#931
RandFan
Originally Posted by A Laughing Baby
I think his implication is that they should have been protesting sooner, and the fact that they weren't until now makes them either hypocrites or astroturf. I THINK.
gotcha. It's actually a valid point if they were simply protesting a downturn in the economy. And that probably is the case for some percentage and on that I'd actually agree with him. However it's the criminality and ownership of politicians by corporations and wall street that has many upset. Politicians want my vote but at the end of the day they will do what wall street tells them to do. I want that to stop.
I'll try to explain exactly what my issue with OWS is.
1] The slogan is "We are the 99%". This is a direct reference to income and the divergence of income growth directly correlates to the dropping of the marginal tax rate from around 85% to 35%. If they clarified their goal as purely to re-establish that rate to where it was beforehand then at least I'd understand their programme. It would be simple, clear, effective, and comprehensible.
2] The issue of corporate/political corruption is a combination of guilt by association and genuine complaints about specific individuals. These two things have to be separated or nobody with any money to speak of will see OWS as anything except purely anti-corporate and anti-business. If they can do this then the pressure ought to be on the judicial processes and not the legislative processes. Wrong venue, in other words.
3] Many of the ancillary issues (poor economy, sluggish growth, arcane contribution laws, innuendo about some "corporate/political complex", outsourcing, etc) have absolutely nothing to do with the stated 99% per cent goals and are close to crazy talk. A perfect example is Michael Moore's stupid braying about outsourcing being un-American. If you're trying to "fix" income disparity then you can't throw tools out of your economic policy toolbox.
4] I am convinced that these OWS'rs have simply taken the Tea Party boilerplate and tie-dyed it a different colour. They are likely looking for the Democrat versions of Michelle Bachmann to force their way inside. This kind of brazen politicking will doom the hackey-sack players who honestly think they're doing something positive.
5] Finally, of course, I maintain that people who hold a principled position against business and against corporations should be looking longer term because the economy doesn't stay bad forever. This is what I'd said before. If they really are anti-business and think that all corporate/government links should be severed then this has to apply in both the good times and the bad. When Corporation X comes to your town, opens a plant, hires all your formerly out-of-work clowns on stilts and unicyclists, what is going to happen to your "movement"? If it's dependent on the economy (and that's prone to fluctuation) then at least half the time your "movement" will be moribund and you'll have to gear it all back up again about every five to fifteen years. That's wasteful and counter-productive.
Does that help a bit?
