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Occupy <Your Town>

Craig4 said:
This is my complaint about the occupy movement. As a member of their target audience I feel like I should look at a protest for about five minutes and walk away knowing what it is they want me to do. I look at these people and all I get is they don't like corporate greed. Great, show me your end state and a plan of action to get there. I'll either take action or (most likely) not.
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I agree. Take "corporate personhood" and the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. The OWS folks don't like it, fine. Then do something about it, which in this case means:

1. Adding a 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution; or
2. Getting a similiar case to the Supreme Court and hope for a reverse decision.

It's a very straight forward process and there is no other way. Congresswoman Donna Edwards of Maryland has introducted a Joint Resolution for a 28th Amendment to overturn Citizens United. So why doesn't OWS get behind her to get the job done?
 
Craig4 said:
No but I do okay. We're solidly upper middle class. In the next few years between work and investments I'll probably cross the 1 million dollar net worth mark.
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Poor, compared to the 1%, definitely not the target of any occupy movement. :)

Anyway, it doesn't really matter what I want you to do. You can either get involved, or not. If you want to be involved, there are a million ways to do it. If you're close to an occupy camp, run down and listen to a GA sometime, or if they have a livestream and stream their GAs, listen to it that way. It's kind of neat to watch an actual democratic process. Or you could just go walk around and talk to people you see working, ask them why they're there.

If you want to help, you simply help. You can either offer something that's obvious that you can do, or you can ask facilitators what you can do to help. There's so much that can be done.

Many times they simply need more bodies. Portland last night, wow. The sheer numbers made the cops change their minds about gassing em. I had seen them a couple of weeks ago during an eviction and it was madness. They've got some real momentum now, and are very firmly committed to nonviolence. Beauty!

Maybe you have some technical expertise that you can offer, or some knowledge about, well, most anything, that you can talk about.

What usually happens is that people go and hang out for a while, plug in, and just tend to just fall into a niche.

I'm disabled, so I can't go protest on the ground. What I do is just kind of keep up with what camp needs online help (like emailing/calling officials, being there to bear witness on live stream, etc.) It's a pretty powerful thing to say: "The Whole World is Watching!" I also have donated food and puter supplies for my local movement.

And of course, I talk about it to everyone who will listen. :)
 
Alt+F4 said:
None of this has anything to do with being wealthy. OWS has no problem with super rich celebrities. In NYC they don't even mind that one of the banks they put their money in is partically owned by multi-billionaire Wilbur Ross.
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I guess I should've put a smiley. Here. :)
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
No. This is their new strategy for getting them. They figure employers will go looking for candidates in the local park.
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In Nashville it is ~80% employed. It's hard to tell the actual number, of course, but a couple of polls have been around this. 'course, it's awesome when people tell them to go get a job when they have one, and even more awesome when they don't and have been looking for one for a long time.
 
sillyhead said:
Poor, compared to the 1%, definitely not the target of any occupy movement. :)

Anyway, it doesn't really matter what I want you to do. You can either get involved, or not. If you want to be involved, there are a million ways to do it. If you're close to an occupy camp, run down and listen to a GA sometime, or if they have a livestream and stream their GAs, listen to it that way. It's kind of neat to watch an actual democratic process. Or you could just go walk around and talk to people you see working, ask them why they're there.

If you want to help, you simply help. You can either offer something that's obvious that you can do, or you can ask facilitators what you can do to help. There's so much that can be done.

Many times they simply need more bodies. Portland last night, wow. The sheer numbers made the cops change their minds about gassing em. I had seen them a couple of weeks ago during an eviction and it was madness. They've got some real momentum now, and are very firmly committed to nonviolence. Beauty!

Maybe you have some technical expertise that you can offer, or some knowledge about, well, most anything, that you can talk about.

What usually happens is that people go and hang out for a while, plug in, and just tend to just fall into a niche.

I'm disabled, so I can't go protest on the ground. What I do is just kind of keep up with what camp needs online help (like emailing/calling officials, being there to bear witness on live stream, etc.) It's a pretty powerful thing to say: "The Whole World is Watching!" I also have donated food and puter supplies for my local movement.

And of course, I talk about it to everyone who will listen. :)
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...and do what? What is your desired end state? You want me to volunteer and help out to achieve what? I will just give you a hot tip about messaging. If it takes me more than one minute to figure out what you want me to do you're wrong and it's never my fault. I should be able to look at an occupy camp and and before I've read every sign I should know "oh, they want ____" What is the blank?
 
Craig4 said:
...and do what? What is your desired end state? You want me to volunteer and help out to achieve what? I will just give you a hot tip about messaging. If it takes me more than one minute to figure out what you want me to do you're wrong and it's never my fault. I should be able to look at an occupy camp and and before I've read every sign I should know "oh, they want ____" What is the blank?
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The Occupy movement appears to be a pure protest (protest for its own sake), as opposed to an applied protest (protest with a goal in mind, however unattainable that goal might be).
 
sillyhead said:
Is that the best you can do? There are thousands of people out there, surely you can find a stupider pic than this. Why not get the pic of the guy standing on the sidewalk with the "NO TAXES!" sign. That one gets me every time.
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I was going to use the picture of the dumb-**** who defaced a twenty dollar bill and put it over his mouth who was on the cover of last week's "Economist" but I couldn't find it online.
 
Not sure what you mean about messaging, but I'll just go ahead and repeat myself.
This is TOTALLY not a fast food revolution. You won't get simple soundbites that will describe what's going on. I know that's inconvenient. I wish I could apologise.

This is why I said it'd be a good idea to go down to your local occupy movement and talk to folks there. Or watch a livestream. Or some youtubes. I'd say read some stories, but not all the media in the country is as fair as Nashville, and some of it is worse than a Jerry Springer show (see Occupy Eureka for some ******* crazy journalism). The guardian has had some good (accurate) stories, though. Here's one you could read:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/13/2500484/occupy-wall-street-is-many-things.html

This is why I like to use the word "evolution" to apply to this movement. And it's also why you can't put it in a blank.
 
jhunter1163 said:
The Occupy movement appears to be a pure protest (protest for its own sake), as opposed to an applied protest (protest with a goal in mind, however unattainable that goal might be).
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Which would be my entire criticism. Now, for the record I'm not at all sympathetic and will not be helping the protestors one bit. However, if they're going to take over parks, march and generally mill about in an angry fashion I should at least be able to understand what they want.
 
sillyhead said:
Not sure what you mean about messaging, but I'll just go ahead and repeat myself.
This is TOTALLY not a fast food revolution. You won't get simple soundbites that will describe what's going on. I know that's inconvenient. I wish I could apologise.

This is why I said it'd be a good idea to go down to your local occupy movement and talk to folks there. Or watch a livestream. Or some youtubes. I'd say read some stories, but not all the media in the country is as fair as Nashville, and some of it is worse than a Jerry Springer show (see Occupy Eureka for some ******* crazy journalism). The guardian has had some good (accurate) stories, though. Here's one you could read:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/13/2500484/occupy-wall-street-is-many-things.html

This is why I like to use the word "evolution" to apply to this movement. And it's also why you can't put it in a blank.
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Heavy sigh. Okay, you win; I give up. I, on behalf of the entire world surrender and give in to all your demands. I will have my staff implement starting Monday morning. If you could give me the list I'll make sure they have it first thing so they can get going. *reaches out hand to take the list*.
 
jhunter1163 said:
The Occupy movement appears to be a pure protest (protest for its own sake), as opposed to an applied protest (protest with a goal in mind, however unattainable that goal might be).
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Well, it is, and it isn't, depending on who you ask. Remember that it's a leaderless movement, and it's also an infant. Many people are still learning HOW to protest right now, all the ins and outs of it. But some camps are doing actions now, targeting particular corporations and such. There are a couple of general goals that everyone's gotten under the umbrella of, but there are ideas sprouting from everywhere about how to get it done. Sometimes the actions are simply organic, like the quick decision to march on the opera house where the mayor was last night in Denver. Before and after that, the protesters were simply marching around the city after being booted from a park, pretty much aimlessly with no destination in mind, playing cat and mouse with the police as some monitored the scanner. I'm not sure if they were ever able to figure out a plan, because their batteries died, but it was kind of interesting to watch a group of several hundred people marching around, running ideas past each other, using consensus while walking to make decisions such as, well, yeah, it's probably not a good idea to go 'defend our brothers and sisters down at the jail.' lol

I'm rambling now. I better go figure out what's for dinner.
 
Craig4 said:
Heavy sigh. Okay, you win; I give up. I, on behalf of the entire world surrender and give in to all your demands. I will have my staff implement starting Monday morning. If you could give me the list I'll make sure they have it first thing so they can get going. *reaches out hand to take the list*.
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Wow, you actually do think a million dollars is a lot of money, don't you? :)
 
sillyhead said:
Wow, you actually do think a million dollars is a lot of money, don't you? :)
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Another heavy sigh. Let's assume I was within my power to surrender and now need the list so as to meet your demands.

ETA: The fact that I have to ask for this only proves me point.
 
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No, it only proves that you are trolling. So I'll just do what I do when a troll comes into the livestream chats.
 
So you really can't tell me what the Occupy Movement's desired end state is?

ETA: How about you put out some signs that say "End Tax Exemption for People Making More than $50,000 Per Month in Income for Municipal Bond Funds"? Maybe you could try "Tax Proceeds from Derivatives Trading Like Earned Income".
 
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I've had the "pleasure" of experiencing the Occupy Melbourne protest a few times. Perhaps I'll take their protests against corporate greed seriously when I don't inhale 6 years worth of second hand smoke just from walking by. Keep on fighting that 1%, idiots!
 
Anonymous is threatening the City of Toronto and it's "mayor who uses vulgar language in public"

Hackers threaten to 'remove' Toronto from Internet if it evicts Occupy protesters


http://www.vancouversun.com/technol...t+evicts+Occupy+protesters/5704425/story.html

Yeah I mean they aren't just a bunch of hippie squatters annoying everyone they are freedom fighters!

On Thursday, residents and business owners neighbouring the sprawling encampment gathered to voice their displeasure about the clouds of marijuana and campfire smoke emanating from the park — as well as the near-constant sound of drumming.
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This is serious guys, I think we need to bring in Eric Cartman
 
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