What is the point of the Occupy protests>

[kyril]

A solution? That's not our job. We elect representatives to go to DC and come up with solutions to major national structural problems. We pay them and their "expert" advisors exorbitant amounts of money to solve those problems. We do that because it's simply impractical for 300 million people to have a productive discussion, and because most of us don't have the training and expertise in the right fields to properly evaluate proposed solutions. That's why we have a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. It's our representatives' job to solve these problems, and the protests are our way of saying "you're not doing your job adequately enough for us to be complacent anymore."

There are a lot of ideas being floated as possible solutions. One of the strongest, in my opinion, is to restore the Reagan-era tax and financial regulatory structure (that's sort of a minimum threshold - many of us would prefer Eisenhower-era policies, but that would involve fairly radical changes).

[AmySmiles]

Step 1 is to close all the tax loopholes that corporations and (obscenely) rich people use to pay less taxes percentage-wise than the middle class.  That's not to say I think there should be no rich people and no poor people, just that the gap should never have been allowed to grow as large as it is.  That gap needs to exist so that entrepreneurs with the drive to better society get rewarded for it.  However, nobody, and I mean *nobody* is important enough to society to make as much money as those at the tip of the top 1% do.

Step 2 is to put banking regulations back into place.  Normally I'm not in favor of more regulation, because it impedes the creation of new small businesses, but the banks in particular have proved how scummy they are when unregulated.  I have huge issues with banks, period.  They get ungodly rich by storing your money and gambling with it - and you get < 1% interest for the trouble.

Step 3 is to use the above 2 steps to pay down the national debt.  Then make adjustments as needed to bring back the middle class, which is the only thing that ever made this country prosperous to begin with.

[Morrigan]

Dont forget the step that removes all the lobbying. That is what stole our voice in the government, without the money, they don't listen.

Mahsa, you seem to hate middle and lower class americans so much, but if you haven't noticed, all other methods have failed and the government keeps siding with the ones that line their pockets.

Even if you had an answer, they wouldn't listen to you.

[Mahsa Tezani]

Mahsa, you seem to hate middle and lower class americans so much, but if you haven't noticed, all other methods have failed and the government keeps siding with the ones that line their pockets.

Really? Naw. I am lower class. I make 10k a year.

But rebelling and protesting is just lame with no solution in hand. Though Amy raises some interesting points. Much more than the protesters have,

[Morrigan]

These protestors are offering solutions, most of the protestors who actually researched, are absolutely rooting for those same things mentioned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act <~This is a big one.

If you actually spent some time at a protest and listened to the general assemblies, you just might get something out of it.

[VeryGnawty]

If you actually spent some time at a protest and listened to the general assemblies, you just might get something out of it.

Yeah, there have been some great speakers at some of these protest.  Of course, you'll never hear these speeches broadcast on Faux News, or any other American sponsored newscast.  You only hear or see these stuff on independent channels or videos taken by amateur cameramen (most of whom aren't a part of any media and don't get paid for what they film)

[Mahsa Tezani]

These protestors are offering solutions, most of the protestors who actually researched, are absolutely rooting for those same things mentioned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act <~This is a big one.

If you actually spent some time at a protest and listened to the general assemblies, you just might get something out of it.

Just a bunch of anti american rhetoric really. I've been to several protests. I used to document what was going on there.

There seems to be a lack of a clear message in the OCCUPY movement.

[Morrigan]

Not everyone at the protests understands the various reasons for corporate corruption and economic collapse,
sure, but they want CHANGE.

Do you think everyone that marched with Martin Luther King Jr. had all the facts? It didn't matter, they knew
that votes and phone calls weren't going to change anything, that the government was above all that.
Clearly they had managed to convey the message that wasn't being heard before.

[Mahsa Tezani]

Not everyone at the protests understands the various reasons for corporate corruption and economic collapse,
sure, but they want CHANGE.

Do you think everyone that marched with Martin Luther King Jr. had all the facts? It didn't matter, they knew
that votes and phone calls weren't going to change anything, that the government was above all that.
Clearly they had managed to convey the message that wasn't being heard before.

I didn't vote for CHANGE 3 years ago and I sure as hell won't vote for it now.

However, Obama has done a good job with what he has to work with. But I miss GWB...He was one cool dude.

[Julie Marie]

But I miss GWB...He was one cool dude.

Like I said...

[Morrigan]

Cool dudes don't fix our problems.

Like I said earlier, they wouldn't listen to you anyway, if voting worked like it's supposed to,
we wouldn't be where we are.

Voting for a leader these days is like choosing the least smashed fruit from the bin,
but none of them is as decent as you'd hoped. Obama couldn't accomplish what he wanted,
just like the next president, will be equally as powerless.

We live in a much more informed world now, and the old electoral college system is no longer necessary,
but they aren't just going to give up that privilege and let us vote for our own laws without a fight.

[Michelle.]

I miss Cheney, he was one cool dude.

Back to the topic at hand.

FREE FREE FREE

That is the goal of OWS. They want everything, without having to pay for anything.

[kyril]

I miss Cheney, he was one cool dude.

Back to the topic at hand.

FREE FREE FREE

That is the goal of OWS. They want everything, without having to pay for anything.

This is absurd. We (the highly-educated young adults who form the bulk of the protesters) want jobs. Decent, reasonably well-paying jobs that let us support a family and repay the loans we took out to become highly-educated in the hope of becoming productive middle-class citizens. We want the opportunity to work hard and earn a living, like our parents had, and like they told us we would have if we stayed in school and did well and acted responsible and stayed off drugs. Which we have done; we have a higher level of education, lower rates of drug use, and lower rates of crime than any recent generation.

We're good kids. We are, by and large, overachievers. Many of us are veterans, with a skilled trade and hands-on leadership experience in addition to our formal education. We're ready, willing, and able to work. There are not enough jobs for us; current economic policy is not generating enough jobs, and most of the jobs that are being created are low-skill low-pay part-time service-sector jobs that we have to essentially steal from the unskilled young people who used to do that kind of work, wasting our potential and theirs. This is our primary complaint.

We have other complaints. The health care system in this country is a catastrophe. Our grandparents are cold, hungry, and losing their homes, thanks to the economic meltdown that destroyed their savings. Our parents are losing their jobs and pensions, and those who have jobs are unlikely to be able to retire anytime soon (reducing the number of openings for us). Our kids are alright (as long as we can feed and house them), but we're worried about the world we're raising them in.

But mostly, it's about the jobs. And the root cause of the unemployment situation, which is that too much wealth in this country is concentrated in the hands of people who are doing nothing useful with it, who are playing some sort of high-level abstract Monopoly game with financial derivatives instead of investing it in real industries that create jobs. And government policies over the last decade have only exacerbated that situation.

We want investment. We want industry. We want to work. We want to earn our keep. We don't want to go on barely subsisting on handouts from the government and our parents. What you think - that's the opposite of what we're about.

[Mahsa Tezani]

This is absurd. We (the highly-educated young adults who form the bulk of the protesters) want jobs. Decent, reasonably well-paying jobs that let us support a family and repay the loans we took out to become highly-educated in the hope of becoming productive middle-class citizens. We want the opportunity to work hard and earn a living, like our parents had, and like they told us we would have if we stayed in school and did well and acted responsible and stayed off drugs. Which we have done; we have a higher level of education, lower rates of drug use, and lower rates of crime than any recent generation.

I've seen pics from the protest...they seem to be the trust fund/hipster/college breed. Same kind that appeared at the anti war protest.

That being said, I am going to go check out Occupy SF tomorrow...

[AmySmiles]

And the root cause of the unemployment situation, which is that too much wealth in this country is concentrated in the hands of people who are doing nothing useful with it, who are playing some sort of high-level abstract Monopoly game with financial derivatives instead of investing it in real industries that create jobs. And government policies over the last decade have only exacerbated that situation.

This needed to be said again.  And the other causes are the huge government debt (caused by repeated years of the huge deficit) and the fact nobody can get elected without being in the pockets of corporations.  We won't be digging our way out of this crisis until these things are solved.

[tekla]

Odd I seem to remember this huge corporate thief went down at the end of the Bush/Cheney years, and it was Bush/Cheney that bailed out the financial corporations that were 'too big to fail'.  Hell, wasn't Enron run by old Georgie's pal, Ken?  But keep on dreaming.

[Michelle.]

Kyril,

You actually where able to condense into one post a well thought out complaint. Much better than the crowd who has been protesting for over a month now.

Your movement has another few weeks to clean out it's dregs and go more mainstream. Or else it's just going to be seen as what it has become.

A drunken, lawless mess of professional homeless folks who are now feeding off the few of you who have good, though misguided, intentions.

Rapes, drug dealing, public urination, property damage etc etc is "no way to go thru life". As Dean Wormer would
say.

As far as solutions to our current problems. That will be decided in about a year.

[Julie Marie]

Obviously we need to get out the riot squads and clear the parks and streets of the worthless scum who are littering our hallowed grounds.  We need to stop punishing the hard working Americans on Wall Street, in the banks, at the oil companies and heading corporations throughout the land and LOWER their taxes again and again until they are tax free.  That way they can CREATE MORE JOBS!  We need to end all regulation on corporate spending, on bank investment and on anything getting in the way of making a buck.

This is America!  And the dollar is KING!

[Morrigan]

As far as solutions to our current problems. That will be decided in about a year.

Who's going to wave the magic wand? The next President? That's unlikely.

[Mahsa Tezani]

Who's going to wave the magic wand? The next President? That's unlikely.

I am voting for Obama.