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NYPD Dismantling Occupy Wall Street Encampment
First time accepted submitter Red_Chaos1 was the first to write with news that, as of around 06:30 UTC, the NYPD appears to have begun removing the encampment of Occupy Wall Street. At 06:34 UTC the Mayor's office issued a tweet declaring: "Occupants of Zuccotti should temporarily leave and remove tents and tarps. Protesters can return after the park is cleared." Around 07:15 UTC the first of several large dumpsters were deposited and the police began throwing tents and other debris into it. Reports also indicate that a Long Range Acoustic Device is on the premises. The police are using helicopters and physical barriers to prevent news coverage, but the Occupiers are streaming the events (alternative stream; #occupywallstreet on irc.indymedia.org is also rather active for those who don't fancy flash or twitter.) As of 09:15 or so, the situation according to those near NYC is that the park has more or less been cleared.
I haven't particularly warm-hearted feelings for the Occupy hipsters, but...
The police are using helicopters and physical barriers to prevent news coverage
Seems a bit excessive and somewhat dubious.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
http://www.ustream.tv/TheOther99
Major media helicopters have been forced out of the air by NYPD. Lots of fresh news on twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23occupywallstreet
NYPD Police scanner here:
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/?action=wp&feedId=8905
NYPD switchboard isn't taking any more calls:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/home/contact_information.shtml
If this is right and legal and just, why wait until 1am to do it? Why? And why bar press? And why the hell didn't you just leave them alone in the first place, ppl would be like: "ppl in the park, protesting, want something" and then "next". But instead, it's sure to backfire. People want to believe the stuff they were taught in elementary school about freedom, etc. *shrugs*
Yeah, right, it's just a lazy bunch of hippies with no brain... In what world are you living? Are part of the side of the 1%? Do you really think what they want is just get richer? Also, who's property are you talking about? I have read/seen/heard that they were anywhere else than on public spaces. Also, I think you might be the only person that doesn't know what they are protesting against.
I'm posting at 08:08 UTC
It has been going on for a couple of months now.
At this point there is no real goal other than 'dismantel the man'.
If you guys are *serious* about staying there and doing something then get a GOAL. Something you can actually achieve. Other than camping out. Winter is coming and it gets cold there.
If your goal is nothing more than being pissed off at the 'man'. Well that has been going on for many generations.
You guys have the will to do something. You just have no idea what exactly you want. Also keep in mind you will need to convince the other 98% of us to think it is a good idea too. Some will join you because they like a 'good cause'. Others will oppose you just because you want to change things. But if all you can come up with is 'i hate the man'. Well, we all do whats your point?
If you do not come up with a concrete goal soon the 'man' will get tired of your BS and toss you on your ear.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Throwing tents into dumpsters, without issuing a 'vacate or your property is forfeit' order seems like a clear violation to a non-lawyer.
Lawyers? Or have I simply missed something requiring the demonstrators to disperse?
You suggest:
Perhaps a haircut and an education might help you attain wealth quicker than living in a cardboard box on someone else's property.
I dress well, keep my hair cut and my face shaved, I have BS and MS science degrees from good schools. I haven't been able to find a job since finishing grad school - almost two years ago.
There is reason to protest, and the fact that you don't understand what they're protesting is as telling as your non-solution of getting a haircut and an education.
Though I fully support their ideals I wasn't enthralled with most of the crowd in Zuccotti Park when I went to check it out, and I wouldn't join such an occupation myself, but you're attacking the messenger and not the message - because there is very little that is attackable (barring fringe elements).
By removing protesters, rather than having talks with them, the government is showing the occupy movement that they don't care. People should be allowed to practice peaceful protest, but it seems like the Occupy movement is being repeatedly shown that the government doesn't have a heart. First they were fenced in on the street. Then they were pepper sprayed. Then when it got cold, the fire department came and took away the generators providing heat. Now they're being forcibly removed from where they were camped.
This is really sad, and I don't think any of these things were the correct response.
It's true that a bunch of pseudo-hippies are crashing the protests, for douche points or whatever scorekeeping is used in the rapacious subculture, but that does not invalidate the handful of actual protestors that started the movement and continue to stand vigil, nor the effect the moment has had in sensitizing the public to some of the more serious issues plaguing North America.
What's particularly ironic is that the NYPD is imposing censorship and using arguably anti-terrorist techniques and tools to squelch a peaceful protest. As if the NYPD needed any more bad press... The power of the Occupy movement is not so much in its stated message, but in the way the corporations and authorities respond to it. It is bringing much needed attention to these crooked organisations and reminding the everyman that the government and its corporate masters are conspiring against him.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Zucotti Park is privately owned.
All they need to do is wait 2-3 more weeks. The weather will chase the bulk of these trust fund rebels out when the high is 30 deg. F. The few remaining will be easy to remove.
No, then there would only be the real, core protesters left. They needed to do it now so that they can show it's "just a bunch of hippies".
According to the Livestream, at least 200 people remain and they are being arrested.
Or it could be that anarchists were starting to cause too much trouble for the NYPD (and by extension, Oakland PD) to handle...
This Occupy movement, while having a noble cause, did not use peaceful protests in an effective, coordinated fashion. No leaders were/are both a blessing and a curse. Blessing in that authorities can't find a reason to capture that leader when that leader doesn't exist and curse in that you're seeing the result right now... People getting shot and hit on the head with tear gas dispensers because those crowds agitated the police enough that they felt threatened and reacted towards the perceived threat. The authorities are now cleaning house most likely because they got the okay from the courts to do it. City councils I'm sure have the same power...
I'd love to see an Occupy 2.0 sort of thing, but it's likely not going to happen with public protest unless a few singular people can get themselves together and lead the entire thing. Look at the Civil Rights Movement... eventually a leader came out of it. ;)
And a month ago people were saying the protests would be over by the weekend. They're still there, and in fact popping up in places all over the world.
But hey, criticising from your easy chair while believing the lie that you too can be a millionaire, while one by one your fellows are being chopped out of the middle class is easier, isn't it?
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
funny, after all the libya, egypt etc stuff.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15732661
even funnier is the mayor issuing statements.. ON FUCKING TWITTER. WTF MAN?
why not just wait for the winter? if they got a place to go, they're not going to stay in the park..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The protesters made some good points:
Chrony Capitalism coupled with inflation really has created a system where money comes out of the void, shoots to the top and by the very existence of that new money being created causes the money other people hold to decline in value.
Wall Street without a doubt orchestrated the creation of this system.
HOWEVER Wall Street people are the wrong ones to protest. Companies exist to make money by whatever means legal, and in some cases not legal. The bottom line is companies exist to make money. You invest in whatever company is most capable of doing that.
The problem lies in chronyism. A company that participates in chronyism isn't doing anything wrong, it's a means to an end in the companies goal of accumulating money. The corrupt government playing ball with chronies on the other hand IS doing something wrong.
Our government representatives are supposed to represent the people. When they begin to self-serve instead of serve the people they are doing something wrong.
By protesting Wall Street they're sending the message they don't want anyone to make money. If they were to "occupy the mall" instead and focus all of their energies and talent into figuring out the mechanics of every bribe, kick-back, vote trade, intimidation tactic, threat and dishonest move of every politician in Washington and create something akin to Wikipedia devoted specifically to those ends with as much evidence as possible we would be putting the real problem back in check. Unfortunately our three branch balance of power is out of balance, I blame the executive and legislative branches for pushing it out of balance and I blame the judicial branch for actively endorsing the shift in balance.
I don't get an actual feeling the OWSers are motived to fix things. I get a sense of "I'm fucking with you because I can" and I get the feeling they're pushing for a fascist communist/socialist shift. As with every large movement it's obviously not an across the board thing, but I do feel that it's the general consensus, and I'm also starting to suspect outside driving forces, in much the same way the Egyptian government had paid pro-government protesters to clash with the grass-roots protesters some time back. With the OWS crowd they wouldn't need more than a couple of key charismatic people placed in each camp.
In short theres a real problem that needs fixing, but I feel the motive of the protesters is to insert an agenda instead of actually fixing the problem.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I'm not sure how the original wall street movement is going, but it has spread to cities around the world. The one we had in our local small city was ridiculous. As much as I'm happy to defend the right for people to peacefully protest it seemed to turn into more of a tent slum in the middle of our nice city parks, a park which is for everyones use.
While I'm all for their protest, in face of cancelling a major event that is hosted in the park annually I'm glad that our council gave them a move on order. Not as excessive as this NYPD action, but the protestors did make their point and it's time to let the rest of us also enjoy the public property they decided to essentially squat on.
No one has ever accomplished a goddamn thing by "camping out". You protest during business hours when you can get people's attention and when media bureaus are active and fully staffed, then you go home, take a shower, and sleep in a warm bed. In the morning, you go back and do it again. Rinse, repeat.
The only attention these knoblickers are attracting by sleeping in a New York park is from the rats and the homeless.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
While I do agree that the world is not fair and people have a right to be upset and fearful of a 2nd crash with this dangerous flash trading and debt created by the rich, I do feel these protestors are morons.
Not all of course as I would want to protest for a few hours. However, occupying a public space, supporting socialism, and refusing to get jobs or at least look and just whine out in the cold in a tent is not very smart at all. What do they expect? A trader walking past says, oh poor fellows. Let me tell the CEO of Goldman Sachs to disaband and give all our money back to the people and hire these people to watch other peole do jobs. Shame on us ... YEAH RIGHT!
Start a political party, organize voters house to house, go get a mcJob to start paying down the student loan debts you agreed to pay for (I don't care if it is a 40k a year job starting out), and so on. Doing these things might not get you as successful as the those over 34 or your parents, but it is better than whinning and you can start to do something about it. The Tea Party was smart and taken over the republican party. That is why there was no compromise on the debt ceiling a .001% tax increase will give a (R) a one way ticket out of office from the Tea Party. OWS needs to do the same.
Defacing property with no message is wrong. If anything many support the tentants of communism and socialism that I find a problem rather than a solution.
http://saveie6.com/
How is this news for nerds?
It's news to everyone, including nerds.
Unlike, say, football. And I've never heard of those last two folks you mentioned, so I doubt they'll make it on here anytime soon.
Unless you live in bumblefuck nowhere, there are thousands of jobs available around where you live.
The problem is, you want a specific job for a specific amount of money, and won't settle for what's available.
Which is sad, if you haven't taken anything in 2 years. You're unemployed by choice, and that makes your opinion on OWS even funnier.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/11/occupy_portland_demonstrators_2.html
was just similarly dismantled. It was getting lots of local news coverage and I was hoping to see a fight but nothing happened :(
Similar situation for me, too: I'm American born and raised with a PhD in biochemistry and I had to move to Asia to find work. Well, I did actually have an American job at the time but the pay put my family below the poverty line - and the Asia job pays about 4X as much - so it amounts to the same thing.
And it's fine with me if Americans don't want science and progress and all that - but don't pretend that it's only uneducated people (with long hair - the horror) who are struggling to find work in the USA.
is gone.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Unless you live in bumblefuck nowhere, there are thousands of jobs available around where you live.
The problem is, you want a specific job for a specific amount of money, and won't settle for what's available.
Which is sad, if you haven't taken anything in 2 years. You're unemployed by choice, and that makes your opinion on OWS even funnier.
I guess there would be more jobs if you guys didn't need to give 700bil to Goldman and friends for bonuses.
The Tea Party was smart and taken over the republican party.
Tea Party didn't just suddenly appear out of the blue - radicalization of Republican party has happened steadily over the last two decades (accelerating over the last one), so what you see today is just a new label slapped on top of the end result of this process.
Libyans
They want French and American military to fight a war against their government, and bring them into power?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The Tea Party was right leaning, but Sarah Palin give them a speech. So whose it going to be? Democrat or Republican to help your vision? They chose to register and work inside the republican party organized.
These protestors might be liberal oriented but they are not organized in the democratic party. SOme might even be liberatarians. The Tea Party is what kicked 3 senators out. The last one in Alaska had to re-register as an independent and then change back to a republican. I lived in Alaska at the time and I thought that was crazy but the Tea Party fringe ones are just too extreme.
http://saveie6.com/
You can vote on whether you think this was the right thing to do or not...
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hundreds-cops-flood-zuccotti-park-occupy-wall-street-protesters-show-defiance-retreat-surrender-article-1.977430
I think the reason the government and mainstream media are uneasy with the Occupy Wall Street movement is it is basically saying the government in its current form no longer represents the will of most American people. Governments do not like having their legitimacy called into question. No other american protest movement in my life time has done this.
Simple way to do away with all the pesky rights people have in public spaces: sell the public spaces to private investors, who can then make up arbitrary rules. E.g., in Berlin, Germany, the city council sold the Potsdamer Platz to investors (Sony, Daimler) because it could not be bothered with restoring this important and historic public space to its former glory, after it had been dormant for decades as it lay right at the inner-German border. Until the separation of Germany, Potsdamer Platz had been the urban center of Germany's capital, with all that goes with that. When you enter "Sony Center" today, you are informed by signs that you are not allowed to linger, not allowed to play music, not allowed to express political opinion, etc.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
NYPD has some valid reasons to clean that park (as it is private and not everything happens by the book), but they totally drop the ball with trying to control it as much as possible - it is already crying out loud "dictatorship".
As for OWS - those people should understood that only protesting nothing will change - they have to get into politics at this moment. Two party system have failed US, because currently elites of both parties are drawn in lobby money and are constantly encycled by rich people. Even if someone like Obama wants really to do something (I'm not saying that he did or does), usually such initiatives are leveled with low level complaining. If it doesn't work, "unamerican", "socialist", etc. arguments comes up. You know how it works.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
He is the 1%. The king and his court are hardly going to be advocating for the foundation of a republic are they?
Remember this next time you watch TV or any other media. How many of the people you see in media are making minimum wage or even an average wage.
For that matter, how many here on slashdot do a real days work? Hint, it is 10:30 in holland as I post this. Do you think a factory worker has the same luxury?
I am not the 1%, I am somewhere in the middle but I came from the bottom and know just how much you can expect from the 1% in caring even the tiniest bit about anyone else. Bloomberg can paint himself with a donkey or an elephant, in reality he is filthy rich and cares only for himself.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There are times when a job is more expensive than just being unemployed. For example, commute costs. Not everyone can afford to live in the heart of downtown, and most US cities, bicycling is out of the question unless one wants to risk having a white ghost bike planted in their memory. So, it requires a car and those costs associated with finding parking. Just the $25 per day parking cost can easily be a significant fraction of someone's wages because of the pressure to hire people at min wage and keep them at that.
So, the "occupy a barber shop and employment agency office" claptrap is just plain wrong, and very dangerously close to "let them eat cake."
Who knows. The occupy * movements have had their back broken, and are essentially dead after the synchronized crackdowns, but one has to at least give credit to people willing to risk it all, with the minimum being having to answer "yes" on "have you ever been arrested?" for the rest of their life on every job application or bank form. (And yes, virtually all jobs past McDonalds don't care about *convictions*, they care about *arrests* and NCIC records. Employers view that people can buy their acquittal, but if a police officer considers someone to be such a threat they have to whip out the cuffs and do the paperwork, the arrestee is a criminal, period.)
I wonder if it's also the American Dream to make generalizations and straw men.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
...watch the news. they actually ARE a bunch of lazy hippies. dirty too...
I'm watching it live now and I don't see a bunch of hippies. I see people so fed up with a corrupt government that they are risking a lot to try to make it right. They are risking their jobs, their health, heck they'll probably get a police record if not worse. Why? They see no future. Their government only listens to corporate lobbyists. Their government gives money out to CEOs but won't help the people. Corporations are ruining their country and nobody else is doing anything. I respect them and hope nobody gets hurt.
Neither was nazi germany all that bad, as long as you weren't on the list. That is why such regimes can continue to exist, because the majority isn't on the list and it is very unhuman (but very human) to risk getting on a list for someone else who is on a list.
That is why real heroes, like the people of Urk (fairly strict christians who had no real love or hate for jews but disliked people telling them what to do with a passion) are so fucking rare. It takes balls of steels to risk your safety for someone else. The fast majority did not. Ich habe es nicht gewust really means, I spend all my time looking the other way so it wouldn't happen to me.
And the US has been caught out many many times recently and in the past in making people disappear. Check all the foreign detainment camps operated by the CIA. It is not even a secret anymore, except by those like you who choose to look the other way.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Not all of course as I would want to protest for a few hours. However, occupying a public space, supporting socialism, and refusing to get jobs or at least look and just whine out in the cold in a tent is not very smart at all. What do they expect? A trader walking past says, oh poor fellows. Let me tell the CEO of Goldman Sachs to disaband and give all our money back to the people and hire these people to watch other peole do jobs. Shame on us ... YEAH RIGHT!
You're quite right. These people should be arming and organising themselves ready for a revolution, not trying to have a dialogue with traders. That will work out a lot better for everyone.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It's a privately owned public property. The owners are required to keep it open to the public 24/7. This makes it even better for protests than the public parks in NYC, since the city can impose a curfew on the public parks.
Unless you live in bumblefuck nowhere, there are thousands of jobs available around where you live. The problem is, you want a specific job for a specific amount of money, and won't settle for what's available. Which is sad, if you haven't taken anything in 2 years. You're unemployed by choice, and that makes your opinion on OWS even funnier.
The thing is, when the GP applies for a proper job suited to his qualifications, the comfortably well off fucktard interviewing him will look at his CV and say to himself "this guy isn't the sort of professional go-getting person our high quality organisation wants, look he spent two years flipping burgers instead of working unpaid as an intern for Goldman Sachs".
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Devil's advocate:
The NYPD is sending the message they want: Protest, and you get a face-full of pepper spray, thousands in fines, lose your job, and wind up in jail for days to weeks, and have a permanent criminal record. If you lead a protest, you will be the guest of "diesel therapy" by the state DOC, taking your movement out of commission.
It is crude, but effective, and has completely slit OWS's throat. O*, meet the dustbin of history.
corporate fascism, which is actually the definition of fascism ?
Read radical news here
fascist communist/socialist
dont talk, if you dont know shit. what you typed in there in one shot, are THREE different, separate concepts, and they dont go together. one cannot exist or be merged with the other. but you have written them as if they are one or merged concepts.
so, basically you dont know shit about these, and yet you have typed us what, 6 paragraphs ?
how about taking that time to actually google and read what the concepts you were shitting about ACTUALLY mean, from wikipedia or some other source ? out of respect for the people in your community ? huh ? so next time, you wont shit around without actually knowing shit and coming up like an idiot ?
Read radical news here
The very reason why these people started to gather around the world is proved not by them, but by the measures the "authorities" are taking against them.
We are already approaching a critical mass, and the governmental is shooting itself in the foot with these kind of measures. It will not be too long until some questionable but strong leader will leverage this mob and use it to rise to power. This is how leaders like Hitler or Stalin came to power.
The fall of capitalism will not be a very pretty thing, it will be worse than World War 2. The situation is very bad. I'm scared. I'm really scared.
The relevant thing here is the question of the right to free speech and peaceful protest, and you cannot differentiate between free speech and protest on the internet or on the streets.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Actually, my last big theory is that we have exactly one shot at a grand slam Dark Horse candidate, totally out of nowhere, to pummel Washington into smithereens. But only once. Then the outcasts will be livid and we'll see the final sweep into oppression.
But the last tool the Big Two use is they're all in 1 town, and they play the entire country on a Prisoner's Dilemma. And it worked for 50-100 years. But with the advent of the newest social media, if the entire country suddenly decides it has had enough, one last vote could sweep out absolutely everybody leaving the entire Washington machine speechless.
We'd need both the Pres and a Filibuster-Proof Congress. Then we'd have to work FAST. We'd only get a year (you better bet the Justice Dept would cheat and not let us have all four years!), but maybe we can fix 30 years of abuse.
Fix copyrights.
Fix patents.
Fix net neutrality
Fix police arrogance
Your choice of 20 more things.
Let there be loopholes!
Being funny for a moment, let's apply our Rapid Software Development to Law! Heh wanna get the Geek's revenge for all the version explaining we have to do?
Corp: "Haha we found a loophole so we're going to do This Evil Thing."
Fast Track Administration: "Oh. Nice 0day. Okay. Tomorrow is Patch Tuesday. It's 3PM. Better hope your execs are around to get it done because it won't be there tomorrow at 9am. K. Thx. Bye."
Use the "put the testing on the people" mentality we wail about into lawmaking. Think about it, an Administration that moves with blinding speed, getting more done in a year than the last century.
"Hi. We're Comcast. We're going to throttle torrents."
"Internet Law 2.01. Sudo No you're not. Go away. Next!"
"Hi. We're MPAA. We're going to throw those pirates in jail for copyright theft."
"Copyright Extension Act is repealed. Oh look, how many works are now in public domain! Disney, yes we know about the Mouse, here's a coupon."
But it only works ONCE.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Police are clearing out the park so that the owners can clean it.
Once they are done cleaning it, the protesters will be allowed back in so long as they do not bring tents, sleeping bags, etc.
"The way I've always seen it is once you start calling people names or nitpicking spelling and grammar you've already lost your argument."
Funny, when the Government starts calling you a Terrorist Threat to Children and Copyrights they win the argument.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The Tea Party was right leaning, but Sarah Palin give them a speech.
The Tea Party was a force in American politics before statistically anyone knew who Sarah Palin was. Or did you put that sentence together wrong?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Unless you live in bumblefuck nowhere, there are thousands of jobs available around where you live.
If you do live in bumblefuck nowhere, then you can't afford to get to where the jobs are. Jobs increasingly do not pay a living wage, so the total number of jobs is totally uninteresting without the percentage of them which do. Under Bush the total number of jobs remained fairly constant, but hundreds of thousands of full-time jobs were lost and replaced with part-time positions without benefits or indeed enough hours to actually live on. Taking two jobs simultaneously can bring up the hours if you can find employers who can be flexible about the fact that you have an inviolate schedule, but it won't provide you benefits, so your family winds up without health care and the first time someone suffers a debilitating illness you're out on the street.
The problem is, you want a specific job for a specific amount of money, and won't settle for what's available.
My problem is, they won't even hire me for what's available in the backwater I live in, because the jobs are all beneath my skill level, and they think I'll quit and take another job when it becomes available... as if it would in this poophole. So I work freelance and I make it, but it's not fantastic. But then, I guess since I choose to live in the boonies, I don't deserve to be able to get a full time job which will support a simple lifestyle.
Maybe it's unrealistic to expect that we go back to the 1950s level of prosperity where a busboy can afford to buy a house, but I don't think it's unrealistic to expect that most people should be able to raise their family on a job for which the public education system has provided them some preparation. Further, it's not clear how our society will function at all if we don't make it so — perhaps that is a sign that we should put some effort into fixing the problem instead of talking about how people are lazy. If they are, it's because our culture has taught them they should be, and now it's going to have to change to make people who aren't. No matter what, it is time for massive social change, even if we disagree on what shape that change should take.
Too bad you didn't log in. That makes your opinion even funnier. You probably rented it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Good. No one knows what they are protesting anyway.
I liked this cartoon.
Occupying *is* peaceful protest
It's called a sit-in. Just like in Greensboro North Carolina and Jackson Mississippi in the 1960's civil rights movement which resulted in desegregation of lunch counters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_sit-ins
Government has just gotten better at sweeping protesters under the rug and stifling media coverage by designating areas away from the target of the protests as "free speech zones".
It's a backhanded way of doing it, but it's pretty clear that what's going on is a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.
I find it ironic that the Tea Party is portrayed as "Right Wing" and the Occupy movement is portrayed as "Left Wing" when both groups have the same goal of throwing corrupt scoundrels out of public office.
I think that characterization has more owed to Sarah Palin seeing a parade and running to get her baton and march in front of it as if she were leading. Ironically, her doing that has protected the Tea Party somewhat under the political shield of a former vice presidential candidate, which has required that they be taken seriously.
You would think that some other savvy politician would take the same approach for the Occupy movement to advance their agenda, as Palin did.
with the Tea Party.
-- Terry
I guess there would be more jobs if you guys didn't need to give 700bil to Goldman and friends for bonuses.
The funny thing about that is that the "Occupy" movement is as much, or more, a branch of the Democratic Party as the Tea Party was of the Republican Party, yet the guys receiving the bonuses you are complaining about are movers and shakers in the same Democratic Party.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I would say that the Republican party took over the Tea party. I imagine that's why OWS is trying to be apolitical.
Whatever their politics, there's a huge political value in a group of angry, underemployed people showing their anger with the existing system. Pretty much every 'fair' or 'just' aspect of our economic system was put in place because the powerful didn't want to worry about angry mobs taking over the political system or confiscating their property.
Until the 1990s the wealthy were legitimately afraid that if they went too far in their self-dealing, they might give an edge to communists. That's why the US has a safety net, and it's why Europe (in particular) has an even bigger one. But since the Soviet Union collapsed there hasn't been anything to be afraid of. A bunch of hippies in a park may not seem scary, but you can bet it's getting their attention.
How about using the donated money to rent out a large mall of some sort and have a protest on its premises? Or would it be to hypocritical to protest corporations by using one as a podium?
You can't handle the truth.
wikipedia i presume.
regulation does not have a place in fascism. if it had, german economy would be regulated during world war ii. instead, despite they so desperately needed mass mobilization, they allowed the private sector to function as it was peacetime, and therefore lost 50 to 60% production capacity, because the private sector was maximizing profits despite the need for mobilization.
despicable is the slant right wing american political shitwipes are propagating through lobby corporations, trying to even distort the basics of political science. more despicable are the morons who actually believe them without knowing shit.
Read radical news here
And we have an Economy-directed, regulated government that is dedicated to the corporations. Your point?
Just a couple examples of the corruption that needs to be exposed.
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Americans are completely and utterly blind to the mis-deeds of their politicians as well as the abuse of their rights by said politiciams
Not at all. Americans as individuals are mostly POWERLESS to do anything about the misdeeds.
About the only power they have is where they spend their money. And with modern cell phones - the citizens could be empowered.
1) The Armed forces over in Afghanistan are taking pictures of people and using facial recognition to ID people. You can't choose to deal/not deal with someone due to race/religion/sex but if they happen to to work for Gold-Man Sacks....
2) The cameras on portable devices can read UPC codes and hold SQL databases. Compare the UPC code to a database of policies of the firm that makes them - that way if your thing is "is there an active boycott" because you support unions - you can make a different choice or even select that product over others.
3) Note how the rich and powerful are wanting people to do "code enforcement" - the Texas citizen makes reports of illegal car parking as an example. Take the list of the donors to the political parties and encourage citizens to take the cell phones to the political donors properties and compare the condition of the home to the 800+ page 'building code violation' ordinances. (This one is more about showing how the politically connected get special treatment, finding fraud and abuse in the political donation system and pushing for campaign reform.)
I'm pretty sure that's not true.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I had the opportunity of visiting occupy wall st. a couple of weeks ago for a couple of hours. I don't claim that this makes me some sort of deep expert, but I did get to see it and formed a few impressions.
First impressions were of Manhattan, which I had never visited before. Frankly, my impressions were that the place is a police state. I visited areas of Manhattan far away from #occupy, and there's pretty much a copy on ever street corner. There are also signs everywhere about how you are under video surveillance by the police. When I took the Staten Island Ferry into Battery Park, it was escorted by a literal gun boat. Now, I'm a Southern Boy, and I found myself thinking ... "okay, if I were in Beijing or even London, I wouldn't be surprised. But this is America! What the hell is going on in this place?" It seems to me that New Yorkers have traded there "eternal liberties" for "termporary safety", and they need to take them back.
So, I more or less wandered into #occupy without even knowing that that was where I was heading. Everyone could certainly tell that this old, fat, tired, bald guy with bad clothes was from out of town, but everybody was very courteous to me and eager to tell me about their particular issue(s). Emphasis on their particular and the (s), because there was not one, unified issue driving the place unless it was the feeling that "those in power aren't listening to us." I was approached by people whose primary concern was corporate power, tax reform, fracking, and gay rights in the hour or so I was there.
If I thought the police presence in Manhattan was over the top, around Zuchotti park it was completely over the top. I'm talking cops every ten feet, a portable observation tower with people-tracking radar ... you name it. But, here's the thing. So, near the kitchen, there's a sign that says, "X00 people have been arrested since #occupy began. There will be a meeting to discuss legal strategy at 8:00PM." And, 10 feet from the sign, and 20 feet from a cop, there's a couple of guys smoking pot right in front of God and everybody. Good old southern country boy that I am, all I can think is, "we at least closed the barn door when we did that!" I also wondered, were those umpteen-hundred protesters arrested being persecuted for "sticking it to the man", or were they arrested for smoking pot in front of a cop? Probably impossible to sort out.
So, I hung around for a while, sang a few Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie songs, grabbed a half-dozen copies of the "Occupy Wall Street Times", and left." All in all, an interesting experience, and the Occupy Wall Street Times might be worth something someday if this turns out to be the start of an "Arab Spring" kind of movement in the US (although I doubt it.)
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
After Watergate, congress passed a law granting them the power to create an independent counsel to investigate misdeeds by the executive branch. During Clinton's term congress abused that authority as much as they possibly could. At the end of Clinton's term the law expired and congress decided not to renew it.
...you asked.
Have you ever tried to apply for one of those as a postgraduate? You get turned down on the grounds of being "overqualified".
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Yes, we know. You represent the "peaceful" protesters of the Occupy movement. And when you get done with the powers that be, you will move on to those who have too much money (defined as "more than me"). Look how well that worked during the French Revolution.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I'm pretty sure that's not true.
50.1% of Americans voted against him coming back for a second term (and a first one, for that matter.)
Yeah, I can tell you're doing pretty bad; in your posting history you discuss your thousands of dollars worth of lenses and thousands of dollars worth of cameras, your $600 superphone, your recent relocation to Orange County, and conveniently failed to mention that your "BS and MS science degrees" are in geology, which was never a job field with any demand and therefore is irrelevant to the discussion of job availability.
Look, you seem like a nice guy. But what you're doing here is misrepresentation. When you use dishonesty to support a group, it makes the whole group look bad. Think about it.
It only works ONCE, because what you've just described is revolution, and revolution inevitably becomes tedious and annoying to pretty much everyone - including the revolutionaries themselves. Businesses larger than a sidewalk vendor can't cope with laws that change on a daily (or even a weekly) basis. It's terrible to say, but to a certain extent bad laws that are stable and can be worked around are generally preferable to volatile laws that constantly change in unpredictable ways.
The real key to reforming US politics is to reduce the power of parties to enforce discipline on their members, and reduce them to brand names that let voters know they're likely to be getting a certain bundle of beliefs, without the teeth to force them to support specific positions that go against the best interests of the specific people who elected them.
If you want to know when Congress really started to go down the shithole in recent years, look no further than the "one-vote win" policy that the Republican leadership in Congress began to aggressively follow sometime around the turn of the century -- the policy of suppressing debate, and crafting laws that compromised *just* enough to win by exactly one single vote, and nothing more.
I personally know at least one individual involved in the policy, and in retrospect even they've admitted (privately, years later) that it was misguided. It's something that might be tolerable in a crisis, but in the long run it actually works against the party in power because the disenfranchised 49% ends up being slightly different after every vote, and eventually you end up with a situation where the percentage of voters who regard themselves as "disenfranchised" starts to approach 60-70% (because people forget about the votes that were in favor of things they don't particularly care about, and vividly remember the votes of things they care about passionately). That's exactly what's happening today.
A good place to start the reform might be to look at how the internal power structure of the Senate differs from that of the House of Representatives. The Senate isn't perfect, but it does seem to be a tiny bit more resistant to blind partisan politics (statistically, a Senate Democrat and Republican from the same state are more likely to vote the same way than they are to vote with their party leadership). A good place to start might be allocating committee memberships and leadership via secret Condorcet balloting instead of having representatives elect one leader (almost inevitably and without exception, on party lines) who then proceeds to allocate memberships and leadership positions on equally rigid party lines (with occasional exceptions for "well-behaved" members of the other party). Maybe even throw a complete monkey wrench into the power process by picking a dozen representatives at random and giving them first choice at committee memberships, before anybody else is allowed to bid on them. You don't necessarily want to throw the process into complete upheaval, but rather ensure that at least one key position ends up statistically in the hands of someone would can use it to screw up the neat, orderly plans of the power establishment -- if only to enforce greater debate and compromise. I've come to believe that real debate in congress in a good, healthy thing, and attempts to suppress it by *either* party are bad.
...I have BS and MS science degrees from good schools. I haven't been able to find a job since finishing grad school - almost two years ago."
Your degrees in Geology are not exactly that useful, unless you actively try to market yourself to companies such as the oil & gas business. Have you tried that?
If not, the first thing I'd suggest is to fix your resume. That 'Jr Indiana Jones' pose is not helping you. Familiarize yourself with both MS-Word and PDF formats, and make an effort to make your resume presentable, rather than 'spending lots of time organizing your photos'.
You're obviously doing OK, if you're visiting places like Bangkok, London, etc., so if you haven't been able to find a job, I'm just going to blame you.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Micheal Moore probably is "part of the 1%", his network is estimated to be about $50 million, however, I don't think Elizabeth Warren qualifies, it looks like her net worth might only be $3.5 million (Forbes lists it as 3.5 trillion which seems unlikely, as does 3.5 billion which would make her richer than Oprah who is (I think) the wealthiest woman in the world), which is less than half the top 1% cut off of around $9 million. Perhaps more relevantly, they seem to actually remember what it was to grow up in middle class America.
In comparison, Bloomberg is worth almost $20 billion. Micheal Moore and Elizabeth Warren's combined wealth would represent a rounding error in his wealth.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Is that really the tack you want to take? It's not that the American people are ignorant, it's that they are actually complicit in the war crimes of their leaders?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
They're not even close to being in the 1%.
The 1% won't even let them sit at thier kiddie table.
The 1% is a bit of a misnomer actually. Its more like .1%. Something like 80% of all revenue in america can be traced back to a few hundred people.
Yet Slashdot has never ran a story on the Tea Party. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan, but that very fact seems to counter the criterion you've offered for relevance on this website and its forums. Does this mean Slashdot has a double standard? does Slashdot practice self-censorship?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
I think the complicated truth is that the extreme right of the Republican party invented the Tea Party Express to hijack the Tea Party movement and has been using it to take out the moderate parts of the Republican party and enforce their orthodoxy on the rest of the party.
There's truth to the observation that in the modern Republican party, Reagan would be derided as a tax and spend socialist hippie.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Does anyone know if there is an occupy Coronation Street movement?
Eeee by gum,
Wha are we 'ere den?
I don't really know Mavis. I fink we're protesting de soft suffern London shandy drinkers.
Le's go 'ome den,
Right lad.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
How is ~55 million votes out of a ~280 million population, 50.1%? Does not compute. Population as of 4/1/2000 (http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html), Voting numbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004). Also, feel free to correct numbers on Wikipedia, aparently, they are wrong with 48.3% for Kerry.
He totally screwed the pooch on illegal immigration, TARP, medicare drug benefit, and just general out of control spending and growth of government.
Oh, you were probably talking about the wars?
Many ordinances these days are actual copyrighted works adopted by governments. You have to pay to get a whole copy.
For the second time this thread. I don't watch TV (see South Park caveat above)
I understand the concept of the NINJA generation you're referring to, at 34 I missed it, but no enough to be completely unaffected.
One of our biggest problems is we've come to value the college education so much we've almost made it mandatory, in doing so we've made them so prevalent they've lost their value. In the IT field I feel that degrees are all but a waste and certifications are where it's at. Sometimes I regret having gone for my associates, it slowed my entry into the field since I was messing with school instead of working the assembly line a few extra hours. Granted that doesn't work in every field and I'm not really sure if having that piece of paper was a make it / break it criteria or not when it came to getting hired.
This is what I'm seeing from the movement. You have to start at the bottom most of the time, many of these folks are too good for that. I would say this is almost universal through all the various rallies.
Personal background on me. Paper route at 12 off and on until 16, picked cantaloupes with migrant workers (the jobs Americans wont do) at 14, worked as a janitor at a cafeteria at 16, chopped weeds and washed cars at a car lot at 17, video store at 17-18, security guard 18-19, assembly line 19-20, project implementation tech at 20, deployed generalist at 20-21, running an internet support call center at 21 - 23, working at an advanced help desk for satellite communication 23 -26. Then I hit my down turn. 26-28 I was semi-employed with a temp agencies, sometimes doing great sometimes leaching off of family, worked lots of places and wore lots of hats during that time. Went to work at NASA at 28 here I am at 34, I also moonlight through a friends company for special projects and my own company for other special projects, but I don't have to. How many of these people do you think ever turned in a job application until after the age of 20?
I really think a lot of the Gen Y types want to go straight to running something, or at the least start above my assembly line equivalent. Also you have to be willing to move to where the work is. I left West Texas for Phoenix since there's not shit but oil field in West Texas and not even that all the time. I left Phoenix for Houston because Phoenix was great for assembly line and a little over, was great for engineers, sucked for in between (late 90's things may have changed).
BTW, at the age of 34 I've worked under Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. I saw that the bubble starting to burst under Clinton. Then 9/11 happened and Bush did accelerate cronyism to new heights and insured not only did the tech bubble burst but he pumped up the housing bubble to replace it. Obama is simply trying to swap one group of cronies for another and he supports the worst parts of the "shadow agenda" the OWSers are pushing.
I don't think we've had a really good president since the 19th century. I'm not sure when the last good congress was but I'm sure it was before that. The supreme court held up rather well with a few slips here and there until FDR threatened them with court packing and they haven't recovered since.
The worst thing about our free market economy is it's not free market. Pulling money out of the ether and the existence of so many government contracts prevents that from happening. The amount of government expansion that occurs simply to feed cronies is sickening. The fix? More regulation which requires more agencies and more cronies to run them.
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Which is funny considering during one of the first Republican debates, they answered the questions asked of them in such a way that allowed the candidates to compare their policies to Reagan. The irony is laughable.
I believe the parent is referring to percentage of voting Americans as not all 280 million American can or exercised their right to vote. While your numbers are correct, the basis of your calculation is wrong.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Depending on how you're measuring it, the 1% income threshold is at roughly $350K per year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_States
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Children can't vote.
Umm most American's voted to re-elect him. We are very OK with it.
You Americans need to go Occupy Capitol Hill. Use your freaking guns, the second amendment is there for a reason they won't listen to you sitting in a park, all over the place, in every city I've heard of you'll get moved out and arrested for your peaceful protesting. Don't move, chain yourself down, make a barrier, provoke an attack and counter.
You guys are pussies really when it comes down to protesting. The PD's will use their less-than-lethal weapons on you and you let it happen. As clearly demonstrated, there is no political willpower to change anything, there is no interest from the commercial space to improve your situation. All they care about is when you will move out and in the mean time they'll just vote into law who goes into the Baseball Hall of Fame or whether God should appear on the dollar bill (literally, that's what Republicans are voting on).
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"Americans are completely and utterly blind to the mis-deeds of their politicians as well as the abuse of their rights by said politiciams."(sic)
Yes that is why the new coverage is filled about protesters on both sides Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. And whenever a politician is caught breaking the law it is posted everywhere.
Ever sense the Nixon Administration the Americans have became obsesses with the mis-deeds of their politicians. Just check out a liberal news source and a conservative new source and you get a good portion of the misdeeds that are done.
The problem isn't as much that we are blind, we are just overexposed and have a hard time really knowing the difference between a president having an extra marital affair or authorizing an illegal wiretap.
The problem is about 50% of the population has below average intelligence, and they are getting more and more information crammed into their heads and a lot of people cannot or don't want to stop the see the big picture and hop onto a small number of sources as the absolute truth while the rest if gives a conflicting message is seen as an utter lie. Debating a middle ground will often get you places as being one of those nazi right winger conservative bible thumping republicans, or those communist left wingers liberal hippy democrats. Just because they will not open their minds to understand both view points and really step back and see their good points and their bad ones.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"Oh they've made their point! They've said what they want!" Really? Because I've looked. I've seen the "official manifesto" posted here: http://www.nycga.net/resources/declaration/ and it is a rambling read of various supposed evils of companies that make them out simultaneously to be complete idiots and extremely malicious villains, but no actual list of demands. To "Clarify" things there is a picture that looks to be straight out of Mad Max Magazine.
Or then on the official site there's this list: http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-ows-demands/. Talk about some of the most stupid, unrealistic demands ever. They want to reduce the workday to 6 hours, yet lower the retirement age to 55 (hint: more work is required to retire since people live longer)? They want a moratorium on foreclosures and layoffs so, you know, nobody needs to actually pay their mortgage, and companies can't get rid of workers even if they must. Then we get some real good ones that show that they've never read the Constitution: "Ban the private ownership of land." "Immediate debt forgiveness for all." "Ban private gun ownership."
So where is this list of very reasonable demands they have? I am not saying find me one guy, I'm saying something from the movement itself. Because I've gone to the official places, and all I'm finding it idiocy.
Which is why I said it was wrong. They're not after all of that 1%, just the filthy rich ones that control everything. You don't get into the club until your net worth is 100m+
There are some details like higher income tax above 250k/yr that would affect all of the top 1% but beyond that...
Also I can't believe the taxes in America. If I was making 250k/yr where I am living right now I would be taxed at a base rate of 55% before deductions. I would also be doing damn fine on the 115k/yr(roughly) that I had left in cash. Thats enough money that if you were a real cheapskate on everything else you could buy my house outright every 3 years, and I'm one of the people thats considered "upper middle class".
I like this description of this morning's clearing:
A military style raid on peaceful protesters camped out in the shadow of Wall Street, ordered by a cold ruthless billionaire who bought his way into the mayor’s office.
I'm sorry, 50.1% was intended to be an obvious hip-shot from memory. To get research based about it:
In 2000, 52.1% of voting U.S. Americans voted against George W. Bush.
In 2004, only 49.3% of voting U.S. Americans voted against him.
So, I can see how George W. Bush's actions from 2000 to 2004, in total, could be argued to have won over 2.8% of voting U.S. Americans, although there are mitigating effects such as those people who are pre-disposed to vote for/against a sitting president (I believe the balance still favors for), and the variation in his opposing candidates, which I would characterize as creepy in 2000 vs. un-likeable in 2004.
My point is, not all U.S. Americans are abrasive ignorant jerks - only about half of us.
Neither can black people in Texas and Florida. Man, I wish I was trolling :(...
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It sounds like it's time to change tactics. I have a suggestion: use democracy for what it was designed to do.
Our country fought a revolution to give us the democratic right to change. If you are able to find an audience, take petitions, publicize your goals and then elect officials, you can change the policy in this country.
While some votes can be bought, I doubt even the infamous 1% can buy out 51% of Americans.
Many brave people died to bring us these rights, and since then, many other brave people have died defending them. It's not a lost cause to use "the system" instead of giving up on it.
If you know of a corrupt public servant or politician, try reporting them. Many cities, states and government agencies have whistleblower lines like this one:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doi/html/home/reconize.shtml
Curse my poor memory and google skills. BTW, the phrase you want to google is voter intimidation in America
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Maybe because, just like you, most Americans are blissfully ignorant of the multitude of crimes Bush Junior committed.
Or, maybe just like you they have no respect for the rule of law.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
My understanding was that the reason they ask about Arrests if that the charges might still be pending.
Anyone who wants to do an illegal protest and then complains about being arrested is a poser. They're all hardcore, but only as long as there's no cost involved.
...and they are certainly not true Scotsman!
I wish I could be there but... you know... I actually have a job.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong.
I don't know all the reasons behind it, though part of it is because they don't want people camping in it. However these rules have been around for a long, long time. Like decades. There are other places that don't have the same hours, or don't have hours at all, but the particular park they chose, in downtime, does have hours. They apply to everyone.
Again remember: You don't have a right to do whatever you want, wherever you want, public land or not. As another example the county here operates a gun range. It is public, as anything county owned must be. However there are some rather strict rules for its use. There is a fee (a pretty small one, $8 for a day) and you have to abide by all regulations like ceasing fire when the range master calls it, handling firearms safely, wearing appropriate safety gear, and so on. That it is public doesn't mean you can do whatever you want there. Anyone from the public is welcome to come and shoot, but all rules must be followed. Hours of operation are also a rule among them.
You overestimate americans. This is a country with significant opposition to HPV vaccination of youths because it removes a significant danger of premarital sex, a country with a significant religious minority who believes homosexuals 'deserve' HIV
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
"voted against"
How cute... and kind'a abrasive. You're aware that each half pretty much sees the other half as abrasive, eh?
Or, they're aware those "crimes" are PR fab from the left.
Kind of my point - I didn't say which half was abrasive, or that it even correlates to voting patterns.
However, there are some statistics about voting patterns and ignorance...
It's a set of standards authored by a third party and adopted by a state. I know, screwed up.
If you take into account state and local income taxes (which varies based on where you live), for the tax bracket you mention, you're not far from the tax rates you mention.
Also, include the SS tax as part of your tax rate, as it is a tax.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Individual states do whatever they like with regards to copyrighting their laws.
Have you a citation for this? It's a bit hard to search for certain copyright-related keywords for two reasons: 1. Google picks up "copyright" in the boilerplate copyright notice, and 2. us state law copyright turns up a bunch of references to U.S. copyright law in general, not U.S. states copyrighting their laws.
Actually, the justice department is required to prosecute all crimes that come to their attention, whether the crime is "popular", or not.
Otherwise, almost anybody could shoot Donald Trump.
I'm pretty sure that's not true.
No? Then why would they let the next president do all the same things and not even complain about it?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I'm pretty sure that's not true.
Why? Do you see a park full of people protesting the war policy that Bush started and Obama continues?
The US doesn't formally recognize the right of any international court to *bring* such charges against him. No government with any power to bring them has suggested doing so. Because 'war crimes' aren't something you can just arbitrarily declare someone has committed, even if you think you've caught them admitting to a violation of the Geneva Convention or any other international declaration on human rights / rights of noncombatants. International courts are only as effective as the combined wills of the countries that sit upon them to either 1) Jointly enforce their decisions upon member states or 2) Jointly enforce their decisions upon other countries. No one is going to attempt #2 on the US, particularly over the actions of George W. Bush, and the US isn't going to hand over sufficient sovereign power to make #1 a possibility.
Pretty much every 'fair' or 'just' aspect of our economic system was put in place because the powerful didn't want to worry about angry mobs taking over the political system or confiscating their property.
This.
Guys, at some point it really stops mattering what the 'laws' are. You break the country where enough people are hungry and homeless, the laws will change. You rig the system where the laws can't change, they will just start taking stuff.
It's actually a little astonishing watching all this actually happen, and how the superrich seem to have no idea what's going on, probably because they live in their own little bubble.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I'm pretty sure that's not true.
50.1% of Americans voted against him coming back for a second term (and a first one, for that matter.)
You got that backwards. Bush Jr *received* 50.7% of the vote. Perhaps you were thinking of Bill Clinton who did not receive 50% in either election.
http://www.usconstitution.net/elections.html
I found a list of the OWS demands. Here they are:
"Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr."
Why do those foreign companies have wage and regulation advantages? Because of the minimum wage and because of the endless regulation of products here in the US. Do you really think that raising the minimum wage to $20/hr will help? No! It will have the opposite effect. Either the company, say a fast food joint, will raise their menu prices to cover the cost of expensive labor or they will lay off the majority of their workers. Either way, the company is doomed. "Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors." A single payer system is a pipe-dream. Many other countries have tried and they have failed to provide timely and quality care. Am I saying that our current system is perfect? No. Government regulation and the need for tort reform have driven healthcare prices through the roof. Also, banning patients from using private money to get healthcare? Would they also agree that people should be banned from attending private schools? How about private businesses?
"Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment."
I just have to shake my head. How would they accomplish this? Where does the money come from? You can't get it from taxes. It is impractical.
"Demand four: Free college education."
You would just continue the current system. Already you can get student loans and not pay them back. And you wouldn't improve anything. For example, say I am a hiring directory in a mid-sized company. I have to choose someone to interview. There are two applicants for the same position. One went to a private college with a good reputation and the other went to the state run college. Who am I going to be more likely to interview assuming their experience and grades are the same? Obviously, the one who went to the private school.
"Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand."
Let the market run its course. Oil will become harder to find. As the price of oil goes up, other technologies become cost effective. Subsidizing anything does not make it a viable alternative. You also have to look at the alternatives. Most likely it will be electricity. Where does that electricity come from? We could get it from coal, nuclear, oil, or hydro. All of those are unlikely due to environmental regulation. What does that leave us with? Solar and Wind. Both unreliable and non-cost effective sources. Personally, I would buy an electric car if it can have the same performance, range, and refuel time as my current car. I also believe that nuclear and hydro is the best source.
"Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now."
Where does the money come from and what are you going to do with it? Assuming we print it, that will devalue our currency. If we borrow it, that puts us closer to a Greece or Italy type situation. If we tax it, you stifle the economy. And what are you going to do? Replace metal water and sewar pipes with plastic ones? Make roads wider? Build more/replace bridges? Improve the electrical grid? I live in
Yet Slashdot has never ran a story on the Tea Party.
Don't be tempted to create false equivalence in effort to "balance" sides of political matters. Occupy wallstreet has been camping out for many weeks and are now subject to police force. The tea party rallies were permitted, short, and not subject to police force and shared most properties of any other plolitical rally. Most rallies fly under the slashdot radar.
You don't vote "against" a candidate - you vote FOR a candidate.
By your measure, 51.6% of VOTING Americans voted against Al Gore. I guess neither guy should have been president...
Also, 51.7% voted against Kerry.
Just a stupid measure you're trying to push here. It's also disappointing that you'd classify anyone who voted for Bush as an "abrasive ignorant jerk," as if thinking people cannot have legitimate differences and disagreements.
You overestimate americans. This is a country with significant opposition to HPV vaccination of youths because it removes a significant danger of premarital sex,
I think the opposition is to mandatory HPV vaccinations, something that, really, only Merck wants. They are so anxious to get it that they are even saying all boys should get it too. There are side effects to HPV vaccines - it's not just irrational fear or ignorance. In addition, the actual effectiveness of the vaccine is not as great as advertised. For actual prevention of cervical cancers, it's only about 17% effective.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
You're making the assumption that everyone wants things fixed the same way you want them fixed. Which isn't true.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
Many of us dislike Islam and therefore do not care what is done to its superstitionists. Not so many will say it this directly.
I personally don't object to disposing of Muslims or Communists, because I DO object to the societies they create.
War crime laws are merely designed to get in the way of war and only afffect those who embrace self-restriction. Originally such laws were great for the fapfest of post-WWII victors "justice", but that's all.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If you want to know when Congress really started to go down the shithole in recent years, look no further than the "one-vote win" policy that the Republican leadership in Congress began to aggressively follow sometime around the turn of the century -- the policy of suppressing debate, and crafting laws that compromised *just* enough to win by exactly one single vote, and nothing more.
That's not really what the problem is. A lot of stuff is reasonable to pass by one vote.
What the problem is that is that none of this happens in the open. It happens that 51% manipulates a bill until enough like it, and they propose and pass it. No debate at all.
Well, let's be honest. That's what the Republicans do. Or, rather, did, when they were in power.
When they're out of power, they oppose everything as a unified block, and nothing can be added to bills to get them to vote for them. And now they fillibuster everything.
I understand a sort of reflexive action to blame both parties, but it's really just the Republicans fucking up how an assembly is supposed to operate. The Democrats are doing it exactly right...and can't get anything passed.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Americans are completely and utterly blind to the mis-deeds of their politicians as well as the abuse of their rights by said politicians
Not at all. Americans as individuals are mostly POWERLESS to do anything about the misdeeds. About the only power they have is where they spend their money.
Bull. Americans have power over both politicians and corporations, they sadly choose not to use that power.
It is still one person one vote. Votes are the true currency of politics, not money. Money is just one of various tools to influence people. "Occupy" wants the 99% to move from mega banks to credit unions. In a similar manner the 99% could vote against any politician who egregiously enriches corporations at the people's expense. Much like you seem to be advocating that consumers avoid Goldman Sachs, etc. The problem is that people will not vote against these politicians, they will let themselves be swayed by party loyalty, party platform, etc. This is what prevents change. Change will only come about when politicians believe there will be no loyal base when they egregiously vote against the people's interest, that there will be punitive voting for the other major party's candidate. Note some protest vote for a 3rd party but throwing out the incumbent.
You want change, this is what you need to do, no party loyalty if a candidate crosses a line.
You're not living in America. Or at least, not in the majority of America. You're probably living in the little blue corner of wherever you're at. A lot of people agree with his deeds, especially once you sprinkle "muslim" or "islamic" liberally into the object of your sentence. That's the real America that's all around you. It's a place socially engineered over generations to hate and fear the rest of the world, especially those different from the "Western" norm.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
One of things that amazes me about the US legal system is the ability to attach unrelated "riders" to laws. Cut off the riders and things might clean up a fair bit, or at least slow the spread of corruption and pork-bills.
I'm pretty sure that's not true.
50.1% of Americans voted against him coming back for a second term (and a first one, for that matter.)
You got that backwards. Bush Jr *received* 50.7% of the vote. Perhaps you were thinking of Bill Clinton who did not receive 50% in either election.
http://www.usconstitution.net/elections.html
I think you misread me - I don't like anybody who has been in the President's office in my lifetime. I dislike some more than others...
OWS has made dozens of good points, if you actually read the signs, blogs, notes or anything of their movements they have quite a few things that are very specifically called for. End of corporates being considered persons, end to lobyism, allowing taxing on the wealthy, regulation of banks etc... If you look at the actual movement and the actual protestors, you see more or less a 50/50 of people carrying messages, and people trying to draw attention. The problem is the media likes to focus purely on the attention grabbers, and cut out the people with a message, and then make the statement "It seems like they don't have a message to give".
And whose fault is that? With no organization, no clear organizational message, no organizational spokespeople ... these "attention grabbers" are every bit "actual" members of and "actual" spokespeople for the movement. How can anyone be so naive not to expect that the media would focus on the more "interesting" individuals?
You don't vote "against" a candidate - you vote FOR a candidate.
Maybe you don't, I, personally, have never seen a candidate worth voting for, my vote is "for" the least of evils, and more often "against" the greater.
It's also disappointing that you'd classify anyone who voted for Bush as an "abrasive ignorant jerk," as if thinking people cannot have legitimate differences and disagreements.
I was responding to somebody who was being overly pedantic, if you get pedantic about what I actually posted, I made no correlation between Bush voters and "abrasive ignorant jerks," just that the term can be applied to about half of us. Which half depends mostly on your own personal viewpoints... (i.e. do you consider Talk Radio a source of accurate information from which to form your own personal opinions)
The campers are acting like the 1%. Self indulgent, acting however they feel, believing they are entitled, believing they are above the law, expecting others to pay for the costs that they generate, etc.
... and then go home or get a room when they tire, and then repeat the process.
Camping is not protesting. The city has said the park is open 24/7 and people can protest there. The owners of the park have welcomed protesters. The only thing being prohibited is camping out. The 99% would show up, protest, carry signs, shout, etc
I'm pretty sure that's not true.
50.1% of Americans voted against him coming back for a second term (and a first one, for that matter.)
You got that backwards. Bush Jr *received* 50.7% of the vote. Perhaps you were thinking of Bill Clinton who did not receive 50% in either election.
http://www.usconstitution.net/elections.html
I think you misread me - I don't like anybody who has been in the President's office in my lifetime. I dislike some more than others...
Who said you liked anyone? All that was said was that you misquoted a statistic, or got the subject of a statistical pattern mixed up.
Looks like the effectiveness article you linked was pretty well shot down in the comments in that article, it is clear cut that the vaccine is very effective in preventing HPV, and that HPV is very clearly the major cause of the worst cervical cancer cases.
As far as mandatory, that is where the big pay-off comes, if you got a significant % vaccinated now, you would wipe out HPV for decades and thus minimizing the total number of people getting the vaccine over the long run. This being vastly cheaper, and more effective than just having the well off people getting vaccinated forever.
The problem is about 50% of the population has below average intelligence
I'm pretty sure exactly 50% of the population has below average intelligence...
Umm most American's voted to re-elect [Bush]. We are very OK with it.
This is why the electoral college is a good idea when it comes to the office of the presidency.
I never understood this single-minded obsession with one office when I daresay that the vast majority of people couldn't even tell you who their local and state representatives are (on a non-national level).
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
But then, I guess since I choose to live in the boonies, I don't deserve to be able to get a full time job which will support a simple lifestyle.
What you don't deserve is for someone else to create a job where you happen to live just so you could fill it. There has never been a time in history when one was guaranteed to find work where one lived. The only exception to that was Feudalism. Feel free to become a serf.
Actually, the justice department is required to prosecute all crimes that come to their attention, whether the crime is "popular", or not.
No it isn't. Unless you don't think that Amnesty International's (among others') complaints about GW Bush's admitting to international war crimes has any merits.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
Except that making any reforms as you suggest will rely on the cooperation of the very parties that are enforcing the current system - because it keeps them in power. Any threat to their grasp on political power is going to fail by default. The rich and powerful who control the politicians are not going to allow the rest of the masses to make changes that lessen their power gracefully.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I got up this morning and I turned on CNN for some noise. As I got ready, they showed the press conference from the Mayor of NY. He was very clear, this park is privately owned but the owners are bound to an agreement to allow 24/7 public access. There are restrictions to this such as no camping etc (which were actively being violated). They can also close the park for cleaning and public health concerns. The owners have completely supported the protesters using the park, and continue to do so. The Mayor stated several times, after it is cleaned, you are welcome to come back, but leave your tents and tarps at home.
You know what else I saw on CNN? Loads of footage of the garbage trucks cleaning up giant piles of garbage and refuse in the park. It looked like a shanty town in a 3rd world country. If there was some sort of media blackout nobody told CNN. If people were in fact kept away, doesn't it make sense that a bunch of extra bodies hanging around just might get in the way of the cleanup efforts?
Go home, let them clean the park, then you are welcome back. That was the message the Mayor gave in the press conference. Somebody please provide a rational argument or facts that they can back up as to why this is a bad thing?
Ok, I guess I'm one of them.
Exactly what war crimes are you insisting that Bush Jr. committed? Who has charged him with said crimes...etc?
I've certainly not heard of any call around the world or the US for him to come to trial for any so-called war crimes. Care to list and cite these?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If by "continues", you mean "is (albeit slowly) discontinuing".
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
No it is very difficult to have exactly below average intelligence.
Lets use a small scale example of 10 people.
IQ
108,102,103,101,97,99,98,95,99,98
So 40% of them have an above average IQ and 60% have below average IQ none of them have average.
Now as you add more data points you will see the numbers approaching 50% but unless you are really lucky I doubt you reach it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
These guys claim to have a list of 269 war crimes attributable to the George Bush Administration.
Canada has refused to consider war crimes charges against Bush because it would "damage diplomatic relations with the United States". I wouldn't be surprised if most of the U.S. allies won't prosecute (or even complain) for the same reason.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
If by "continues", you mean "is (albeit slowly) discontinuing".
No, I mean continue. For example the Iraqi withdrawal is precisely, to the month, on the original Bush administration timetable.
The problem isn't as much that we are blind, we are just overexposed and have a hard time really knowing the difference between a president having an extra marital affair or authorizing an illegal wiretap.
Clinton was impeached for perjury in a sexual harassment lawsuit, you know, the same kind of harassment that is currently dragging down Herman Cain. Of course, supporters of Cain don't really give a shit, just as supporters of Clinton didn't really give a shit.
Meanwhile, Weiner was forced to step down because he did some sexting with, apparently, women who were open to it. Can anybody make logical sense out of this?
There are also a large percentage of Americans who don't give a shit about illegal wiretaps if they think it's keeping us safe from terrorists. Even Obama gave the illegal wiretaps a free pass (immunity) when he had the chance to vote on it, despite previous campaign pledges to hold people accountable.
Looks like the effectiveness article you linked was pretty well shot down in the comments in that article
Yes, because posters in an Internet comment section are always more credible than peer-reviews scientific studies.
As far as mandatory, that is where the big pay-off comes
... for the big pharma corporations. What are you, a shill?
This being vastly cheaper, and more effective than just having the well off people getting vaccinated forever.
No, it's much more expensive, because it's all patented right now. That's the point of the big PR campaign and rush to get the vaccines out there, while they can charge patent-protected prices for it.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Peaceful? If you ignore the rapes, riots, and murders are various Occupy settlements around the country.
A President won't be able to do it. It will take some evil triumvirate to do it - a President who is able to persuade Congress, or a Congress that is willing to rubber-stamp what the President wants to do. We occasionally have the first case (many examples), and every once in awhile the second case. But even in GWB's heyday of rubber-stamp Congress, the Republican-controlled Congress started ignoring what the President wanted to do.
Oh, and things have to be inline with the majority swaying of the Supreme Court, too (or, a Supreme Court willing to be quite flexible about what has standing or not for them to hear, etc).
> The Democrats are doing it exactly right...and can't get anything passed.
Well, at the moment, the Republicans can't, either. You could cynically argue that the schizoid nature of Congress today demonstrates that, at this moment, there IS NO real consensus about what Americans want Congress to do, and allowing the worst elements of both parties to openly percolate to the surface in public view is healthier than a situation where either party can be actively harmful to the best interests of somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of voters' interests.
Here's the magic test -- if Congress' leaders, after grandstanding about having the support of most Americans, were able to irreversibly call for new elections to occur at some random, unpredictable date between 60 and 120 days from now (so they couldn't pick a moment of scandal and try to ride it to victory, and had to face the real risk of changing tides between now and then), how many of them would actually vote for it? Not one. A few firebrands who aren't very powerful, maybe... but leaders? None. As much as they bitch about gridlock, there's no way in *hell* the Republicans would risk letting a few more Democrats in (or, god forbid, a RINO or two), and no way the Democrats would risk giving the Republicans an unbeatable majority.
The fact is, Congress is gridlocked right now, and it's probably a good thing. Think about how much good the side you support could do if they were able to, then sober up and realize how much damage the other side could do if they had their chance. Where things are going to get REALLY interesting is when the 99%/Occupy crowd starts skimming off the disaffected casual supporters who were previously clinging to the Teaparty groups as the "not in power party" and start drifting over to the other side. It's already happening -- you can watch the Teaparty leadership get more strident and radical by the day, because the leftern end of the spectrum is walking away and ceasing to anchor them towards the middle. The same thing will eventually happen to the 99%/Occupy crowd... they'll have their surge of centrist support, then the middle crowd will start to get uncomfortable with its most vocal leaders' leftist politics, and drift away (leaving them to become more radical and ardent on the left). Stir, rinse, and repeat.
It's the story of American politics. The Democrats of the 70s and 80s were pretty hardcore on the left, as the middle drifted into the Republican camp. Now the middle has drifted back into the Democratic camp, pulled it back towards the center, and the Republican party has gone floating off into right-wing extremism like they did in the late 50s/early 60s. Rush celebrates the defection of RINOs, and the more leftward Democrats mourn the fact that it's now OK for Democrats to support Alaskan oil drilling.
...it removes a significant danger of premarital sex...
2,800 deaths a year from cervical cancers (%70 of 4,000 total, since the vaccine doesn't even protect against all of them) is hardly 'significant'. For the $400 price tag, I could probably find better uses for that money to protect my kids. Hell, more people die drowning each year. I could use the money for life vests and swim lessons, and it would be better protection. This vaccine is just a push by the pharmaceutical companies to make more money.
"Nothing funnier than hearing Marxists complain about the state taking their property #OWS"
Funny how quickly the #OWS crowd went from "Everything belongs to everyone" to "Hey, that's my stuff!"
"Occupiers: The 1st Amendment gives you the right to protest. It doesn't give you the right to take over and live anywhere you want"
my vote is "for" the least of evils, and more often "against" the greater.
Meaning you knowingly and willingly support evil. Since there is always more than two candidates in a Presidential race, you cannot vote against someone. You can only vote forsomeone. If you think none of the candidates are suitable for the job then you write the name of the person you feel is qualified on the ballot, including yourself. Reversing this completely incorrect notion of "Voting Against" will go a long way in getting competent people elected instead of everyone falsely believing they have to choose between two incompetent tools; one in a blue shirt, one in a red one.
Please, name something he did that was illegal or a war crime.
Afghanistan and Iraq were wars declared by congress, so those can't be claimed. Considering that Bush wasn't in battle in those countries personally, I don't see war crimes being relevant.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
From the US Constitution: Article. VI.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Those treaties include the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit 1) wars of aggression, 2) torture of combatants, prisoners, or civilians, 3) deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, 4) deliberate attacks on civilians, and a number of other points. The Pentagon, under his direction, was also guilty of multiple deliberate violations of the chemical warfare treaties and biological weapons treaties, in addition to (while not a war crime it would still be an impeachable offense) the anti-ballistic missile treaty and a number of nuclear weapons treaties.
No, the bastard isn't going to be prosecuted, any more than Clinton, Obama, or his father will be, because anyone making a serious attempt at prosecution would be dead within days.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
When comparing taxes I think you should include health care since most other countries offer subsidized healthcare. Average US expenditure is over $13k/family, just for insurance.
Man, you really need that seminar!
equivalence is irrelevant since it wasn't my point or GP's to begin with. The issue is what criteria govern what appears on this site -- GP offered right to free speech and peaceful protest, both of which were emphasized by TP demonstrators -- yet that did not impel slashdot to post TP related stories. The point is that GP's criteria are inadequate.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
You're right, of course. But consider that /. is also not "News for angry, poor, young people who can't think through the systemic consequences of mass loan default" at which point we must, if we are consistent with our own logic, conclude that neither of these stories belong here.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Don't know where you live now, but if tax rates are that high I hope they include good healthcare coverage. We Americans have to hoard our wealth as a hedge against medical bankruptcy.
But honestly, when all's said and done, between federal, state, local, income, real estate, sales etc, the taxes here are pretty significant. We do get something for our money though -- most notably, an expensive military, arguably the best. There's a certain thrill to knowing that nobody's gonna parachute troops in to shoot me and take all my stuff. That would suck, no doubt. But I'm still pretty vulnerable to many other threats to my wellbeing that are best addressed by medical care. I'd be a little more delighted with paying taxes if those more realistic threats were also being addressed.
I think I have a solution -- the national health service should be a uniformed branch of the military! M.A.S.H. for the entire county! Peacetime? Bah, we have a war on terror, and we've all been deputized! Red blooded Americans will salivate at the prospect of a bigger military budget! Otherwise-listless teenagers will be drafted to care for the elderly! Doctors will get swank uniforms and medals! Everybody wins! Who's with me?
Ouch. Yeah.
Thats one of those fixed items though that becomes less and less of a problem the higher up the pay grade you go.
I enjoy the tax me and if I eventually rack up $500k in medical bills due to some strange, rare, but curable disease then we'll be even. Its like insurance but it benefits everyone right now as well as you later instead of just padding some insurance companies bottom line.
1) The park is being cleared so that it can be cleaned. After that the protesters are allowed to return! Why is this even an issue?
Because some of the protesters thought that "demand #9: clean our laundry while we're protesting" was being acquiesced to, so they left all their tents, clothes, books, food, etc in the park thinking the "cleaning" would clean their stuff and leave it in the park for them to re-occupy.
Protest Hollywood and the NFL instead! Those are the people who make disproportionately huge amounts of money for extremely small contributions.
If you hear cities talk about NFL, it's like sporting arenas and events are like city-level advertising. They supposedly bring a one-time (per event) influx of outside dollars to area restaurants, bars, and hotels that politicians think makes up for the cost of building the money sinks that are sports arenas. Maybe there is a net-positive, but I see a lot of waste just for trading cash from city to city every weekend (and a lot of cash going to the "advertisers" (sporting industry).
Wall Street did not get us into this recession. That was the government. Companies can be vicious, but they are essentially big dumb animals. They act in their best interest given their environment. When the government declared that more people should be able to buy homes, it created a bubble
And the media. Frankly, the housing bubble couldn't have had as big an impact as what we've seen. The media is largely to blame for the spread of the damage. They ramped up the "OMG sky is falling" crap a year ahead of a presidential election, either for ratings, or maybe they knew that people would freak out, but the end result is that people did freak out, and stopped spending, putting the pinch on all sectors of the economy, making more people lose jobs, etc. If the news had just reported with "XYZ banks are losing money with the bubble bursting", there would have been some bank buyouts, consolidation, and a lot less pain overall.
I could have assumed that. Your little rant fairly reeked of privilege, but I was being charitable and not assuming you actually did belong to the privileged class.
Enjoy it while you can. The rapine of those above you will only make the masses mad. History tells us that the real 1% always manages to get out before the blood flows in the streets, and its their hangers-on that meet the guillotine.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
I'm surprised more people don't realize that health care costs are a tax we pay to corporations. Median household income is around $50k, so healthcare is about 20% of the average household's spending. A lot of people would be absolutely livid if there was a 10% tax for universal healthcare, but gladly pay twice that for something that is arguably worse. Our taxes are much higher than other countries if you include health care spending. Nobody seems to know this.
Man, you really need that seminar!
But they're not allowed to have backpacks or tents. I'm wondering if Bloomberg and the police are trying to provoke violence by all of this.
The vast majority of people in the world have an above average (mean) number of limbs.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
This reminds me of an idea for a web site I had which basically listed reasons not to buy things. The idea was to collect information on flawed products, and companies that abuse their customers or behave unethically. I don't have the time or necessary skills to do it myself, but if anyone wants to try I'd be happy to help.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
My suggestion is to stop trying market yourself to the establishment and start creating your own future by becoming independent. Creating your own opportunities is the only way to get though this and you can do that when you are waiting for someone to give you a job. IMO that system is on its way out while more and more people realize they are happier working for themselves.
"Hi. We're Comcast. We're going to throttle torrents."
"Internet Law 2.01. Sudo No you're not. Go away. Next!"
"Hi. We're MPAA. We're going to throw those pirates in jail for copyright theft."
"Copyright Extension Act is repealed. Oh look, how many works are now in public domain! Disney, yes we know about the Mouse, here's a coupon."
But it only works ONCE.
Interestingly, you've just described arbitrary dictatorship rather than the rule of law.
Read Pynchon.
Because I've gone to the official places, and all I'm finding it idiocy.
Notice in the URL you provided the word "forum". The word forum indicates a place where anyone can go and post whatever BS they feel like posting. Forums work pretty much exactly the same way Slashdot comments work except the AC's get to post the top stories.
In this case the this is "bchang1987"s opinion of what the demands should be and the comment even carries the disclaimer at the top "This content is user submitted and not an official statement". Those demands are, in fact, pretty stupid and would be blocked in a second if they ever would come before the GA.
So no, this is not the official demands. FYI, the General Assembly has yet to reach consensus on the formal demands, that's why you can't find any.
People fault the movement for not having demands. To that I say: "Just because we don't have all the answers, doesn't mean that we can't ask the questions."
"Not complain about it"??
Are you a fucking imbecile? Can you honestly say that there has been a president in our lifetime about which there has been as much complaining as there has been about Obama?
No, don't answer the question. I already know you're a fucking imbecile, Curunir_wolf. Your answer would only be further confirmation.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Hell yes, all the time.
Was that a trick question? There have been substantial and ongoing protests against the war policy that Bush started and Obama continues.
If you think the people who protested Bush's policy have given Obama a break, you need to take another look.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No, I don't think so. Just the Slashdot dream. Someday... Someday I'll be able to do that, too.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
> Except that making any reforms as you suggest will rely on the cooperation of the very parties that are enforcing the current system - because it keeps them in power
With appropriate deference and respect to Isaac Asimov, "Enter, the Mule" -- the slightly-Autistic guy from a wealthy, powerful family (or wildly-successful dotcom company) who accidentally winds up in a position of real power (or has enough wealth to throw monkey wrenches into the political establishment for kicks and giggles). No, I can't think of anyone specific... but he (or she) is out there, somewhere, and will statistically show up at some point over the next 25-35 years (it's been a few decades since the last time we had a Mule show up, so we're just about due for another one).
Congress hasn't declared war on either. In fact, the last formal declaration of war made by Congress was World War II.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States
I'm fairly certain that it doesn't matter either way to all of the people that have died, nor to their families and loved ones.
Regards,
dj
Try actually reading the report rather than cherry picking the single lowest number to prove your point. The results in the journal are actually significantly more detailed than you are picking and are nowhere near as damning as you claim. That said, I'm reading it from a hospital so I don't know if you can access the entire report.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
The best way to protest Govt policies is to print/circulate/use your own banknotes exclusively among your community.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14774526
Slashdot = Sarcasm
refusing to get jobs or at least look
Citation needed... By the way, the personal situation of protesters has NOTHING to do with the protest itself, you are pointing fingers at the guys having a message rather than commenting the message itself.
Defacing property with no message is wrong.
Every time someone tells it's lazy hippies, they also say they have no messages. It's simply blind wrong.
If anything many support the tentants of communism and socialism that I find a problem rather than a solution.
So, they had no message, and suddenly they is "communism and socialism"? Please choose one of the 2. By the way, since you seem to vouch for the Tea Party, you'd be happy to learn that many of the protesters are Ron Paul supporters too. This is light-years away from the communism and socialism you are talking about.
"Not complain about it"??
Are you a fucking imbecile? Can you honestly say that there has been a president in our lifetime about which there has been as much complaining as there has been about Obama?
No, don't answer the question. I already know you're a fucking imbecile, Curunir_wolf. Your answer would only be further confirmation.
The discussion was specifically about war crimes, not general complaints over all. But you can just pretend not to know what I'm talking about if you want to. You seem to keep your head up your ass about a lot of reality, anyway.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I think it works for this, by P.J. O'Rourke:
"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it."
No, actually it won't. What it will do is get the greater evil elected which will then reinforce the need to vote for the lesser of two evils. The only solution is to press for electoral reform from both parties. Americans need to make it clear that it is unacceptable for any politician from any party to be against changing the voting system to something that actually works.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
There's more to "war policy" than just the "withdrawal from Iraq". The withdrawal is on a timetable negotiated with the government of Iraq after the last presidential election, I'm guessing the time table was "good enough" so that it didn't warrant re-negotiation. On the other hand, Obama hasn't invaded any countries in his first 3 years, and that does seems like a significant departure from the Bush war policy.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
The discussion was about Bush's foreign policy. And Obama has been getting shit from Left and Right on foreign policy.
(see Glen Greenwald (L) and National Review(R))
You are welcome on my lawn.
The discussion was about Bush's foreign policy. And Obama has been getting shit from Left and Right on foreign policy.
(see Glen Greenwald (L) and National Review(R))
It was also about "most Americans" being okay with it. Sure, there's always a few critics. But the general tone has been along the lines of "Oh, the President sent drones and killed an American citizen that never even had a trial AND the guy's family? Woohoo! Good for him!"
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
They no longer call it a declaration of war, but it is the same thing.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Maybe. I have heard some of that, too.
By the way, I'm sorry I called you an imbecile. I know you are not that. I was out of line.
You are welcome on my lawn.
thank-you for taking the time to express your thoughts.
Your first two wider points are about inequality; i have likened it to fuzzyness; like quantum level existance, relative probabilities and not certainties. Of the Law and of Trust.
s/trust/accountability/ s/law/justice/
but the last point, "relative value of social and private profit." or, put later, the effect of entanglement between the private sector and government (elite perpetual leadership) on the 'social sector'. I hope OWS is able to educate to re-define those values, because they are not relative, but absolute. Sunshine and clorox.
I hope they find the strength to demonstrate ppl power against the machine globally. Assert the value of our labors as a human right to survive; versus a disposable, leased existance reduced to serfdom. So much suffering and sadness, all to help short-sighted, myopic, bean-counters cut costs and raise margins for their share-holders and executives. The 5% or so among 7 trillion who are the investor class.
For me it boils down to just adopting gross happiness over GDP. I believed someone coined it sociocracy. We can recover from the theft, if we
can put a stop to it.
Too many ppl are still in denial of the culpability their self-interest has had in this state of affairs. Preferring ignorant bliss in exchange for membership in an "Establishment" in whose myths they found comfort and profit; only to more recently discover that it was all a hustle and their trust was purchased on the cheap.
"they got well paid for burning their own house down". Its our houses their burning down.
Well, waking up is hard to do.
resist propaganda
How is that any different from pre-protest Oakland, DC, New York ? These are big cities with big crime problems, regardless of any protest going on.
A press release from the NYPD blamed OWS for tying up police resources, which resulted in more crimes committed ELSEWHERE. That's right, the cops can't keep tabs on the real criminals, because they're too busy harassing teenagers with pepper spray and tear gas. The cops know that a murderer will probably shoot back... a protester won't!
The real message to be read from that press release is: "We'd rather oppress you than protect you. A protester is more threatening than murderers and rapists."
The question becomes: how long can the cops keep up this aberrant behaviour ? This protest isn't going away... what will the establishment do, kill everyone ? Throw them all in jail ? If our democracy is no better than the dictatorships of Africa and the middle east, then we already know where it leads: revolt, civil war, anarchy.
-Billco, Fnarg.com