Occupy Wall Street better defend its identity

[leftysergeant]

What is the relevance of them having graduated college?

Kicks the crap out of the republicon arguement that the unemployed are unemployed for some lack of morals or ambition on their part.

People who did everything right according to the propoganda that the investor class fed them are getting screwed.

Blame the investor class for that. Their rules, their responsibility.

 

[Newtons Bit]

Right. The distribution still holds in terms of unemployment rate by education level, but everyone is higher than their typical norm. Ideally, it should be the same (and low) for all segments.

Why? Someone with a college education has (on average) a much higher skill set and proven ability to learn a job. If two people applying for a job are equal in all respects except education, I would expect (and hope) that the person with a college degree gets it over the one without it. That's meritocracy in action.

 

[Brainster]

Looks like the Occupy Portland group has some problems with greed:

Organizers of Occupy Portland say they fear as much as $20,000 donated to the group through a PayPal account has disappeared.

They also say the group's finance committee has hijacked the demonstration's Internet domain name and filed for incorporation against the wishes of the group's decision-making body.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

Why? Someone with a college education has (on average) a much higher skill set and proven ability to learn a job. If two people applying for a job are equal in all respects except education, I would expect (and hope) that the person with a college degree gets it over the one without it. That's meritocracy in action.

In an ideal world (which admittedly does not and will not ever exist) there should be demand for labor in sectors suited for each level of training. On a more practical level, it simply doesn't work that way. I wouldn't want to hire someone with a premedical degree to be a mechanic, for example.

Stuff about colleges

You are absolutely right. College tuition inflation is a serious issue, and I believe something that the movement has brought up before.

 

[RandFan]

Looks like the Occupy Portland group has some problems with greed:

{sigh} Guess it's pointless to keep pointing out the fallacy.

 

[bikerdruid]

{sigh} Guess it's pointless to keep pointing out the fallacy.

ad nauseum....

perhaps just link back to one of your many posts where you have explained it, not that most will read it.
likewise, all republicans are morons, because sarah palin is a moron.
the same logic, or lack thereof, applies.

 

[Brainster]

{sigh} Guess it's pointless to keep pointing out the fallacy.

Everything that disagrees with your image of reality is a fallacy.

Wake up. The problems that Occupy Wall Street is experiencing were predictable. They are not something that fell out of the sky that nobody could have anticipated. They reveal the intrinsic flaws in the movement.

They want the rich to share more of their wealth (involuntarily, of course, through government taxation). But when it comes time to share their own wealth, the "organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad," that has been donated to them, they get resentful. Suddenly they earned that good food, by their own efforts, and how dare some people who haven't put forth the effort think that they are entitled to share in it.

And they're right. Nobody want to share what they have with a bunch of freeloaders and derelicts. Which is what they themselves are demanding.

 

[bikerdruid]

i all boils down to the american far right's propensity for greed.
they seem to have a great hatred of being obliged to help their neighbour. yet many of those same individuals will claim that america is a christian nation, founded on christian values. greed is not a christian value, however, feeling a christ-like obligation to help those less fortunate is.

enough for the christian ****...basically all of these bitchings about social programs and universal healthcare boil down to the average american right wing person is stingy and aquisitive.

 

[RandFan]

Everything that disagrees with your image of reality is a fallacy.

You are posting anecdotes and committing the guilt by association fallacy.

And they're right. Nobody want to share what they have with a bunch of freeloaders and derelicts. Which is what they themselves are demanding.

Wake up. The economy has been in a ditch for the last 10 years. There is corruption that has made the mess worse. Unemployment is high. Salaries and wages are down. The middle class is being squeezed and disappearing and the rich are getting richer why they pay off politicians and game the system.

But you focus on anecdotes and paint everyone with a broad brush.

Don't lecture me when you are demonstrably engaging in fallacy and I'm documenting very real problems and sincere and decent people who are protesting.

 

[Puppycow]

Drum Circles Could Doom Wall Street Occupation, Organizers Fear

It seems a core group of beat-niks in New York’s Zuccotti Park has been holding marathon jam sessions from mid-morning until late at night every day, punishing the eardrums of their fellow protesters and the surrounding neighborhood. Teachers at a school across the street have complained they can’t teach. And the local neighborhood community board is holding a meeting Tuesday night in which it could revoke its support of the protests if it’s not satisfied that the noise will subside.

The drummers’ refusal to be silenced has opened cracks in the leaderless movement. The general assembly that has formed to oversee the protests proposed to limit the drumming to two hours per day, but the drummers fought back. One 18-year-old drummer told New York Magazine, “They are becoming the government we’re trying to protest. They didn’t even give the drummers a say ... Drumming is the heartbeat of this movement. Look around: This is dead, you need a pulse to keep something alive.” The circles have continued.

Way to live up to the hippie stereotype.

They need to figure out if they're there to start a movement that normal people can get behind or to bang on bongos and alienate people by being a nuisance.

 

[RandFan]

Wake up.

BTW: I grew up conservative. Voted for Reagan and every Republican after that. I didn't like the protests of my youth, Summer of Love and communes, I laughed at them. So there is nothing you can tell me about this movement I don't know.

The problems that Occupy Wall Street is experiencing were predictable.

Duh! I remember all of the protests and problems of the past. Problems are intrinsic to demonstrations. Democracy is messy. What you don't seem to get is that A.) these problems don't prove that the reasons for the protests are wrong. B.) These problems don't prove that none of the protestors are sincere or that they are not there for good reasons.

That's why your posts are demonstrably fallacious.

 

[Graham2001]

Still pretending that this is a monolithic movement?

I don't believe this to be a monolithic movement, they are however what I'd term a 'catch all party'...

But ultimately what I think we are seeing here are the people who believed that simply by electing Obama everything would be fixed now expressing their disappointment that this has not occurred.

 

[Ziggurat]

i all boils down to the american far right's propensity for greed.
they seem to have a great hatred of being obliged to help their neighbour. yet many of those same individuals will claim that america is a christian nation, founded on christian values. greed is not a christian value, however, feeling a christ-like obligation to help those less fortunate is.

enough for the christian ****...basically all of these bitchings about social programs and universal healthcare boil down to the average american right wing person is stingy and aquisitive.

And yet, conservatives give more to charity than liberals.

Go figure.

 

[bikerdruid]

And yet, conservatives give more to charity than liberals.

Go figure.

dude...most of that is donations to churches.
in the case of catholics, a good percentage of that goes to rome.

 

[Virus]

Video of some anecdotal protesters at Occupy LA:

 

[Ziggurat]

dude...most of that is donations to churches.
in the case of catholics, a good percentage of that goes to rome.

How greedy of them to donate to churches.

Do you ever actually listen to yourself?

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Citation needed, both of you.

 

[Virus]

Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html

 

[Democracy Simulator]

Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html

I particularly liked this section:

It’s true that religion is the essential reason conservatives give more, and religious liberals are as generous as religious conservatives. Among the stingiest of the stingy are secular conservatives.

 

[Puppycow]

Double standard for Tea Party vs. OWS?

Richmond Tea Party Wants Refund from VA Capitol for Land that Occupy is Now Using for Free

RICHMOND -- The Richmond Tea Party wants its money back from the city of Richmond for the cost of permits and other fees to use the same area in which Occupy Richmond has settled for nearly the past two weeks for free.

The local branch of the Tea Party says it should be reimbursed for all the fees accrued and paid over the past three years for use of Kanawha Plaza, a city-owned square across from the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank and a few blocks from Virginia state capitol buildings. Occupy Richmond, an affiliate with the Occupy Wall Street movement, moved into the square on October 15 and has not been charged a bill from the city.

A city employee who worked with the Tea Party to get permits for the plaza "told us that the occupiers have not paid for the park, have not paid for the permit, there's no sanitation, there's no trash pick-up -- nothing we had to pay for. They've done none of that," Colleen Owens, spokesperson for the Richmond Tea Party, told WMAL.com.