Occupy Wall Street: The Movement Grows

[Si modo]

OWS organizers' (nouveaux-elites) tenet: Knowledge is Bad; Ignorance is Good.

 

[Dragon]

OWS organizers' (nouveaux-elites) tenet: Knowledge is Bad; Ignorance is Good.

This is completely silly, of course. If you had any knowledge yourself of the way the protest area is set out and organized, and the importance placed on the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge, you'd see how silly it is.

 

[Si modo]

My guess is that "the park" has some public access agreements added to the deed. So that the City has access to utilities, traffic control ect. I'll bet a bundle it's NOT "totally private" property. Maybe even serviced by the City in some regards.

That's correct. It's a public park. Concerns have been raised about the impact of the protesters on the park's cleanliness and safety, and the letter addresses some of those concerns. They were being used as a pretext to request that the police forcibly clear out the protesters. The police can't simply move in and do that on, say, trespassing charges.

Not true. The park is owned by Brookfield Office Properties.

 

[Si modo]

OWS organizers' (nouveaux-elites) tenet: Knowledge is Bad; Ignorance is Good.

This is completely silly, of course. If you had any knowledge yourself of the way the protest area is set out and organized, and the importance placed on the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge, you'd see how silly it is.

As you keep on insisting the OWS has no 'official' demand, no ideas for solutions; obviously the peons on the street cannot know what they want. They are just expressing envy.

OK.

Now what?

Ignorance is Good...so far.

 

[Unkotare]

The greedy one percent that bankrupted the nation, morally and fiscally, is now facing its greatest fear: a public uprising against their accumulation of wealth and power, and with that, the best chance at change in the post-War era.

It started in New York City, as hundreds of activists literally occupied Wall Street, setting up a tent city in a nearby park and organizing daily protests. For two weeks, the movement squeaked by on minimal coverage. The national media ignored the protests, even as the protesters dug in and redoubled their efforts.

Their "greatest fear" is a handful of unwashed nobodies who can't hold a job, are very unlikely to vote, don't know why they are there and for the most part don't care? Oh the horror.

 

[Dot Com]

 

[Unkotare]

If you had any knowledge yourself of the way the protest area is set out and organized.

I guess we could ask Soros, he must know what he paid for.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Are you doing better off now than you were during Reagan second term? I was. and that was 25 years ago.

 

[Dragon]

As you keep on insisting the OWS has no 'official' demand, no ideas for solutions; obviously the peons on the street cannot know what they want. They are just expressing envy.

You are incorrect on several points. I have not said that OWS has no demands and no ideas for solutions. They do: get the corporate money out of politics. That's a demand. Doing that would be a solution; in fact, it is what would make all other solutions possible. If there are no demands being made that can simply and easily be done within the confines of our corrupt politics, that's because our corrupt politics is itself the problem and what needs to be changed.

 

[Dragon]

I guess we could ask Soros, he must know what he paid for.

No, in this case he almost certainly doesn't. That's assuming he paid anything, of which I haven't seen any evidence so far.

 

[Dragon]

Are you doing better now than you were during Reagan second term? I was. and that was 25 years ago.

I don't understand if you're saying here that you are or aren't doing better than you were in the late 1980s.

Most people aren't. Most people are a good deal worse off now than they were then. That's the point.

 

[Unkotare]

get the corporate money out of politics. That's a demand..

That's not a demand, that's a slogan, and an empty one at that. You could show these ignorant potheads a copy of the Constitution but they'd probably just roll it up and smoke it while pooping on a polic car.

 

[Si modo]

As you keep on insisting the OWS has no 'official' demand, no ideas for solutions; obviously the peons on the street cannot know what they want. They are just expressing envy.

You are incorrect on several points. I have not said that OWS has no demands and no ideas for solutions. They do: get the corporate money out of politics. That's a demand. Doing that would be a solution; in fact, it is what would make all other solutions possible. If there are no demands being made that can simply and easily be done within the confines of our corrupt politics, that's because our corrupt politics is itself the problem and what needs to be changed.

OK. They are not just expressing envy, but also dissatisfaction.

"I want it to go away or stop" is not any sort of idea for a solution.

So, no ideas for solutions.

Now what? What is the next step? And why can't the OWS share it?

As I also said: Ignorance is Good...so far.

 

[georgephillip]

Or we could ask Chris Hedges:

"Even now, three weeks later, elites, and their mouthpieces in the press, continue to puzzle over what people like Ketchup want. Where is the list of demands? Why don’t they present us with specific goals? Why can’t they articulate an agenda?

"... These protesters have not come to work within the system. They are not pleading with Congress for electoral reform. They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power.

"They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties. They know the press will not amplify their voices, and so they created a press of their own. They know the economy serves the oligarchs, so they formed their own communal system.

"This movement is an effort to take our country back.

"This is a goal the power elite cannot comprehend..."

Can you?

Why the Elites Are in Trouble | Truthout

 

[Unkotare]

I guess we could ask Soros, he must know what he paid for.

No, in this case he almost certainly doesn't. That's assuming he paid anything, of which I haven't seen any evidence so far.

Head up to Canada and ask adbusters where they get their money.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Sorry, the national spotlight has moved off of the Tea Party after they made fools of themselves in the debt ceiling debate.

Oh, but the Shitters do? With the strong and coherent message of um, well, uh, whatever it is they want...

The Teabaggers just did not know how to govern, and stay on their agenda.

Oh, well the Shitters are the masters of agenda. The agenda of, um, well, uh, whatever it is they want is focused on with laser like precision.

As the Tea Party fades into history we should give them credit for waking up moderate Republicans, Conservative Democrats, and the left.

LOL

Thanks, we can hand the rest of it from here, but you are welcome to sign up with us. We hate Wall Street Millionaires, Republicans and Democrats.

But you'll be casting a dozen votes each for the Messiah®, Barack Obama... Just more of the Shitter hypocrisy at work.

In the end the only ones who will stand up for the 1% are the 1%.

The Shitters are less than 1%

Even some of them have joined the 99%, they are known as Patriotic Millionaires.

Yeah, no one could be more patriotic than George Soros and Sean Penn - you Marxists have it all figured out....

 

[flacaltenn]

Dragon::

get the corporate money out of politics. That's a demand..

Not willing to take corporate money out of politics when corporations can be attacked and vilified by the GOVT. GOVT can favor them or their competition at the drop of a hat. GOVT can punish them without recourse. GOVT can support the most weak and unethical of their competition.

Until they can compete on MERIT and not have to worry about GOVT meddling their markets and products, they SHOULD be able to politically defend themselves.

The corporate/govt collusion would STILL BE THERE without "corporate money". I'm sure Bear-Stearns had corporate money in the game and STILL got screwed. But more importantly -- if corporate money WERE to be banned --- you'd STILL see favoritism and cronyism being doled out on the basis of corporations bringing jobs and money to THEIR DISTRICTS -- or to THEIR NEPHEWS. Or whether they are UNIONIZED or provide "adequate benefits" . Or that power would be doled out as punishment to CORPORATIONS that did not fit politicians preconceived agendas.

"It's not the money stupid" -- It's the power to pick and choose winners/losers and dole out the crony favors. But being the HUGE Union guy that you are --- YOU know that.. You just want to hobble the enemy so you can finish the kill..

Besides, there is no correlation between "money" and who was bailed out. But there IS a correlation between who got bailed out and the make-up of the Govt Economic advising team... Which is another way that doling out crony favors would just proceed full speed ahead ---- EVEN IF -- money was removed.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Let's give all the heroic capitalists a little competition.

Dr. Michael Hudson, professor of economics at UM Kansas City, has details:

"[T]he demand isn't simply to make a public bank, but is to treat the banks generally as a public utility, just as you treat electric companies as a public utility.... Just as there was pressure for a public option in health care, there should be a public option in banking.

"There should be a government bank that offers credit card rates without punitive 30% interest rates, without penalties, without raising the rate if you don't pay your electric bill.

"This is how America got strong in the 19th and early 20th century, by essentially having public infrastructure, just like you'd have roads and bridges.... The idea of public infrastructure was to lower the cost of living and to lower the cost of doing business."

The Public Option in Banking: Another Look at the German Model | Truthout

For the last 500 years (at least) the only thing worse for any politician than getting caught doing business with organized crime was losing control of the money organized crime generates every year.

Bank of American, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Citibank are criminal organizations served by Republican AND Democratic administrations alike. FLUSH them all from Wall Street and government and straight into prison starting in November 2012.

Item #6 of the communist manifesto.

Everything the democrats demand can be tied back to the communist manifesto.

Funny that...

 

[Dragon]

"I want it to go away or stop" is not any sort of idea for a solution.

So, no ideas for solutions.

You still don't get it, and that's probably because you're invested in the existing political system.

A demand for the government to do something is not the point here; the protesters are themselves doing something and they're doing it quite effectively: providing a new narrative.

Never underestimate the power of a narrative. We're in this mess largely because one narrative, the conflict between free enterprise and Communism, has dominated our politics since the late 1940s. It's out of date, of course, the Cold War being over for the past twenty years, but it still dominates just the same. How many times have you seen Obama called a Communist, or for that matter the OWS protesters? That's ridiculous in both cases, but because of the power of that old narrative it still has power.

OWS is presenting a new narrative: that the real conflict is between the very rich and corporations and the people. And it's catching on. It's provoking a response from the right. It's given us a simple idea, the 1% versus the 99%, that has a lot of appeal and that anyone can understand. It's cutting through the Cold War fog and giving us a different way of thinking about our politics. It's also cutting through the partisan fog and letting us see possibilities beyond the current positions of the Democrats and Republicans. This act is itself revolutionary. There's no need to demand that government do anything specific right away; government is too corrupt to be able to do what needs to be done in any case.

You're failing to understand this movement because you're seeing it through the lenses of conventional politics, and don't understand that it is operating on a different, deeper, more revolutionary level than that. Specific changes will grow organically from the changes in our thinking.

This is the antithesis of ignorance. It's brilliant, and it's succeeding brilliantly. You don't see the success because you're looking in the wrong places.

 

[Unkotare]

Seriously, lay off the pot, kid.