From Al Gore’s blog, a clear signal that he’s lost it. Like McKibben, he’s like a moth attracted to a flame, looking for it to jumpstart his own failed movement.
Thoughts on Occupy Wall Street October 12, 2011 : 5:07 PM
For the past several weeks I have watched and read news about the Occupy Wall Street protests with both interest and admiration. I thought The New York Times hit the nail on the head in an editorial Sunday:
“The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.”
“At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.”
From the economy to the climate crisis our leaders have pursued solutions that are not solving our problems, instead they propose policies that accomplish little. With democracy in crisis a true grassroots movement pointing out the flaws in our system is the first step in the right direction. Count me among those supporting and cheering on the Occupy Wall Street movement.
You can support the protests by clicking here.
From Al Gore’s blog:
Translation: We just had an election and elected several new members to the House. The problem is, Al’s side lost the election and the new guys don’t want to play ball.
Income inequality isn’t making anybody poor. I won’t be richer if Al Gore, George Soros, Bill Gates Bill Clinton or the Koch brothers were poorer. One reason we don’t have more jobs is the job-killing legislation and regulations passed by the Pelosi-Reid Congress and the Obama White House. Just like the New Deal prolonged and deepened the Great Depression, so has the Obama agenda made this recession worse.
I agree that the current administration has done nothing but make the economy worse. Not withstanding that we have a republic, our democracy is fine. The people voted and turned your guys out of the House, Al, and several seats also changed hands in the Senate. Again, your guys lost and are desperate to do anything to hold on to power.
“With democracy in crisis a true grassroots movement pointing out the flaws in our system is the first step in the right direction”
I guess free enterprise is screwing up verdant democracy. These young useful fools will put it right.
JohnD says: October 13, 2011 at 6:21 am
Whan it comes to greens, never attribute to ignorance that which can be explained by
malicenaive noble cause corruption
Aerianne says: October 13, 2011 at 12:28 pm
A Powerpoint that made us lose the faith in
humanity andthe Nobel Prize committee http://www.amazfacts.com/2011/10/everyone-should-know-about-this-woman.htmland regain the faith in humanity
There, corrected
Manfred says: October 13, 2011 at 12:57 pm
If you just have a look at the Soros networks – it is beyond shocking. They are virtually everywhere. http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=977
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions” – ?
Matt Skaggs says: October 13, 2011 at 12:59 pm … Here is a little tip for self-enlightenment: if you think the word “socialist” is a pejorative despite the fact that the modern socialist democracies of Europe are the most successful societies that ever existed on this planet, your soul has probably rotted away.
I don’t trust simplistic statements of either political leaning. Life is beautiful, juicy, complex and mysterious; its precious principles require a lot of careful observation, and often elude politics altogether.
We have lost the essence of freedom, and surprisingly it has been taken from us by a partenrship of politicians (government) and corporate interests. As Thatcher said:
“People are unequal. No-one thank heavens is quite like anyone else no matter how much the socialists may pretend otherwise. And we believe everyone has the right to be unequal, but to us every human being is equally important. A man’s right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master, they are the essence of a free economy and on that freedom all our other freedoms depend.”
That world has gone. We are now all servants of a strange mix of sovreign debt, dishonest bankers and statist big government social democratic politicians. It has to end, please God.
pokerguy says:
October 13, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Obama proposes a jobs plan that most economists agree would help, and the obstructionist Republicans who would rather burn our once proud country to the ground than do anything that might help him politically vote “NO.”
===========================================
He didn’t have enough Democrazy votes either…..
…how are the Republicans obstructionist when he didn’t have enough Democrats either?
This so called jobs bill did not even exist when Obama was telling everyone that it did….that was a lie.
Then it was designed to not pass at all – not even enough Democrat votes going in – to fool people into thinking it was the best thing since white bread and blame it on the Republicans for not passing it…..some people were stupid enough to be fooled by it
Why isn’t everyone mad as hell that he sat on this wonderful JOBS BILL for three years? when we needed it three years ago?
Count me among those supporting and cheering on the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I was worried I was going to have to disagree with you as I tend to support them.
Gary Pearse says: October 13, 2011 at 2:32 pm
“With democracy in crisis a true grassroots movement pointing out the flaws in our system is the first step in the right direction”
It is only very recently that “democracy” came to mean “voting”. It originally meant “ordinary people in government”. It was taken directly into English with that meaning.
During the struggle for one-person-one-vote democracy became associated with that struggle, as it also did in communism to “government by the proletariat”. That is why the democrats in the US had the same name as “democratic socialism” aka communism in the East – it had nothing to do with elections.
I should say, that even the Greeks didn’t think elections were democracy. Indeed, they explictly said that election was ANTI-DEMOCRATIC, because an elite (bankers) tend to take over and buy the government (nothing changes). Instead they preferred government committees selected by lot.
The modern use of democracy to mean elected, really only derives from the period of Thatcher. It was a common call of the left to be “democratic”, but suddenly Thatcher saw that claiming western style “politics” was “democracy” was a way to claim the “democratic” high ground.
So, in a real sense, what we call democracy today is the anti-thesis of democracy. Which just goes to show, that if you how powerful spin is as most people have been brainwashed by the Thatcher Reagan era that democracy and voting for the rich politicians like Gore are one and the same thing.
In fact, democracy means government run by people like us, not rich bankers, rich politicians and funded by super-rich business people.
There is One envy, the world over, marginalized by those who lack the rights abroad. The USA is “rights of the individual” unlike all other countries on the face of the planet.
The USA includes, among other Individual Rights:
– Freedom of Speech
– The Right of Assembly
– Freedom of Religion
– Allodial Title to land ownership — there isn’t another country in the world that allows anyone to own the land they live on and the USA ensures the rights of ownership are not defiled by the current state of the party flavor in government.
Nothing is going to convince any intelligent American to give up these amazing Rights. If we’ve got a real problem, We the People can and will fix it.
The American People are awake and Occupy is a great reminder of our Rights.
Yet, to align oneself to the some foolish isn’t logical nor political. Al has officially left reality behind.
Ok, got some things stirred up here.
When does a retired person need a seven figure investment portfolio? Well when your only income is $808 a month in social security, and the interest and dividends (averaging 5%), it just keeps you middle class. I worked as a consultant most of my career and have no other retirement plan. I saved enough to retire on investments.
I have more invested with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire than any other entity. It would be nice if we had some regulations and mechanisms for disgruntled stockholders like myself to actually stop the looting, and invest with confidence in say, the S&P 500 index. The country and all the capitalists out there would be better off.
pokerguy says:
October 13, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Obama proposes a jobs plan that most economists agree would help, and the obstructionist Republicans who would rather burn our once proud country to the ground than do anything that might help him politically vote “NO.”
Are these the same economists that agree that TARP was a good thing? Or are they the ones that warned us about the housing/financial crisis?
Doug says:
October 13, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Ok, got some things stirred up here.
========
LOL,
My 401 k tanked when the markets dropped like a rock at the end of 2008. But I didn’t blame anyone for my investment choices. I knew I could have been in Stable Growth which is covered by insurance. I licked my wounds and watched the markets knowing bottoms are the best investment.
My losses are in the past. What exactly is your excuse for your bad investments?
Who’s behind the Wall Steet protests?
By Mark Egan and Michelle Nichols | Reuters – 32 minutes ago….
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Anti-Wall Street protesters say the rich are getting richer while average Americans suffer, but the group that started it all may have benefited indirectly from the largesse of one of the world’s richest men.
There has been much speculation over who is financing the disparate protest, which has spread to cities across America and lasted nearly four weeks. One name that keeps coming up is investor George Soros, who in September debuted in the top 10 list of wealthiest Americans. Conservative critics contend the movement is a Trojan horse for a secret Soros agenda.
Soros and the protesters deny any connection. But Reuters did find indirect financial links between Soros and Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests with an inventive marketing campaign aimed at sparking an Arab Spring type uprising against Wall Street. Moreover, Soros and the protesters share some ideological ground.
… Soros, 81, is No. 7 on the Forbes 400 list with a fortune of $22 billion, which has ballooned in recent years as he deftly responded to financial market turmoil. He has pledged to give away all his wealth, half of it while he earns it and the rest when he dies.
… According to disclosure documents from 2007-2009, Soros’ Open Society gave grants of $3.5 million to the Tides Center, a San Francisco-based group that acts almost like a clearing house for other donors, directing their contributions to liberal non-profit groups. Among others the Tides Center has partnered with are the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation.
Disclosure documents also show Tides, which declined comment, gave Adbusters grants of $185,000 from 2001-2010, including nearly $26,000 between 2007-2009.
@ur momisugly Russ Houston
They are the same economists who said the housing market wasn’t going to crash 🙂
Joe “bite me” Biden was in Flint, Michigan, not too far from my residence, telling everyone murder and rape will go up unless the Obama “jobs bill” gets passed.
So what happens in a year when the money runs out after the election, just continue printing more and more, handing it out like candy? Obama is simply attempting to make as many people as possible dependent on government for their existence.
If we’re at the point where the citizenry can fall for such gimmicks as the Obama “jobs bill” and re-elect him, then we may as well consider the country is already finished.
If government make-work jobs are the answer, why not just have the entire country work for the government?
Matt Skaggs says:
October 13, 2011 at 12:59 pm
“if you think the word “socialist” is a pejorative despite the fact that the modern socialist democracies of Europe are the most successful societies that ever existed on this planet…”
Matt, you must be amongst the well-heeled in the successful societies and not amongst the poor elderly who buy sets of used encylopedia to heat their humble dwellings with all the social democrat craziness about shutting down efficient, cheap coal fired projects to be replaced with windmills stretching as far as the eye can see (even solar projects in Scotland – not capitalist would support that!). Have you not been keeping up with the news from EU, then. It is falling apart as I knew some years ago it would. You can’t have an elite deciding what is good for us all – they can only decide what is good for them – socialists like Soros and Maurice Strong for example. The United States of Europe can’t survive as an economic force with a socialist philosophy and there is no chance of them escaping this killer of wealth because they invented it – as a decent solution for the tyranny of the early industrial revolution. Yes, there is a crisis of morality in the US and robbers on Wall Street are among the most destructive of examples. There needs to be a shake-up, but spare us the gray life of a perennially failed system.
TomRude says:
October 13, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Who’s behind the Wall Steet protests?
========
The interesting question, does Soros favor Big Government run by idiots to make the investments easier to book? So far the facts aren’t in but it does make sense when we’re got politicians like Big Al running around.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/9269-big-soros-money-
Here’s a laugh: Note the “logistics” that they are organizing. All courtesy of “modern industrial culture”, and those evil rich guys. Let’s see, 60 days would put it about the middle of Dec. Get’s pretty cool in Detroit in Dec. I’d say make them stay till Feb., 2012.
* Quote:
Protestors want to “occupy” Detroit for 60 days
Kim Kozlowski/ The Detroit News
Plans are under way for the Occupy Detroit movement on Friday but it became an issue for city officials since petitions were filed late and the occupation on Grand Circus Park is planned for 60 days.
“It’s a city-owned area,” Dan Lijana, spokesman for Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, said of the Grand Circus Park. “Normally people want to stay 3-4 days. Because of 60 days, it’s a different kind of ball game.”
Organizers also filed petitions late to City Council so actually they haven’t presented anything to anyone, Lijana said. Officials were meeting on Thursday to discuss the issue.
Late Thursday afternoon, Mayor Dave Bing and Police Chief Ralph L. Godbee, Jr. issued the following joint statement on the Occupy Detroit demonstration: “We are working to ensure that all citizens are able to assemble and express themselves peacefully and in accordance with the law.”
As the event drew near, organizers were working to firm up logistics such as parking, bathrooms, electricity and food deliveries.
The group — inspired by the protests on Wall Street seeking social, political and economic change — plans to meet at 4 p.m. Friday at the Spirit of Detroit statute on Woodward. It will then march to Grand Circus Park and begin an occupation with tents and more.
More: http://www.detnews.com/article/20111013/METRO/110130450/1409/METRO/Protestors-want-to-%C3%ACoccupy%C3%AE-Detroit-for-60-days
—-“My 401 k tanked when the markets dropped like a rock at the end of 2008. But I didn’t blame anyone for my investment choices. I knew I could have been in Stable Growth which is covered by insurance. I licked my wounds and watched the markets knowing bottoms are the best investment.
My losses are in the past. What exactly is your excuse for your bad investments?”—-
John—We are not that different. I have not made bad investments, and have more than re-couped any 2008 losses. As an informed, and engaged investor I want my corporations run responsibly, and I see a lot to agree with in the Occupy Wall Street movement. I’d like to see a banker or two in jail. I’d like to derail the little club awarding themselves over-sized bonuses from corporations which are indeed, too big to fail .Anyone who just assumes a totally unregulated market will look after them are the rightful prey of the 100 million a year executive looter.
Actual Al better stay away from the protest , given the Gore effect with all that is needed to kill the protest off is a few days of bad weather so much easier to protest when it warm and dry , so he turning up could be its death nail .
pokerguy says:
October 13, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Obama proposes a jobs plan that most economists agree would help
==================================================
Name one and give the reasoning behind that posit. I read this blog often, and I see a lot of silly comments…… this is probably one of the silliest.
I listened to his speech. I’ve read his proposals. They are idiotic, useless and wasteful. And that’s only if it is executed properly and we know it won’t be because he’s in charge of the executive branch.
Tell me, how is retaining teachers the school districts can’t afford useful? After the fed money is gone, the districts will be right back where they were. Same for the police. We’ve already witnessed his version of infrastructure improvements. The proposals would be laughable if the joke hadn’t already been played on us by him twice already.
Pokerguy, in case you don’t know this, I’m going to pass on some words of wisdom. You can’t spend your way out of debt and you can’t tax yourself to prosperity. This isn’t complicated. Wanna know what will get this country back to work, solvent and prosperous again?
Make energy and fuel cheap, available and reliable and quit the idiotic spending. I’d go into more detail, but the rest should be obvious from there. There would be some other policies that need changed, but those 3 things is all that is necessary to put people back to work, increase the revenues for the fed and decrease the expenditures. ——– classic economics…….. stuff that actually works.
BTW, I predicted this as soon as the debt ceiling was raised. If that moron isn’t intentionally trying to break this country, then he’s a complete idiot. I think the entire administration is only effective at keeping the Velcro industry afloat.
Being a part of the movement, here are some facts:
1. That article did hit the nail on the head.
2. Not everyone in the movement is a hippie, a greenie, anarchists, or socialists. These are american people, just like you.
3. There are two types of socialism, one bad, one good. Authoritarian Socialism is what everyone seems to want to paint anything good as. Authoritarian Socialism is the one most think of when they think of the political philosophy and is often called “evil.” In essence, it is. It’s a dictatorship afterall. The second form is social liberalism which is what countries like Denmark have. Essentially, it is the ultimate Democracy with the addition of Universal Healthcare and Universal Education. So not *all* socialism is a bad thing. And no, I’m not a socialist…just stating the facts as I said.
4. The protesters have sub-messages along with the one main message. They know what they are protesting. It’s still small, grass-roots, somewhat disorganized. It will grow, expand, and gain structure. Their message and goal is to end the strangle-hold the big banks have on political and social policy in this country. The message is their, even if the media spins it like there is no defined message or goal. If you haven’t gotten it by now, you probably never will.
Peace.
the increased reliance on financial instruments such as CDOs, CDSs and the like in recent years, has created a make-believe economy, prone to almighty crashes. the big banks should have been allowed to fail, and some bankers should have been jailed.
people who have their retirement funds in pension plans/Superannuation Funds could protect their money from the Carbon Dioxide Vultures, by transferring their funds into Cash Only optiions, where available, otherwise they might find their fund managers will blow the lot under the broad array of CAGW emissions trading scams. many of the OWS crowd are well aware of the bankers’ dreams of trillions from trading the air we breathe, so co-opting them will not be easy:
*****i’m no admirer of the IMF, but Simon Johnson captured the insanity of the finance sector in the following, lengthy piece in the Atlantic in 2009. look at the extraordinary figure of 41% for the financial sector’s share of “domestic corporate profits” in the last decade! CLEARLY UNSUSTAINABLE:
2009: The Atlantic: The Quiet Coup
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
by Simon Johnson
*****From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector (in the US) never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated between 21 percent and 30 percent, higher than it had ever been in the postwar period. This decade, it reached 41 percent…
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/
the Tea Party was inspired by Ron Paul, but was hijacked by the right.
OWS was not an “invention” ONLY of Adbusters. most of the protesters have more in common with Ron “Audit the Fed” Paul, who has endorsed the protests for their criticism of the Fed Reserve bailouts. he and other observers/participants are well aware certain interest groups are attemping to hijack the movement and we will see how effective the protesters are by whether or not the Fed announces another round of the quaintly-called Quantitative Easing…
No, these are the same economists who said the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8%.
Al Gore’s office looks even more messy and chaotic than his thoughts.
“He didn’t have enough Democrazy votes either…..
…how are the Republicans obstructionist when he didn’t have enough Democrats either?”
This is so typical. Why not open a newspaper before spouting off. 2 democrats voted no. Ben Nelson and Jon Tester. Reed changed his vote to nay at the end on a procedural maneuver.
Some supporters of OWS do want more Goverment and they love Obama, Gore, Biden Polosi. They are ignorant that it is Obama’s economic and energy policy destroying the middle class, and as the producers lose wealth, the Govt steps in to take more. Federal salaries have grown robustly in recent years, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Office of Personnel Management data. Key findin* Government-wide raises. Top-paid staff have increased in every department and agency. The Defense Department had nine civilians earning $170,000 or more in 2005, 214 when Obama took office and 994 in June of this year.
* Long-time workers thrive. The biggest pay hikes have gone to employees who have been with the government for 15 to 24 years. Since 2005, average salaries for this group climbed 25% compared with a 9% inflation rate.
* Physicians rewarded. Medical doctors at veterans hospitals, prisons and elsewhere earn an average of $179,500, up from $111,000 in 2005.
Federal workers earning $150,000 or more make up 3.9% of the workforce, up from 0.4% in 2005.
Since 2000, federal pay and benefits have increased 3% annually above inflation compared with 0.8% for private workers, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Just how far out of whack has the pay and benefits of the federal government’s 2.15 million civilian employees become with respect to the 137 million other American workers? CBS News reported back in March 2010:
http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2010/11/skyrocketing-compensation-of-federal.html
Matt Skaggs says:
October 13, 2011 at 12:59 pm
You are 100% wrong on all counts. Nice try. Hope no one takes your bait.
Your brand of socialism is for the simple minded or the lazy who wish to ride the coattails of the successful. Socialism is an unnatural and harmful state for any living organism. A free society is better for the whole than socialism can ever be.
Self determination is nature’s way and socialism attempts to subvert nature. That’s the big picture that simple minded folks craving “fairness”, “uinity” and “equality” cannot seem to grasp. Try looking a little further than your nose.