Occupy Wall Street better defend its identity

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"Occupy George" advocates vandalism of banknotes to express their outrage over how the richest 1% have more money than other people.

They really are absolute, total idiots.
 
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Speaking of overly-educated, doughy, middle-aged guys, Alec Baldwin on what he learned from OWS:

"overly-educated"? He dropped out of university to go to a Trade School.

Now we need tradesmen (Bless them) but they are not what I would consider "over-educated".

Or were you putting Baldwin in the group Peter Medawar catagorised as having "been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought"? If so "overly-educated" becomes relative, and I withdraw my objection.
 
There are signs that the government has not been attending to the needs of the entire population. Here are but a few of the hundreds of examples:

Our schools which were once the best in the world have fallen far short of that in a mere 30 years.
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By an amazing coinkydink, the US Department of Education was created by Jimmy Carter in 1979.

As the British TV documentary on government, Yes, Prime Minister, noted, establishing a government department to oversee something pretty much guarantees its destruction.
 
'Philadelphia Police Capt Ray Lewis Joins OWS Protest and Gives Message to NYPD from Zuccotti Park':

 
As expected, the JREF forum is primarily anti-OWS which doesn't bother me. The forum population includes a high percentage of overly-educated, doughy, middle-aged guys and that tends to lean just slightly to the right. (That is also, incidentally, why I like posting here. Echo-chambers are very dull.)

As an occupier/activist I do have one question though - If the issues addressed by OWS* and various occupies are something that concern me, how else can I make my voice heard? This is not a facetious question. After using all the tools available to a citizen, I no longer have faith in any traditional aspect of our democratic system.



*economic injustice, politicians that are reliant on corporate cash to be elected, a government that is unduly influenced by lobbiers & special interest groups, stagnant wages, health care bankruptcies, our ever increasing poverty and unemployment numbers PLUS the stupidity of having the second lowest corporate and income tax rates partially because of tax breaks that went into effect while we were invading two countries. and paying for those tax breaks by cutting all aspects of social services - cops, firemen, teachers, CPS, social workers, employment offices, appeals for VA claims, etc, etc, etc to the point where many of these vital services are unable to function properly.

You could start with this:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7711061&postcount=1008

I have reposted the link a couple times for thread newcomers. Point #4 is now obsolete as the occupiers have demonstrated clearly that they're not at all interested in any kind of political change. The others remain as strong and relevant as always.
 
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/oecd201106.pdf

There is no love/hate relationship with the cops. There is only a system which keeps cutting funding to the police, making it difficult for them to do their job and closing community outreach programs.

An undermanned and outgunned force will often turn to preemptive aggression in order to keep the upper hand. Oakland is a prime example of this. Having an underfunded police presence (80 cops were laid off in August) in the murder capital of the west is hardly the best way to bring the crime stats down. The fear and anger between the community and the cops was well-established long before Occupy.

What? The solution to the ill-defined economic woes of the US is to get more police officers?

I can absolutely guarantee you that you will get the hand-block signal at your "General Assembly" if you try that one on for size.
 
'Philadelphia Police Capt Ray Lewis Joins OWS Protest and Gives Message to NYPD from Zuccotti Park':

....

What you meant to say is that he got arrested and that he is a retired police captain rather than on active duty.

Here's a more reliable source than YouTube: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/17/us/new-york-occupy/index.html

Here's a typical "peaceful demonstrator":

Nkrumah Tinsley, 29, also was accused of "aggravated harassment" on Wednesday evening in Zuccotti Park, where the movement began, New York police said. Tinsley is seen in a YouTube video making threats toward a department store. "In a few days, you're going to see what a Molotov cocktail can do to Macy's," he said. In another part of the video, Tinsley threatens to burn New York City to the ground on Thursday.
 
I would love to get like-minded politicians in office but, as I may have mentioned, in our current climate of multimillion dollar campaigns with special interest footing the bill, that is very unlikely.
Why have I not seen a single OWS protester call for lowering campaign and party contributions to a point where no single person/group would have undue influence? Like to $100 per election cycle for campaigns and $100/year to political parties?
 
....help out for about 6 hours and come home.

....

I'm genuinely curious about this. I had an opportunity to watch some of the occupiers in my own town. I had some business in the area and was able to observe for a couple half-hour stretches in between coming and going. During these intervals there was nothing happening.

So what does one do to "help out" for whole stretches of six hours?
 
And in this decade we have citizen's united which wiped out most of those positive benefits.
Damn that 1st Amendment!

Rather than trying to repeal the 1st Amendment to get around the CU decision, why not lower campaign and party contributions as I've already mentioned a few posts ago? And I advocated that long before there was an OES movement.
 
Would you support that in the US?

Moreover, what's the message in that document? Germany's corporate tax rate is very low too and they're doing pretty well.

Is it an argument for a VAT or national sales tax? Is that kind of policy even constitutional there?
 
the park in NYC? It isn't a public park. it is a privately owned space and has set hours of operation.
Actually under NYC law a privately owned public park has to be open 24/7. But of course they have the right to have rules against camping or sleeping in them.
 
Now we need tradesmen (Bless them) but they are not what I would consider "over-educated".
I strongly disagree. Chicago, for example, requires a plumber to have 8 years of training to get a license, which is required to replace the faucet on a vanity. Something the average homeowner can do themselves.
 
Moreover, what's the message in that document? Germany's corporate tax rate is very low too and they're doing pretty well.

Is it an argument for a VAT or national sales tax? Is that kind of policy even constitutional there?
I don't think there's any constitutional issues with a VAT or a national sales tax, but I'm sure many would decry such taxes as regressive.
 
I don't think there's any constitutional issues with a VAT or a national sales tax, but I'm sure many would decry such taxes as regressive.

They're not working too bad in Canada since being introduced 20 years ago. It replaced a manufacturing tax and it's recoverable on inventory and other flow-through items. The real problem I have with it is that it was reduced twice as an election ploy. It also "features" low-income refunds which is why the bingo halls, casinos, cheque-cashing outlets, and liquor stores have long line-ups on "refund day". This is the "starving" poor that Alec Baldwin and others keep chirping about.
 
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