will change what is probably going to happen anyway. History is a bitch.

What has Occupy Wall Street really accomplished besides blocking downtown traffic? All their 1% rhetoric is Wal-Mart grade jingoism. Nobody does class warfare jingoism better then Marxists, who are noticeably absent from the political debate. This inspite of how hard government officials around the world are trying to prove them right. Marxists ranging from left wing intellectuals to the Soviet Czars predicted that capitalism would implode because the political landscape could not be united under one economic policy during a time of extreme economic crisis. This prediction is the most accurate when applied to the Europeon Union.



Far from matching that level of sophistication the Occupiers are just as ignorant as everybody else on what is happening. The concrete measures and reforms they have embraced are far from the cure-all they've proclaimed the Glass-Steagall Act (It's called the “Volcker Rule” nowadays) would be. In the Lehman aftermath there was a huge bank run on the money markets. Which is primarily a source for short-term bank credit. Even if commercial banking activities were separate from investment banking any crisis that seriously harmed one would threaten the solvency of the other. This is the dilemma our fearless leaders face.

I don't think the Occupiers deserve a lot of credit for waking Americans up to the fact they're getting screwed either. They just want their uninterrupted economic prosperity back. A sentiment I don't have a lot of sympathy for anymore. Seeing as practically nobody had a problem with the economic bubble while it was being blown in the first place. It was only when it started to threaten their slice of the American dream did the masses of people start to care about excessive Wall Street banker bonuses. What OWS basically boils down to is a lot of unproductive street theater. Which other activist causes tried and succeeded at co-opting. (Which is why Occupy Portland really cares about the fluoridation of Portland's water.) It lacks the clarity, organization, and inspired leadership other mass movements like the civil rights movement possessed. Despite all that it's given politically discontent and economically dispossessed people a banner to rally under. Which is why the political elite seem to be so scared of and are quickly passing all sorts of laws against public protesting.

Thanks for that report, Watts. Next up after the break: Linda, is it Panda Monday? I think it just might be. Stay tuned!

Hah! There couldn't have been a better parody example of why OWS failed.

Don't engage potential supporters. Don't listen to your opposition. Don't debase yourself by involving yourself in a political debate. Oh, that's healthy for a democracy! At least nobody should be surprised that American politics is devolving into overly emotional hysteria.

You sir, are a GIANT among peanuts. I bid you good day!

Thanks again, Watts, for that exciting PSA on how to give a fuck. Now back to our Kitten Power Hour with Janet and Tyrone. We sure love those playful kittens. Don't we, Linda? Also, don't miss "I'm a huge raging cunt" at eleven.

"I'm a huge raging cunt" moved to 12:30, replaced by Knight Rider reruns

Additional Spam:
rarely have I seen a post with so many implicit bitcoins

Those Knight Rider or 2008 reruns?

Additional Spam:
I would MARATHON that awful awful shit

Additional Spam:
I would MARATHON that awful awful shit

Additional Spam:
I would MARATHON that awful awful shit

Additional Spam:
I would FUCKING ROUTER