Congrats, Occupiers -- You ARE the 1%!

[Cobalt]

And they show why raw democracy is a bad plan: Mob rule over the rule of law.



in before rage.

 

[Ryokan]

I can't understand why you Americans don't simply love your protestors. They seem like a bunch of really nice people.

Remember that we in Europe see a protest as peaceful when only a few cars are set on fire and just a couple of shops are trashed and looted..

 

[theprestige]

I can't understand why you Americans don't simply love your protestors. They seem like a bunch of really nice people.

Remember that we in Europe see a protest as peaceful when only a few cars are set on fire and just a couple of shops are trashed and looted..

How's that Eurozone working out for you, then?

 

[jhunter1163]

My wife, who is a veteran of many 60's antiwar protests, recently saw OWS on the news. She watched for a few seconds and said "What kind of horse**** protest is this?" Then she launched into "OWS According to Ida":

Leader: "What do we want?"

Crowd: "WE DON'T KNOW!"

Leader: "When do we want it?"

Crowd: "NOW!!!!"

(Everybody cheers.)

 

[Ryokan]

How's that Eurozone working out for you, then?

You'd have to ask someone from the Eurozone.

And I don't really see how that has got anything to do with anything. Do you believe that only people within the Eurozone are protesting? If so, I think there's quite a few rioters from England who would like to tell you otherwise.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

the OWS crowd seems to be like this:

Phase 1 - Protest.

Phase 2 - ?

Phase 3 - CHANGE!

 

[Graham2001]

My wife, who is a veteran of many 60's antiwar protests, recently saw OWS on the news. She watched for a few seconds and said "What kind of horse**** protest is this?" Then she launched into "OWS According to Ida":

Leader: "What do we want?"

Crowd: "WE DON'T KNOW!"

Leader: "When do we want it?"

Crowd: "NOW!!!!"

(Everybody cheers.)

Reminds me of something my sister said when she heard an interview with an OWS protestor in Australia, in the background was a woman (presumably part of the protest) repeatedly shouting "I'm being excluded". My sisters response on hearing that was:

"Excluded from what?"

 

[Travis]

One thing I will hand OWS is that a lot of people are now more aware of just how much undue influence the top 1% actually wields.

Of course the big problem with OWS was that they didn't seem to have ideas that would have addressed the problem. For example you saw people at almost every Occupy protest with "End The Fed" signs. How would that have helped? Ending the Federal Reserve would not only crash the economy it would have put a greater percentage of wealth right in the hands of the already super wealthy. It would have made everything for the 99% worse.

And while I can get behind regulating the financial industry trying to just bring it to an end is folly.

 

[JihadJane]

I've had about enough of the Occupy Whatever street theater.

I really have.

And I agree with most of the mainstream ideas these folks are pushing. We've legislated our way into an unhealthy wealth disparity, the pay gap between execs and workers is too large, a very small number of people have undue influence on the nation's government and finances, we need to prosecute at least some of the fraudsters who fueled the economic collapse, and the financial sector -- especially consumer banking and the unregulated shadow markets -- has become largely a predatory industry.

That needs fixing, because it impedes democracy and brings on boom-and-bust cycles.

So what do these folks do? They move into public parks, intended to be oases for people who live in cities, and pave them over with tents so nobody else can use the place, or would want to.

In other words, they decide to become their own 1%.

Nice move, guys.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad they got out there and injected these topics into the dialog, because nobody was really talking much about it except in left-wing echo chambers, and it shouldn't be a left-wing issue.

But these folks learned the wrong lessons from the Sixties.
Look, you see someone arrested just for trying to register to vote, or get a sandwich, or cross a bridge, and unless you're a bigot, you think "That's not right".

You see someone get arrested for attention, and you're thinking, "How much is it costing me for my government to process your ass? Couldn't you have done this another way?"

I'm not thinking that.

Now the Tea Party -- who for the most part believes a lot of nonsense and many of whom are unabashed theocrats -- had rallies all over the country and didn't have to break any laws. And you know what? They have people in Congress right now.

The Koch brothers will be happy indeed. Which laws do you have in mind?

Meanwhile, an occupier calling himself "Sweet Potato" is selected, perhaps by himself, to give an extended interview to the News Hour at the ragged edge of a day-glo Hooverville.

And for two months they've been camped out there, drumming their drums, smoking their weed, and keeping kids and lunch-breakers and retirees and everyone else from using the park.

Folks, you peacefully protest by doing those things you think should be done... not by doing the things you're protesting against. Which is why taking over property is precisely the wrong strategy for you.

And it ticks me off, because now these ideas are going to be associated with Sweet Potato and his fellow squatters, which won't help them get a fair hearing.

Which means that the folks in those tent cities who don't have jobs, or who don't have homes, have even less of a chance to see the things get done that they were asking for.

And so does everybody else.

So I'm glad they're getting evicted.

I can't recall which mayor said this, but she's right... it's not a question of free speech, it's a question of lodging.

I hope they learn their lesson, do some reading up on the Tea Party, and get their act together.

They could do this country some good. If they just fast-forward their mental and strategic clocks about 45 years.

Mario Savio, December 2nd, 1964, talking about putting your body on the gears of the machine:

"That doesn't mean you have to break anything. One thousand sitting down some place, not letting anybody by, not letting anything happen, can stop any machine, including this machine! And it will stop!"

'Occupy' is Here To Stay

 

[JihadJane]

the OWS crowd seems to be like this:

Phase 1 - Protest.

Phase 2 - ?

Phase 3 - CHANGE!

Previous list and crystal ball gazing by the same author:

Yeah, it's basically:

Phase 1: Protest Wall Street
Phase 2: ????
Phase 3: Revolution!

And a prediction of my own: this will have blown over by November 2011 at the earliest.

 

[SezMe]

I hope they learn their lesson, do some reading up on the Tea Party, and get their act together.

I have two major disagreements with your analysis in this thread, Piggy. First, that the Tea Party was just some random people who got together because they shared a common view and the Tea Party arose organically out of that. The Tea Party was anything but spontaneous. It had major funding from FreedomWorks. And not just funding; this is the wiki summary paragraph:

FreedomWorks is a conservative non-profit organization based in Washington D.C., United States. FreedomWorks trains volunteers, assists in campaigns, and encourages them to mobilize, interacting with both fellow citizens and their political representatives.

All of those skills and resources were behind the Tea Party from the get go.

Second, the Tea Party had outsized media coverage that magnified their actual numbers and impact. Remember one of the days when there were rallies around the USA. Fox had the stars and coverage at many of them and promoted the events for WEEKS ahead of time. There were similar rallies by opposing groups that had larger numbers but virtually no coverage.

What is OWS to learn from this? Be astroturf? Find a sugar daddy? Have a major cable channel in your back pocket?

But I do agree with you in one area. They made the mistake of letting their protest take a back seat to just occupying. IOW, occupying became the goal, not changing the corrupt political system that originally was the coalescing factor.

 

[BenBurch]

And they show why raw democracy is a bad plan: Mob rule over the rule of law.



in before rage.

Dictatorship is so much better after all. *I* make the laws, and you are ruled by them. Ideal, no?

 

[timhau]

I'm not sure it's worse than rule by those who shout the loudest.

 

[Mike!]

My wife, who is a veteran of many 60's antiwar protests, recently saw OWS on the news. She watched for a few seconds and said "What kind of horse**** protest is this?" Then she launched into "OWS According to Ida":

Leader: "What do we want?"

Crowd: "WE DON'T KNOW!"

Leader: "When do we want it?"

Crowd: "NOW!!!!"

(Everybody cheers.)

Reminds me of the scene in 'Buckaroo Banzai" when John Lithgow was 'rallying' his troops...

Dr. Emilio Lizardo/Lord John Whorfin: Where are we going?

Red Lectroids: PLANET TEN!!!

Dr. Emilio Lizardo/Lord John Whorfin: When are we going?

Red Lectroids: REAL SOON!!!

 

[stokes234]

Well, it seems to me if you're talking about strikes, you're talking about organized action. You have leaders, position statements, and so forth.

Ditto for the Tea Party. They were unorganized at first, but these are Baptists and mission-trippers and PTA moms and Rotary members, along with some useful bullies, and it didn't take long til they had voting muscle organized.

They did pretty darn good for "waving a few signs once a week" instead of camping out and smoking dope.

The Occupiers are lost in the delusion that "raising awareness" is all you have to do, when it's only step 1.

Sezme put it better, but the tea party had the advantage of not just having media coverage, but media support, and sizeable financial backing. And i'm not too willing to accept that the tea party was disorganised as you say in it's early stages, given how it appears they came about - link.

 

[timhau]

Sezme put it better, but the tea party had the advantage of not just having media coverage, but media support, and sizeable financial backing.

How is OWS ever going to get media support and financial backing, when nobody seems to know who and what should be supported and backed? This all comes back to the obsession about numbers; if you're inflating your numbers by letting in anyone with any grievance, you're making yourself less relevant, not more.

 

[stokes234]

How is OWS ever going to get media support and financial backing, when nobody seems to know who and what should be supported and backed? This all comes back to the obsession about numbers; if you're inflating your numbers by letting in anyone with any grievance, you're making yourself less relevant, not more.

The tea party protests weren't about one single issue, so it's clearly not the case that you can only get media support by having one lone greivance.

 

[WildCat]

I can't understand why you Americans don't simply love your protestors. They seem like a bunch of really nice people.

Remember that we in Europe see a protest as peaceful when only a few cars are set on fire and just a couple of shops are trashed and looted..

Such things are a bit riskier in the USA for protesters... it's probably safe to smash the windows of a big bank or chain store, but try it with a mom & pop store and there's a good chance you'll be looking down the barrel of mom & pop's shotgun. And the law is on mom & pop's side.

 

[timhau]

The tea party protests weren't about one single issue, so it's clearly not the case that you can only get media support by having one lone greivance.

There's a difference between having a handful of issues (which are perhaps even related; in the case of the Teabaggers, it all seems to boil down to "We want our imaginary 1950s back") and being all over the map.

 

[daenku32]

The biggest problem here is that there is no true "public space." It's all owned by someone with an interest for keeping you out.

The issue going forward for 99% would be to rally up voters with additional voter registration and voter turnout. The 99% has been successful at finally getting the media to pay attention to them, so now they need to use that to push through those kind of things. Primaries are coming up very shortly and people really need to turn out for them to make a difference on the parties nominate.