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.
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You can bet that if the Great Unwashed came for Al Gore’s money, he’d be screaming his head off.
Same goes for Roseanne Barr, George Soros, Michael Moore and all the rest of the hypocrites who think THEY won’t be pushed against the wall by the Marxists (but then they must have never really read the histories of the Soviet, Cuban and Chinese Revolutions…)
Smokey,
My brother is a police lieutenant in Norfolk, Va, and gets nowhere near $100,000, let alone over $200,000. Where is this place where police wages are so high? I need to let my brother know.
Smokey,
P.S. – I agree with all you say about public sector unions.
Could it be that the bottom 50% are really much better off than the media tends to portray?
With small businesses being so widespread today, personal wealth is sheltered in family owned corporations. Many familes today do not hold assets personally, but in LLC’s. Furthermore, for owners of LLC’s, income is not strictly from wages. Like Buffet, Gore and Jobs, but on a smaller scale individually, many Americans draw a small salary but control much wealth. There are probably enough examples to account for far more than half of the “bottom” 99%.
Kolokol:
More information, please!
I, too, am seeking those looking for “common ground. Are there links or additional information that I can referr to on my web site?
Kolokol [October 13, 2011 at 12:32 pm] says:
“So, what did you think of Zeese’s presentation? And BTW the Oct 11 Group was formed long before OWS, since May, and has done 10 marches in Washington. It was formed explicitly to find common purpose among the so called right and left. You seek to highlight divisions, I seek to find common ground. I guess with such a diverse movement we will both find what we want.
Well, I can show you a video from my own visit to the local action which shows a pretty diverse crowd, an interview with a Paul supporter, and a local “patriot” radio host and other odds and ends: http://mackwhite.blogspot.com/2011/10/psiop-tv-occupy-austin-day-one-video-by.html
Also RT just put up an interview with William Engdahl as well as the interview with Zeese further up thread, which are both pretty interesting, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvc8eg-v2B4 Regarding the uselessness of modern political labels I think Chomsky nails it pretty well here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wriQGI5NGOM And if you want to go back in history a bit I think T. Jefferson had the right idea about corporations (and the Supreme Ct.) here: http://homepage.mac.com/kaaawa/iblog/C2128262602/E20051025182106/index.html Whether this movement goes in the direction I’d like to see, (which is not socialist BTW), I’m cynical and skeptical, but really don’t have a clue and can only hope for the best.
The dot com collapse in 2000 was a long time coming. Who is to blame? Well the bubble was fueled by normal citizens (folks buying stock) and brokers, both with irrational exuberance maybe. But the collapse itself had much to do with the idiotic attacks on Microsoft (who I rarely defend, but must here) and their oh-so-terrible ‘bundling’ of Internet Explorer in Windows(ROTFLMAO!). Janet Reno drove this, and Bill Clinton allowed this farce to go on until that judgement finding them a monopoly in 2000. The market tanked both in anticipation and then in reaction to do this. Smart people got the hell out of dodge in early 2000.
If you were actually involved in these stocks at all, instead of just randomly spouting off today 11 years later, you would know these things because you couldn’t possibly be unaware of what was coming. This was everyday talk on CNBC and elsewhere. It is impossible for me to feel sorry for anyone that stayed in past January or February of 2000. Every day that passed after that without a crash was just pure dumb luck. Those that hung on to eke out a few more minor gains were living on the razor’s edge and they got cut.
No sir, “Capitalist extremist corporations” did NOT “take down the economy: in 2000. You are just making sh!t up here. If you had to blame one thing it would have to be the Attorney General and a bunch of useless lawyers. Janet Reno’s picture should hang right next to Enron’s Ken Lay and ponzi Bernie Madoff.
So, you are absolutely wrong on that first point, and on the second point, the 2008 banking collapse, it is more complicated than you probably understand.
TEA Party is now Establishment Republican? ROTFLMAO! You’re on drugs. Or insane. TEA Party politics (traditional American principles) is hated by ‘Establishment Republicans’ almost as much as by the Democratic Socialists. That’s a fact.
“Tea Party founder backs Occupy Wall Street”. LOL! No-one I know has ever heard of this Denninger person. There are no TEA Party founders and anyone that claims to be is a liar. There are TEA Party event organizers, thousands of them. There are no leaders, and this is exactly as it should be.
You really have no clue about what you are trying to talk about. But I wholeheartedly encourage you to continue, I want the OWS to blossom and get featured on the news every day if possible. Might I suggest more Hammer & Sickle flags.
Blade, I was at early Tea Party events and I watched it get hijacked in short order. Do you even know about the short and sad history of the Tea Party? I used the word establishment Republican because they were instrumental in ESTABLISHING The REPUBLICAN CON-GRESS we have now. Does Scott Brown ring a bell? Personally I think a lot of Republican rank and file glommed on to the early Tea Party because they were too embarrassed to be Republicans after Bush and suddenly turned into constitutionalists and libertarians.
I don’t take drugs, Blade, but I hope you can find time away from your tourette-like LOL ROTFLMAO episodes to adjust your medication.
For the past 30 years, our tax codes have been rigged to take money away from the workers and from the middle class and give it to the richest of the rich. A society which continues to take from the 99% and give to the top 1% cannot survive. As for Al Gore and Bill McKibben, I’m glad that
someone out there cares about our children and grandchildren.
Vigilantfish [October 14, 2011 at 7:29 pm],
The town is Milpitas, California.
President FDR spoke on public employee unions:
“Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the government. All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for officials to bind the employer … The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives.
“Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. Upon employees in the federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people … This obligation is paramount … A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent … to prevent or obstruct … Government … Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government … is unthinkable and intolerable.” [source]
@Blade says: October 15, 2011 at 3:03 am
Blade very poor attempt at misdirect.
The point that Unions did NOT take down Enron, NorTel, WorldCom, 360Networks (and the economy) etc. etc. in 2000 was totally not mentioned by you (they were taken down by gross mismanagement) !! You also failed to mention that none of the Banks that failed in the 2008 collapse were Unionized, so unions are not to blame for America’s economic woes and poor economic recovery !!
So my question is why do so many people blame Unions for economic conditions when it’s big business that regularly takes down the economy ??
It can also be argued that big business influence on government has led to such bad regulations in the banking sector that caused the latest collapse !
@Smokey says: October 14, 2011 at 11:13 am
I do NOT think millionaires can be called middle class !!
Anybody who says the OWS mobs and the TEA party have anything in common is a deluded fool or a liar.
Never heard of the purported TEA party founder who is supposed to be sympathetic to the Occupiers. Who is he? If he’s a founder, how come none of the TEA party people have ever heard of him? Somebody is getting played.
The TEA party rallies are respectful of public and private property. The TEA party members clean up after themselves (and clean themselves, too). Nobody brings dope or drugs to a TEA party rally. The TEA party is not full of antisemites, or 9/11 Truthers. The TEA party believes in American exceptionalism. The Occupiers believe America is worse than everybody else.
The TEA party is not a front for the Republican establishment. The TEA party is fighting with the Republican establishment as much as they are fighting the Democrat establishment. The TEA party is infiltrating the Republican party from the grassroots up.
What is it with you and Blade calling people who disagree with you names? I’m “on drugs” or “a fool or a liar”? You’re so clean,exceptional and respectful, after all.
You know, it can be well argued that the Obama era Tea Party was started by 9-11 Truthers, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? And I’m not about to waste time with you explaining it.
Blade says:
October 14, 2011 at 5:03 am
Steve from Rockwood [October 13, 2011 at 12:24 pm] says:
“This movement is being high-jacked by the left. It started out of the thought that Americans needed their own Arab Spring – a revolution to protest the corruption of government – and it was hatched in Canada. In many ways the Tea Party was such a movement but of the right.”
You say: “Tea Party was such a movement but of the right“! So, our Revolutionary Founding Fathers were right-wing then? Tax-Revolts are right-wing? Limited government is right-wing? I knew the revisionism was running deep, but just how deep was unclear until now.
I’m not sure what you mean here. The Revolutionary Founding Fathers were revolting against taxation and determined to limit government to be under the people, not an authority over them. They were certainly against private bankers taking control of the money supply where out of thin air they created more or less of it to suit their corporate interests.
IIRC, tax only applied to middlemen who didn’t add value to the product, buying goods and selling them on, and not to personal renumeration for one’s labour.
Many of those quotes are not Lincoln’s. They were in a pamphlet that mentioned Lincoln, and got attributed to him.
Snopes:
Earth to Bono, Gore, and other multi-multi-millionaires preaching a non-wealthy lifestyle: GET STUFFED.
—————————
Well said CodeTech.
Please explain this! Give an example or scenario where money is taken from a middle-class person and given to a rich-person.
The real truth is that money is routinely taken from rich people and given directly to poor people.
Your brain has been re-wired to understand everything backwards!
!sdrawkcab gnihtyreve dnatsrednu ot deriw-er neeb sah niarb ruoY
😉
No-one says unions took down the economy by themselves. And it is you that is misdirecting now. You said this:
I replied accurately that what you said is a GROSS mistake. The single most obvious factor was government action by Janet Reno and Bill Clinton (of booming economy fame).
If your intent is to get unions off the hook for current and future events, you are wasting your breath. The next collapse will be from public sector unions siphoning off vast amounts of money from the taxpayers and thanks to political circumstances, much of this is now classified as entitlements.
Where do you think the bulk of the stimulus money wound up? At every level of government from Fed to Local is infested with public sector union viruses where employment is nearly permanent and raises are automatic or demanded at gunpoint. Public sector unions are worse than a cancer.
No-one cares about private sector unions. They are Constitutional as long as freedom of speech and assembly and private property also exist. And as long as they can be fired and ignored as well. Stop changing the subject. And stop blaming the wrong things. You’re not helping.
You specifically mentioned the dot comm bubble bursting and mis-characterized it. I commented specifically on that. Take your axe and grind it elsewhere.
Now I know you are making stuff up. Unlike you I was present for TEA rallies, you are even mis-spelling it. Short sad history? What! It is not a ‘thing’. ‘It’ does not have a shelf life. ‘It’ does not go away. ‘It’ is a grassroots movement for traditional American beliefs and values that are ubiquitous. The rallies are just large public meetings.
Very slippery and no-one believes you. ‘Establishment Republican’ is a well-known term, attempting to re-define it only displays your faulty disjointed thought process, or exposes you as a propagandist for leftist Socialism. Scott Brown was an early favorite because compared to the Ted Kennedy and his attempted replacement, he was the better selection. But now he pretty much sucks. We did get a lot of new members into Congress including the great Allen West. We will get many more next time. We are not going anywhere.
TEA Party represents pure American, Constitutional fidelity and values. It does not go away. And if you think it has, or that it should, you are just making it clear that you are a typical (D) Socialist or Establishment (R). And that’s fine, have fun. But you’re not fooling anyone.
“But now he pretty much sucks.” You want me not to laugh?