Occupy Wallstreet

[Bellyheart]

Where do you keep getting the idea that these are all trust fund kids? It's a wide-range of people from different backgrounds. Obviously, no one owes you anything, but all of your points are within the system we've been going with for awhile. I think that's the thing people are trying to change, at least one thing.

[jfrey]

Where do you keep getting the idea that these are all trust fund kids? It's a wide-range of people from different backgrounds.

No one has said they're trust fund kids - at least not that I specifically recall. There may be something of a range, but it is predominantly middle class.

If this is class warfare, it's the spoiled middle class thrashing out against those both above and beneath them

IRL friends keep arguing with me about this thing and it drives me crazy. They bitch about their situation, but worse don't do anything themselves to make it better. I don't know a single person that works more than even 15 hours less than me every week. Maybe if they watched less tv and worked more... or just did anything productive with their time they wouldn't have such problems.

I can't even take them seriously, because I don't think any of them have barely tried at all to do more than just get by.

[The Mad Owl]

IRL friends keep arguing with me about this thing and it drives me crazy. They bitch about their situation, but worse don't do anything themselves to make it better. I don't know a single person that works more than even 15 hours less than me every week. Maybe if they watched less tv and worked more... or just did anything productive with their time they wouldn't have such problems.

because it's easier to blame someone else for their own problems.

[rfurtkamp]

Where do you keep getting the idea that these are all trust fund kids?

Won't all be trust fund kids, most of those have the sense to know where their bread is buttered.

It's a wide-range of people from different backgrounds.

It's the middle class white kids again, the same ones who smash up property in places they don't live and torch cars at WTO protests. There's no diversity in their own videos or coverage - the only two races represented are Suburban and Zombie.

Obviously, no one owes you anything, but all of your points are within the system we've been going with for awhile. I think that's the thing people are trying to change, at least one thing.

Get things of your own, tangible things, that will always have worth - your points are no longer all with the system. Train to protect your freedom, that of your family, and that of your community, whatever it may be, and know how far you will go to protect them and their interests. Find wher you can go to maximize your freedoms, the value of what you bring with you, and your autonomy.

And then live off the grid. It's not hard. It's harder these days than when I did it, but the ease of organizing your little movement and then moving and becoming counteract that.

But no, they want the government to listen and give them things. Pro tip: governments listen to people who are organized, rock hard, know what they want, and are willing to get it. They listen to those with little to lose, who are willing to gain everything and anything to improve their station. Having a better credit rating or student loan debt eliminated or a nicer middle-class job ("I want a job, I want a good job, I want a job that pays, I want a job, I want a real job, one that satisfies..my artistic needs) isn't improving their station, it's having a shiny bangle on their bracelet of success.

The kids need to be revolutionary if they're going to be revolutionaries. Community theater, wishing this was 1968, isn't going to cut it.

Why did the SDS kids get listened to?

It wasn't because they had zombie makeup and had a peace-in in the park - they had a list of demands, and a brick to throw through the window if they didn't get it, and things beyond that.

[D.o.S.]

The SDS and all those affiliated groups also had one big unifying theme: Get out of Vietnam.

I feel like I need to reiterate: no one on the "Debbie Downer" side of this discussion is saying these problems that the protesters are nebulously grasping for are A) not really problems or B)unsolvable. We're taking issue with the methodology and the approach.

[rfurtkamp]

The SDS and all those affiliated groups also had one big unifying theme: Get out of Vietnam.

And the whole sort of lip service 'racial equality for all' that was mouthed but not really represented in the membership.

I feel like I need to reiterate: no one on the "Debbie Downer" side of this discussion is saying these problems that the protesters are nebulously grasping for are A) not really problems or B)unsolvable. We're taking issue with the methodology and the approach.

Yea, a lot of the problems are at least something to be examined and thought of - we're going to be going through massive societal change as it stands regardless cutting the middle-class entitlements sinking the economy anyway, and that's not even considering the gutpunch of 2014's health care mandate.

[D.o.S.]

Yeah, while a lot of SDS'ers were involved in Civil Rights and women's lib and such, that was never their big goal.


There definitely needs to be economic restructuring--a lot of it, IMO, has to come from the acceptance that the US of A is no longer a manufacturing entity... and that that is, in fact, a good thing.

I don't even want to talk about the bullshit that was the health care reform. The administration fucked that up from the get go. You don't start a debate with a compromise, because then you end up with a compromise of a compromise that no one is happy with.

Dear Ghost of Ted Kennedy, why were you such a prick? You could've signed Nixon's health care plan forty years ago. It was a much better plan than the one we got.

[Astricii]

T...but the fact is that being poor here is better than being poor anywhere else...

For Now... We're not there yet, but we're trying to get there.

You frame it as if You can only bitch about things being fucked up if you live in a damp cardboard box next to a sewer drain. Do you have to wait until half your body is covered in malignant tumors before going to the Dr.? Do you have to wait until you're 500 lbs before considering you're obese. I mean sure you're obese but There are a lot fatter people in the world... That logic only seems to make sense when demonizing the middle class. The kids aren't organized well enough and that's a shame because it is going to take bloodshed for this problem to be taken seriously. I don't see that happening as long as at least 30% of the country can still afford a roof over their head. We'll see. I don't glorify these kids but that's no reason to say they're worthless cry baby middle class kids and we should all keep our heads down until we're covered in shit. THEN we can go protest with some balls. *not exactly what you're saying, I know but how it comes off via interwebs no contextual inflection speak*

[rfurtkamp]

You frame it as if You can only bitch about things being fucked up if you live in a damp cardboard box next to a sewer drain. Do you have to wait until half your body is covered in malignant tumors before going to the Dr.?

I frame it as a relative notion and because I'm aware of what Occupy Wall Street was promoting the event as on academic lists etc. before it happened. I've known about these for over a month before they started, because one of their members was spamming one of the old lady's lists with invitations to come out.

It was done as an attempt to start a literal revolution, in the vein of the Arab Spring. A literal revolution.

Not a protest.

A literal revolution.

That's why I'm coming down like a ton of bricks on the stupidity.

This isn't a harmless attempt to protest how things are or to enact change; it was advertised as the start of the overthrow of the system.

The people involved are patently irresponsible; they've reached for the cartridge box before exhausting the ballot box or the soapbox.

The kids aren't organized well enough and that's a shame because it is going to take bloodshed for this problem to be taken seriously.

Doesn't excuse baiting bloodshed (which is what disobeying police orders for where to go etc after they've let you peaceably assemble is) and exploiting the tear gas and 'innocent kid' silliness.

that's no reason to say they're worthless cry baby middle class kids and we should all keep our heads down until we're covered in shit. THEN we can go protest with some balls. *not exactly what you're saying, I know but how it comes off via interwebs no contextual inflection speak*

Thing is this approach is the approach of worthless crybaby middle class kids.

If they want a revolution, start one in their local sphere. Work for themselves, doing what they want, with rules they establish, and go from there. Prove their ideas are a success on a micro level before expecting anyone to accept the macro solution.

They're not working *with* the system to make change. I bet that 99% of the attendees have never voted in a local-only election, attended a city coucil meeting or their local water/sewer board, or the like - let alone actually going to an event to meet their state and federal Senators and Reps.

You don't march in the street until you've exhausted the other options. It takes the punch out of the event when it does happen and that's your last recourse before violence is the only option.

I'll listen to good ideas from anywhere, providing they can at least provide some logical reason for doing it.

As it is, they're using up scarce resources (since all things are finite, from the attention of the public to the money being spent on police overtime that could have been spent in NYC to feed the poor, educate the underprivileged, et cetera) to put on a show.

I'm offended by that, and I'm offended when conservatives play the same game.

[warwick.hoy]

No one in the government or Wall Street is interested in reform (unless the promise of reform is just smoke and mirrors to garner votes and support IE Obama election).

We need to reform ourselves.

In this I agree with rfurtkamp.

If we expect to see change then we need to wake up and wake the rest of the nation up that Fat Cat politicians and bankers are not acting in our best interest and if they aren't going to change that M.O. then we need to change ours. We can proselytize about sweeping reforms of the system or how much it's the system against us or vice versa. OR we could abandon the system as a whole and rise above it.

We could be reliant on credit and loans to give us money we don't have for things we don't need,...or we could sacrifice, become self reliant and self sustaining on the money we do have.

We could rely on giant agribusiness to feed us,...or we could rely on local and sustainable agriculture to feed us.

We could rely on slave labor to provide us with housing,...furniture for that housing,...or we could go back to being our own artisans and craftsman or relying on local craftsman that build things with pride.

We could rely on consumer electronics to communicate (produced by slave labor), or we could actually interact with one another.

We could rely on the media to get our fear news while at the same time forcing down our throats how unsuccessful we are, how ugly we are, how the vehicles we drive and the clothes we wear are reflections of who we are, how we need to invest in life (or more appropriately death) insurance and security systems to keep black people and terrorists from invading our homes or we could ignore their fear mongering and their definition of success.

I've said it before. If this occupation movement doesn't do anything but make more and more people aware that we are being duped and fucked with no lube at every turn by the elites in this world and that causes people to make wholesale changes on a personal and local level,...if this movement does nothing more then make people realize that their money is a powerful weapon (that can be use both for and against them),....if the 99% make this breakthrough and become self reliant and community reliant,...the establishment will have nothing left to do but reform itself or crumble.

We can't expect fat cat politicians and bankers to sacrifice if we are not willing to sacrifice ourselves.

Looking at the rules of supply and demand,....we need to remove the demand for these greedy corporations to exist.

[McSpunckle]

How does "reforming ourselves" help the lack of basic regulation and unfair tax system on Wall St.?

That's what I don't get. They're out there because those that can most afford to pay taxes have to pay a lot less. When the only way to fix the economy is for the middle class to start spending money again-- they don't have any extra money. But those that have only prospered aren't expected to pay a little more to help fund programs to give the middle class some relief. It was already unfair, and now it's exceptionally unfair.

Health insurance companies have made our health care system one of the most expensive-- and far from the best. Huge agricultural business rake in all the corn and wheat subsidies while small farmers are becoming increasingly rare. Oil companies-- the most profitable companies the world has ever seen-- actually get subsidies from taxpayer money, while small businesses struggle because they're the only ones burdened by taxes and "regulations" designed to make it harder to start up. But we can't even tell oil companies they have to get their shit tested before they drill? Some companies don't pay any taxes at all while we can't even get federal funding to fix a few bridges.

It's unfair, and -that's- what they're pissed about. None of them really believe that they're not better off than a starving Ethiopian child. I never got that "It could be worse so you shouldn't care" argument. This isn't Ethiopia, and we should expect more.

Bitterness. Factory.

[jfrey]

those that can most afford to pay taxes have to pay a lot less.

That's not quite true. Even when you account for people finding loopholes in taxes, the top 1% still pays ~40% of taxes. If you compare that to the amount of wealth they control (~43%) it's not that far off. (Note: these numbers are 3-4 years old, and each tend to go both up and down over time.)

Also, things like "fair" can mean different things. To me, "fair" means income tax doesn't exist. Given an income tax, then "somewhat fair" to me means fixed percent across the board regardless of income. And, given an income tax, "least fair" to me means a progressive income tax - in other words a tax rate that increases with income. Of course having a fixed rate or none at all may or may not be practical, or even possible at all. However practicality has absolutely nothing to do with fairness.

[rfurtkamp]

How does "reforming ourselves" help the lack of basic regulation and unfair tax system on Wall St.?

It shows me there's some skin in the game beyond formless anger, and that maybe the ideas presented have merit.

That's what I don't get. They're out there because those that can most afford to pay taxes have to pay a lot less.

Except the middle class itself pays no effective tax. That's who can afford it.

When the only way to fix the economy is for the middle class to start spending money again-- they don't have any extra money.

The billions in corporate money sitting overseas because it costs too much to repatriate it for starters, or the small to midsized businesses living in dire fear (and reasonable fear) of 2014's incoming whammy that won't hire now are the problems. The middle class is tapped because it stupidly is overextended itself.

But those that have only prospered aren't expected to pay a little more to help fund programs to give the middle class some relief. It was already unfair, and now it's exceptionally unfair.

Expecting those who pay a lion's share of the actual income taxes to shoulder even more is the unfair part. It's time to spread some pain so that the middle-class entitlements that are the things truly dragging the economy down are reduced and there's a fair share paid there too.

Health insurance companies have made our health care system one of the most expensive-- and far from the best.

Lack of effective cost controls and tort reform that have been blocked for decades by the Democratic Party haven't had *anything* to do with it.

Huge agricultural business rake in all the corn and wheat subsidies while small farmers are becoming increasingly rare. Oil companies-- the most profitable companies the world has ever seen-- actually get subsidies from taxpayer money, while small businesses struggle because they're the only ones burdened by taxes and "regulations" designed to make it harder to start up. But we can't even tell oil companies they have to get their shit tested before they drill? Some companies don't pay any taxes at all while we can't even get federal funding to fix a few bridges.

The idea that 'some companies' pay no taxes is a lie when you're talking about Fortune 500 companies; they may not pay a corporate income tax on a particular year due to accounting rules, but they sure as heck pay social security taxes, property, excise taxes, etc. You've fallen for the populist silliness here.

It's unfair, and -that's- what they're pissed about. None of them really believe that they're not better off than a starving Ethiopian child. I never got that "It could be worse so you shouldn't care" argument. This isn't Ethiopia, and we should expect more.

It's not "unfair", it's middle class entitlement based on misconceptions.

Bitterness. Factory.

And that's why I suggest "do something about it that's constructive."

Not start a revolution then lie about the reasons behind it.

That's what the Occupy Wall Street people have done - they called for a revolution, and then bait and switched people with other stuff.

[McSpunckle]

Except the middle class itself pays no effective tax. That's who can afford it.

... what fucking planet do you live on?

[rfurtkamp]

Except the middle class itself pays no effective tax. That's who can afford it.

... what fucking planet do you live on?

One in which those households, 50% of American households to be accurate, earning up to 33k a year in 2008, paid no income taxes.