Will "Occupy Wall Street" Stick?

[Julie Marie]

And I think the Occupy movement has in it an element that will eventually focus on the kinds of things we do to and in other countries, if for no other reason than those efforts are burning up tax dollars. 

In many ways, this is the Hippie Revolution Redux - something that started simply as a rebellion against the establishment that the Viet Nam war helped escalate into a revolution.  Back then, the message was end the war.  Today the message, to those who are listening, is end the war against the working class.

Little by little the media is coming to admit there's actually something going on here.  That will help fuel this.  People are pissed.  And this Occupy Movement is a way for them to channel their anger and frustration.  This movement transcends generations, race and gender.  It's simply about getting a slice of the pie that doesn't leave you still starving.  And that includes a very large percentage of the population.

Bloomberg has ordered the protesters to leave Zuccotti Park today so city crews can clean it up.  They have refused.  But they did offer to clean it up themselves.  Zuccotti Park is privately owned so I don't know how that will shake out.  But it would be very interesting to see the protesters leave the park and relocate at the Washington Mall.  Of course every other Occupy Group throughout the nation would be invited too.   

[Jen61]

And, while most Americans have so little contact with the Feds, they don't see that where the federal government of the US has not really massively grown in their own lives it has expanded to massive levels throughout the rest of the world.  In partnership with the large multi-national corporations (the flag follows the dollar) the US government exercises enormous power elsewhere, and combined with the incredibly corrosive presence of American Media it has destroyed traditional values, cultures, and societies all around the world, all for the sake of corporate profits, and left in its wake nothing of value to the people who resided there.

I beg to dissagree with this paragraph. The globalization of the world is an American creation. The standard of living of Latin America and Asia have increased by several orders of magnitud since the 50's.  Local tradtional cultures and societies are well and thrieving while enmesh in the American culture.


Jen61

[tekla]

Which explains why those nations are so heavily in debt to the US and World Bank (a total First World entity), and why most of those places don't even own their own water supply anymore.

[Mahsa Tezani]

I've always questioned protesting. Blocking the streets in SF so people can't work isn't helping anything.

I think it's a phase like all protesting...

[Jen61]

Which explains why those nations are so heavily in debt to the US and World Bank (a total First World entity), and why most of those places don't even own their own water supply anymore.

Your statement is only true for some impoverish African Countries, and a couple of Latin American's ones. I would like to point to you that China and Brazil are currently the only two lenders who are rescuing Europe, at the tune 1.2 billion. Ecuador and Chile, because of their own financial management strategies escaped the world's "housing meltdown," and while not devoid of problems (like the rest of the world) have made significant improvements on "social justice."

My point is that yes we have injustice, poverty, and inequality across the globe; we also -all earthlings- face some challenges in our efforts to maintain and extend good living conditions, but we are also very resourceful and ingenious people, and under the American aegis the world -in a few centuries- will be a better place for every body.

The change will be painfully slow with many sacrifices along the way, but optimist and hope will prevail over the "doom and loom" predicated by socialists and anarchists.

Jen61

[tekla]

Those are not socialists and anarchists out in the streets.  It's nurses, pilots, working people.  People who've watched the value of their homes fall off the charts, people who've watched their pensions evaporate, people who did 'all the right things': got and education, did well, kept their records clean and end up looking at not being able to get a job, not being able to repay their student loans and having a pretty good notion that theirs will be the first generation that will not be able to do better than their parents, but in many cases profoundly worse.

[gennee]

Bloomberg's ploy to get the protesters to move was a ploy that wasn't going to work. The streets around there were being cleaned as best they could. My own feeling is that the light is being shined on those responsible for the economic mess America is in.

The premise Occupy Wall Street uses definitely can be used regarding other issues. How about forming a ring around Gold Sachs, or Bank of America (which is bankrupt).  

[Julie Marie]

I look at my kids.  Both well educated and degreed beyond the usual college level.  My daughter went to an Ivy League college and racked up a six figure school loan debt.  They couldn't give her money fast enough.  The Bush Administration had exempted school loans from things like bankruptcy and created a guaranteed payback for lenders of school loans.  The lenders were as irresponsible as the mortgage companies, handing out every penny they could to anyone kid looking for a school loan.  Can you imagine the reaction when you wave thousands of dollars in the face of an 18 year old?  It was taking candy from a baby.

Today, at 29, daughter is happy to hold a job even though what she makes isn't enough to get by on AND pay off her school loan.  So she's living at home, like an awful lot of 20 & 30 somethings. 

My son, three years younger, isn't doing much better except his school loan is less than half what his sister's is.  That's because I signed him up at a state college.  He can afford to live on his own because he isn't strapped by a massive school loan payment.  But he is still just getting by.

And this is pretty typical of the kids entering the job market in the past ten years or so.  If these kids can't do as well as their parents, what does that say for the future of this country?

Some may think occupying the streets accomplishes little but at least they are getting noticed.  Yesterday I saw two columns, one in the New York Times, that spoke of the fear the plutocrats are having about this movement.  The fact that the richest 400 people in the US have as much wealth as the lower 50% is making the news and people are waking up to the fact an enormous transfer of wealth has happened and it's choking the economy.  And the rich are getting worried.

Today there were reports riots have erupted in Rome over this same thing.  I can understand why the billionaires are worried.   

[Julie Marie]

Sorry for my Australian naivety.

What is the movement about? I get get sensible answers from the newspapers. Can anyone

I was also bemused about the arguments against increasing tax on the wealthy. Why not?  I would have thought that was obvious and popular.

I would also suggest death taxes should be brought in. They have been in other democratic countries before including UK and most of Europe. I think the USA has to bite the bullet,  Why should horrendously wealthy people die and give their money to people who have not worked for it?

I will no doubt be popular with some and not with others

Cindy

Looks like you will be able to see it first hand...

Anti-Wall St protests spread to Australia

[mimpi]

Major incidents at the huge demonstration in Rome. Full on urban warfare at one point.

Photos of the incidents: http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2011/10/15/foto/una_giornata_di_scontri_il_fotoracconto-23290166/1/

http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2011/10/15/foto/acab_e_carlo_vive_le_scritte_sul_blindato-23297876/1/

http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2011/10/15/foto/roma_le_facce_degli_scontri-23299120/1/

[Amazon D]

Thankfully we are not at the point where robots can do all the work or else they would try to remove the mass of workers from society.

[mimpi]

Thankfully we are not at the point where robots can do all the work or else they would try to remove the mass of workers from society.

They prefer simply to increase unemployment and lower wages. At the end of the day you are 350 million and they are merely tens of thousands. Historically every army eventually gets fed up with killing its own and switches sides...

[MarinaM]

This was my blogged reaction to pretty much all of this:
Excuse my voice, I was sickly that day.


For those of you who don't have the patience to sit through a four minute on the spot original exercise in cruel irony:

America, you win.
I have a daughter.
And I'll teach her simple things.
Like her 123s and her ABCs. But I don't believe I'll teach her to dream.

I see where it gets you- I know where I've been.
The dreaming, it's useless, they are spit on in the end.

You never can plan for the things that go wrong-
because the people around you want to keep whats wrong going on.
Nobody plans for things to always go wrong.

I'll teach her never to promise, because promises here break you,
If you should ever need to break one.

The things they'll make you do. They'll make you a slave, put you in jail, they'll call you a liar, worthless, and it'll follow you straight to your grave.

I won't force her to college, because she'll never repay
the cost that it takes to get some Paper with the letters B.A.

There's no real promise here. It's all disappeared.
America's changed.
This is no one's land, here

[Cindy]

Looks like you will be able to see it first hand...

Anti-Wall St protests spread to Australia

Sounds good to me. The more it spreads the more it will be heard. Even though Australia missed the GFC, there are still massive problems, even if we have the world's greatest Treasurer. Geez the others must be c**p

[Joelene9]

  Greed, as I said before, greed.  The corporations and governments are not alone in the blame for all of this.  The phenomenon you see here is caused a lot by the power of the internet.  The "Arab Spring" earlier this year was caused in part by the access to the internet.  It is easier and much cheaper to communicate to the world today than ever in human history.  A time now that I can communicate with a few Aussies and others on this thread on the same subjects from the comfort of my home in the Mile High City and elsewhere I travel with internet access available.  In the past there had to be organizers at many points with phone and/or telegraph access to get something together like this. 
  This has occurred in the past in 1932 with the "Bonus Army" march on Washington.  They used the more expensive telephone and telegraph system to organize the march.  This march was about the WWI vets wanting their war bonus checks early because of the Great Depression with similar things such as unemployment, homelessness, the need for soup kitchens and the like.  The Grat Depression was started by greed as well.  This is eerily similar.  The demostrations are similar.  We got one here in Civic Center, they clashed with police tonight. 
  Joelene

  Denver Post article, time limited:  http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19120992
  A brief on the Bonus Army:  http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/snprelief4.htm
  A Youtube video, part 1:  March of the Bonus Army - Part 1
 

[MarinaM]

Our treasurer is not incompetent, but he is a puppet too. He has to be to keep his job. This man  is supposed to command the American dollar, and it's all too big a problem for him to handle. He's a genius ,gagged by an implied contract. As many  here are.

[Julie Marie]

The Great Depression was started by greed as well.  This is eerily similar.  The demonstrations are similar.

Look at this graph.  The change in the distribution of wealth recently is almost identical to that which led to the Great Depression.


I heard some pundit last night say the richest 10% pay 38% of the taxes.  What he didn't say was they also earn 50% of the income.

[Michelle.]

Sell your domicile, cars, iPhone,pod,pad,PC,PC laptop, drop your Internet, long distance, cable, have no AC or central heat, get an ice box, go back to b/w tv, better yet radio, etc etc etc.

And than I will begin to have some respect for your position.

[MarinaM]

That is not the world we live in anymore. We are expected to be thoroughly connected. Some, like me, would love to do just as you suggest, to a degree, but we cannot make our meager living without paying out the nose for all of this nonsense.

[Mahsa Tezani]

Sell your domicile, cars, iPhone,pod,pad,PC,PC laptop, drop your Internet, long distance, cable, have no AC or central heat, get an ice box, go back to b/w tv, better yet radio, etc etc etc.

And than I will begin to have some respect for your position.

Now that there's not a republican in office, people gotta protest something.