You just listed some rich people who are Democrats. That's not particularly convincing.
You just listed some rich people who are Democrats. That's not particularly convincing.
They have further exposed the US power structure to be the Israel First racists fascist that they are and how willingly the powers that be use violence and oppression to prevent any discussion outside of the officially approved narrative
Nope. God did that.
Ecclesiastes 5:13 13 I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner,
runn wrote:
Hopefully, they all vote in November. The Democrats take everything. Put taxes back where they should be, the country starts the road to recovery from the W Bush debacle and then more "small" voices are heard.
Bring jobs back to the USA that Bush gave as a gift to China and we'll be set.
Hyperbole is awesome, isn't it?
barryo wrote:
My boss took his $10M salary and divided it evenly among the employees. Can't speak for others, but that made things better for me.
How many employees? Let's say there are 1000 employees. That equals $10K per person. That would be great. However, most companies that pay $10M to the boss have 10,000 employees, which is just $1K per employee, and that is if he forgoes any salary at all. Not saying that I would turn down a grand, but in the total scheme of things, it does not help the little guy as much as it "hurts" the boss.
fdsafdsaa wrote:
Thoughts on how we are all better?
We have a Congress, a President, and a national main stream media that has been bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists and special interests.
Pull up donation reports for 95% of the politicians currently in off office and you will see that most of their donations come from large corporate donations (opensecrets). The politician that spends the most money on his/her campaign usually wins. The only way for that politician to keep getting the big money (and keep winning office) is to vote the way their lobbyists want them to vote.
The OWS movement is very straight forward. They have only one demand: "Separate money from politics."
Sadly, the message really hasn't gotten out. Most of the country still relies on main stream media outlets (CNN, Fox, ABC, Huffington, MSN, etc) to get their news. These media outlets are owned and funded by many of the same investment companies that would have a lot to lose if they lost control over their politicians. So, the media & other propagandists (like: Rush, Hannity, etc) ignore, distort, and demonizes the OWS movement. If not for social media, the OWS movement would not be making much impact at all.
The establishment is a little worried about social media, and has been desperately trying to pass legislation that would give the government (and bought politicians) more control over what is on the internet (see. SOPA, PIPA and others that seek censorship under the guise of copyright protection or anti-porn).
The tipping point is a scary concept for the establishment. The OWS movement has been moving painfully slow, but the movement could start to tip the scales of public opinion, and cause an avalanche of social change in a short period of time.
Explosion imminent wrote:
Occupy Florida is ready to explode given the housing collapse is taking pensions down with it. 1/3 of Floridians are being forced back to work this spring to pay for their prescriptions.
Who is to blame for the housing dilemma? How is this an OWS thing. Wall Street had very little to do with the price of housing. That would be the gov't. How about they form a group called OWH. Occupy White House would be a better use of their time. They are the ones with (and used wrongly) the power to affect change (which caused the crisis), not Wall Street.
Democrats and Republicans only differ on wedge social issues. If you want real change, vote for a candidate that is backed and funded by the people and receives little to no money from lobbyists (especially large financial corporations).
Don't ever listen to a tax debate again. The tax discussions you hear on mains stream media outlets are ridiculous. All government spending is a tax, and all monetary easing is a tax. Every time government spending goes up, your taxes go up. Even if tax rates stay the same, the government will have to issue more debt based money to cover the new expenses...this is called the inflation tax. The inflation tax will devalue your savings and the purchasing power of your income.
Having seen the Occupy protestors in person on several occasions, I can safely say that it is not the media that is distorting their message. The problem is, they actually didn't have a unified message. Every person had a sign for a different cause, and it didn't seem to me that corporate campaign donations were the main issue the protestors had. I agree that the protestors brought up some valid points, but those got lost in the hundreds of other rediculous complaints. The lack of leadership and the disgusting manner in which the protests were held did a better job of discrediting the "movement" than any media outlet could. The occupy protestors had a small window to capture the American public with a unified message, tied to a face of the movement. They chose to simply become a public nuisance instead. Good riddance.
The Tea Party already brought these issues to the forefront (politicians having the power to pick winners and losers, and thus monied interests buying said politicians to curry favor). However, OWS refuses to take the issue to the logical conclusion like the Tea Party. If the government isn't worth buying (limited, libertarian style government), the monied interests (the evil 1%) have no reason to buy it. But the occupiers want a government that tilts the playing field toward them, rather than a level playing field as sought by the Tea Party.
Also, the Tea Party actually nominated and elected candidates to fight the broken system rather than squatting, whining, and being a public nuisance.
Where did you see them? How did you interact with them? You spent enough time with them to hear "hundreds of other rediculous complaints"? Why was their window small? What kind of nuisance were they? What good points did they bring up?Your quote is a good example of an ignorant and thought process trying to sound persuasive and knowledgeable.
RIP wrote:
Having seen the Occupy protestors in person on several occasions, I can safely say that it is not the media that is distorting their message. The problem is, they actually didn't have a unified message. Every person had a sign for a different cause, and it didn't seem to me that corporate campaign donations were the main issue the protestors had. I agree that the protestors brought up some valid points, but those got lost in the hundreds of other rediculous complaints. The lack of leadership and the disgusting manner in which the protests were held did a better job of discrediting the "movement" than any media outlet could. The occupy protestors had a small window to capture the American public with a unified message, tied to a face of the movement. They chose to simply become a public nuisance instead. Good riddance.
RIP is also too ignorant to realize their unified message is to educate the rest on the vast and many ways the average person is being screwed over and being taken advantage of by the gov't and the wall st brokers who they are friendly to.
Unification Through Differentiation
read between the lines wrote:
RIP is also too ignorant to realize their unified message is ______________
This is always the funniest part of the OWS threads. Someone comes in and claims that the unified message is OBVIOUSLY X. While in a previous thread someone claimed that it's OBVIOUSLY Y. Only to have in the next thread someone claim that it's OBVIOUSLY Z. This is exactly what RIP is talking about.
It probably does mean different things to different people. That is normal. The official goal of OWS is "to separate money from politics." There are many injustices that take place everyday that are a direct result of having a bought government & media. You could easily get a well informed occupier talking on many different topics, but the bottom line remains.
There is also a lot confusion that develops for a nation's citizens when the main stream media outlets are owned and run by the same investment companies that are buying off politicians. Many people know of the injustice, but are confused by the cause and the cure.
I saw them in Philly, at both Independence Hall and Dilworth Plaza. It's actually quite easy to hear hundreds of rediculous complaints when each person has a sign with a different message on it, and with websites devoted to people posting their sob stories about how they are the 99%. These people took to the streets before they even knew what they were doing. Of course there is going to be a small window when people are setting up shanty towns on public property, and causing the city to spend money both policing and cleaning up after these people. The general public has a short attention span, and they failed to capitalize on all the initial hype they were receiving. As a previous poster mentioned, the Tea Party is an excellent example of how to properly gain support for a cause. I don't seem to recall them needing to cost the public millions of dollars in order to get their points across either. It goes to show what a little organization, planning, and leadership can accomplish. While the tea party now has memeber in elected office, occupy is an afterthought resorting to rioting and vandalism in order to stay in the public eye.
;cbsCarousel
I saw this the other day and immediately thought of the Occupy folks. I wonder if they will be willing to stick a finger in the eye of one of their beloved or do they pick and chose which rich people and exploiters of the poor they protest.
Apple is no friend to poor people, but Jobs marketed himself as some kinda do-gooding hippie.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I liked how the Tea Party started out, but I think they suffered from some of the same problems of the OWS movement. The TP was hijacked by the neo-conservative movement, thanks to Rush and other talking heads, and there core values were twisted by the media.
Do you support campaign finance reform? Would you support an agenda that involved removing the influence of money in politics?
I agree on the points about the Tea Party, I was just using them as an example of a successful grass roots movement. Unfortunately for OWS, social media allowed their message to get distorted at a much more rapid pace. I absolutely do believe that campaign finance reform is needed. Between corporations pumping millions into their candidate of choice, and biased media coverage, it's tough for certain candidates to get a fair shake these days.
People like to state the occupy movement as an influential force in todays younger generation to not be as motivated as prior generations. I would like to credit Arcade Fire for creating this "acceptable" laziness. In their most recent hit album, The Suburbs, many college graduates took note to this incredible piece of artwork and were inspired to move home and back to the suburbs. Take a quick survey of where recent (last years college grads) moved to post graduation. Many of have perused the simple life of living in the suburbs but in a different way. Now they have no curfew and they are modern warriors in the suburbs whether they work at a call center, are a temp (aka substitute teacher), or they restock goods at Pottery Barn. They are the ones that are providing jobs for young 16 year old high school girls working at one of the many yogurt establishments in the local area. This "Arcade Fire" generation also prefers to display everything they do via social media. When doing something ask yourself this question: are you really doing something if your not telling people your doing it? In todays generation you didn't go out to the new bomb diggity Thai restaurant unless you check yourself in and take an instagram picture of your fixie in front of the the restaurant and another picture of the hot green currey that you will later regret. The song, "Month of May" does nothing but inspire people to be highly motivated only in the month of May. Maybe its because they just filled there taxes or maybe its because its almost summer or maybe because its May and who doesn't love May.
I went down to zucotti park for 2 weeks and was able to get drunk and high for free every day. My friend even got laid by some hippie lookin hoe. Yeah boeeyyy!!!