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Occupy Protesters Are Building a Facebook for the 99%
hypnosec writes "In 2011, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook helped protesters to spread their cause and garner support across the world. What started out as a minor protest comprised of a handful of people turned into a worldwide protest thanks to the use of social media. According to Wired, after seeing the impact social media platforms have had on protests worldwide, several Occupy Wall Street protesters are creating their own social networking platform aimed at spreading awareness about particular causes and rallying people for protests."
Then they will be in the 1%.
Then they will be in the 1%.
They already are "the 1%".
Oh, you didn't mean as a percentage of US citizens?
My bad.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I look forward to the day when they give up on this because it's too hard, much like they did with their protests....
Beware of hippies who turn into businessmen.
It sounds more like propaganda.
What the Occupy protesters don't realize it isn't just the 1% that really don't care for their methods or all their ideals, there are plenty of people of that 99% who have issues on their views too.
The United States (and a good part of the world too) is in a Depression (not the Great Depression but a normal one). Once things pick up people get jobs, and start working up the ladder they will find that what lot of what they are demanding they really don't need anymore. And as they learn to be part of the system, they find that it can be helpful.
We get these protest groups (on both sides) like the Tea Party and the Occupy when the economy is down. Why? For one a lot of them have extra free time so they can actually go out and protest. Secondly they are suffering right now so they are angry and passionate in their protests. However when things get better they will moderate a little.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
From the summary & headline one could think that they are, well, building something facebook-like and that their target audience would be people like the ones who attended "occupy wallstreet" protest. The first claim is completely inccorect, the second only partially so. Rather, they're building a non-centralized social network for organizing protests, etc. because they feel that they can't trust FB and other existing services to protect the anonymity, etc. of protesters well enough.
I guess it's a good cause. Then again, a service like that is easy to block by police states with much less public outcry than if they blocked FaceBook or similar services. Anyone with enough know-how to get around that problem probably can do what they need to through already existing services. I'm not saying that - if they ever get it finished - it can't offer any advantages so it's cool that they're doing it... But I (having some activist background myself) really doubt the project will ever get finished.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it would seem that revolutions gained high traction through Facebook and Twitter because those services already had a huge user base (and therefore a huge potential audience). If you create your own social network catering to people already in your movement, you can't really expect the massive increase in followers you would gain through already-popular networks.
If you think of it in harsh terms, this is merely another social network knock-off, fueled by what will probably be a short-lived movement.
I am fucking sick of a bunch of hippies speaking for me and the rest of the 99%
Especially a bunch of hippies with a full belly and iphones who are better of than the 99% of humanity
It would be nice, but the question is how and who. The tea party wasn't originally founded with their heads perpetually up their respective asses. That came later and mostly once they started picking candidates, and then of course taking bribes from larger companies to fund the movement. I agree OWS should form into a political party... but the eternal mystery that has been plauging our country for years, how does a candidate get put on the ballot, and even moreso get on the ballet and have enough money to advertise who he is and what he stands for... without picking up all the corruption/bribes etc... that he is supposed to be against.
I think your sarcasm detector is broken. If Progressive and Liberal ideas and policies were so great, they wouldn't *need* to be mandatory.
Their ideas and policies are so bad, nobody would pay them any attention unless government made them mandatory.
That was the whole point.
What's that thing they say here on /.?
Oh yeah.
WHOOSH!!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
This little exchange is representative of what's been happening in the lead up to the Republican primaries with each candidate (save for Ron Paul perhaps) trying to prove they have the biggest straw man bat.
Of course none of this has anything to do with whether or not OWS people really represent the 99% they claim to be or why anyone would think that a technology that has thus far apparently contributed to their continued existence would suddenly need to be rebuilt from the ground up. I suppose first they'll need to invent their own Internet running on their own OS's and hardware before they can get back to protesting whatever it is that they're protesting.
The enemy is us.
We allow banks, corporations, and the government, to make decisions for all of us, that are crap, and getting worse.
The problem is education. All the individuals have different ideas as to what the problem is, so we argue among each other.
Your post is a perfect example. You figured out that the government is fucked, but you're going to give the fortune 500 a pass. You're going to give Goldmans, Merril, Citi, Morgan, and all the rest, a pass.
If all the individuals with their various "isms" attached to their beliefs, don't align on just a couple of things, we're going to lose.
And what does losing mean? It means that while nature takes it's course, and cleans our economic clock, we'll end up poorer and less free, because of top down centralized reaction to the full stepping down of American productivity and relevance.
It's going to happen one way or another. If we, the individuals, recognize that it's coming, and force the governments, corporations, and banks to do things that will do less harm to us, then we will lose less.
Maybe someday, when we find solid ground, we can start again on growth. Other countries have done it. We can be great again AND responsible. Maybe not the greatest, but us being the greatest, was in large part by making a deal with the devil.
What is a liberal or a socialist?
It seems from the republican side, those are names for anyone you disagree with, but don't want to explain why.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Ron Paul is all about the straw man. He calls his 'The fed', sure it might sound a lot like the the banking arm of our federal government, but to hear him talk it's the root of all evil, well that and the EPA and you can probably find him complaining about fluoride in his old newsletter.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I think you just proved mine. Rather than having a legitimate debate about the roles of government, republicans are keen to just to point something they don't like and say " that's liberal". The world is not quite so binary. Some ideas sucha s the individual mandate, I assume you are obliquely refering to, were strongly suported and even proposed by those that would then and even now call themselves "conservative".
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Rather than having a legitimate debate about the roles of government, republicans are keen to just to point something they don't like and say " that's liberal".
First, I'm not a Republican. Second, it's the policies and proposed legislation themselves that determine if they are Liberal/Progressive/Socialist. Socialist is as Socialist does, rinse & repeat for Liberal/Progressive. It matters not if the people proposing such policies have a D or R after their name, or what label they attach to themselves. GWB is/was a Progressive, because of the policies he pursued.
Some ideas sucha s the individual mandate, I assume you are obliquely refering to, were strongly suported and even proposed by those that would then and even now call themselves "conservative".
Government forcing private individuals to purchase something from a private entity simply because they're citizens is Socialist. Ergo, those that propose such policies/legislation are Socialist, despite any labels they may dress themselves in.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Government forcing private individuals to purchase something from a private entity simply because they're citizens is Socialist. Ergo, those that propose such policies/legislation are Socialist, despite any labels they may dress themselves in.
That's not socialism, that's corporatism. I don't like either of them, but I recognize there's a big difference. By contrast, the UK's National Health Service is socialist, because the state owns everything and is the sole (or at least overwhelmingly main) provider.
In other words, socialism isn't just the absence of a free market, it's more specific than that. And it's an important distinction, because these days corporatism is at least as large a problem and not enough people are naming it and shaming it.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Healthcare in the US is already socialized due to the fact that we do not refuse emergency medical services to the uninsured. Are you advocating that we no longer provide emergency medical services to the uninsured?
We already pay nearly twice what any other industrialized nation pays for health care with lower % of people covered and worse outcomes in just about every category. And yes I am familiar with all the arguments for why we have worse outcomes in the US.
You are guilty of brandishing the "But Republicans" paint brush broadly. Nevermind a Republican was the figure head of the Civil Rights movement (Martin Luther King Jr) while it was opposed mainly by southern Democrats (Orval Faubus of Arkansas, Lester Maddox of Georgia, and, especially George Wallace of Alabama). There are many Liberal Republicans and many Conservative Democrats.
I think what is needed here is to stop labling people by party. Most of the "socialists" in occupy and other movements proudly admit to their socialism (Libertarian Socialism to be exact), and most progressives do likewise. Modern Liberals follow progressive policies defined as growing the government to create a society where social justice is the norm. This means there would be no rich, no poor, and the goverment would regulate that status quo. Social justice dictates that the rich must pay for the poor because the poor are unable to pay for themselves.
The Conservative argument is that in America, these programs promote a wellfare state in which we make the poor complacent with "free stuff" (paid for by the rich) and they give their governors more power in exchange. That this system does not encourage people to become self sufficient and successful.
I would further posit that progressivism is slavery in disguise, bringing me back to Martin Luther King Jr who had a dream of all americans being equal to "open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children." The point being they would be provided opportunity, not handed wellfare checks and told to sit down and shut up, the Government is here to take care of you.
Have a nice day.
I hear ya....I keep thinking, hey couldn't all this time doing facebook pages and tweets...be better spent trying to get a fscking job...or create your own business??
Don't get me wrong..there injustices in the world, and it is good to protest, but most of what I saw after about day x3 of the Occupy thing...was people bitching about "Banks got a bailout..where is MY bailout"? And shit like that. The protest message I got more and more was that it was a bunch of kids there with expensive macbooks and iphones with a sense of entitlement bitching about not having life handed to them on a silver plate.
I'm sorry, but in real life for 99% of us...we don't get the easy way in, we have to work for what we want...not everyone gets a fucking trophy for just participating, and no one gives a shit about your self esteem.
Sadly, we've raised a couple of generations of kids that have been raised this way...and now they're seeing that the real world just ain't that way. In the real world, people throw the dodgeball at you and try to knock your retainer out of your face...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Making them more efficient, is not a bad thing.
But having the Federal Govt. overstep their enumerated powers granted by the Constitution to mandate what types private companies can make and sell is tyrannical.
If someone can make more efficient light bulbs, market them and find a market for them...fine. But it isn't the governments job to make their market for them at the expense of others.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I think you've missed the point of the OWS. Their point is: the banks wrecked the economy, probably criminally. They not only did not get punished, but they got 700 billion dollars of taxpayer money, which they then turned around and used to pay bonuses to the people that wrecked the economy. Meanwhile, people who did everything right - got good grades, borrowed money to pay for school, and got a degree - none of them can find a job. Not only can they not find a job, the government is doing nothing to help them. The issue is the double standard - if I am a rich bank, I can do whatever I want, and if I get into trouble, I get bailed out with taxpayer dollars, and if I am not a rich bank, then I'm screwed. It is not that they want a "bailout" - what they want is the government to spend its money helping its citizens in need rather than banks who deserve to fail for their incompetence.