Occupy Wall Street

Is that what you heard on Bill Maher?

 

i dont find that very significant. ows hasn't had enough time to have anyone elected or to counter/support legislation. time will tell.

 

Sure. And to Eddie's point, the Tea Party has gone through an election cycle (btw with significant corporate support) and those opposing the Tea Party has increased significantly since then.
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Or perhaps from filings with the FEC....the Crossroads Group (Karl Rove), Americans for Prosperity (Koch Brothers), Americans for Tax Reform (Grover Norquist)...You think these groups are really on your side as opposed to keeping corporate interests entrenched through your "movement".

 

Unlike the misguided liberal hordes on wall st, I'm not against corporations or the rich people who run them.

 

On many important public policy issues, particularly those associated with OWS, the liberal hordes extend out to a significant majority of Americans.

Issues like the concern over growing income inequity, support for a more balanced approach to debt/deficit reduction with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases and raising taxes on the top wage earners, regulating Wall Street and banking....much of which accounts for the significant increase (nearly double in the last year) in those who dont support the Tea Party.

Take any of those issues and post or contribute something substantial (for a change) that would suggest that the Tea Party is not on the wrong side in the view of a majority of Americans.

 

Ok let's look at where we are realistically in this country today, shall we:

Banks get bailouts because they are "too big to fail", yet they continue to foreclose and refuse to give small business loans. Thus allowing BIG business entities to continue monopolistic enterprises and control the workforce.

These right winged "pro" free market fools are also being led by the same monopolistic assholes that are destroying this country, by outsourcing jobs and creating jobs here with lower wages and no benefits. AND they pay less in taxes than their poorly paid workers in some cases, with all their shell companies, offshore accounts and the fact they own no factories here. Now forgive me "Free Market" by it's nature is against government helping monopolies keep down start up companies that MAY compete against them. The opposite is true. Government is in fact not only helping these companies maintain monopolistic business practices but promotes them by bailouts, tax abatements and making sure regulations and such to start a small business, where taxes are sometimes far more than what the current large businesses pay out, this is on a local state and federal level. There is NO TRUE free market and those arguing for one are being led like mindless idiots and told what to believe by people who have their own agendas and could care less about the little man.

They may have some charisma, the Hannitys, Becks, Limbaughs, Faux News, but deep down they carry the message that will allow them another private jet or mansion in a gated community. They spew hate and disdain and tell their listeners how the working poor and everyone else that is not of their "club and like mindedness" are poor solely because those people want to live off government. Those talking heads also take great pleasure in talking about how the top 1% pays so much in taxes and the bottom 50% pay next to nothing or get money back. Now here's the rub and the followers stupidity, you take a cross section of their audiences and the vast majority of their audiences are in that 50% that supposedly pay nothing, BUT those people don't want to believe that they are in that lower 50% because ego, pride and whatever else. The talking heads know this that is why they include ALL members of their audience into that top 1%. The true top 1% are the ones shipping jobs overseas and creating the tax problems by destroying the tax base.

How do you destroy the tax base? You get rid of factories, decent waged jobs and small businesses. You take hope away from the people so that they grasp on to things like being convinced they are in the top 1% and everyone else are lowlife scums sucking all they can out of government while that 1% (including them) pay everything.

How do you accomplish getting people to believe that they pay too much in taxes and thus they are the 1%? Very easy, tell them to look how much money comes out of their paychecks. Now of course you NEVER talk about their refunds and IF you do, you turn it to "think how much more of a refund you could get."

The sad thing these people refuse to see is that when times are good, those talking heads MAY have a legitimate argument. Times are not good, their audience members see their neighbors houses being foreclosed, their children unable to find jobs that pay enough to pay the student loans down, unemployment skyrocketing, education begging for money and these talking heads make it so easy to blame everyone else but those truly responsible.

Tell me free market defenders, why IF we are a free market do the same basic 4 banks (Chase, Mellon, US and Vanguard) OWN and sit on the boards of almost EVERY single Fortune 500 company? Why do their CEO's make millions when the company loses money and has to lay off people in the US? Don't give me the old bullshit "well, those are mutual funds and the banks truly have no ties." Really????? YOU need to go to Yahoo finance and just go through the board of director listings on a few of the companies. You'll find the vast majority have a member or 2 of a bank sitting on their board. Again, how is that "free market", when the banks that are supposed to offer small business loans to start ups, own Wal*Mart, Target, Kroger and so on? They may "give" the loan but they will stack the odds against your success by charging you extreme interest and thus you have to charge more than they do, JUST to pay the loans. That doesn't include the fact that the suppliers/manufacturers (Sony, Toshiba, Emerson, Con Agra, Proctor and Gamble, Colgate Palmolive) are all owned by the same banks and thus will charge less because "the big boys" can buy more.

Don't believe me let's look at the past 30 years of so called "trickle-down" economics. AOL was a HUGE company at one time, Time Warner did the whole leveraged "buyout" and stole the technology (giving it to Roadrunner) and once they were able to legally "steal" all the patents and proprietary rights AOL may have had, they called it a bad investment and bankrupted it out. Meanwhile, all the AOL stockholders lost money, except for of course the banks. Then you have the Wal*Marts that refuse to sell product of good quality AMERICAN made companies that were always listed as top ten employers with great benefits, in doing so bankrupting that company (Rubbermaid) while owning a share of it's major competitor (Steri-lite) and forcing a merger that ended in the loss of thousands of jobs (Rubbermaid/Newell). 50 years ago those would have been tactics that government would have looked into as unfair business practices but not anymore.

Doesn't it ever cross your mind why certain companies will advertise solely on the far rights network or radio stations (cough cough Faux and Clear Channel)? Because they have a stake in the political agendas. Not because they care or even like the audiences but for what votes those audience members will give them.

It just boggles my mind when people mindlessly spew Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, etal and think they are "winning". Meanwhile the country fractures more and we ALL are losing what they say they want most, Freedom from government and free markets. lol

 

IF I were a misguided horde member I'd have stayed in the Tea Party and spewing hate and worshipping Beck and Hannity. I left the Tea Party when I saw Pat Robertson praising it. As soon as that happened I knew it was a right winged pawn group trying to capitalize on the angst of the people. A LOT of Tea Partiers I was friends with are now part of the Occupy groups BECAUSE the Tea Party sold out.

As long as the Occupy groups stay true to the message they are conveying, they will only gain in popularity. In spite of the right talking heads and the media in general.

Those who believe this is a "small" movement. It is as pointed out above worldwide, and here in the US has just started. The longer the occupiers are sitting out getting cold, hungry and exposed to the elements, so their message and the people's respect shall grow. By Spring, this may just be as big as any movement was in the 60's. Again, some said they were just small, unorganized groups, BUT they ended a war and changed policy for years, we still have policy changes that started because of them.

 

Wow, that's sounds delusional to me. Bloomberg is gonna crack down on these kids and that will be that. I think the Europeans have a little more pizzazz when it comes to protesting, so they'll probably last a bit longer. But these spoiled American youngsters...no way are they gonna hang through winter.

 

Keep believing that. YOU sound like the delusional one. Bloomberg is in a catch 22, what does he do crack down and give the protesters even more recognition and ammunition. Kind of proves their point if you crack down on PEACEFUL protesters, however, the longer they are out there the more support they garner. So Bloomberg won't do shit, he doesn't want to be the next Rhodes.

As for the far Right who want to dismiss these people and want them arrested or cracked down on, how can you say you are pro-Constitution when you are taking away the people's 1st Amendment, abridging the freedom of speech and interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning the government redress of grievences. And yes, when phones go unanswered in US CONGRESS offices as many have said they had, when letters just land you on a mailing list for contributions and trips to meet with them are refused, then there is only one other choice, taking it to the streets.

There are far more people gathering and supporting the movement than as you put it "spoiled American youngsters". You are delusional and have lost touch with reality spending all your time listening to Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh and Faux News. Again, each and everyone of them lose something when the protesters win the fight.

 

I don't listen to Beck, hannity or limbaugh. And I don't care if the ows folks wanna stand out there and hold their cardboard signs. That's their Constitutional right...as long as they're on public property. And yes, Bloomberg will crack down on them, that's a guarantee. And he'll do it soon.

 

I ain't making this stuff up:
http://www.dnainfo.com/20111021/downtown/bloomberg-warns-new-occupy-wall-street-crackdown-on-way

 

So the protesters have to stick to Zucotti park. Great, I wonder how many more people they can fit in there to bolster their cause.