It seems that climate advocate Bill McKibben has jumped the shark. As evident on the 350.org website, it is no longer about climate in any way shape or form, of course, based on past behavior, it probably never was. Just have a look at some of the recent pronouncements from the 350.org website:
and from two days ago…
Listen to what McKibben and some of his fellow protestors have to say:
But even our own Willis Eschenbach thinks the XL pipeline issue is ridiculous, because there is really only one question: Where will the oil be burned?
I think this image sums up this farce pretty well:
I wonder what corporate airline Bill McKibben uses to jet around the world to speak of the evils of CO2 and corporations?
The only thing missing from the picture (though it is likely in there somewhere) is Apple Corporation, purveyor of (in my opinion, highly overpriced) computers which have an almost fanatical following in some circles.Now before you launch into an automatic Mac-vs-PC war, please read why I’m pointing this out.
Apple is company number one (according to Bloomberg) in growth and revenue, and #1 in tech (according to NYT) but the same people who complain about Wall Street, think nothing of getting fleeced by Apple for a computer you can buy for about a third of the price elsewhere.
While everyone is free to choose what computer works best for them, I find that lack of labeling of Apple as a “greedy corporation” very ironic, particularly in light of the worker abuse, child labor problems and environmental problems left in the wake of the manufacturing of Apple’s products in China. It is doubly ironic that some of the loudest and most acidic voices about climate and greed, are Apple product users, and raise not a peep about such problems. Apple gets a pass, probably because the Goreacle endorses the company and sits on its board.
But that’s a side issue, especially when one of the most intelligent and reasonable persons I know, WUWT author Willis Eschenbach, is a Mac user. I only point out Apple Corporation in this context because the occupy protesters and climate activists don’t see the very profitable and ethically/ecologically questionable Apple Corporation as being in the same class of evil corporations they protest for the very same reasons.
The real issue with “occupy” is the lack of rational thought and direction by this “movement”. Even the MSM and some university newspapers are noticing this. For example, watch this video from “occupyAtlanta”. They are actually proud of making a civil rights leader leave.
And in case you were wondering about the political angle, be sure to recite the Marxist chant:
The mindless droning has spread to Seattle:
They may as well be chanting Imhotep Imhotep! Imhotep!!
There’s a name for people like this: useful idiots.
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Why don’t these morons buy shares of GE, Exxon, and any other large corporation (newsflash: you can buy shares of an S&P 500 fund). Then, you can be a fat cat like the 1%. Then again, that would be too logical for these idiots.
DTarris says:
October 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm
I’m guessing a large number of the posters on this thread are perfectly happy with how things have gone….
_________________________________
I think by now (or at least I hope) that most of us are aware that we do not have control of our governments, the rich and powerful do.
The problem is protests can be twisted and used against us ESPECIALLY when those protesting do not have specific goals.
Remember it was the protest of the sixties and seventies that were used to “grow” the government into the bureaucratic monstrosity it is now. So excuse us if we view protests with distaste, we have seen the results and they are not good.
Have one in the spam filter 🙁
[Sorry, nothing in the Spam folder. Can you re-post? ~dbs, mod.]
Sun Spot says:
October 9, 2011 at 5:02 pm
1% of Americans control 90% of the wealth.
1% of Americans pay 40% of the income taxes on 20% of the income. So how’s that $14.5 trillion, and escalating at $1.5 trillion/yr., National debt working out for you so far, and how much of it do you now owe back? Or is that someone else’s problem, the 1% and future generations.
In other words, why do you think that letting the Gov’t own and redistribute all “wealth” via a ‘real democracy’ is going to work out well for anyone except the Redistributors? What do you mean by “equal” and how would you keep everyone “equal”, except for the usual eventuation of Communism’s equal impoverishment and slavery?
If I spend $5000 of my income on partying and you build a garage with your $5000, do you owe me $5000 so that we’re back to being “equal” as to what we both started with? Hey, I’m really going to have some fun!
But where did you get that rediculous meme from in the first place, and what do you mean by “wealth”? Did someone forget about the Gov’t, its taxing and spending power, its power to make all manner of laws, and its Public Lands and its services, most importantly including Military Defense, its facilities, etc.. Btw, do you really think the “wealth” expended or constituting the defense of America could be “better spent” elsewhere, and what value do you place on your own freedom and life? Would you really rather see a Nuclear War as America’s only defense?
Listen, within our system of Constitutional Capitalism, I own some land that I wouldn’t sell for any amount, so does that make me infinitely “wealthy”? But if I sold it for $10 billion, I presume I would then be one of that evil 1%, and you’d be complaining about my “unfair” share, too?
Special hint: once you start forced redistribution for Social Justice’s democracy, “wealth” ceases to mean anything the recipients because it’s never yours! It’s “owned” by the redistributors, i.e., the Central Party! So 1] less of whatever it is, including the very basic necessities, is produced simply because no one has any incentive to work; and 2] there’s essentially no way to put a monetary value on anything because there’s no market like the previous one you started with, to value it with. It then comes down to “dog eat dog” as “wealth”. Or else, see North Korea, especially as compared to South Korea.
The only rich people in your implied Utopia are the less than 1% Redistributors. So get ready to beg, obey orders, sell your body, and tow the line as to your thought and speech, that is, if you want to eat – and also get some of that Obamacare, where the brilliant cost/benefit redistributors determine your complete “complete life” value, a metric which, of course, is never applied to them, while they haven’t produced anything that they are redistributing to the rest of us.
It’s those evil big banking corporations that got us into this mess.
You know, those ones we invented Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac for to tell them that it was ok to lend to poor people, since we would cover it if the loan fell through (we didn’t).
Those ones we sent Janet Reno to tell them that if they didn’t make those loans, we would charge them with discrimination.
So there was no risk to the loans, and we would punish them if they did not make them, so of course those who made loans were encouraged, and those who would not were fired.
Result, lots more loans, result, lots of money aimed at houses, result, housing priced doubled (not exactly the result we were looking for when we started all this to allow poor people to all own a home).
Note that houses are now costing twice what they did before, question, are they actually worth twice what they were before?
Government encouraged this since it resulted in higher property value, which meant higher property tax revenues on the now inflated value of the homes, plus greater economic revenue, which could be, taxed from building and selling homes and the general economic activity off of that.
We also allowed and even encouraged taking out big loans on the now inflated value of our homes for such important things as blowing it all on a vacation, result, even more economic activity which could be taxed.
This could continue as long as housing prices went up fast, which they could not do forever, this is known as a bubble.
This ran up against the economic law “if something cannot go on forever, it will stop”.
So now people are stuck with big loans on houses (some of which they blew on that vacation) which now cost half of what they paid for them, or about what they are actually worth.
Government, having went on a sending spree with all this bubble money, now refuses to cut back the pensions, number of government employees, pensions, government giveouts, pensions, salaries and benefits, pensions, and just general “waste” (best described as graft and corruption), oh, and did I mention pensions? Pensions, that’s where we pay them to do nothing. I believe forcing some people to work for other people who do not work is known as “slavery”.
So now the people were given money they did not earn for a big fancy house, which they got to enjoy for a while, how were they hurt, they are the ones after all who got free money from the bank for a while, the ones who voted for all thus pressure to make all these loans?
So now the bank is stuck with a house that cost the bank twice what it will actually sell for now that the price has dropped down to (or for a while below) it’s actual value, and they don’t get paid back their loan money since we reneged on the promise of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, so, how does the bank win here, how are they the ones being blamed?
And the bank paid all that money for inflated houses to whom exactly (when we figure out this, maybe we will discover who is the reel greedy, evil one here)?
Of course, if it is construction unions, who pay big bribes to the government (as it must be at least in part), we will not hear of it from the left dominated pro big government press and the government itself, who, after all, don’t want to pay it themselves, but are all for the idea of extracting if from those evil big banks and corporations (I believe the proper phrase is “deep pockets”).
And we are now stuck with a government that insists on being paid the inflated prices from this bubble that allowed them to grow to such huge size and costs, and further insist that the cure is even more big government.
So, we told those evil big corporations to give us the free money, told them we would hurt them if they did not, are now staging protests, essentially resorting to violence to extract it, why, it’s simple WE WANT THE MONEY. So who exactly are the greedy ones here?
And how did this all happen? Well, these kinds grew up without ever being spanked (Dr Spock told them it was ok, later he changed his mind and nobody listened). From this they never leaned an essential lesson “actions have consequences”, thus they never even think how their actions today will effect tomorrow. From that they also never learned another essential lesson, “delayed gratification”, thus they never learned to control their emotions (they do not understand reason, it is foreign to them), if they want it now (“now now NOW!”), why, they must have it now! From this they learned that you can get anything you want if you just scream loud enough (these protests are nothing more than mass temper tantrums). Why do some dress up in odd costumes, simple, they are still in kindergarten, and this is a kindergarten play to them, fun, exiting, gives them a feeling of power.
In short, they need to do something they have never done and cannot even understand, GROW UP.
Note that such people will NEVER understand the truth about “Climate Change”. They will not respond to reason, reason is a concept foreign to them. “Saving the planet” feels, good, “feels good” is all they understand. If the cure has consequences, this is something they can’t understand, they can’t even spell consequences.
This has all happened before. They blamed the fall of Rome on children who were no longer allowed, by law, to be punished. Those children wanted cheap grain (“now now NOW”), so the government required those “evil big corporations” to sell it to them so cheap that they went out of business. But they discovered a solution, go to other people’s countries and enslave them, make THEM grow the grain. We have a choice if we want to continue with the free stuff, go to other countries and enslave them for the stuff, or we can enslave most of our own people under the leadership of “The Great Leader” who will promise to fix all this.
And when you see the protesters, just think “mass temper tantrum” and it will all become clear.
Smokey says:
October 9, 2011 at 7:01 pm
The rent-a-mob has no interest in trying to “fix what’s broken.” Coveting the property of others is their motivation.
=======================
I feel your sentiment Smokey, but isn’t that too broad a brush? There are plenty of people in this protest who are just fed up. College-educated. Can’t get a job.
The rent-a-mob elements are the hijackers, the ones who are trucked in by organized labor, those scary anarchist loser-types that like to show up wearing black and masks, and just the dead-beat drum-beaters who have smoked waaaay too much weed.
All of that aside, I can not help but agree with the sentiment of the saner ones in the crowd.
But they need to shift their focus to the GOVERNMENT which acts with the unwarranted, unattained, and UNEARNED “arrogance” of a private corporation, but with the PUBLIC’s money…and with the unwieldy power of any statist regime.
They would get more sentiment from a broader necessary audience if they dropped the “corporate greed” moniker and shifted it to “government greed.”
But, unfortunately, they will not do that, because their labor organizers…are funded by public money.
They would rather attack the easy targets (the private sector), rather than go after the very racket that is helping sink this country: organized labor…..and their current politically funded mouthpiece…this present administration.
HA! Herman Cain just said it on TV. Just now. Right on!!
“The protesters don’t need to be protesting Wall Street”, said Cain. “Wall Street didn’t just spend $1 Trillion of their money.”
Can I have an AMEN??
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
It is becoming painfully obvious that people are disconnected from reality everywhere. When the baby boomers start cashing in those 401s it will eventually lead to blood on the streets. I am beginning to suspect that the AGW thing will be over well before it gets too much of a hold on global financial policy. I envisage that the next twenty years in the US are going to end up extremely messy and bloody. The writing is on the wall. The wall you used to own.
While I am not a fan of the big banks, I wonder if those who claim that the taxpayers are on the hook realize that most if not all the big wall street banks paid back the TARP “loans” and that some of the banks were forced to take the loans they did not want , while some others were virtually forced to take weaker banks into their ” fold” to avoid their failure. Many banks have also made interest payments to the US Treasury.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/242731/did-tarp-money-really-get-paid-back-kevin-d-williamson?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
It is extremely difficult to get a clear picture of who paid and who still owes but it is clear that many banks did return the loans with interest.
Unfortunately as payments were made, the treasury used this as a slush fund in violation of the original TARP plan to bail out GM and other companies. The huge financial liability that the taxpayers have is from Fanny and Fredie Mac who were the real villians who backed up all the foolish loans.
The folks are demonstrating at the wrong location,
Also at least one smaller bank apparently got a risky bail out because a Congresswomen pushed for a bailout for a bank in which her husband has financaial Interest.
It’s just so amazing. These kids have the motivation to protest and march but apparently not enough to study any history or economics and understand what, how, who and why. The answers are readily available and easy to grasp. There are no “evil” corporations. Corporations are merely legal entities controlled by shareholders who are people through directors and officers who are also people. More than 99% of everyone in this country is a shareholder in multiple corporations either directly, through a mutual fund, an IRA account, or a pension plan or indirectly through any bank account, social security withholding or credit card (all use equity markets).
The corporations work for us – both as their customers and as their owners. Sometimes some of the people we hire as directors and officers might break the law and when they do, the ones that get caught get punished. Most of them get caught. If not the first time, then pretty quickly. These days the penalties are severe. If Martha Stewart with all her connections and the best lawyers can go to real jail for trading a relatively small amount of stock allegedly based on third-hand insider info (there was never any direct evidence), then I’d say that the rich and powerful break the law at their peril.
Some don’t break the law but they do other things that are unwise, imprudent or even idiotic. They get fired by us shareholders or those we select to manage them. If there are greedy, evil directors, officers or executives getting away with stealing, fraud or unjust enrichment, then we should protest to insist that our government enforce the laws. We don’t need any more laws to handle this because *any* kind of stealing, fraud and lying (now, even by omission) by an officer of a public corporation is already against the law.
Most of the folks that run most of our corporations are ethical and honorable people, just like most of the people walking down most streets are ethical and honorable. However, there will always be a few that break the rules just like there will always be a few street criminals that try to rob convenience stores. In both cases it is stupid and if they keep doing it, they get caught.
So what exactly are the protesters after? If it’s new or different laws they want, then there is a well-understood process for changing the laws. If they want to punish some business people even though they didn’t break the law, that’s mob rule and totalitarian government and I’m pretty sure everyone’s in agreement that would be bad. Because once the mob rules, the next person they decide to arbitrarily punish could be any of us.
So I sit here and watch people protest against themselves, seeking a halt to the success of the corporations they themselves own, which make the products and services the protesters support with their dollars and demanding the government outlaw things which are already against several laws. To me, this is clear evidence that the education system has only half educated these kids. Maybe that’s what they should be protesting instead.
Quick primer on the financial system at its root:
97 percent of the money in the US and Canada has been created, out of nothing, by private banks, as loans, mortgages, and other forms of credit. This 97% must be paid back to the private banks and at that time de-created. The 97% of all currency carries an interest charge of roughly 5% to 400% of the principal amount, depending on the interest rate and length of term. The 5% to 400% interest is not created at any time. There has been no currency created to cover the expected interest, the only way that someone can pay their loan, mortgage, or credit card debt back with interest is to use someone else’s borrowed principal – thereby making it impossible for someone else to repay their loan, mortgage, or credit card debt.
Read Thomas Greco’s “The End of Money and the Future of Civilization” for a good historical view and some thoughtful ways to solve the long standing problem with private bankers creating our currencies around the globe.
If you’ve ever played musical chairs as a child, you will be able to understand our monetary systems. Now imagine playing musical chairs armed with guns and bricks, where ending up with a chair is a matter of life and death. Now you’ll really understand our current monetary system.
The bankers at the top of all major banks know that it is impossible to sustain the system, they know that a certain number of loan defaults will occur, even if they can’t pinpoint which ones. They don’t know exactly who will fall ill, or lose their job, or not be ruthless enough to get to the limited money supply first, but they do know a rough percentage of how many people will default or lose in this game – and it is a game to the bankers. But you see, it’s not a problem for the bankers, as they get to wipe out defaulted loans, and many of the defaults end up in a transfer of real assets that were held as collateral.
As I say, it’s time for all of us to grow up and solve the problem at its root. We’ll still have the symptomatic problems to deal with, but at least if we can put more money in the hands of the 99%ers (which includes me), then we will get to vote with our purchases as well as on the ballot.
TomRude says:
The Seattle video is simply frightening: these people repeating after the microphone holder… Is it Kindergarten of what?
=============
Mariss says:
I saw all I needed to see when I watched the John Lewis video. The mindless repetition of whatever the cult leader said was chilling.
===========
TrueNorthist says:
The same monotonous voices all speaking in unison. You will be assimilated.
=============
Bob Diaz says:
I’ve been to a number of protests and seen other protests on YouTube, but the mindless chanting is unique.
=========
You guys are repeating the same baseless complaint over and over again — like members of a cult.
The repetition of the speaker’s message is a strategy designed to overcome the banning of megaphones and public address systems enforced by state goons funded in part by J.P. Morgan..
Here’s another “cult leader” exploiting the broadcasting technique to overcome the ban.:
Smokey – contrary to your claim, there are many hungry and homeless people in America:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/11/economic-woes-lead-to-proliferation-tent-cities-nationwide/
Obesity is also increasing in our once “egalitarian” Australia amongst the poor, probably due to the increasing wealth disparity engineered for us by both “conservative” and “progressive” governments on behalf of their corporate paymasters, and partly due to the fact that a heaping of fat and sugar mixed with wood pulp is now more affordable than buying and cooking real food.
from A Note of Appreciation for the Rich:
========================
Always remember that if everyone like you were economically secure and socially privileged like us, there would be no one left to fill all those boring, dangerous, low-paid jobs in our economy. And no one to fight our wars for us, or blindly follow orders in our totalitarian corporate institutions. And certainly no one to meekly go to their grave without having lived a full and creative life. So please, keep up the good work!
http://www.namebase.org/richnote.html
==========================
The idea that the protesters are there to ask for “more government” or to support Obama is either fiction built on ignorance, or deliberate disinformation.
Wall Street protesters fed up with both parties
By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press – 3 days ago
and listening, to those wiser than you, like Bateman.
And by the way, people ARE getting wise to the game. It is as Bateman said:
“People are angry, R. Gates, just plain ordinary people who have been abandoned by thier leaders..”
___
Bateman wiser? At least I know how to spell “their”. The composition of the “occupy” group and the “tea party”…both fairly homogenous in their own predicable way, indicates quite clearly which fiddle player is playing them…and ultimately, and most ironically, is the fact that it’s the same one, simply wearing a different mask to be more palatable to group they wish to play.
You really want to change American Plutocracy? Focus the energy of the “occupy” and “tea party” groups to the same goal, which will not make the fiddle player happy:
1) Campaign finance reform
2) Term limits
3) Constitutional mandate of a balanced budget
Kick the big money out of Washington and return it to “We the People”.
_Jim says:
October 9, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Absolutely it was organized. Thanks for the additional info. All I had in my notes were from mid-August, where I read a report that a protest was to start 17 Sep, patterned after rioting in the UK, organized by SEIU & ACORN members. The web site was USDayofRage.org but since then all I’ve heard is the occupy mantra. I’ve no doubt that there was plenty of behind the scenes coordinating going on. The good news, so far, is that there’ve been no violent, widespread riots … but they’ve only been at it for three weeks … they might get the hang of it yet.
For all of you who fear that the protests are just a planned assault by Obama supporters, or some other group – if you fear this, then don’t let it happen. In whatever way you can, grab onto it, either by showing up in person or by any other method you can, make it your movement as well. Surely you’ve felt at some time or another that something isn’t working the way it should. Take that, and show up. Put it on the list for one of the first priorities, or to be dealt with at some time.
What do you think the protesters should be doing? Elections haven’t worked. Obama promised, saying that US citizens could “take it to the bank”, that he would bring your troops home. He made many promises that he has not kept – and yet he may still be the best you’ll get if you can’t look past the star maker machinery and elect someone like Dennis Kucinich, who seems to be one of the more fair and outspoken people working for peace and the interests of the common citizen. So, I ask, what do you think they should do at Occupy Wall Street and all the other occupations that are beginning? Go home, like you are? What are you doing to make the world a better place? Publish what you’re doing, make some suggestions that will stand a better chance at success. Don’t come up with repeating the lame dream we were peddled in the sixties and seventies – work hard, get an education, nose to the grindstone – that one didn’t pan out for far too many of your/our peers. They worked hard, got an education, and continue to be somewhat hopeful – but they carry their own personal debt and the debt of their government. They carry the debt of war, while the corporations that equip the war with bullets and bombs and other machinery to kill with enjoy massive profits and freedom to go wherever they want, whenever they want.
Can you not see a problem here? One final comment here. There is no reason why the generation following yours, regardless of which generation you represent, should have to inherit the results of your decisions, They need not inherit your method of elections, your methods of governing, nor your beliefs about what the world should be like. The sooner they understand this and say “Piss off, I’m not going along with this failed paradigm”, the sooner they’ll be able to change the world for the better. And if you’re still a member of the breathing, you’ll most likely be happy they did.
“The protesters don’t need to be protesting Wall Street”, said Cain. “Wall Street didn’t just spend $1 Trillion of their money.”
____
Wall street didn’t need to spend $1 Trillion of the taxpayer money…their cronies in Washington just handed it to them. “We’re too big to fail…bail us out!” cried Goldman Sachs…and the tax money came flowing to them.
I was looking around my house, and I’ll be darned if I can find much of anything that wasn’t made by an evil corporation. My canning jars, lights, TVs, computers, dishes, flatware, towels, clothes, shoes, are all made by evil corporations. Because even if a company is owned by one person, it is still a corporation.
And I looked at what my retirement money is invested in, and I’ll be darned if I can find any money going to anything other than an evil corporation. All that money, invested in evil.
Who owns evil corporations? Well, the last time I looked at such things, it was a lot of ordinary people that owned the evil corporations, mostly through owning stocks, or having investment funds that are placed into stocks. Who owns banks (which are also corporations)? Well, I guess those are actually owned by ordinary people, too. Who controls banks? Well, they are somewhat controlled by their investors, but banks are one of the most regulated businesses in the world. They have to employ a lot of people just to keep up with all the regulations. The regulations are in place so that banks wouldn’t have problems, or cause problems. Guess that didn’t turn out as well as was intended.
But I guess if we didn’t have these evil corporations and banks stealing money from good honest people, the whole world would be a better place. I’m just a little fuzzy on one part of this, though. How are these evil corporations stealing money? Nobody is forced to buy their goods, unless they really want or need them. There are a lot of different corporations selling things, so it would seem that people could just choose “good” corporations (like Apple) that aren’t really stealing their money. Which of these evil corporations am I required to buy things from? Which bank am I required to keep my money in?
R. Gates says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:31 pm
and listening, to those wiser than you, like Bateman.
=========================
Hey….don’t steal my one-liners lol.
Interestingly…(and tragically)….but hopefully….we may have some common ground.
I AGREE with your sentiments on returning it to “we the people.”
And that is exactly what your wiser elder was saying in his comment!
Cheers
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
But they [the protesters] need to shift their focus to the GOVERNMENT which acts with the unwarranted, unattained, and UNEARNED “arrogance” of a private corporation, but with the PUBLIC’s money…and with the unwieldy power of any statist regime.
They would get more sentiment from a broader necessary audience if they dropped the “corporate greed” moniker and shifted it to “government greed.”
But, unfortunately, they will not do that, because their labor organizers…are funded by public money.
They would rather attack the easy targets (the private sector), rather than go after the very racket that is helping sink this country: organized labor…..and their current politically funded mouthpiece…this present administration.
HA! Herman Cain just said it on TV. Just now. Right on!!
“The protesters don’t need to be protesting Wall Street”, said Cain. “Wall Street didn’t just spend $1 Trillion of their money.”
Can I have an AMEN??
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Mark says:
October 9, 2011 at 8:03 pm
It’s just so amazing. These kids have the motivation to protest and march but apparently not enough to study any history or economics and understand what, how, who and why. The answers are readily available and easy to grasp. There are no “evil” corporations. Corporations are merely legal entities controlled by shareholders who are people through directors and officers who are also people.
_____
For-profit Corporations exist for one reason…to make money, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There have been, and continue to be corporations run by very evil people, so as an entity, they are only as honest as their boards of directors, CEOs, and Executive Staff. So some Corporations, from time to time, are “evil”, in that the respective parties just listed make decisions which break laws, put profit before people’s health, etc. But to make a blanket statement that there are no “evil” corporations assumes that their controlling bodies (i.e. boards, directors, etc.) are always honest…and of course, that is surely not the case. As far as shareholders are concerned, this group (except perhaps for certain limited classes) is too diverse and far too removed from the daily operational decision making to make any difference at all about whether or not a corporation is “evil” or not.
OWS is the kind of spontaneous eruption of dissent which occurs when large numbers of people find themselves economically completely cornered. Spontaneous movements like this one do not arise from a reasoned intellectual argument. They are an incoherent expression of anger and frustration by people who may not all agree on what is wrong or what should be done to fix it, but are united in a deep sense of anger and frustration at the status quo. People who see no future have nothing to lose by trying to change things. When spontaneous movements like this one arise, it is common to see people with a cause to sell trying to run in front of the mob and target its anger. I don’t think this attempt to point this mob at an environmental target will succeed. It seems to me that their anger is mostly economic in focus.
The US is now a grossly unfair and unequal society in dire economic straights. Many in the middle class are now saddled with crippling debt and high unemployment. They have expensive loans and qualifications but cannot get jobs. Meanwhile they see a financial corporate and political system dominated by greed and corruption which has been completely ineffective in addressing the problem, and which is hostage to vested interests and paralysed. Pressure is building. So long as the right wing in the US foolishly insist that the cork is kept firmly planted in the bottle it will continue to build.
I predict an explosion sooner or later.
“The protesters don’t need to be protesting Wall Street”, said Cain. “Wall Street didn’t just spend $1 Trillion of their money.”
Can I have an AMEN??
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
=============================================
Amen!……..It was the government that bailed out the banks, insurance companies and large corporations. It was the government that wasted another trillion on a stimulus package that had no chance of working. It is the government now that wants to waste another 1/2 trillion on cronyism.
The protest, btw, has spread to D.C. Here’s a telling couple of interviews……
http://www.wearechange.org/?p=9849
It starts a bit strange, but its worth the watch to the end.
James
James Sexton says:
“It was the government that bailed out the banks, insurance companies and large corporations. It was the government that wasted another trillion on a stimulus package that had no chance of working. It is the government now that wants to waste another 1/2 trillion on cronyism.”
____
You do understand that Big Business and Big Government are one and the same Janus-faced creature, yes? In a Plutocracy such as we now have, when the poor Goldman Sachs cries, “Bail us out!” the Janus-face Big Government/Big Business creature simply transfers money from one hand to the other…and the joke is on “We the People”, as that money all came from us. who will suffer for it, or China, who will profit from it along with the Janus-faced creature. This is my point about the Tea-Party and the Occupy group actually having the same enemy, but that enemy would not want them to realize that.
savethesharks [October 9, 2011 at 7:47 pm]: “AMEN.”☺
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Khwarizmi says: “Smokey – contrary to your claim, there are many hungry and homeless people in America”
Did you miss the part where I said that bad personal choices like drug abuse, etc., are the reason for the vast majority of what you describe? There are ample safety nets for everyone. If someone wants to spend their dole on dope, of course they’re likely to end up hungry and homeless.
But that doesn’t mean society has an obligation to give them even more money, just so they can continue with their bad choices. They do have an obligation to society to change. If they don’t, then it’s their problem at that point.
It’s not fair to those who have problems not of their own making, to give those who make bad choices more more than the others get. And from the link I posted above, it’s pretty clear that the ‘poor’ are not really poor, they simply have less assets than others so their standard of living is lower. But they still have their color TVs, their cell phones, their medical care, their cars, their A/C, their subsidized housing, their food stamps, etc., etc.
Anyone who feels guilty should provide a room in their house or apartment for someone less fortunate. Because the government has displaced community charitable organizations, in large part so politicians can get a voting block, and bureaucrats can have jobs handing out housing vouchers, food stamps, etc. The problem is government, and I feel no guilt, because I walk the walk. Over the past fifteen years I’ve given to my charity of choice, City Team Ministries – who help mostly African-American indigents – more that ten thousand dollars. And I have the receipts to prove it.
To follow up on this comment just a bit, where I said:
“This is my point about the Tea-Party and the Occupy group actually having the same enemy, but that enemy would not want them to realize that.”
I would venture to guess there are more than a few families where the grandparents are part of the Tea-Party, and the grandchildren are taking part in the OWS demonstrations. They both might believe they are fighting for, and angry about different things, but in fact, the root cause is the same, a too big of Government that has gotten too cozy and controlled by big money. In fact, the fix of this, which would be vehemently opposed by the current power interests, (i.e both current parties) is fairly straight forward, but must come from both sides (the Tea-Party and the OWS), which truly represent “We the People”. Three things are needed:
1) Campaign finance reform (to insure the best minds and best leaders make it to Washington and not just the best financed)
2) Term limitations (2 term maximum, so that we don’t get “career” politicians)
3) Balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution
When the Tea-Party and OWS groups realize they have the same enemy and unite, we might have a fighting chance to get our democracy back!
Kwarizmi, thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone.
thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone
thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone
thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone
thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone
thank you for the education about protesting without a megaphone
Georg Soros