Occupy Wallstreet

[Mudfuzz]

Capitalists, if you think that you can play footsies with these people, you're wrong. They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you...they're Marxist radicals...these guys are worse than Robespierre from the French Revolution...they'll kill everybody.

Sounds reasonable to me. Is carpet bombing the bible belt allowed yet?

I really can't see how it would do any real harm.

[D.o.S.]

Capitalists, if you think that you can play footsies with these people, you're wrong. They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you...they're Marxist radicals...these guys are worse than Robespierre from the French Revolution...they'll kill everybody.

Sounds reasonable to me. Is carpet bombing the bible belt allowed yet?

I really can't see how it would do any real harm.

Might ruin a bit of the scenery.

Acceptable losses.

[Mudfuzz]

Might ruin a bit of the scenery.

Eh, I've seen scenery before.

[McSpunckle]

Interview hit the conservative circuit this morning with a guy in Chicago claiming to have been hired for $22 a hour to protest in the middle of a much longer interview, and another with hiring Hispanics to hold signs in Spanish at DC. Depending on who funded it, where, and in what respects, it may well discredit the movement - it claims to have a purity that the 1% don't have. It's hard to reasonably protest Citizens United if the dark side of it's being used to your advantage.

And yes, the Tea Party people are often profoundly stupid, and people here and elsewhere have laughed at them for a long time for it - despite how easy it is to find a fool in a crowd, these kids don't deserve any special treatment.

I decided to look up the $22 an hour guy.

He didn't say he was being paid $22 an hour to protest, he said he was a full time volunteer after the question "Are you working now?" and said that his work was VALUED at $22 an hour.

http://independentsector.org/volunteer_time

And that's about what volunteer work is valued at!

You might want to do a little research before just believing what you read on a blog-- or even a politically motivated news site. That goes for liberals and conservatives.

[rfurtkamp]

I decided to look up the $22 an hour guy.

He didn't say he was being paid $22 an hour to protest, he said he was a full time volunteer after the question "Are you working now?" and said that his work was VALUED at $22 an hour.

You didn't transcribe the video then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDqqObYS ... ded#t=155s

See: 2:35-3:27

Interviewer: Are you working now?

Paul: I am a volunteer. I am a full-time volunteer. And let me tell you this part.

Interviewer: Sure.

Paul: Anything I get from somebody else I make sure the volunteer activity, which is valued at $22 an hour, covers that. So those people who said "You don't want to work", I came here to Chicago, to help Chicago, based on the Obama legacy, Dorothy Day's legacy, Cabrini legacy, they were all volunteers. Not Obama, but Cabrini and Dorothy Day, were certainly volunteers and did a lot of good work in this community. So, I want to follow in their legacy.

Interviewer: Ah, alright, you looking for a full-time gig?

Paul: This is a full-time gig. This is a full-time gig.

Interviewer: Ah, ok.

Paul: And I get overtime too.

Interviewer: Alright.

Paul: Thank you.

Interviewer: So you're being paid?

Paul: People that like me, benefactors, and like I said, I make sure they get their money's worth.

Interviewer: Thank you very much!

Paul: Thank you!

You might want to do a little research before just believing what you read on a blog-- or even a politically motivated news site. That goes for liberals and conservatives.

You might wish to verify the talking points of the day from DU and elsewhere as well. Paul above admits to getting paid, it's clear as day.

He gets money from "somebody else" and "benefactors" for doing this work.

[McSpunckle]

... yeah... I had to Google DU. Are you talking about Democratic Underground? 'cause... I'd never heard of that site. You probably should have said moveon.org or Daily Kos. I do read those sometimes... Unless, of course, you were talking about Duck Unlimited. In which case, sir, I am offended that you imply their words are anything but infallible.

I didn't transcribe the video because I don't tend to spend my time transcribing Youtube videos (I mean, if I can transcribe it, obviously I can hear what he's saying). I stand by what I said. He didn't say he was getting paid to protest. He said that he's a full time volunteer and that volunteer work is valued at $22 an hour. His sentences may have been poorly structured, but you're really stretching to say he admitted to being paid to protest.

Here's a later video of Paul explaining what he meant.

http://youtu.be/d1W4SfSKsrE

-edit-

Ok, it turns out Ducks Unlimited is one of those places that conserves wetlands to support duck hunting. Not down.

[rfurtkamp]

He said that he's a full time volunteer and that volunteer work is valued at $22 an hour. His sentences may have been poorly structured, but you're really stretching to say he admitted to being paid to protest

I'll take Paul at face value in the initial interview; benefactors and "anything I get from somebody" directly contradicts what he's saying about volunteering, along with the whole "getting their money's worth" is a pretty clear statement of receiving payment.

Here's a later video of Paul explaining what he meant.

"Are you getting paid to come to Occupy Chicago" is telling as it fades mid-clarification from Paul - he's not asked "have you been paid", but "are you" - so if at that moment he's not being paid, he's not lying.

I should add that no one is denying the payment of the Hispanic sign-holders at Occupy DC, or the paid OWS protesters from the older Craigslist ad.

It is pretty obvious there's money flying about - I can reasonably apply the same skepticism to the quick edit and possible coverup involving Paul that you are to the economic and banking system.

I trust a slip of the tongue and hee-hee moments more than the followup attempting to sugar-coat what Paul says. If they'd asked "have you been paid for any protesting in the past?" and similar types of questions, there might be something to go on.

But semantics do matter.

And I stand by my original points; the transcript's there, people can judge for themselves. I only bothered to transcribe it because you're not the first person to pull out the claim he's not making money or the followup video today.

Nothing wrong with Ducks Unlimited either; it's sportsmen who live in the areas they hunt in wanting to maintain it for the future, and paying for it out of pocket.

[McSpunckle]

You need to look into how full time volunteering works. They get compensated-- often with room and board and something to cover living expenses.

http://www.bc.edu/offices/careers/jobs/volunteer.html

That's what he meant by "get their money's worth".

[hclapp219]

So if the protestors are getting paid, shouldn't the people organizing the Occupy (Insert location here) movement be hailed as job creators?

As for that transcript, I would say it's unclear what he means. Are the benefactors the people who are dropping off food and tents and books? Or are they union bosses showing up and handing out cash? Maybe they will interview a more articulate person and find the answers.

All in all, I think this is a very important movement that I support. There will never be a society where the only determinant of success is hard work (as opposed to race, gender, socioeconomic status of your parents, education of your parents, etc...), but I think one of the points of the protests is that the playing field is so skewed that hard work alone isn't enough to cut it anymore. In our society, money begets money and power begets power, and we're catapulting towards the point where the divergence between the haves and the have nots is unsustainable.

[Fuzzy Fred]

I got 99 percent but the rich ain't one

[rfurtkamp]

You need to look into how full time volunteering works. They get compensated-- often with room and board and something to cover living expenses.

I'm aware of the 'paid volunteer' concept. I should note it comes out now, as the last-ditch attempt to justify what Paul is saying.

Had you gone that route from the get-go, we'd be having a different conversation now.

But the fact is he's paid something for his work. He's not a volunteer in the classical sense of the word.

That's what he meant by "get their money's worth".

It's one possibility, yes. But again, you insisted he wasn't paid, "but you're really stretching to say he admitted to being paid to protest."

And now, he's a paid volunteer.

Understand why I find the slope a bit slippery here that you're taking?

[theavondon]

MY

[theavondon]

BALLS.

[rfurtkamp]

[warwick.hoy]

Paid or not doesn't really change the fact that most Americans have been fleeced in one form or another. Do you blame a few capitalists for taking advantage of a get even richer quick scheme or do you blame the masses for allowing themselves to be duped by a highly illusioned and fabricated American Dream?