Occupy Wall Street

[Riot]

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

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.

... snip ...

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.

... snip ...

A weary cynicism, a belief that justice will never get served, has taken over much of our political debate — and, yes, I myself have sometimes succumbed. 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 — 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 — and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts — behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis.

... snip, continued ...

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