"Occupy" Protests

Chris S wrote:   Blaming Obama for the current situation is a joke too, both democrats and republicans run Wall Street. Money transcends political parties IMO.

Unless there was a typo I'd say you have it in reverse, Wall Street runs both the dems and reps, which is certainly no new news   money certainly does transcend the parties.
I don't want an end to capitalism and taking a sledgehammer to the companies, bring it all down man.

At the minimal an open government that serves the people is all I want.  Doesn't seem like such an insane idea.


I will agree Drew that I really would not like a figure head. It would almost certainly be phony and just becomes a mess. The "street level" ethos of it all is what it's about anyway. I think, not even they really know what's going on.
Again, its a mess but I like that it's happening and the showing of rage is good. IMO the only ones involved that aren't legit are those going along just for sh*ts, or just to be involved.

You don't need to have lost a job or be poor to be angry right now.


Edited by JJLehto - October 12 2011 at 01:06

oh yes the differences they fight over are negligible and irrelevant, they are the same party. Wall Street pretty much is a political entity, I do believe that's the ultimate root of all this.

And according to the all knowing Wikipedia there have been some protests in cities outside the US. As you and I said, people all over the globe are in the same boat and I'm sure lots of them are angry as well. Maybe more will keep popping up.

They may not have started out with a set of demands or much of plan beyond protesting, but this is a true grassroots movement.  The tea baggers are what you call astroturf.  There are no doubt sincere believers but the driving force behind them are the Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party. 

Immediately Fox News and the mainstream trying to dismiss them unlike the way they fawned over the tea party.

I think the main service they have done so far is revealing what jerks so many Republican politicians are.  They are out there protesting how the middle and lower classes have been beaten up by the class war and get accused of engaging in class warfare.  Herb (thank you Sarah) Cain.  Says they all need to just go out and get a job and become rich themselves.  The jobs aren't there but thanks to cutting of grants many are buried up to their necks in loans without jobs to pay for them.  The first salvos of the class war were fired by Reagan and the Republicans.  You can only drive down the standard of living of the 99% so far and not wreck the economy.

Any attempts to redirect their anger towards Obama are laughable.  Obama's biggest fault was coming into office pre-compromising and now you hear this bull crap from Cantor: "I think he's broken his promise as a uniter, and now he's dividing people. And to me, that's very unproductive."  The whole reason the stimulus didn't turn the economy around is that Obama was too timid and the resulting stimulus too weak and often misdirected.

Here's the most laughable kind of rhetoric coming from the right and sorry another cartoon makes the point really well:


The 2012 election is now going to be fairly interesting, because the money floodgates have been opened by the Supreme Court.  Will so many people be persuaded to vote against their best interest or have they had enough?  These protests are going to be pretty much the only countervailing force against the money.  We still have free speech in this country somewhat.  But we're also up against forces working hard to discourage or put road blocks up for the wrong kind of people to exercise their right.




Edited by Slartibartfast - October 12 2011 at 06:58

Obama got a lot of money from small donations from the 99%ers.  He also got some big money support.  Guess who got what they paid for?

There have also been a number of 'End the Fed' protests, on a smaller scale, but no one seems to care about that.

Do the 99%ers think the Federal Reserve bailing out private foreign banks and other corporations with devalued digital money, is a good thing? Do they not understand?. Do they even care? or do they actually support it?

If we're not careful, the 'well meaning' liberals, will end up clashing with the Libertarian 'End the Fed' brigade. Divide and conquer, hey?

I was disapointed to hear michael Moore, last week, dismiss the practices of the Fed as being unimportant in all this. He continues to bleat his anti capitalist mantra. Not bad going really; a former communist party member who has amassed a personal fortune of over $100,000,000 on the back of the evil system that sold his films and books.

The problem isn't free market capitalism, it's crony capitalism and corporate fascism. In my humble opinion.

Jim Garten wrote: There is talk of such protests happening in London - if our recent record of 'peaceful' protests is anything to go by, so called 'anarchists' (ie violent heads with nothing better to do with their lives) will take over the protest & the ensuing violence will be the only thing covered by the UK media, leaving the legitimate protesters tarred with the violent brush - again!

There's every danger of that Jim, although I'm inclined to think such protests wont gather such momentum over here. It's just a hunch, but I think the US is more 'awake' to what's going around them, we're a little more apathetic, in my opinion. It's worth noting that Theresa May has been talking about legislation to prohibit protests in some parts of London, in light of the recent riots. Such 'emergency legislation' could be passed, if they thought Canary Wharf was about to be occupied by the nations dispossessed.

There is an 'Occupy Europe' movement underway, apparently. Someone linked me to it on FB, but I've heard nothing on the news about this.

I'm not really sure I have one. However, the vast majority of the public is now against bailouts, regardless of the macroeconomic consequences.  

manofmystery wrote:   The search for common ground (of course, this is removing the big money that backs segments of each group):

Chris S wrote: ^ My point being is Wall Street consists of both Democrats and republicans. It is not an apolitical entity