Occupy Wall Street
 

LOL - this guy owns the Faux News producer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yrT-...ature=youtu.be

That was pretty funny

It has gone global.

Hey it's Andy Bellefleur

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQPngo2L_d8

Good article by Ezra Klein:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...7jKL_blog.html

I so want him and Terry to have their own sitcom. The Bellefleurs.

I like the Union soldier cap.

Hey, on Kos yesterday it says Jesse LaGreca is going to be on Christiane Amanpour, was interviewed by Al Jazeera, etc. Good for him!

This is one of the best explainations of what "Occupy Wall Street" is all about, that I've seen so far:

See that crash? We all went down. But we, the taxpayers, bailed out those banks so they would survive. They did, and with record profits and bonuses. Meanwhile, we taxpayers are not only still paying off their bailout funds we gave them, we're still down in that valley.



http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/20...hose-side-am-i

Good column by Kevin Drum, with reference to a good Paul Krugman column
here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/op...s.html?_r=1&hp
And the bold is what Occupy Wall Street is all about. The public has had it. Are they anti-wealth? No. Anti-corporation? No. Anti-capitalism? No. Anti-greed? Yes. Anti-unfairness? Yes. Anti-ruination of the American Dream supposition that you can work hard and prosper? Yes. Real wages have remained stagnant for decades, for that bottom 99%, as the wealthy got wealthier.

Are there a bunch of half-anarchists and "hippies" in there? Sure, there are. But they are not the majority of the OWS crowd.

And Occupy Wall Street isn't going away, even though New York is about to try and come down hard and end it there. It will probably control the 2012 election. Hopefully.

And if you want a completely excellent, simply detailed (with pictures) explaination of current wealth and economic inequalities in the United States, here it is:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1...=sidebyuserrec

I hope the next movement is

Occupy Shower, or

Occupy Barber's Chair

instead of

Occupying Space, which is what they would normally be doing.

Wow Joey, you would have fit right in to Nixon's "silent majority", some folks cling to the concept that one can discredit those who have different views of the world merely by mocking them. I don't know whether this movement will grow into something that will change anything but if not this one, the next or the one after that...one thing for sure, a storm is coming!

There's a silent majority now too. They are forced into silence by the monolithic politically correct media. But they are still the majority and will prove it in 2012.

As to mocking them, I guess I am a little bit - but mostly because they are so consistent with this whole thing. Do they thing bad hygiene helps their cause? I mean, why make it difficult to get past your appearance and hear your message? Isn't that counter-productive?

Hopefully that silent majority will be culled and a new republic formed that doesn't focus on inane sh.it like physical appearance.

Well, if you are a Christian then you believe Jesus was the son of God, he had, by all depictions, long hair and most likely a straggly appearance. A person's worth shouldn't be measured by his/her appearance, this is a fight women have been fighting forever and is the basis for so much hate...racism, fear of folks from other climates and cultures etc.

I have a hard time understand how being anti-greed or anti-unfairness is going to get anything done? Why not protest anti-disease? See how that does.

Of course all the attention is going to these fairly pointless protests but the fact that what happens in Greece soon will have a far greater effect on most Americans than a bunch of people being anti-everything. As soon as it gets cold the protesters for the most part will disappear, the profiteers like fat Micheal Moore will fly back to Beverly Hills and the politicians will go right back to slapping banks on the wrist (ridiclous credit card rules which have already turned against consumers) while at the same time slipping cash into their pockets (bailouts to protect those injured in the upcoming Eurozone meltdown.

They're not protesting "greed" so much as they are protesting a system they see as rigged against the middle class.

Michael Moore lives in Michigan.

I agree with you about the state of economic affairs in Europe.

happens here every day.

The mainstream media's propaganda campaign on #occupywallstreet is obviously working.

"Derp dey don't know what dere protestin. Stupid hippies derp de dur."

I saw the best bumper sticker today on a truck at the Tractor Supply here in Red State:

"Dang right I'm a Christian. And I'm a Democrat"

I remember back in the 1960's, kids telling their parents that they should be allowed to have hair over their collar, because, you know, Jesus had long hair ;)

The mainstream media has been co-opted by the internet. Check this awesome video out:

Why #occupywallstreet? 4 reasons from DC Douglas (the former Geico voiceman)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK1MO...layer_embedded

The main thing coming out of this is that the middle class is pissed off and government and Wallstreet types are on notice. We have the ability to assemble in large numbers and if you keep this **** up maybe the next time we won't be so peaceful. That is the message I am getting.

Nobody is promoting violence, in fact, they are specifically telling people to not be violence, to be peaceful at all times.

There has already been one documented case (video) of a right-wingnut agent provocateur (at the Smithsonian incident in DC) - and the fool bragged about it on his employers magazine blog. Then the altered it, then they took it off the site completely. But of course, everyone got screenshots. He'll be arrested. He claimed to be the only one who broke through the police line and got inside.

He got tourists pepper-sprayed.

The non-American media has so much better coverage of OWS than the American media:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...?newsfeed=true

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1...n-DC-%28NEW%29

Conservative Magazine Brags of its Agent Provocateurs Role in Provoking Police Action in DC

Reminds me of a verse from Bob Dylan's 115 Dream:
"Well, I rapped upon a house
With the US flag upon display
I said, "Could you help me out
I got some friends down the way
" The man says, "Get out of here
I'll tear you limp from limb"
I said, "You know they refused Jesus, too"
He said, "You're not Him
Get out of here before I break your bones
I ain't your pop"
I decided to have him arrested
And I went lookin for a cop."
Ah the good old 60's when some things seemed to make sense!

"If you're old enough to die for your country, you're old enough to vote for the man who is sending you there."

It took like 8-10 years of protests before there was change in the late 1960's. And they had to kill Kennedy, Kennedy & King first - and Watergate.

A dirty, smelly OWS hippie on This Week yesterday
 

Jesus would not have been for this guy about to defecate on a police car:

Isn't most of the middle class working or taking care of thier kids?

The system has always been rigged. You can throw out all the charts and numbers that you want but the thing that is different now than it was years ago is that because of consumer credit, govt intrusion into programs for political purposes and simple evolution of social means what the "middle class" means are far greater than what it once did. Seriously think of middle Amercan 50 years ago and then think of it now? Outside of healthcare being a far greater expense now the midle class lives a far more prosperous life than it did.

The Gov't caused the housing bubble that burst just as much as the banks. BUT what are we going to do about it now? What do you do with people that can't pay thier mortages (despite record low interest rates) yet never should have been in that home in the 1st place? Don't they share any blame? Or the people who maxed out credit cards and now find that their credit sucks. Is that the banks fault for giving them the cards in the 1st place? Laying blame is a tricky thing as usually all parties share some of it.

The amount of money the rich has is really immaterial in many ways as so much of it isn't tangible anyway. If I was worth 1/2 billion dollars but the vast majority of it was in Solyndra stock, well how is that holding the common man down? Hell I'm broke now too! Too many people that think that they are being held down by the system don't look at themselves. Sure if you are from old money and get chauffered into Yale or Princeton you are born with an advantage. Sure the rich (really rich not the nouveau rich) manipulate the system but they always have. But that same system allows people that come from nothing to prosper if they come up with something original and work hard at it.

Protesting is great if it brings light to your cause. But you have to have a plan to further that cause and I'm afraid that the general message that most people get from Occupy Wall Street is those people are mad and fed up but really have no clue as to how to change anything. This is different than protesting a war or civil rights. A war can end and civil rights can be enacted via laws. How do suppose you "change the system" or rid the Earth of greed?

Sorry, no. All the economic data says no to your theory of "far more prosperous". And here is that data, in the link below.

By every metric: real income, buying power, tax liability, etc - no, people are not more prosperous now. They are less prosperous. The middle class has been disappearing.

And the fact that the data says "no" to "more prosperous life", and in fact they have a less prosperous life - is exactly why Occupy Wall Street is occurring.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1...=sidebyuserrec

Oh, yeah: not to mention today's headline about the continued diminishment of the middle class:

Yeah maybe from a technology standpoint but that affordability is dictated by the ruling class. In fact there are people who believe our government has technology that is 20 years ahead of what Joe Public is given.

I tend to believe it.

How do you think the government would be reacting if all these thousands of OWS protesters in Manhattan, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, DC, etc. - you know, the folks characterized as "angry mob" by Eric Cantor - looked more like this?

The data is of course subject to context. Think back to when typical middle class families had no credit cards, no home equity loans, one car, no formal personal retirement accounts, very little investment opportunity, during the 70' were paying 18% interest on mortgages, when access to higher education was more limited, when leasing a "luxury" car was impossible. Think back to when only rich people could go on a caribbean cruise, when a single income earner was sufficent, before the luxuries of the rich like cell phones were available at a reasonable cost to anyone. Before average people could afford personal computers or flat screen tv's.

How did the middle class fare in 1929? How did they fare in 1939? In 1979?

A good thing.


A good thing




A good thing.


No debt + saving your income + 21% interest rate on bank CD's equals great retirement account.


A good thing.


Bring back Jimmy Carter! Grandpa Sal's all-time favorite president.



I wouldn't go on a caribbean cruise if it cost zero.


I had no Cell phone for about six months -- best six months of my life.


You have a point here. We are in a golden age of porn and masturbation material.

You are not middle class, you are in a class of your own

Folks are starting to get serious..

http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/10/news...test/index.htm

Sorry, but I'm missing the point in all of this. Rich people are rich and therefore are evil? Taxes should be higher because Warren Buffett's secretary pays a higher income tax rate than Buffett himself (because, well, he doesn't take a salary.)?

Seriously, I don't understand the point of these protests. If you want to go to a place where everybody pays taxes out the wazoo, move to Europe. Don't begrudge the wealthy just because they've worked hard to earn their money.

Stopped by occupy Denver this morning with a stack of job apps. Not a lot of takers. Even the guy whose sign said "We Want Jobs!!!" he must've meant Steve.

don't begrudge them? we pay and pay, they can too, can't they? the koch brothers are loaded--i thought if we didn't tax the rich, they'd create jobs??instead, 700 people here just got their walking papers courtesy of the kochs. yeah, because laying off more folks will help turn the economy around!! :rolleyes:

Obfuscation. The federal income tax is 35 percent for the top bracket. 35 percent. How is that not a "fair share?" If 35 percent of any human's income isn't their fair share to fund the government, what is? 50 percent? 60 percent?

When a staggering percentage of the rich have profited off of the decade-long wars? 85%