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Congrats, Occupiers -- You ARE the 1%!

BenBurch said:
Popular uprisings in the USA never come to anything until somebody dies. Even that isn't a guarantee.

Kent State hastened the end of the Vietnam War.

Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner being murdered in Mississippi in 1964 was a turning point in the civil rights movement.

The Bonus Marchers were moved down by the military (with cavalry, bayonets and chemical weapons) they used to serve.
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Meant "mowed down" of course.
 
Sure, but it's not necessarily their job. That's what politicians get paid to do. It can be argued that the politicians haven't done a good job, given the state of things. In that case, pointing out the state of things (as you put it, "being contrary") might just be the best thing to affect change. Time will tell.
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Politicians get paid to write and pass laws, ideally, based on the needs or requests of the citizenry. It is not the jobs of politicians to solve all our problems. That line of thinking is why we have so many problems. The banks and big corps are so big because they are in bed with politicians. We should solve our own problems and get politicians out of the way. Not no government, but much smaller government.

I was in the Navy almost 10 years and my best supervisor used to say to me "Don't come to me with your problems. Come to me with your solutions."

Camping in the park and pooping wherever you please isn't a solution to anything.
 
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SezMe said:
I'm sure a lot of people in Mobile, Alabama were annoyed and inconvenienced when all those stupid marches were getting in the way of their ability to get to the Stop-N-Go for a six pack. I'm sure a lot of people in Pittsburgh were annoyed and inconvenienced by union strike actions seeking decent wages and working conditions. I'm sure many people in lots of places were annoyed and inconvenienced by those in the women's suffragette movement. I'm sure lots of people were annoyed and inconvenienced by all those damn hippies protesting the Viet Nam war.

The point is, if you're not annoying and inconveniencing people, you're not protesting.
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So where all these sit ins inconveniencing people for months at a time? Were guys sitting at the lunch counter for six weeks? A protest should make it's point, say it's piece, then go the hell home. Whatever people think of the Tea Party, that's what they did and why they were successful. They organized, got their permits, showed up in numbers, said what they wanted to say, then went home. There were no bonfires in the streets, no tent cities crying about their issue.

And I'm pretty sure most of them took showers on a regular basis, though I have no figures to back that up.:rolleyes:
 
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ShawnC said:
We should solve our own problems and get politicians out of the way.
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I have absolutely no idea what this means. A group of people with different values and goals trying to solve problems IS politics. The notion that politicians are the problem is absurd.
 
applecorped said:
In that case OWS should start seeing results in 2344.
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And the first result will probably be ...


A consensus that a process should be developed to create a list of potential goals.
 
SezMe said:
I have absolutely no idea what this means. A group of people with different values and goals trying to solve problems IS politics. The notion that politicians are the problem is absurd.
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Then, please tell me, what problem in your life has any politician solved? I choose to take responsibility for my own problems.
I'm not "a kill all politicians" guy, I just think people put too much faith in elected officials who work for whoever pays for their election campaign.

I'll give you an example of taking responsibility: The really great thing that some of these OWS people did was when they went into some of the big banks and closed their accounts and moved their money to small local credit unions. If they had organized all these Occupy Wherever groups on one day, to walk into the B of A or CitiBank or whatever, all across the country, and close down their accounts, cancel insurance policies or investments with whatever giant corp holds them, and put that money into smaller local companies, that would have sent a much bigger and more obvious message to the people that needed to get that message. It would have shown the power of the individual, and the people as a whole. Would the problem be fixed? No, but it sure gets you more sympathy than starting a bonfire in the street. And the only people who would have been affected would have been the businesses targetted. And nobody gets arrested. How about that?
 
SezMe said:
I'm sure a lot of people in Mobile, Alabama were annoyed and inconvenienced when all those stupid marches were getting in the way of their ability to get to the Stop-N-Go for a six pack. I'm sure a lot of people in Pittsburgh were annoyed and inconvenienced by union strike actions seeking decent wages and working conditions. I'm sure many people in lots of places were annoyed and inconvenienced by those in the women's suffragette movement. I'm sure lots of people were annoyed and inconvenienced by all those damn hippies protesting the Viet Nam war.

The point is, if you're not annoying and inconveniencing people, you're not protesting.
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Fair point, Sez Me, and I do appreciate it. I guess the issue is that unlike the other protestors you mentioned, I don't know what they hope to accomplish with their actions other than inconveniencing average people.

Incidentally, was on campus again yesterday, and Harvard's really beefed up security. They have limited gates open and cops at every gate, and you can't get on campus without a college ID. There were about ten or twelve tents in the center of Harvard yard. The school is letting people occupy the yard so long as they are Harvard students, and they're checking IDs to make sure no non students set up shop.

I walked by the tents today. One had a sign that said "Fair pay for janitors." Another had a sign about stopping some business venture in Africa, etc etc. I mean, what can they hope to get done with their protesting? Surely they don't actually expect these demands to be met, they have nothing to do with eachother. They're basically demanding that someone ( and who exactly? Harvard? I mean, paying their janitors more is one thing, I'm pretty sure they can't control the price of gasoline) fix the world.

I have no problem with protestors. living in a major city, I have been inconvenienced by them in the past and not minded. But I just don't see a point to all this.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
I walked by the tents today. One had a sign that said "Fair pay for janitors." Another had a sign about stopping some business venture in Africa, etc etc. I mean, what can they hope to get done with their protesting? Surely they don't actually expect these demands to be met, they have nothing to do with eachother. They're basically demanding that someone ( and who exactly? Harvard? I mean, paying their janitors more is one thing, I'm pretty sure they can't control the price of gasoline) fix the world.
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They do have something to do with each other: A desire for economic justice.

What is the point of advertisements?

Perhaps they are aiming to occupy Niall Ferguson, Harvard's odious, right-wing "History" professor who recently demonstrated his approach to historical accuracy by claiming, with reference to the London Occupy protest (02.06), that people are pitching tents and not sleeping in them (a discredited claim put forward by the UK Daily Telegraph newspaper).
 
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Schrodinger's Cat said:
I walked by the tents today. One had a sign that said "Fair pay for janitors." Another had a sign about stopping some business venture in Africa, etc etc. I mean, what can they hope to get done with their protesting? Surely they don't actually expect these demands to be met, they have nothing to do with eachother. They're basically demanding that someone ( and who exactly? Harvard? I mean, paying their janitors more is one thing, I'm pretty sure they can't control the price of gasoline) fix the world.
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It's funny how they kept whining about the press reporting that they didn't have a cohesive message. :cool:
 
ShawnC said:
Then, please tell me, what problem in your life has any politician solved? I choose to take responsibility for my own problems.

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When you ate your breakfast this morning, did you have to fear getting e.coli from the water and salmonella from the eggs? Somewhere along the line a politician worked to get water and food safety laws passed.

Did your toaster electrocute you or burn down your house when you went to make your toast? A politician passed laws regarding equipment safety.

Did a bridge collapse as you drove over it? A politician got a bill through that mandates inspections of bridges to ensue they don't do that.

Those are just three example of how politicians have directly improved your life. Do you need more?
 
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