Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

An article about the start of these OWS protests. Reaffirms something I've assumed about adbusters for a few years. The counter voice is villified(and repainted) through a distorted media lens, and nothing is solved, except driving the still-employed public towards the antithesis of bandana clad curseries. What if we all took a page from Thoreau and refused to pay for these 'wars' that are openly in violation of human rights? Our defense minister recently announced that Canada is going forward with the F-35 program, despite budget shortfalls, which should be worked around minimizing the damage to public supports instead of reaffirming allegiance to NATO atrocities repainted as humanitarian bombings.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27708

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Okay, I think we all agree these people have a right to protest (in public places) for a period of time. The question is do you allow the protests to naturally die down (we all know they eventually will), or do the police eventually step in and break up the protests? If the police do step in, how long should they wait to step in, and what means are appropriate for the police to use? If the protesters throw rocks are the police allowed or not allowed to use pepper spray? And this could go on and on ... it's just one giant cluster fuck if you ask me.

More importantly, I really don't think these protests are effective at all - they're just preaching to the choir.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

While I don't really agree with protesting after a certain point; at some point you've got to get educated and make logical points rather than just sleeping in a tent.


Anyhow, I'm all for any protest if the protesters want to waste as much time as they desire as long as they: Don't impede people from going to/from work, don't stop safety services from providing safety, don't impede roads/bridges; that type of thing.

If they (any protest) start doing any of those (other than get violent/loot etc), I say get 'em the fuck out of there. Fine them all. hand each and every one of them their own ticket. If they rip up the ticket in defiance, arrest them for doing so.

But if real people want to waste their own goddamn time sitting in the cold rain for something they think is a good idea, fuck it - let them be cold, and wet sitting in some dingy park for months at a time.

But if they start breaking the law, shitting in public, loitering in stores, theft etc, bring the fucking law down on them hard. Breaking the law is one thing, but breaking the law in public while under the guise of standing up for 'the people' is sort of retarded, to me.


The thing is, I don't believe these occupy wallstreet douches want 'change'. It seems to me they want to be there long enough so force will have to be used to remove them, because then that will look bad on the government. They seemed to apparently wait for something like a line of students or an old lady to get peppersprayed, so they can stand up, throw their arms in the air and scream cruelty.


When I refer to "They", I don't mean the people in New York at Occupy Wallstreet. I mean everyone else. The 19 - late20somethings who are lazy douches who want to feel like they're a part of their own personal 60's flower power revolution. It's a fucking joke.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I don't think this is actually that far from the truth. Earlier this year I was in Madison for the union protests over the collective bargaining bill (this probably didn't receive media attention in Canada, but it was all over the local and national news here). Anyway, the protests peaked at around 100,000+ people per day, a fairly impressive number for a city with only 300,000 or so residents. But, observing the protests first-hand, it was fairly apparent to me that people get wrapped up in the "idea" of protesting, and often lose sight of the original cause. In other words, a lot of these protests just carry on because (1) it gives people something to do and allows them to live in a "fantasy world" for a period of time and (2) people enjoy the positive feedback loop you receive by protesting with like-minded citizens.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

My biggest concern is in line with Seth's, that the protesting will be picked up by the Democrats or Obama and spun as some counter against someone else.

For what it is worth, Congress just hit an all-time low approval rating of 9%.



Congress is in the process of discussing the Stop Online Piracy Act...another act in line with the Patriot Act intended to strip Americans of basic rights.

People continue to not have jobs. Education continues to slip. Politicians continue to ignore the real health care issue: why is medicine so expensive? Why are health costs so expensive? Attacking the pharmaceutical companies isn't advantageous for politicians who receive huge kickbacks from Pharmaceutical companies.

Why does it take almost a billion dollars to run a campaign for presidency these days?

Why is it a trail of money and not a trail of intelligence, education, and science?

Why does Congress get to even vote on the SOPA bill? It's a bunch of old folks who are too old and decrepit to actually understand how the Internet works.

Why are there weekly postings of Police Officers or Judges or Elected Officials clearly abusing their powers posted on social media sites like Youtube?

There is this really good article by Mike Lofgren that you should all read:

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all...ult/1314907779


For what it's worth, the article touches on some important problems with the Political Machine in this country.

There are no easy solutions. It will get worse before it gets better. The protesting is just feelings of angst being expressed outwardly. The retaliation by the police is strange considering they are public servants of the people.


I mean there are a lot of big problems right now. Big issues. So there are a lot of reasons for people to be furious. I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been more protesting and more anger.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Yep...time limit on free speech.



Why is everybody crying about corporation's private property? Is no one aware that if nobody stands up and complains, nothing will ever change.

One of the biggest complaints is that the protestors don't have a concise message or vision. Well guess what: neither do most legislative bodies. If you can barely get congress to agree to not let your country default, how do you expect a bunch of random angry people to reach an easy to understand consensus?

I get annoyed that everyone just shits on protestors based on where they themselves shit. In a lot of interview footage, you see that many protestors have a very clear idea of what they're upset about and what they wish was different. There are some rather eloquent points that are being made but people tune this out because they're invading corporate space or because some homeless people get in the mix. You know how to make it so homeless people don't start hanging out with people on the streets? Attempt to do something to resolve the homeless problem.

The fact is that things are pretty fucked up right now, and law makers pretty much only pass laws that protect the rich. So fuck the argument about a nation of laws before a nation of people. That's lunacy, a logical fallacy of retarded proportions. How can the rights of people not be first? We've seen that the police are more concerned with how to get protestors to shut up and go away than they are to protect first amendment rights.

But you guys are right. These protests can't accomplish anything. Politicians aren't listening. Politicians don't care. The only hope the occupy movement has is if this turns into a general strike at which point things will get a whole lot more disruptive.

Or hell, let's all just stop the protesting right now. Let's just trust that politicians who are owned by lobbyists will put the needs of the people first and fix the spiral that we're headed for.

I expect this shit from The Professor, but I'm disappointed with some of the rest of you.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

The problem with your view on "laws", if I can call it a view, is that you believe you can pick and choose who they apply to. If property rights laws are broken for a corporation, then they are broken for EVERYONE. This is the difference between having laws that protects people and a nation of "laws" that are enforced on a case by case basis. This is also called "tyranny". But I get the 'impression that you wouldn't mind tyranny as long as those who oppress do so from your point of view. Very short-sighted.

The focus of their complaints has nothing to do with their right to complain. My biggest compaint is that they are destroying private and public property.

Well, let's put a few hundred vagrants in front of your home 24/7, piling up garbage and human waste, and then see how you feel.

I agree many make good points, and I agree with many of their complaints about the involvement of corporations in government, but the distractions you mention are of their own creation. By choosing to "occupy" rather than protest on a daily basis they have made the conversation about all of the problems we have mentioned in this thread. In fact, a large portion of their time seems to be spent on organizing ways to legally remain on public property, and not on their message.

You seem to confuse an individual's "rights" with "whatever the fuck I want to do as long as I think my goals are just". Laws exist to protect people's rights. Remove laws, rights cease to exist, such as property rights. You have the right to free speech, but you don't have the right to express it on my front lawn.

You mention a logical fallacy of recognizing laws in today's environement, but you fail to follow your own argument down the rabbit hole. If laws don't mean anything, then obviously voting doesn't mean anything, and if voting doesn't mean anything then the only step left is revolution. This is your argument in a country that still maintains one of the highest standards of living in ther world and dwarfs the world in terms of wealth and production. Our impoverished people live like kings compared to many other countries. Are things perfect, or even good (compared to our standards)? No, there needs to be change if America is going maintain at its current level or grow. But I'm not sure Che needs to be resurrected quite yet.

Dyflon, you make political decisions based solely on outrage. That is your choice, but don't always expect everyone to agree with it.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I guess since I argued rather angrily it's easy to say that I feel you can suspend any law you want if the ends justify the means.

This is not how I feel.

However not every law is constructed in a way to facilitate democracy. Take for instance the situation that some workers find themselves in where they have to occupy their work space in order protest to maintain worker's rights or to receive money they are owed when a company is shutting down. To ask them to leave and protest in a public park will ensure that their message remains ignored.

The thing about "free-speech zones" is that they are always where someone doesn't have to pay attention to you.

So yes, in some cases I will be willing to concede that I take little issue with laws about private space (concerning commercial areas, not a random person's home as you imply later in your post) when the issues at stake are about the basic rights and freedoms of a population being put second to the interests of corporations and financial institutions.

To imply that I support tyranny is a very childish jump in logic and a very weak way to try and invalidate my opinion.

They're occupying the space where those responsible for the destruction of thousands of lives reside. This is of course specific to OWS, and not people in other cities who are camping out at their own financial sectors which are also part of the broken system. Really, they should be camping outside government buildings.

I don't shed a tear for the mound of human feces on corporate property. Call me cold hearted I guess. But to argue my point by saying how would I like it if people were outside my home is equating corporations to people who can have their feelings hurt or their lives disrupted. That kind of argument is exactly the problem. Don't imply that corporations have homes or feel feelings.

Also, ask yourself why there are "vagrants" in the first place that have the time to occupy any place for an extended period of time. It's not because they're lazy, many are victims of a broken system.



Point taken on this matter. But most protesters who have homes to go back to will do so at night. A lot of people who camp out don't have a place to go.

And people in power spend more time trying to convince everyone that protesters are lunatics or criminals than they do listening to what they have to say.


You're once again blowing what I feel out of proportion. I am not arguing for the suspension of all laws. You only get to bend the laws if you're rich, I know. If they're poor or oppressed, you need laws to protect everyone else from their tent city in Zucotti Park.

Nobody is protesting on your lawn or the lawn of ordinary individuals. Come off it.

Furthermore, we're talking about non-violent demonstration. It's sad that you hold more value in the property rights of corporate outdoor space than you do in people who fight for equality which is one of the democratic principles your country was founded on (correct me if I'm wrong).

Where the logical fallacy lies is saying laws before people because laws protect people. When you say that, you say that the laws as they are have to be upheld no matter what. This fails to account for humanity and the need to sometimes protect them from laws that are wrong.

When you put people first in the equation, then laws are thought of as in place to protect people in a way where they can be adjusted to better protect rights and freedom. That's why I say that "nation of laws before nation of people" is retarded.

It's the most backwards way to look at it. If people aren't first in the equation even semantically then what is the point?

You saying that I think voting is irrelevant is annoying because in no way is that what I imply. Frankly, it's an asshole argument to assume I think that (although sadly since so many politicians are owned it does make the process feel hollow at times).

I'm not saying that Americans have it the worst but you do have a broken system that is so out of control that when it fails due to greed and corruption, it drags the rest of the world with it. The heart of the argument is that corporate rights come before people's rights in your country and my country and much of the developed world.

Don't ever for a second think that I don't have faith in our ability to act as a society through democratic process. However I don't have faith in what the system has become and sometimes people who feel the same way will occupy a wall street park so that they can force people to hear them be angry about it. In the end, I'm willing to not care if the financial institution that brought your country to its knees has people camped out in their concrete park.



If I sound outraged it's because I am. However, go right to hell if you think you can discredit an opinion because I'm pissed off. My "political decisions" come from hours of thinking about these problems and talking about them with others. I don't feel these things in a knee jerk way.

I don't expect people to agree with me, but I expect those I argue with to be above putting words in my mouth that I did not say.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I know you're going to say I'm disagreeing with you for the sake of it, but I'm not - [really, I'm not even disagreeing with you] While I'm down with the message of spreading wealth, corporations not being people etc, I don't like the idiocy behind OCW. I don't like how other idiots started disrupting their communities as well, especially if their community is in another country which is undoubtedly not part of "The American 99%".



The problem (in this sense) is that some of the ralliers just flat out don't give a shit about what they do and where they do it. So 'mom and pop' shops everywhere are being torn apart because pseudo-anarchists who want to feel like part of something bigger are getting caught up in the framework of someone elses message. Have you ever heard of the phrase "You're only as strong as your weakest link?"


I agree. But I believe this is because we're Canadain. We live in a country of people before laws. Our country betters it's laws to protect it's people. Preserve the people. American law betters it's law to better America. Preserve the country.

But the thing is the people are definitely breaking laws. And I know you said "Whats the point of having laws if they dont protect the people" - but what about the people who are being disrupted by the Occupy movement? The thing is, since the occupy movement people are opposing the government (more or less), the laws cease to be on their side, and then begins to solely be on the side of the residents in the communities that the occupy movement people are in. THAT is why they have to get out. The law IS protecting the people. Just as those people have the right to be wherever-they-are, the people in those communities (the people who pay for those homes, apartments, stores, have jobs outside the movements) have just as much right to carry on with their life being entirely disrupted. And since both groups (protesters and people in the communities) are all people, and all equally protected by the law, the thing that tips the scale to one side is that one group of people is not shouting while shitting on a street/in a store.

By no means am I saying our country doesn't try fuck us over when it gets the chance. Our leaders are just nicer about it. They'll at least lube up and give us a call a few days later to make sure we're okay. Maybe send over a muffin basket or something.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Okay, yeah I'll admit maybe I idealize the movement based on what it stands for and not on how they're doing it.

It's a tough line to walk because I do believe that these protests need to be as public and "in your face" as possible for anyone to pay attention. But it's also not good to turn people against you.


They need to do a fundraiser for some portapotties maybe.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

1) Dyflon, thank you for providing a more reasoned argument.

2) This entire "people before laws" argument makes zero sense, especially when you defend it by saying Canadian laws exist to protect people. If that is the case the Canada puts laws before people, because the laws protect the people.

"Laws before people" isn't a statement that denies people rights, it maintains them from the power of the mob which is ruled by emotions and not reason.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

The ideological notion of people before laws doesn't strip away laws.

I believe that the number one standard that a country should be held to is the extent to which its citizens can live their lives with dignity. Right now, with growing unemployment and a focus on maintaining corporate tax breaks at the cost of stripping away social programs, the emphasis is definitely not on dignity. Your common citizen is living in a climate where they can be forced out of their homes and have nothing to fall back on because the free market gets to pick winners and losers.

The idea of laws before people (semantically) puts the emphasis on preserving laws as written as if that is always what is best forever.

I believe that laws as they are upheld are not always in the interest of the general public. Therefore, as a country, you would have to be flexible on changing the laws to suit the needs of the public. This is what I mean about people before laws. Laws should exist and change to protect the well-being of your citizens rather than citizens have to conform to what the laws are no matter what.

I feel the idea of the emphasis on laws over the people they are supposed to protect is a very inflexible way to look at society and therefore not useful in maintaining the dignity of your citizens. Whereas when you put people first in the equation (even semantically), the ideological notion becomes that society conforms around preserving the dignity of your citizens even if it requires adaptations to your laws.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

So, the scenario you support begs two questions: who decides when it is acceptable to overrule laws? Who decides the definition of "basic rights and freedoms of a population?"

Please explain.

What are they saying? It seems as though we've agreed that the protesters do not have a concise or clear message, so how is one supposed to discern what they are saying in a coherent fashion?

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I didn't say anyone was overruling a law. But in cases of civil disobedience groups will ignore some laws. I'm not saying a mob should be able to kill people or rape or commit fraud or anything. But the police force has to decide if property rights for multi-billion dollar companies are more relevant than a group's desire to protest in that space.

And asking me who defines basic rights and freedoms isn't directly related to my argument. Explain to me what you're getting at so I can respond to the question.


Would you like me to summarize the events of the recent stock market crash wherein those who worked for financial institutions bundled and sold people's debts and then bet against those people's ability to pay back those debts based on confusing mortgage terms buyers were duped into? If I've gotten any details wrong please correct me, but I'm pretty sure Wall Street is directly linked to the financial and housing collapse with correlates to thousands of families losing their homes.


I've always understood that the easiest way to listen is by listening. I'm not suggesting that the protest movement can at this point deliver a concise message but there's been more than enough opportunity for protestors to voice many concerns through the media. Valid points I might add.

They're trying to change the discussion in politics, but that's not happening at all. Nobody's listening.

You're the person who confused me the most, Andrew. From what I know about you, you seem to me like the kind of person who would at least recognize politician's needs to talk about some of the issues the protestors bring up (like perhaps the expanded role money and corporations play in politics). Because I find you to reasonable. However, I'm concerned that you feel they have nothing relevant to say and should just go away. You never struck me as the kind of guy who would support such marginalization. I really hope I'm completely off base with how you feel.


Edit: I phrased that last bit wrong. It's unfair for me to assume your position on the politicians and I see in this thread that you agree with some things I say. But my concern remains that you don't find the protestors worth listening to.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I'm very much enjoying this discussion, so I'm merely dropping in some random facts/thoughts/tangents as a partial observer. I don't want to break up this discussion, but there's some stuff worth thinking about below.


Examples of laws/policy that have failed because the law came before human rights:

-Prohibition and the War on Drugs, really
-Sex offender laws and statutory rape
-Anything slavery and civil rights, duh

Examples of current laws that undermine basic Constitutional Rights:

-namely the Patriot Act and all the warrant-less wiretapping.
-a number of people have been arrested/detained without the fair right to a trial, which is also supposed to be protected by the Constitution
-you could argue that the TSA impedes certain rights, but flying is a private industry and flying isn't a right, it's a privilege; so gray area

The US Prison population, which far exceeds everyone else, is padded by silly drug laws and laws that really don't consider the basic rights of humans:

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/w...pagewanted=all

These are mostly social issues, I'm less familiar with the financial sectors. The current SOPA act is on par with the Patriot Act, only for your Internet. If SOPA passes, for all we know this very forum could be blacklisted. America will be the next China. Many of the pro-SOPA folks are getting big kickbacks and funding from the RIAA and other large corporations.

I don't think we need to argue that the RIAA is more interested in money than anyone's rights.

At any rate, no one has really touched on why corporations are allowed to lobby, why running for President costs almost a billion dollars, or things like that. I'm curious what everyone thinks.

Relative to the rest of the world, I'm pretty sure the US spends waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more on campaigning. And I'm 100% okay with politicians being required to publicly air out who they get money from. You oppose healthcare for everyone, do you? Oh, you're getting a couple million dollars from Big Pharma every year! Well, fuck you!

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I was trying to show that alleviating some laws because some people think it is right to do so is a slippery slope. The reason why Professor alluded to tyranny is because history is riddled with examples where this happens (often with original good intentions). I agree the prospect of the United States falling into tyranny is basically zero, but it is an important historical point that we shouldn't forget.

I also was trying to understand the crux of what you're saying. These discussions tend to get rather confusing and difficult to follow, so I only wanted to focus on a few points.

I would generally agree with that, but I would add the caveat that I think the government is also culpable in addition to Wall Street, and that just blaming "Wall Street" is probably an unfair generalization (it was more so likely the malicious intent of a few, and the ignorance of many). The core problem is that who was responsible and what exactly happened is extremely complicated (this is also why it happened in the first place). Loans that homeowners had no chance of paying back were treated as AAA bonds, and were then re-packaged, packaged again, even sometimes once more, into pools of mortgage loans (mortgage-backed securities). When you have so many financial layers of re-packaging (aka. a creative way of hiding what the underlying asset infact is, and its risk-level), things simply become way too complicated to understand what is truly going on any more. When you couple this with the fact that the majority of these securities resided in major commercial banks, you have an extremely dangerous consolidation risk.

See, I think this is maybe the crux of what we're trying to talk about. I'm not disagreeing over the message of the movement (I agree that increasing inequality is a very serious and major systemic issue that needs to be dealt with), but the method of the movement -- I just don't think it's effective. The problem with these kinds of protests is that they rarely convert anyone. The protest eventually becomes more concerned and focused on the preservation of the protest over the actual message. This ends in the protest re-empowering itself and converting hardly anyone to its message.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I just got annoyed by the tyranny bit because the invasion of corporate property by protesters couldn't lead to tyranny. It's only the circumvention of laws by the government that can do that.


The government is responsible in that it deregulated the banks. While I believe that this was a horrifying and reckless mistake, more blame does fall to the financial institutions. The guy who gave the crazy person the gun is partially responsible; just not as responsible as the crazy guy who did the shooting.

However, I will agree that more focus should be put on the political system that allowed this to happen.


When you have to go into survival mode to keep your protest from being disbanded, that should tell you a lot about the current situation.

People need to be publicly upset in a way that forces politicians to take notice. I think we know that it doesn't matter what party is in power. The system is broken in a way that we can't trust politicians to fix on their own. Especially since at the heart of the problem is the greed and short-sightedness of the very politicians we rely on to make things better.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

And you voted for....Obama, right? :ohreilly:

Sorry, I forgot which American politician you rely on.

That is joke, comrade.



To be honest, what that tells me, is that the protest doesn't have a strong enough organized message, and is just full of people with nothing to do. No credible protest really needs to struggle to keep itself alive.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I never said that the invasion of corporate property by protesters leads to tyranny. I said that ruling by the will of the enlightened few, rather than the will of the people (reflected in laws passed in a government determined by self-rule) can lead to tyranny. If you ignore or refuse laws in a self-determined government, you are rejecting the democratic process, not protecting it. Hence my comments about following your argument down the rabbit hole. Your reaction to this specific set of events reveals a troubling distrust of lawful self-rule, IMO.

That said, in American there are inalienable rights; rights that cannot be removed even through a democratic process (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness). In that way I agree with KG that we may have stepped on some of them, but that would be for the courts to decide (and a lesser extent, elections).

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I'm only going to comment on this specific quote because I literally just finished smoking a joint - no intention of derailing, or arguing etc.

That's a whole other can of worms, though.

George Carlin put it best: man doesn't have rights by birth, you have privileges.

I don't think the "pursuit of happiness" is a right. Anything that is conditional is not a right. Rights are things like Free Speech, Free Religion, Free Sexuality. Those are rights.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

If the only rights man has are given to him by other men, then men can take them away without repudiation. Unalienable (misspelling corrected) rights (based on natural law) are the only rights we really have, because man cannot give them or justly take them away. Understanding this concept is a lot easier if you believe in a creator.

Also, how is pursuit of happiness conditional? It guarantees you the right to pursue your own joy, and reflexively prohibits you (or the government) from inhibiting anyone else from that pursuit (eliminating acts against others as a route to happiness). Now there are a lot of ways to interpret our unalienable rights, but that was intentional.

Also, these rights are identified in the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution, so they remain more a natural law than a human law.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I constantly feel the need to make it clear I'm not maliciously arguing - just keeping a conversation going. You know, just for the record and all.


You cannot pursue happiness, unless it is in the confines of the law. That is not Freedom. That's a guideline.

You can however love who you want, believe what you want, and say what you want. On our continent, or at least Canada and the US - those are the only true "Birth Rights" we have. But even then, those "Birth Rights" were given to us by normal men, who decided it was a good idea.

You don't have the birth right to be happy. You have the birth right to be whomever you want to be, and attempt to find what makes you happy within the confines of the law.


(That's essentially why I quoted George Carlin and said "man does not have rights, he has privileges".)

Our North American rights (The Free Speech/Religion/Love) mean absolutely nothing to some leaders in other parts of the world.

And hell, even in the US I don't think you're legally allowed to be gay and get married in most places. Score a point for Freedom. Freedom to marry who you want as long as a group of likeminded people approve the person you're marrying. :lol:

The Freedom to publicly worship whoever you want, unless it's Satan, or Mohammad.
The Freedom to publicly say what you want, unless it's racist or sexist.

I'm not saying Canada is better than the US in this case. It's all the same boat. I'm just not a fan of the whole "Freedom this, Freedom that."
We're only as free as the leaders we elect, and their committee of friends allow us to be.

Edit: And I'm aware I sort of contradicted myself with the "I believe these are the only true birth rights we have" and ending with "We don't have Freedom". I was stating what I believe we SHOULD have as birth rights (and do) - I just felt like ending with the realism that we don't have Freeom. We only have Freedom because the rest of the world is so fucking oppressed compared to us(North America). That doesn't mean we're Free. It just means we're less oppressed.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Typhoid, I understand your personal view on the issue of rights, but you do know western philosophical thought is founded on a separation between natural (unalienable) rights and legal rights, right? Natural rights exist outside the legal system -- they are timeless and cannot be taken away (as in they were not given by man, so they were not given by the legal system). Legal rights are given by man and hence fall under the legal system. Our declaration of independence, constitution, and really any english common law document is founded on this principle.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

And I'm conversating. :)

I don't think we disagree on this. I never said you had the right to be happy. You have the right to pursue happiness. There are no guarantees.

As for laws, you are talking about human laws. I am talking about natural laws; those that should be maintained outside of government fought to the death to maintain. See: Thomas Equinas

I thought we agreed more than we disagreed. I would also make the difference between Freedom and Liberty. Total freedom is anarchy. IMO, Liberty is Freedom limited to protect others' rights to pursue happiness.

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Despite the jokingness, I kinda believe now that it doesn't matter which politician is in power when the system is broken. I'd still rather it be Obama than a Republican candidate, but I think we've witnessed now that hope for change doesn't really lead to results when the political machine fights change every step of the way.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Agreed.

Btw, thank you for replying to this thread and moving the focus back to why people are protesting opposed to why people don't like how this partictular protest is being handled. I was about to lose my mind reading the first couple pages of people basically quoting the mainstream media trying to downplay the effectiveness and misreprsent the character of the people who are at occupy wallstreet.

The fact that we're even having this discussion proves that it is effective.

As for offering solutions to the problems, that's what representatives are there for. Not everyone is going to have answers for how to fix what's broken in the system as it is today. The point is to bring attention to the fact that the system IS broken. Eventually with enough public support (in theory) there should be a politician who comes out and represents these people who feel like the system is broken, and who tries to get voted in to actually fix it.

Right now, all we can do is hope that the system can still be fixed by non violent means. But if it can't be, people need to be ready to do what they have to do. That's how the country was built to begin with.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Where in this thread has anyone quoted the mainstream media?

What is the "system?" No one can fix the "system" if it's an abstract idea.

I would like to engage in a serious discussion on serious issues. I brought up increasing inequality on page one and cited real data, but no one continued the discussion. Let's talk about specific problems facing our country and then discuss solutions to them.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

But it's so much easier just to make signs and wave your fingers in the air.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

I'm not sure my contribution will meet your guidelines, but I think the issue at hand is as much a philosophical problem as a policy problem. We lay our futures at the feet of others expecting all our problems to be swept away in a cleansing wave of altruism. In reality, we have provided those that would rig the system for their own interests with the means to do so.

The greatest myth we need to overcome is the myth that our collective future is somehow controllable by a select few elected officials. The greatest and most productive social and economic systems known to man simply come into existence without some grand plan. See: Spontaneous Orders



Now even though this is a free-market principle, and I am not a 100% free marketer, but I think can see what happens when we layer thousands of pages of tax law and regulations (or unequal deregulation*) on top of the marketplace: Rampant corruption (government and industry) and a severely uneven playing field.

Currently taxes and regulations are constructed in a way that prevents new personal wealth (progressive taxes, estate taxes, etc.), upward mobility, and consolidates power.

But the great lie is that we can somehow wave a magic wand of regulations and new taxes to fix our problems. These ideas are how we GOT HERE. If bashing your skull with a hammer is giving you a headache, you can fix it by hitting yourself HARDER.

At first I thought our main problem was arrogance, but looking harder I think our main problem is a feeling of impotence and lack of self-esteem; that we can't possibly control our own lives and culture. We are too stupid and weak. That we need to select others to control these processes for us. Meanwhile, these select few only beat us down more, and we seem to respond "thank you sir... may I have another?"

What we complain about in society are the spontaneous orders that have grown BECAUSE to our rejection of personal responsibility and collective self-loathing. There is no grand conspiracy; no shadow government or unknowable force or evil political party oppressing us. We have gotten exactly what we asked for.

How to fix it? Until we start asking for responsibility, instead of giving it away, I don't imagine anything will change (we'll still have good economies and bad economies, but the imbalance will remain).


*Many blame the current economic crisis on a lack of regulation over the mortgage and financial industry, but the truth is this industry was a remains one of the most highly regulated in the country. What no one asks is WHAT sectors were over-regulated, what sectors were deregulated, and what sectors WEREN'T REGULATED AT ALL. Example: Many hedge funds were allowed to run without any government oversight at all during the 90's and much of the 00's (maybe still today). They brought in record profits, and record investment. This is an uneven playing field and an unnatural imbalance consolidating massive amounts of investment $. IMO, unnatural economic systems are deadly whether through selective regulation, or selective deregulation.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Have you not read the 22 declarations (well 23 now) of occupy wall street?

http://www.thetruthdenied.com/news/2...new-york-city/

“As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, formerly… divided by the color of our skin, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or lack thereof, political party and cultural background, we acknowledge the reality: that there is only one race, the human race, and our survival requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their brethren; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

1.They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
2.They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give CEO’s exorbitant bonuses.
3.They have perpetuated gender inequality and discrimination in the workplace.
4.They have poisoned the food supply, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
5.They have continuously sought to end the rights of workers to negotiate their pay and make complaints about the safety of their workplace.
6.They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
7.They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
8.They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
9.They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
10.They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
11.They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
12.They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
13.They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
14.They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
15.They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
16.They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
17.They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty book keeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
18.They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
19.They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
20.They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
21.They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.
22.They have participated in a directly racist action by accepting the contract from the State of Georgia to murder Troy Davis.
23.They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
To the people of the world: We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power. Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy: We offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!”

Agree or disagree all you would like, but these are people who are looking for representation.

Obama, congress, and the mainstream media are all a product of this broken system. So don't expect them to do anything except try to bury this.

To answer your first question, the media's strategy to get around discussing the actual issues that drive the protest is to focus on how people are going about the protest wrong and/or characterize the participants as a confused angry mob. That's basically what I got from the first couple pages of this thread. What I quoted has been out there since the end of September, and you still will catch the media acting like people are protesting with no purpose.

Before you can start working on a solution for a problem, you have to first recognize that there is a problem. And when it comes to politics, you need to show your representatives that there's a lot of support out there for trying to fix the problem. So now we have a whole list of issues that people can take a stance on for the 2012 elections. Obama, product of the current broken system, will have no opinion on this. Don't expect a republican to either. You're only allowed to be against it, or not have an opinion if you want the big doners.

#13 and #14 on the list are the biggest issues to me. I think once those issues are resolved, it would take a lot of pressure off for resolving the other ones.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Well, I'd be happy to engage with you on certain or each of the 23 points listed in the Occupy executive summary.

The first thing that stands out to me in this declaration is that it blames everything (all 23 points) on corporations. That doesn't seem rather rational to me. Our economic, political, and social structures are complex, interwoven, and most of all, complicated. To blame the entirety of our woes on corporations is disingenuous at best. But I will digress, and try to not judge this manifesto by its opening, but rather by its substance.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

This is why I think #13 and #14 are the biggest issues. I'd also place #8 up there, and #18 to an extent. They make for an incentive structure that's built to cater to the corperations.

-EDIT-

With the above said, can you give an example of something that's not a corperation's fault? I mean, you could blame the government, but their financial incentives to get into office come from large corperations. You could blame the media for not covering things fully/honestly, but they also have financial incentive to feed the corperations. You could blame your average citizens for not stepping up, but they're mis informed by both their government and media and it usually bends their opinion into something that supports large corperations more than themselves.

This is why Occupy Wall Street is nessicary, because trying to get change in a broken system without making a scene doesn't seem to be possible nowadays.

I mean, listen to yourself on the first page: "Well... it's certainly an interesting movement, but without point or purpose, I don't see it going far. There have been comparisons to the tea party, but I doubt it will have a similar political impact."

The 23 declearations have been out there 2 months... and not once was your media or government honest enough to tell you that THIS is the purpose of the movement?? (I'm not going to say none of the big 3 ever mentioned it, but I guarantee the ratio is probably 1:100 or more for times the declarations were mentionned vs the times it was mentioned that this movement has no meaningful purpose) And this movement is much bigger than the Tea Party one, MUCH bigger. Yet it's so under played that it makes one wonder if corperations are really in favor of the tea party movement on some level.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Update: Philadelphia occupiers were evicted from Dilworth Plaza this morning after three warnings to leave. No incidents of violence, but there were many arrests when protesters refuse to vacate the streets and move to other common areas. Apparently clean-up took several hours using bulldozers and fire hoses. Again, protesters have the right to protest, but not to do this...

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_ne...r-defense-bill

Why would something like this pass so easilly in the senate? And why now?

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Explains why Obama is opposed to the bill.
I can't believe people can imitate the message that we are somehow in a moral position to get rid of tyrancy in middle eastern countries.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28055


Also, hopefully Ron Paul will win so that either a) he absolves the Federal Reserve, private printing of debt-attached currency in America, or b) he will be put on a 'hit' and his martyrdom will inspire the millions needed to incite change.
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1459/...Candidate.html

It wasn't until 1933 that 'feder reserve' became printed on currency.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Great post, strongly agree.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Great way to eat dinner if you have someone to watch it with. 1:53:00 length.

Lifting the Veil from S DN on Vimeo.

About NDAA Section 1031. Remove wording that protects civil rights and then object to the lack of this protective language.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

If you haven't heard already, Obama flopped on his veto warnings now supports the bill. The mainstream media should have been in an outrage about this, but they weren't.. goes back to the point about the system being broken.

If this next election is Obama vs Romney... this is just sad. I'm not sure what Obama can even say next time he runs, he's already proven himself to be a liar and absolute failure. And Mick Romney is a proud corperatist (Obama's the closet one). Don't get me wrong, there's differences between Obama and Romney, but what they have in common is all bad for the country.

I'm in Ron Paul's camp, even though I don't agree with him as much as I did with candidate Obama in 2008. President Obama lost his right to a second term in my book.

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Just watched a video and thought it supported many of y feelings expressed in this thread:



Edit: This one is even better...

Re: Occupy Wallstreet
 

Good points in those videos. But Occupy wallstreet isn't a blanket call for regulation or deregulation, so I don't know what relevance this has with the thread. The real issue is that the government's incentive structure is set to bend to the will of giant corperations. So the second video is more on topic in that sense.

I guarantee if any type of deregulation happens it will also feed the large corperations and hurt competition and the quality/price of products too... because that's just how things are run here now. It's very rare that the government passes something that the big banks or giant corperations don't like and that's for the good of the consumers.