|
| Thread: OWS and the We Are The 99% movements |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 · «PREV |
|
Shyranis
Promising
Supreme Hero
|
posted November 24, 2011 11:51 PM |
|
|
OWS is mostly about frustration over the few companies that own Washington making billions for being failures on the tax payer's dime when the tax payers themselves are going broke.
On that level they are the same as the original Tea Party.
____________
Youtube has terminated my account without reason.
Please express why it should be reinstated on
Twitter.
|
|
TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
|
|
posted November 26, 2011 04:11 AM |
bonus applied by Corribus on 26 Nov 2011. |
|
Following the latest attempt to vilify and discredit the Melbourne branch of the Occupy movement, this time as a haven for under-age drug and alcohol abuse, I felt compelled to respond to what I see as the six main assaults on the movement.
The Occupiers are just a bunch of hippies.
Cries of “get a job” and “take a bath” are among the most common and predictable responses to those occupying Treasury Gardens. The Good Lord Mayor Robert Doyle has led this attack on personality over position, dismissing the protesters as a “self-righteous, narcissistic, self-indulgent rabble”. Obviously, the core group of protesters is by necessity comprised of people who have more time during the day than the average full-time worker. Some may be unemployed. In Australia it seems, such people are automatically labelled ‘dole-bludgers’; anyone who has ever experienced unemployment will appreciate that it is anything other than a bludge and that these people need compassion, not ridicule. Some protesters are also students. Their ‘job’ is to think, question and challenge, even when it offends the status quo. In this sense, they are doing a splendid job. Many are gainfully-employed, well-respected members of society who defy the stereotypes and offer their support in the one place they are truly free to associate and express their opinions: online. Really, though, discussing the protesters is pointless. There is a well-known anonymous proverb that goes: ‘Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people’. For a more local expression, we might consider: ‘Play the ball, not the man’. Any attack on the occupation, dress sense and personal hygiene of the protesters simply underlines the attacker’s unwillingness or inability to engage with the discussion at an intellectual level. Some critics also like to point out the supposed hypocrisy of the ‘anti-capitalist’ protesters enjoying the trappings of capitalism – iPhones, Starbucks, Levis, et cetera - as though only a free market economy could produce the miracle that is the White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino.
99 percent? They don’t represent me…
This criticism indicates a misunderstanding (or deliberate misrepresentation) of the slogan, “We are the 99%”. It’s not about public support. It’s about distribution of political and economic power. It’s about how global corporate control is concentrated in the hands of a ‘super-entity’ of 147 firms, and the richest 1 per cent control 40 percent of US wealth. This is precisely why large corporations including banks and insurance companies were declared ‘too big to fail’, resulting in the largest transfer of private to public debt in history. So unless you work at, say, investment bank Goldman Sachs (a recipient of $10 billion in government bailouts in 2008) and earn an average of US $292,836, then the Occupy movement does represent you. Whether you like it or not.
You break the law, you get what you deserve.
People often cite the flouting of council by-laws as justification for police to clear the protesters using whatever means necessary, including destroying personal property and using capsicum spray on children. Violent suppression of peaceful protest is a feature of dictatorships, not democracies, a point made by the current leader of the world’s largest democracy in relation to popular uprisings in Egypt (and one now being used against him). Response aside, the constitutionality of the eviction is itself under challenge in Federal Court, and the judge presiding over the initial hearing said there is a strong prima facie case to answer. So dismissing them as law-breakers is not so straightforward. Especially when you consider that a number of police attending the protest weren’t wearing their identification badges, a practice in violation of police manual provisions. Meanwhile, what of the other ‘law-breakers’: the homeless who occupy our parks and gardens, our sidewalks and riverbanks with their ‘advertising signs, objects and things’? If the protesters are, as Doyle has claimed, “an eyesore and public health hazard”, surely he must wish to sweep the streets of the homeless too - or do we only do that before Royal visits, Commonwealth Games, or other major televised events? And, of course, there’s the pro-life supporters camped outside the East Melbourne abortion clinic, illegally harassing vulnerable young women and passers-by each and every day, with not a policeman or Melbourne City Council worker in sight.
They’re just envious.
Some wish to paint the protesters as just a bunch of cash-strapped, self-entitled losers coveting the lifestyle of ‘hard-working Australians’. It’s not about class hatred. The protesters don’t want what isn’t rightfully theirs. They aren’t planning to raid your house, swipe your silverware and drive off in your nice new 4WD. The Occupy movement wants one thing: fairness. The fallout from the GFC revealed one set of rules for those in exalted positions and another for the rest of us. So while one of Australia’s richest miners pays 0% company tax, the rest of us are paying on average 30%. And while a US hedge fund manager caught defrauding a couple of banks to the tune of a billion dollars is ordered to repay just over half the amount (not personally, of course), a woman who lied on an application for food stamps to feed her two children is charged the full cost of her fraudulent act and sent to jail for three years. Envious? Try furious.
Collins St isn’t Wall St.
People think that because Australians enjoy a relatively high standard of living, we have no reason to protest. We’re not, like the United States, drowning under a $54 trillion mountain of debt. However, looked at from another angle – that of corporate corruption and political influence – suddenly our situation doesn’t look too dissimilar. Take the anti-competitive pricing strategies of our supermarket duopoly pushing primary producers to the wall. Take private and state property developers driving up already out-of-reach house prices through land banking. Take the mining industry’s removal of a democratically elected Prime Minister threatening them with a new tax. Yes, every country is different, just like every occupation is motivated in slightly different ways. But Australians have no shortage of reasons to be pissed off.
Occupiers have lots of problems but no solutions.
The Occupy Movement is frequently attacked for its inconsistency of message, slow progress, and lack of direction. In a weird way, these are its strengths. The inconsistency hints at the diversity of those participating in the debate. Its pace reflects both the scale of the problems we now face and its commitment to a truly democratic process; any grass-roots movement seeking a virtual consensus (90%) on all decisions is bound to evolve slowly. Plus, people seem to forget that it’s only been a few weeks. As for a lack of direction, this is perhaps the criticism hardest to deflect. The reason being it requires a shift in how we think about politics. The Occupy Movement doesn’t fit into the old political dichotomy of left versus right, good versus evil, with its sound bite policies, caricatured leaders, and demand for instant answers. Instead, it occupies a physical rather than a recognisable ideological space. It is non-hierarchical. It is putting more energy into formulating ideas rather than selling them. Still, some excellent suggestions have already been put forward, such as breaking up monopolies and overhauling banking practices. But there is no great rush, and there is no quick-fix. For now, there is only people sitting in parks, on campuses, in public squares, and at their computers discussing our collective problems and trying to imagine a better future. In a world of violence, inequality and cynicism, what could be more inspiring than that?
Side note: I had originally planned to submit this as a Letter to the Editor to one of the mainstream news publications. However, their limits of roughly 200-300 words meant such discussion would be simplistic at best. Self-publishing online, by contrast, imposes no such limits, allows greater transparency of sources, and provides for instant, universal, unedited feedback. What better example of how the old way of doing things is dying and being replaced by something far better, more direct, and infinitely more democratic.
|
|
Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
|
|
posted November 26, 2011 08:03 AM |
|
|
Nice post. 
____________
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
|
|
del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
|
|
posted November 26, 2011 01:34 PM |
|
|
Just mail a copy to the major news outlets, they might publish it.
But then again, they might not.
____________
|
|
TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
|
|
posted November 26, 2011 01:53 PM |
|
|
|
I would probably write a long post about "protesters" costing tax-payers money, except that I find the idea that politicians are "required" to deploy riot police against peaceful people absurd.
|
|
markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
|
|
posted November 26, 2011 05:31 PM |
|
Edited by markkur at 17:36, 26 Nov 2011.
|
Baron, I have to speak-up a little after your last post.
Very well written...keep trying to find an outlet. BBC? or maybe better...somewhere/somehow at PBS in the U.S. or a spot similar eslewhere.
I retreated to a cave along time back and can't contribute much but it seems to me 2 critical issues must be a part of any movement about change. "War & Technology"
This struck me the other day; "the World has NOT been at Peace since the end of WWII."
WAR
Sounds like common knowledge, cold war and all that. Of course the CW played a major part but I am talking about something far greater.
Before the "2nd war to end all wars" the U.S. had to gear-up to fight a war. The same as in WWI when she was ranked 14th in air-power before that war. President Roosevelt had to battle American Business to get them to switch to War-goods. They did not see profit in leaving behind peace-time products.
Fast forward to 1961. President Eisenhower (it's very significant that he was a leading general)is leaving the White-House and gives a Washington-like speech of warning to the "people", about the then, already massive and politically powerful Military Industrial complex. (source; Warfare State 1962)
<imo> The Worlds Budget has continued to stay heavily focused on the wonders of WAR. It never completely went back to a real Peace-time economy.
TECH
I remember when "robotic-welders" where placed within car-manufacturing plants. Very briefly, since that time, companies have been working at a breakneck pace to replace humans in every way possible.
When the new-vision started, it was bandied about that we (the U.S.) are moving to a "service economy". A couple of decades later that "free-market, global-market, Tech-is-great, and on and on has blasted it's way in all directions...right through the simple livelyhoods of millions world-wide. Yeah I know. I'm a Luddite...and I am very glad about that. Humans and Half-humans first!
Population growth + human replacement + ruling-paradigms of War-is job#1 = what we have now.
I've made it look simple but I know it's far removed from simplistic solutions.
I'm tired...it's back to the Faery wood for me. Good luck and as the song goes, don't forget to say it with Love.
|
|
Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 26, 2011 07:18 PM |
|
Edited by Fauch at 19:18, 26 Nov 2011.
|
|
Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
|
|
posted February 01, 2012 02:07 AM |
|
|
So why do Occupiers disrupt pro-life rallies and throw condoms on Catholic school girls? If they were consistent they would oppose the abortion industry as murdering babies is quite the big business.
Clicky
|
|
gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
|
|
posted February 01, 2012 04:23 AM |
|
|
Quote:
So why do Occupiers disrupt pro-life rallies and throw condoms on Catholic school girls? If they were consistent they would oppose the abortion industry as murdering babies is quite the big business.
Clicky
Because there are different protests protesting different things. Do you even know what is currently happening in our country? About 2 minutes of research could have told you that the 99% movement is not unified and that people in it and state-by-state protests are different from one another.
Also, Fox hates anything related to "Change" or "Protest" unless it is "The White house has changed to be completely conservative" or "Republicans protest the creation of (X law proposed by a Liberal)." Using them as a source is not the best support you could do, since they are anti-99% through and through.
____________
Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
|
|
kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
|
|
posted February 01, 2012 03:24 PM |
|
|
Quote:
So why do Occupiers disrupt pro-life rallies and throw condoms on Catholic school girls? If they were consistent they would oppose the abortion industry as murdering babies is quite the big business.
Clicky
Did any other news agency report on this? Because Fox News is not known of being any reliable.
First, I don't think OWS protesters would care about abortion protests. Secondly, the OWS aren't in the habit of striking first. This is a role reserved by the cops only.
So two things must have happened there. Either a group of protesters, the usual people who protest these things, were labeled OWS by Fox News or a group of people who pretended to be OWS protesters got there to give OWS a bad name.
Well, the former is more likely than the latter. Anyway, it's not the first time Fox News tried to mislead the people...
____________
Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
|
|
baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
|
|
posted February 02, 2012 03:27 PM |
|
Edited by baklava at 15:28, 02 Feb 2012.
|
It's understandable that democratic drones believe so. However, even if no other news agency reported on this historical turn of events, it's more than obvious to anyone who isn't completely brainwashed that non-Fox media are on the payroll of the throw-condoms-at-Catholic-schoolgirls lobby (which, as Fox happened to report last month, is financed by Obama's mother-in-law via the underground organ market).
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
|
|
Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
|
|
posted February 02, 2012 04:33 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Joseph Little, the chief of the capitol police, told Fox News & Commentary that he did not receive any reports of condoms being dropped on children. He also said to his knowledge, nothing happened to that rose to the level of needing to call in additional support.
Nuff said.
____________
"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
|
|
TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
|
|
posted February 03, 2012 01:14 AM |
|
|
Quote:
It's understandable that democratic drones believe so. However, even if no other news agency reported on this historical turn of events, it's more than obvious to anyone who isn't completely brainwashed that non-Fox media are on the payroll of the throw-condoms-at-Catholic-schoolgirls lobby (which, as Fox happened to report last month, is financed by Obama's mother-in-law via the underground organ market).
Oh my gosh. It's an interesting indictment on this thread (or more probably, me) that I can't tell if this is sarcasm.
____________
"My favorite" - Jean-
Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg.
|
|
gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
|
|
posted February 03, 2012 01:23 AM |
|
|
It's a joke, rest assured.
____________
Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
|
|
Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
|
|
posted February 03, 2012 02:18 AM |
|
|
Of course you won't see anything on the Communist News Network about it. They are too busy trying to convince the voters Jesus wants Obama to soak the rich and that Republicans hate the poor.
Clicky
____________
Revelation
|
|
TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
|
|
posted February 03, 2012 02:18 AM |
|
Edited by TheBaron at 02:19, 03 Feb 2012.
|
Quote:
Of course you won't see anything on the Communist News Network about it. They are too busy trying to convince the voters Jesus wants Obama to soak the rich and that Republicans hate the poor.
Clicky
...And that's why I can't tell...
____________
"My favorite" - Jean-
Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg.
|
|
Seraphim
Supreme Hero
Knowledge Reaper
|
|
posted February 03, 2012 06:12 AM |
|
Edited by Seraphim at 06:43, 03 Feb 2012.
|
Quote:
Nice post.
That post was one of the best I have read here.
The only thing I can say is that OWS is a symptom of a malfunctioning society.The most scarce resource to us humans is reason.A reasonable being would know that something must be effed up when it knows that people are losing homes,losing jobs and whatnot but those in charge get away with everything.
In this type of crisis,solutions are possible,but people just preffer to stay at their homes and watch FOX news or CNN as they are not the ones in trouble...
An illness that is incurable is GREED.
I came to the conclusion because of "Recent" events. The music industry was about to destroy the internet as we know, just because it wanted more profit.
However,any rational human being would know that they are earning allot of money already.
So,they came up with an idea so that they can earn EVEN more at the expense of everyone else.
This is typical as it happens everywhere. Corrupt governments act in this way as-well. I can assure you that when the wrong guys are in charge,very bad things happen.Even if they are swatted out,the next "Parasite" replaces him,all of course at the expense of the population.
Watch this video.Its about Corruption and the perceived corruption index.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Udd2lJ2LZPs
Perhaps,people should open their eyes and ears and listen to reason,instead of listening to lies and BS.
edit: This is a another video link
However,do not take it as absolute truth.I do not agree with everything it says,but it has more reason in it then CNN or FOX,at least so i think.
Feel free to correct me,and feel free not to be insulted from me asking you to be free to correct me...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFfVpgj_wK0
|
|
The_Gootch
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Kneel Before Me Sons of HC!!
|
|
posted February 04, 2012 04:45 PM |
|
|
|
kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
|
|
posted February 08, 2012 06:21 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Quote:
Of course you won't see anything on the Communist News Network about it. They are too busy trying to convince the voters Jesus wants Obama to soak the rich and that Republicans hate the poor.
Clicky
...And that's why I can't tell...
The thing is... Though FOX isn't any credible, one can't take CNN seriously either.
....
Anyway, it's been some time now and OWS barely makes the news anymore. As an outsider, I don't know if it died down or the mass media are not giving it so much publicity anymore.
Maybe that's because the focus has turned again on the possible Iran conflict and the European Debt Crisis.
Due to the SOPA/ACTA/PIPA though, Anonymous (who either supported or were part of the OWS Movement as far as I could tell) still make the news. But that's not because of the OWS itself but because of these acts, that the so called hacktivists ofcourse would not like.
So, is it still going strong or is it weakening now?
____________
Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
|
|
del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
|
|
posted February 09, 2012 08:34 AM |
|
|
Going from my news stream, Occupy isn't doing anything new. There is the civil unrest in Oakland, new york still going strong, and the general fight in other towns.
There is nothing "new", so its boring news ain't it?
____________
|
| |
|
|
