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Ask Slashdot: How Do You View the Wall Street Protests?
__roo writes "The New York Times reports that the Occupy Wall Street movement has inspired hundreds of Facebook pages, Twitter posts, and Meetup events, and that 'blog posts and photographs from all over the country are popping up on the WeArethe99Percent blog on Tumblr from people who see themselves as victims of not just a sagging economy but also economic injustice.' What do Slashdotters think? Do you relate to the 99% stories? Do they make you angry — either at the system, or at the protesters? If it's at the protesters, is it rational or a just-world effect?"
Even if you're screaming right outside their door, they're just going to call the cops and crank up the volume on the TV. I don't seriously believe that the Occupy campaign are going to do that much to change what is going on. The 1% already control everything. Everything that you buy, everything that you watch and everything that you do is controlled completely by this 1% group. Just about the only way I can think of to wrest power away from these folks is if the 99% were to stop buying everything for more than 90 days. Once the corporations see their income statements go to zilch then you would see real change.
Just add {In Space!} to anything.
Want to do something about the current failure of money? Start using Bitcoins. It'll be the biggest protest with the biggest impact in history.
http://www.weusecoins.com/
Here be signatures
The problem is a financial system built on making enormous amounts of money without contributing to society.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I'd join the protest if I wasn't taking care of my Mother after my Father died. I think it's a crock how things are but I also feel the top 1% aren't fully to blame. The 99% needs to learn to not be asleep at the wheel half the time and learn to say no together in order to get things done like boycotting things and not just go for "I got mine, too bad about yours" deals.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
These protests lack a specific and/or measurable goal. It's really difficult to reach a goal that you haven't set. I agree with most of the rhetoric being brandied about, but the lack of focus could be a deal breaker for the occupy movement.
About time the losing side in the class war started fighting back, I say...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Funny as it sounds: Bernie Madoff is sitting in jail right now for ripping off the rich, and they all got their money back. None of the people who wrote loans to everyday people knowing these people would default ended up going to jail. None of the people who inflated credit ratings on subprime financial vehicles are getting punished. This is where the protests should focus on, not just "greed," whatever that is.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
I see a lot of bitterness on Slashdot about the U.S. political system: the sentiment that all the politicians are bought by moneyed interests and are at best indifferent, at worst actively hostile, to the needs of the person in the street or the country as a whole. I see the "Occupy<Location>" protests as expressing the same sentiment.
At this point I think it's more important to build consensus about the need for action, than to determine a specific course of action.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
These people are the best chance we've had to turn around a country that's been headed in the wrong direction for at least the past 30 years. We live in a country where Goldman Sachs can commit thousands of acts of felony perjury, and not one person stands trial. They create fraudulent financial instruments, and pay back a small portion of their ill gotten gains as "fines" (bribes). Yet if I were to write a bad check to cover some groceries, I'd be going straight to jail. There's no way to describe this but tyranny.
Barack Obama, the greatest hope in a generation, is either unable or unwilling to do anything about this. If he's unwilling we have a severe political problem. He was elected to bring us change he refuses to deliver, and we have no way to hold him accountable.
On the other hand, if he's unable, we have a much more serious problem. That means democracy is well and truly dead in this country. The corporations have a complete stranglehold on our government. Unfortunately, this is more likely to be the truth.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
So, you're saying that unless they are the one person on earth living in the worst possible conditions without actually dieing, they should cheerfully accept their regular ass-raping and just be thrilled that they're not that guy? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
I see it (hopefully) within the context of similar protests that have occured throughout US history.
For example, the Pullman Strike. That, and other labor unrest during the later part of the "robber barron" era lead to things we now take for granted such as minimum wage and the 40 hour week.
There were also grass roots leftist movements during the Great Depression.
When you read these histories, some of the things said by actors on both sides are eerily similar.
The hope is that these actions will reform and perfect our republic; but not destroy it. "Revolution" is a word that gets tossed around a lot; but I think there are very few people who want a true revolution (which I would define as a new constitutional convention that unseats all currently elected officials in one fell swoop and replaces them with something else).
The US has been flexible over its history, and that's a strength. We don't need a revolution because it's built into the Constitution in the form of elections and even the ability to ammend the Constitution itself. For example, some have proposed an ammendment that would overturn Citizens United and strip corporations of personhood. I'm not arguing for or against such an ammendment. I'm just citing it as an example of how change can occur within the framework of the Constitution without destroying the nation.
In other words, we have the rights of speech and assembly, and they are being used. I just hope they don't get abused and destroyed.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
1) End the Collusion Between Government and Large Corporations/Banks, So That Our Elected Leaders Are Actually Representing the Interests of the People (the 99%) and Not Just Their Rich Donors (the 1%).
2) Investigate Wall Street and Hold Senior Executives Accountable for the Destruction in Wealth that has Devastated Millions of People.
3) Return the Power of Coining Money to the U.S. Treasury and Return to Sound Money
4) Limit the Size, Scope and Power of Banks so that None are Ever Again âoeToo Big to Failâ and in Need to Taxpayer Bailouts
5) Eliminate âoePersonhoodâ Legal Status for Corporations
6) Repeal the Patriot Act, End the War on Drugs and Protect Civil Liberties
7) End All Imperial Wars of Aggression, Bring the Troops Home from All Countries, Cut the Military Budget and Limit The Military Role to Protection of the Homeland
Not sure where this came from, but it was making the rounds on Facebook. Numbers 6 and 7 seem rather "wishlist"-y, but other than that this looks roughly accurate.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
The Wilpons allegedly lost as much as $700 million, so maybe you want to substantiate that claim with something.
Dog is my co-pilot.
It's interesting to me that Biden says there are similarities between the Tea Party and the Wall St movement, but gets shouted down or mocked by both. Take that a the core principle of the Tea Party is that government has gotten too big, is too wasteful & corrupt and is essentially bankrupting the country you would get a lot of agreement from the public. Take that a core principle of the Wall St movement is that corporations are too big, too powerful & corrupt, and are selling out this country, then that too would probably get a lot of agreement from the public. But still no effort or interest to join together to effect REAL change And of course the fact that the media invariably 'simplifies' the characterizations of one group to be racist rednecks, and the other group to be dirty hippies so that the true 'Middle' type folks won't feel comfortable supporting one or the other and certainly not both. Critical thinking on both sides of the political spectrum would help, but experience has shown that is harder to find in America today than a domestic coding job...
I want to know two things:
1) What are your problems? Not some random vague laundry list like "Wall street is bad," or "The rich suck." A short, specific, list of the things you believe are big enough problems that they warrant protesting over.
2) What shall we do about them? Just whining that there are problems is not useful. Propose solutions. Real, workable, solutions. Understand what the tradeoffs for those solutions are (all actions have cost) and be ok with that.
If you can't identify what it is your goals are and how you might go about achieving them, then I can't really support you because I don't know what I'd be supporting. Also I don't think there is much chance of success.
If you look at the successful stuff along these lines. Like, say, the civil rights movement they had precisely what I was talking about. They could clearly define the problem (that minorities were not treated the same as whites) and the solution (require the same treatment under the law) they desired. There was a goal being worked towards. It was something people could rally behind, and did.
So these people need to figure out what they want and how it should be done, and be able to state that in a cohesive fashion. Until then, I can't be supportive because I won't support something unless I understand what it is I'm supporting.
Sorry... no.
Sad as it may seem, the federal government (as screwed up as it is) is the only body that could possibly keep these fuckers in check. Your proposal would make the federal government weaker which would in turn make the Wall St. asshats stronger which in turn screws us all.
Instead of drowning the federal government in a bathtub (ala Grover Norquist), I suggest we take our government back from the greedy pigs and use that power to set things straight.
Simply getting rid of the sheep dogs because they've sold out to the wolves is not the way to go. If you leave the sheep to fend for themselves, we'll all end up as wolf poop.
What we need is new sheep dogs.
The three aspects of Occupy Wall St that are like the Tea Party are:
1. It's without question a populist movement.
2. It's emphasizing peaceful protest as a way of getting what you want.
3. It's not coming from either major party's political apparatus.
That's about where the similarities end. Some of the more significant differences:
1. Police have generally been favorable to or at least tolerant of Tea Party protests. They have been hostile and violent towards Occupy Wall St.
2. As of yet, there have been no indications that Occupy Wall St will turn into "elect Democrats" in a way that the Tea Party turned into "elect Republicans". There are also indications that attempts to turn it into an effort to elect Democrats would likely end in failure.
3. There are no wealthy donors and no major corporations giving money to Occupy Wall St, in the way that the Tea Party was financially supported by News Corp.
I am officially gone from
Clearly you have little understanding of how a university works.
Just because you have a giant endowment doesn't necessarily mean you can write checks off of it. They're likely tied to stipulations regarding their use.
It's becoming more expensive because costs have gone up, more people are attending (in general due to population increases, more people are "college age" than before but also enrollment goes up when the economy goes down).
Second, the economic depression has been on for a while now and wiped out emergency funds and other savings they'd accrued. There was a lot of money lost in investments that are now worthless, largely thanks to the gambling by our financial industry, but not exclusively.
To be clear, I'm not saying there aren't areas where universities can do better to reduce costs. For example, the one I worked at for years was quite heavy on the administrative level, and could likely shed some of that to save money.
Finally, just because information is easier to come by doesn't mean it's all valuable. The more information there is, the more work involved in organizing the useful bits from the shit.
Our economy is a web of interconnections. It's not at all as simple as you make it sound.
No sig for you!!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I went to Occupy Wall Street in New York, in Liberty Plaza on Thursday night.
You hear in the news media about how the park is not clean. I stood and watched the General Assembly go on for some time - while I was standing there, people with brooms came by every 15 minutes or so. The OWS people are almost overdoing the cleaning in response to the criticism, I've never seen more sweeping and cleaning than I did in the park. So if you hear on Fox News that OWS is not cleaning up after itself - it is just not true. I've never seen a place cleaned so frequently.
When I was there, most of the people were young people - in their late teens and twenties. They were winding down for the night so they were relaxing more. On one end of the park musicians were playing drums and other instruments, and the young people were dancing. Past them were a lot of sleeping bags. Past that people were being fed by a kitchen. They have a media center being run by a portable generator I believe. Past that is the general assembly where they make decisions. There is no loudspeaker so people repeat what the speaker says for those too far away - kind of like in the Life of Brian, but hopefully with more faithful repetition.
I've followed the internal political discussions about the effectiveness of these kinds of things for a long time. One point is it's a demonstration, in the sense of an example. Food is handed out freely, decisions are made through direct democracy in a general assembly, there's a DIY esthetic for everything, in a spirit of cooperation. So a community is created in OWS that is an antithesis to say the Wall Street financial companies - which are in buildings surrounded by semi-conspicuous barriers, behind which are tall office buildings whose entrances have security cameras, security guards and locked security gates, and up the elevator you have people wearing suits (or as fashions change, business casual) in a high-pressure, competitive, cutthroat hierarchy, run for profit. It's creating the new society in the shell of the old, as it's sometimes put
Then there's the other political considerations. Obviously this is inspired by the demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt and the Arab spring on one level, and perhaps in some dialectical way the Tea Party as well. In the US in the 1930s there were student organizations, labor organizations, labor political parties and parties courting labor for people to get involved in. Nowadays less than 7% of private workers in the US are in a union. But things have changed in the US as well - in the 1930s Detroit going on strike would be shutting down America's economic engine - nowadays if Detroit went on strike, it would be much more minor of a ripple in the national economy. The UAW threatening to go on strike is much less threatening to the powers that be.
One of the biggest laughs is OWS has not come out with a clear program for the ordinary 99% of us not born with a silver spoon in our mouths, to get us into a better position. Well who out there actually is doing that? The corporate media is completely controlled by billionaires, Congressmen collectively get billions of dollars in campaign contributions, Bill Gates and others are trying to privatize all schools into charter schools. These rich heirs control the media, the government, increasingly the schools, and even churches really. Most importantly of all they control enough capital to effectively control all capital, they control who works, who doesn't, and the offices we go into every day, where our labor is kicked up to these heirs in one form or another by way of a quarterly dividend check. And then the real kicker is these people also effectively control or co-opt the organizations made to check their power - labor-oriented political parties and labor unions. That's why I feel that the OWS general assembly gives voice to my concerns in a way that all the other controlled and coopted organizations out there do not. People generally don't think about these things, but as the unemployment rate drags on at 9%, as the housing market stays sluggish and so on, more people dwell on these things.
To what ends? How far down the drain must things slide before they become worth fighting for?
Bingo. Myself coming from the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere, I find it appalling that Americans criticize other Americans because they are fighting for greater equality, accountability and the preservation of the standard of living which is what makes living in the developed world great.
Like yourself, I'm not exactly sure what the hell these holier-than-though-we-have-it-good morons expect. Should things slide till things degrade to the point the average standard of living is no longer what it should be in a developed country?
The total student loan debt in the country is now surpassing credit card debt. When you used to be able to get a college degree with no more than $15K in debt, now you have to acquire debt 2-3 times that amount at least!. Social mobility is decreasing. There are 14 million people unemployed. People who worked hard for years, decades, are now unemployed because their jobs moved to China, and these same people get derided because they never got additional skills - with what money, with what education system, and if you are over 50, with what opportunities to get hired in a new field again?
You can finish college owing $50K and still not have a chance to get a job. And you have no other educational alternative since we do not have a state-funded post-HS vocational education system. Unemployed are being derided for not being entrepreneur and small business owners, but those who deride them conveniently ignore the little fact that capitalism (or any economic model for that manner) cannot absorb a population entirely made of entrepreneurs.
It is a sad indictment that it is cheaper for someone to travel to a third world country to get basic medical care than here. One would imagine that a country with the highest living standards would provide affordable health care for people making the minimum or close to the minimum. You need to make at least 2.5 or more of minimum wage just to afford medical and dental for yourself, let alone your family if you have one.
This might be a country with a very high standard of living, but you can still be poor and live a shitty live. It is an arrogant thing to say the poor in this country that they still have it better. They do, but just marginally with respect to the cost of living in this country. This from someone (myself) that comes from a country (Nicaragua) where there is still people looking for food and recyclables in garbage fields.
I would dare to say that in my old country, so long as you live within walking/commuting distance to a medical center (that is, you don't live in a remote village up in a mountain), you get a better chance to get basic medical care on a regular basis than a poor person in this country.
And that is the saddest indictment of all. People who deride the protesters, claiming that they have nothing to complain, they really don't know what the f* they are talking about.
Thats strictly a paper loss, the Wilpons profited from their relationship with Madoff. They deposited about $700 million and withdrew about a billion over the course of 5 years, their only losses were the ficticious profits they hadn't yet withdrawn. A recent ruling limited their liability to only what was invested in the last 2 years, and likely only the profit they made of about $83 million.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/business/mets-ruling-may-reduce-payout-to-madoff-victims.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/madoff-ruling-a-big-win-for-mets-owners-2011-09-28
Very solid advice. I'd add a few more:
- If you get married, learn to live on one income.
- If you do have a second income, use it to pay down debt as aggressively as you can, then to save up for big-ticket items such as a down-payment on a house, a used car, retirement, etc.
- If you plan to have children, don't count on a second income until the youngest is of school age. It's a full-time job to care for very young children. It makes sense to maintain business contacts, go to professional events, and do short contract work to keep your resume current, just don't count on the income. Take care of the kids first, then ease back into work -- and apply that extra income to getting debt-free.
- Don't spend a lot of money on "premiere" vacations while kids are very young. They won't remember any of it when they get older, and it's incredibly stressful on the whole family. Take the kids to the great outdoors instead. National and state parks are amazingly good vacations, and cheap, too.
- Invest early. It takes decades to build up a nest egg. The goal is to have a big enough nest egg so you can live 2/3 off the interest income when you retire, the other 1/3 from retirement insurance plans such as Social Security.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I've been around here long enough to know that top posting unrelated to the prior comment is bad etiquette, but again, I've been around here long enough to know when it is appropriate. I also know the magic formula for getting modded up is to say "I'll probably get modded down for this but.."
I'll probably get modded down for this but it is important enough to risk it.
The Occupy Wall Street movement does not have any leaders or stated goals or structure on purpose. This is an action deliberately taken in order to have broad populist appeal. The same instant they take a side on any issue, the established political system will immediately use that as a wedge issue to label, then divide and conquer the scraps of popular sentiment and kill any interest. Once a leader is selected, they will find one thing that guy/gal has said publicly, label him as a partisan for it and kill the movement. The parties have been doing this for years and have more experience, skill and money to deflate populist action than can be competed against. The only way to win that game is not to play.
The movement does have a goal and that is to take back our democracy. Get people talking about the issues again without having predetermined party lines or agendas. Once those lines are drawn, almost everyone stops listening or thinking and just go like lemmings how they have always done. The only thing this movement wants is an equal shake at a fair government. They want their representatives to actually represent them instead of representing the highest bidder: usually the rich and the corporations.
The purpose here is not to take any specific issue to congress, it's to overturn congress with people who actually listen to their electorate. If that means voting incumbents out, great, or at least put the fear of the people back into them, good too.
What is their stand on abortion? None. But once we have fair representation, we can talk about it democratically.
What is their stand on gay rights? The environment? Housing? Taxation? Big Government? None. But once we have fair representation, we can talk about it democratically.
What is their stand on any issue? TBD but we'll talk about it democratically once we have fair representation.
You don't have to agree with this movement on any specific issue and you don't have to hold off on support because they don't have talking points or take stands on your personal hot-button issue. For now it's enough to say that all the issues are TBD until such time as we have fair representation and can figure it all out democratically.
There is a sentiment of discontent in everyone I talk to. Everyone knows the system is broken but nobody has the power to change that. Voting is supposed to solve these problems but voting either way is a vote for the same thing.
Slashdot is typically an open minded place, I think this movement should speak to each of you. The only thing they want is more democracy. I don't blame anyone for thinking there is a hidden agenda, because there almost always is. But this movement has reached enough of a mass with the cause of having no purpose that it would be hard to argue that there is one. When the only underlying cause visible in their message is "More democracy!", I don't see how anyone can be against that. Want to change something about that platform, get out there and discuss it democratically instead of sniping at it from the comfort of slashdot.
This is a movement that is outside of and has rejected the established political system. And it's the only one I've seen in my lifetime that has rejected playing the two-party game. I am very excited that it has even gained some traction and has people talking!!! To me it is a moral imperative that we support this. Even if all it means is getting some people you know to talk out the issue.... even that alone is progress.
And one more thing: It's not the liberal version of the Tea Party. Both sides would **LOVE** for that to be the big soundbyte for precisely the same reason: Divide and conquer. The right will discredit it to their base as more liberal whack jobs and the left will attempt to co-opt whoever remains with the movement. It's important to reject that notion outright. The movement has NO POLITICAL STAND. The only way to win the game is not to play.
I agree with you completely.
I'm 32 years old. I'm probably a bit below that 10% personally but growing up I lived in a household of 6 where the total assets were probably closer to 8k. We got by. Now when college came I chose one that I knew I could afford and had some luck finding a decent job (after a year of unemployment). Now I make an income that is greater than my entire family put together due to that good luck and I am getting better. I was careful and recovered from bad debt management (and that year of unemployment). I consider myself AMAZINGLY lucky as I have moved from below poverty to probably between middle and upper middle class. It was alot of work, skill, and luck. But I'm here.
These people are mostly younger than me college age students. They are carrying iPads and drinking Starbucks. At their age I actually wouldn't have dreamed of paying $5 for a beverage. Hell I didn't even pay that much for alcohol for getting drunk during college (quarter drafts were the best invention I have ever experienced). I have trouble identifying with them as it doesn't seem like they want to go through the struggle I did. I don't know where they want money from. I also don't know why they feel they deserve to be more prosperous than they are without struggling for it.
You can't find a job straight out of college? I had to relocate pretty damn far from home after a year of searching to find a job in a field that had a high hiring rate. Did you pick a good career path?
You can't afford to buy a home or rent your own place right out of college? Maybe you shouldn't be trying to do that in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country.
If they put out a message that spoke about a specific issue or a set of issues like corporations being too involved with the government I could get behind that. But right now it feels like they are whining about sour grapes. Yes the division of wealth in this country sucks and it isn't getting better, but instead of whining about it and hoping someone fixes it for you or the problem magically goes away come up with real ideas about how to fix it or try to protest about specific causes. Heck it doesn't have to be one, but a little more focus would make them sound a lot less whiny.
To summarize, bullshit.
The lender is responsible for ensure they borrower is capable of paying back the loan, especially when they are lending someone elses money, especially MINE.
Yes, the borrower is responsible for paying back the loan, and when an otherwise good borrower suddenly fucks up and doesn't pay back a loan for whatever reason, you understand that is part of the risk of lending.
However, when the bank makes loans like they did for my wife. $180k loan to a woman in college (3rd year vet student at the time) with absolutely no job and no time for one anytime in the next 2 years, then its is entirely justified to blame them when it goes South. The bank was fucking utterly retarded to loan my wife the money. Her only 'income' was student loans, which ... they fucking counted as income.
Fortunately for them, we actually do have the money to pay for it.
The point however is that there are times when its just part of the lending business, and then there is what has been going on over the last decade where bankers were giving money to anyone anywhere regardless of if they actually qualified for it or not ...
Theres absolutely no way you can claim its not the banks fault when they were giving loans to people who claimed other loans as 'income'.
Few people are blaming the banks because the banks legitimately took someones house who hadn't been paying for it, and those people are just nutjobs. What people ARE bitching about is the fact that the banks are foreclosing on homes they don't even fucking have loans for, and GETTING THE DAMN HOMES. They're foreclosing on homes with no paperwork showing they even loaned any money or bought a loan from someone else. They are calling up offering MUCH better financing now and asking existing customers to refinance because they don't have anything to PROVE they actually own the lean on the home!
No one feels sorry for the guy who lost his half million dollar house because he couldn't pay for it working at McDonalds. We are pissed off because the fucking bank GAME HIM A HALF MILLION DOLLARS WHILE WORKING AT MCDONALDS. We're pissed off because all the assholes that caused this shit are still rich as fuck and the government gives them money so they don't get hurt any more, while those of us who didn't fuck up are paying for it. I don't mind helping out when I'm helping someone worse off than me, but here its the poor and middle class bailing out the rich because THEY FUCKED UP.
Don't try to shift the blame. I any many other people did our part and paid our bills, and we'll be glade to help out the guy who can't feed himself, but forcing me to bail out the fuckwads who have 4 or 5 extra digits on their bank accounts than me ... when they fucked up and are still currently raping others like me?
We are responsible for our position in life, and what you're seeing in these protests is people who are getting more and more tired of being fucked over even though they've done everything they were supposed to, because the rich guy in the office on the top floor, Southwest corner, who will make more in the next 15 seconds than most of us will in the next 3 years, pays off the right politician.
They are becoming more responsible for their direct position in life, hopefully the guy in the building and the politicians will start listening, in the last year, several countries have fallen for smaller reasons.
You can keep blaming the little guy, but he's getting a lot closer to just whipping your ass rather than bitching.
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