Occupy Wall Street better defend its identity

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Bri said:
Sure, but I don't think it's necessary for protestors to agree on a single solution to what they're protesting. Maybe they just want Congress to actually agree on a plan for making sure it doesn't happen again, which might include any of the above that you mentioned. Or maybe they want to send a message to those banks to stop the bad behavior.

-Bri
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Enforcing the laws they already broke by imprisoning 1000s of them (like with Savings and Loan in the 90s) is the way to deter it from happening again. There's no way to "make sure", criminals will always dream up a new scam, or a new way of dressing up an old one.

Congress isn't helping by repealing things like Glass Steagal but the core problem is the SEC and Justice Department who refuse to bring criminal charges against a single banker. Even Madoff had to turn himself in, they certainly weren't going to stop him. Regulatory capture trumps anything you can do on the legislative side.. A law is just toilet paper if that's all the "police" are using it for.
 
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http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2009/09-0234-S1_RESO_11-05-11.pdf

Occupy LA met with city council members this morning. Later today City Hall released the above resolution which ends with:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, with the concurrence of the Mayor, that by the adoption of this Resolution, the City of Los Angeles hereby stands in SUPPORT for the continuation of the peaceful and vibrant exercise in First Amendment Rights carried out by "Occupy Los Angeles" and urges the City Departments responsible for completing the implementation plan associated with the Responsible Banking measure (CF 09-0234) that was approved by the Council on March 5th, 2010, which would address some of the concerns of the "Occupy Los Angeles" demonstrators by demanding accountability and results from the Banks we invest taxpayer dollars in, to bring the Responsible Banking measure for a final vote to the Council by October 28th", 2011.
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Emperor_Gestahl said:
Be careful of special interest groups hijacking the message.
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Didn't take long.

Earlier today, the AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers , and Transit Workers' Union are among the groups that stood in solidarity with the hundreds of mostly young men and women who have spent the better part of three weeks sleeping, eating, and organizing from Zuccotti Square.

Their arrival was touted as a watershed moment for the "Occupy" movement, which has now seen copycat protests spring up across the country. And while the specific demands of the "occupiers" remain wide-ranging, the presence of the unions – implicitly inclined to making more direct demands – may sharpen their focus.
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The wants of the unions don't have much in common with the "message" of this protest, such as it is, and their presence seems rather incongruous.

It'll be downhill from right about here.
 
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Bri said:
Sure, but I don't think it's necessary for protestors to agree on a single solution to what they're protesting. Maybe they just want Congress to actually agree on a plan for making sure it doesn't happen again, which might include any of the above that you mentioned. Or maybe they want to send a message to those banks to stop the bad behavior.

-Bri
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And if Congress comes up with a plan that they don't agree with (as an example, the libertarians aren't going to want the same plan the communists would like) what then? More protests while one group bows out?

The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. The enemy of my enemy is two distracted enemies.

But basically, they just don't like Wall Street.

Neither do I, but I'm not going to run around with folks whose other goals are against my own.
 
Checkmite said:
The wants of the unions don't have much in common with the "message" of this protest, such as it is, and their presence seems rather incongruous.

It'll be downhill from right about here.
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Pretty much what I've been saying, public sector unions as a special interest group have no real grievance with Wall Street. If anyone thinks they showed up just because they love the sight of smiling hippies you better get your heads out of the sand. Public Unions are very political, very large establishment organizations.. It's way too early for a leaderless movement that hasn't yet even codified its basic principles or grievances to start forging alliances like this one. They will end up as the tail, not the dog. The Tea Party should have chased out Fox News at the start and the OWS movement ought to be chasing out these big DNC public union folks.
 
Checkmite said:
Didn't take long.
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Cow cookies. The fight is betrween the parasite in the finacial sector who would destroy the whole ecconomic base of this country if doing sao would allow them to grab up what ever of value is left and those who do the actual work that makes the ecconomy function.

Stop trying to drive wedges between the different groups that have been screwed by the Wall Street vermin.
 
Checkmite said:
Didn't take long.



The wants of the unions don't have much in common with the "message" of this protest, such as it is, and their presence seems rather incongruous.

It'll be downhill from right about here.
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It's funny when unions protest inordinate influence in government affairs.

Pot, meet Kettle.
 
timhau said:
No, but it would make the protest much more credible if they had a single issue on which they were protesting.
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There seems to be a common thread having to do with the rich and powerful disproportionately benefiting from government while everyone else pays for it.

There are a number of related issues from campaign finance reform to foreclosures, but they all seem to revolve more or less around the same common thread. I don't think that's unexpected with a crowd that size.

-Bri
 
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Ysidro said:
But basically, they just don't like Wall Street.

Neither do I, but I'm not going to run around with folks whose other goals are against my own.
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Why wouldn't you? Do you think you could find two people with exactly the same goals? The whole point of a protest is to join other people who have a goal in common and hope that the numbers will pressure politicians to act towards that goal.

In this case, the common goal seems to be to make things more equitable between the rich/powerful and the middle class. And according to recent polls, the vast majority of Americans agree with the sentiment.

-Bri
 
WildCat said:
Which is why it's so ironic that public unions are involved, as well as private unions that got huge government bailouts (UAW).
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I think unions in general have portrayed themselves as defending the rights of common working folks against corporations whose only interest is in increasing profits. In that regard, it's not that surprising that unions are involved.

-Bri
 
leftysergeant said:
theprestige said:
leftysergeant said:
The unions are actually capable of running the factories, if it comes to that.
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Really? If that's the case, if management is just there to oppress labor, why haven't the unions at Boeing started their own aerospace company? Full of wealth and innovation and productivity and competitiveness?...
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Because, as society is currently structured, it takes capital, and a staggering amount of it at that.
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So, unions aren'tcapable of running the factories, then?

In any system, someone supplies tools (capital) and someone supplies skilled labor. Finance is a tool, and the skilled labor that wields it is called "management" and sometimes "the investor class". As the United Airlines dispute between the pilots' union and the machinists' union (the owners), on the one hand and the flight attendants' union, on the other, over the appropriate shares of UA revenues indicates, unionization does not confer any special wisdom regarding how to resolve the disputes over "just" compensation.

As an aside, I read that the "Occupy Wall Street" website has posted a recommendation against making lists of demands, after critics used one list to paint them as loons. Yah, they're morons. I reacll one demand: forgiveness of all debt. Personal, corporate, and sovereign. Wipe the slate clean and start from today. Well, who owns any tangible asset that's partially paid for, like a house with a thirty-year mortgage or a hospital's new emergency diesel-electric generator? Does "debt forgiveness" mean that corporations don't have to keep pension promises? Does forgiveness of sovereign debt mean that the US government gets to discount to zero its Social Security obligations? Morons.

The protestors are stupid frontmen for a union-orchestrated pressure play. It's extortion, behind the scenes. "Give us money and we'll call them off".
Just a guess.
 
Malcolm Kirkpatrick said:
So, unions aren'tcapable of running the factories, then?
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Not at all what I said. They are not capable of buying them. Big freaking difference.

Seeing how many corporations are going belly-up after paying some useless drongo hundreds of times what somebody who knows what the corporation makes and how to make it, I would say that the bean counters who rake in the big bucks are useless to the actual operation.

In any system, someone supplies tools (capital) and someone supplies skilled labor. Finance is a tool, and the skilled labor that wields it is called "management" and sometimes "the investor class".
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Horse hockey. The investor class, the people who make their money buying and selling companies with the single goal of making as much money as possible with the least possible outlay of cash have no reason to give a rat's whether a line worker starves or thrives.
As an aside, I read that the "Occupy Wall Street" website has posted a recommendation against making lists of demands, after critics used one list to paint them as loons. Yah, they're morons. I reacll one demand: forgiveness of all debt. Personal, corporate, and sovereign. Wipe the slate clean and start from today. Well, who owns any tangible asset that's partially paid for, like a house with a thirty-year mortgage or a hospital's new emergency diesel-electric generator? Does "debt forgiveness" mean that corporations don't have to keep pension promises? Does forgiveness of sovereign debt mean that the US government gets to discount to zero its Social Security obligations? Morons.
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The morons are the ones who think that that list of demands has any imprimatur from the people on the street. Apparently, some wrong wing whackadoodle peorter was luck enough to find an anarcho-syndicalist to talk to and built him up like he was typical of the people who think that people like the Koch roaches are destroying America.
 
WildCat said:
It's funny when unions protest inordinate influence in government affairs.

Pot, meet Kettle.
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Not everyone thinks in terms of government influence. Perhaps the trade unions are protesting over a small percentage of society being in control of a huge proportion of its wealth, in which case there is no hypocrisy.
 
leftysergeant said:
Cow cookies. The fight is betrween the parasite in the finacial sector who would destroy the whole ecconomic base of this country if doing sao would allow them to grab up what ever of value is left and those who do the actual work that makes the ecconomy function.

Stop trying to drive wedges between the different groups that have been screwed by the Wall Street vermin.
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You're drastically missing the point.

The validity of the unions' particular grievances has nothing to do with it. These "representatives" which have been sent by their unions are very employed people with secure jobs and stable incomes; they're there on their unions' dime, and if you think those unions are paying them to take a mini-vacation in New York and join drum circles and sit around holding cardboard signs and chanting catchphrases with the anarchists and socialists you're in for a surprise. Things like "don't make lists of demands" - that's not how they roll. They've been sent to carve out a leadership role and set the ship on a course that will lead to tangible benefits for them.
 
Checkmite said:
You're drastically missing the point.

The validity of the unions' particular grievances has nothing to do with it. These "representatives" which have been sent by their unions are very employed people with secure jobs and stable incomes; they're there on their unions' dime, and if you think those unions are paying them to take a mini-vacation in New York and join drum circles and sit around holding cardboard signs and chanting catchphrases with the anarchists and socialists you're in for a surprise. Things like "don't make lists of demands" - that's not how they roll. They've been sent to carve out a leadership role and set the ship on a course that will lead to tangible benefits for them.
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I personally know some union leaders, and know first-hand that they attend left-wing demonstrations (anti-trident etc) without doing so as an attempt to benefit their union. Therefore, I will require evidence that the unions are acting in self-interest.
 
This Wall Street protest just seems fishy.

Almost like they were called to protest by somebody/some entity and would be filled in on the details later.

Just really odd.
 
Drysdale said:
This Wall Street protest just seems fishy.

Almost like they were called to protest by somebody/some entity and would be filled in on the details later.

Just really odd.
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It sounds to me like it started with a bunch of college students who had nothing better to do.

-Bri
 
Drysdale said:
This Wall Street protest just seems fishy.

Almost like they were called to protest by somebody/some entity and would be filled in on the details later.

Just really odd.
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Why would they need details? "Wall Street is Evil" is probably sufficient.
 
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